by Once a Rogue
“John…don’t…”
“I’m glad I don’t have your nerve in my tooth, woman.”
“Stop…don’t come any closer.”
“You’d best not say another word, wench. Come here. Time for your punishment.”
She dodged around the water trough. “Punishment?”
“You’ve been lying to me all this time.”
“I didn’t lie. I merely concealed the truth.”
He shook his head, following her around the trough. “Have you known Oakham before?”
“Certainly not!”
“He seems to think so.”
“Well, he’s wrong.”
He wanted to believe it.
Luckily for her, his mother trotted over from the pigsty, all excitement, to announce the imminent arrival of the sow’s litter. There was no time now to fight. As the changeable, moody wench reminded him briskly, she had a job to do as head swine-herd and she took her duties with all solemnity.
* * * *
There were six healthy piglets, squirming happily around their mother’s belly. A seventh, the runt of the litter, lay listless and very small, unable to fight for a teat.
“What can we do?” she cried.
“Naught,” John replied with a shrug.
Her green eyes flashed. “You mean we just leave him to die?”
“It takes too much time to nurse a runt. Even then he might not survive. We’re too busy. Time is valuable and stretched thin as it is. It’s the way of things.” He paused, angry and uncomfortable because she questioned his judgment. “Don’t look at me like that,” he snapped. He felt goosebumps on his arms from the blast of her cold fury. God help any man, he thought, who ever truly met with her full wrath. He had a sense he’d been lucky so far. He saw it in the quick shake of her head, the tight sigh expelled irritably. In her eyes, he was an insufferable, spoiled boy who needed a lesson, and she made no bones about telling him so.
He rubbed his arms, watching as she bundled the tiny creature in her cloak, lifting it carefully. “I don’t care what you say, John Carver. I’ll take care of him. You’ll see! Heartless, unfeeling man.”
“It’ll take up too much of your time. He’ll need feeding constantly, if he’ll even suck from a bottle, and…”
She shoved him aside with her elbow, holding the runt protectively to her chest as if it was her own babe. “Am I or am I not head swineherd?”
“Yes, but…”
“Then I make the decision. I’ll do all the work. I don’t care. I’ll sit up all night. All you need do is show me what to do, if it doesn’t put you out too much, you rotten tyrant!”
He shouldn’t let her get away with this insubordination. Fortunately no one else was around to see or hear them just then. It might be setting a dangerous precedent with her, but he had no other choice. He didn’t like her calling him heartless, so she got her way and he let her keep the piglet.
After that she kept it nestled in her lap, or in a basket by the warmth of the fire, teaching it to sup milk from a bottle. She talked to the damn thing, he noted, as if it understood every word, lavishing the creature with love and affection, until he was quite sick of seeing it, especially since she now gave him the cold shoulder and barely paid attention to anything he said when they sat by the hearth in the evenings.
Just as he’d always suspected, he said to his mother, the Friday wench wasn’t suited to life on a farm. What would she do when it was time to slaughter the animals? They weren’t pets, were they?
“Oh, let her be,” his mother replied, smiling. “Haven’t you anything else to worry over today? Anyone would think you jealous of the piglet, John.”
Chapter 12
In a matter of days Lord Oakham made his first parry, the gift of two pheasants in honor of Mistress Carver’s new houseguest. John demanded they be returned at once, but Lucy insisted they were sent to her and therefore she would keep them. His mother agreed. Two plump, succulent birds were always welcome at her table, wherever they came from.
Mistress Carver teased her son for his sudden concern. “I don’t recall such hesitancy about the providence of other birds you came upon by chance on Lord Oakham’s land in the past, John, when you just happened to have a bow at hand.”
He stormed out in a foul temper.
The next gift was a basket of fruit, prompting John to exclaim, “Doesn’t he know mine are the finest orchards in all Norfolk? We don’t need his blasted fruit.”
Once again they kept it, Lucy thrusting a large strawberry between his pouting lips just to silence his complaints. His teeth very nearly caught her fingers too.
Finally, after this procession of gifts, Oakham himself appeared at their gate, making an impromptu visit with a large ham under one arm and a bottle of Gascony wine. He played the part of the concerned, interested neighbor very well, discussing the harvest yield expected and admiring the sheep flock he’d seen John driving down the lane recently. He asked after Mistress Carver’s health, for he’d recently heard she was under the weather, and then he congratulated them on the fat, thriving new family in the sty.
“I’m the head swineherd,” Lucy piped up proudly. It burst out of her before she remembered her vow to remain quiet and demure in Oakham’s presence. She didn’t want him getting any further ideas of having seen her somewhere before and she certainly didn’t want John accusing her of flirting again.
“Is that so, dear lady? Then you do an excellent job.” Oakham smiled broadly. “Perhaps I should hire you away from young Master Carver,” he added with a sly wink.
John stood in such a hurry they all jumped a few inches. “She’s staying here with me.” He paused. “Until Nathaniel comes back,” he added gruffly. “She was left in my charge.” He strode to the fire and stood with his back to the room. Vince trotted over to sit beside him, always alert to any change in his master’s mood.
Lucy sipped her wine, hoping to calm her nerves. It was never her intention to make such a tangled mess of things for John Carver, but she knew he was just as confused by it all as she was. He was a hard-working man with a life and a family. It made what she had done that night in May all the worse, all the more hurtful. He should be married to a good woman like Alice Croft, and for as long as she stayed in his house, she was in the way.
“I hear you made a good sale with your fleeces this spring,” Lord Oakham ventured. “All sold to Winton in Norwich.”
Lucy spilled her wine. It splashed across her skirt like a bloodstain, the mention of her husband’s name as brutal as the fall of a headsman’s axe.
“Aye, not that I’ve seen the full coin yet,” John grumbled.
“I daresay he has other things on his mind, with the mystery of his disappearing bride still unresolved.” Oakham’s voice rattled around inside her mind, ruthlessly shattering all other thoughts. She set down her wine goblet and hid the stain with both hands clasped over it.
Mistress Carver asked what happened to Winton’s bride and their visitor answered with surprising levity. “No one knows, madam. I wouldn’t be surprised to find he ate her in his sleep.”
She kept her gaze shuttered, attention on her lap. One sensible thought finally organized itself into being: Winton was not dead; she was not wanted for murder, then. This, at least, should be some consolation.
“There is a theory she was stolen by robbers. Winton insists he was attacked by a gang of ruffians in his own bed chamber, although no one was seen going in or out. ‘Tis all most curious.”
“Spirited away in the night, eh?” John chortled. “Probably by someone to whom he owes coin. Good for them. Time the crooked old bugger paid his bills.”
“Good for the poor girl, too,” his mother added. “Winton is notoriously hard on wives.”
“Ah, but she will be found again soon, no doubt, madam. Winton has sworn to wreak vengeance on anyone connected with the kidnapping. The girl’s father is scouring the countryside.”
Complaining of the sun shining in her eyes,
Lucy made a great fuss of moving her chair, scraping the legs along the flagstones, interrupting his story.
John’s mother asked if Lord Oakham would like another slice of pie. He declined politely, his curiosity touching Lucy’s face, prying like a blind man’s fumbling, fleshy fingertips. “And where is it you go, Lucy Friday, when the captain returns from sea?”
In a state of quandary, she said the first thing that came to her lips. “Scotland.”
There was another awkward silence. She knew John and his mother exchanged glances across the room and then he strode to the door, whistling for Vince to follow.
“Scotland, indeed? A very great distance,” Lord Oakham said.
“I believe it is, my lord.” She kept her eyes downcast, the very picture of a meek country maid.
“And where did Captain Downing have the good fortune to find you?”
“In a whorehouse,” John interrupted. “Where he finds all his women.”
Silence fell, like a strike of lightning, rendering the conversation in two. No one moved until Vince trotted out through the door and John followed, slamming it behind him.
Every crease on Oakham’s face straightened out and folded again. Mistress Carver was left to pick up the pieces left by her son and this she did ably, suggesting she’d had practice. “Well, Lord Oakham, what a lovely day it has turned out to be, when it was so overcast and dull this morning. I think you brought the sunshine with you!” As she spoke, she was already clearing away the plates and cups, subtly bringing an end to his visit.
* * * *
Lucy decided to say nothing to John about his comment in front of Lord Oakham. A childhood with her father had taught her how to deal with the thoughtless actions of men, mostly to ignore them, letting their comments, shot out in a flash of anger, roll off her back. If she had not learned how to defend herself, her skin would be pitted like a peach kernel.
But later, while she was out feeding the pigs, he came to find her, sent by his mother to make amends for his behavior.
“I opened my mouth, woman, and it just came out,” he muttered glibly, the idea of apologizing for anything plainly an inconvenience.
“It doesn’t matter, boy,” she replied in a similar tone, waving her hand dismissively. “I don’t care what you think of me.” It was a lie; of course she did care what he thought. She cared for his approbation more than she should. On the other hand, what he said of her was true, there was no getting around it. Nathaniel did find her in a whore house.
“You’re not going to Scotland, are you?” he said, leaning on the wall of the pigsty beside her.
“I might. Perhaps.”
“Nate never told me he was going to Scotland.”
“Did I say I’d go there with him?”
He frowned. “Who with, then?”
“I’ll go alone,” she replied with a great deal more bravery than she felt.
“You can’t.” He was all nonchalance. If not for the cracking of his knuckles, she might have thought he didn’t care where she went. Which was, of course, what she was supposed to think. “Women can’t travel anywhere alone.”
She tossed her head. “Who’ll stop me? You?”
“Mayhap.”
Wary-eyed, she shot him a look. “A few weeks ago I was only here on a trial basis and you weren’t sure you should keep me. Now you’ll stop me leaving?”
He lifted one shoulder in a listless shrug. “I suppose I’m getting accustomed to having another woman about the place, as long as she’s useful.”
Before he turned his face away, she observed the hint of a slow, lazy grin creeping across his lips.
“So marry Alice Croft then.”
“I’m not thinking of a wife, am I?”
“No, I’m quite sure you’re not,” she replied slowly. “You might fool your poor mother and those wide-eyed village girls into thinking you reformed, but I know differently. You got away with too much, for far too long, and I wish I never laid eyes on you.”
Now he had the audacity to look wounded, as if he’d never said a hurtful word to her. “There’s no need to take on like that.”
“I’m not taking on like anything!” She was flustered, trying not to show how much his closeness affected her. “I’m advising you to get yourself a wife and then perhaps you won’t need to go to Norwich to get what you need. Save the rest of the women in this county from your…your…wickedness. Unless, of course, marriage won’t stop you looking elsewhere for the games you like to play. I daresay it won’t.”
* * * *
John looked at her. The sun was beginning to set, dripping down through the trees and over the roof of the dairy, dusting her profile and her eyelashes with a light layer of bronze. She was very still, watching the pigs, her arm almost touching his, her sleeves folded back today, leaving her soft skin exposed. The sight and nearness of her bare arm beside his was almost too much for his senses to take in and absorb. He’d tried to keep his distance. It wasn’t working.
“I hope you don’t plan to play games with Lord Oakham,” he exclaimed, curbing his appetite with a terse reminder of what she was and the shallow, mercenary nature of a woman like her.
Her reply was instant. “Heaven’s no! Why ever would I? I’ve no interest in his games.”
He coughed, cleared his throat. “Good,” he muttered. “I’m looking out for Nate’s interests, o’ course.”
“Of course,” she replied solemnly.
Feeling the prickle of goose-bumps, he rubbed his arm. “I thought you liked Oakham’s fancy ways. I saw your eyes light up at his clean hands, lacy sleeves and ringed fingers. Impressed with frills and frippery, I suppose.”
She swayed, moving an infinitesimal distance closer, as if it was suddenly windy out and no fault of her own. “It’s not the clothes that make the man, it’s what’s under them.”
She was very prettily flushed, although he put it down to the light of the wilting sun. Softly she added, “Your rough clothes and rude comments don’t hide what you are, John, anymore than Lord Oakham’s fine garments and high manners hide his true ungentlemanly intentions. Everybody wears a mask sometimes.”
Sometimes he’d felt her looking at him, seeing through to a man he didn’t even know he was yet. It made him want to live up to her expectations.
“Maybe you’d like to see under my clothes again, wench,” he pressed, moving his forearm along the wall.
“Don’t start that again.”
He made a small frustrated sound. He’d never met a woman like her before. He usually got what he wanted as soon as he put any effort into it. This woman was different. She made the rules on where and when, as well as how much. It was all quite ridiculous. But he still had this fascination for her, forgiving every snappish comment, every insult.
Resting her chin in one upturned palm, she moved the last tiny distance until their elbows finally touched. It might have been accidental, but John didn’t move away. It was pleasant to have her there with him.
More than pleasant. He was captivated.
“Kiss me,” he whispered. “No one’s looking.”
She threw him an arch look. “You’re awfully forward, John Carver.”
“That’s sweet coming from a woman who once put her hand on my cock and told me to get on with it.”
“I never did! Will you stop saying that?”
He stared at her mouth. “Come with me to Norwich.”
“No.”
“Must you argue with me about everything?”
“I can’t go back there.”
“Why?” He squinted. “What are you afraid of?” Leaning closer, he whispered, “I’ll be there with you. Just the two of us.” He didn’t quite mean it to sound the way it did, but once it was out, he let it sit there, a baited hook.
“You think I’m that sort of girl.” She was haughty again now. “Well, I’m not. I know what it might seem like to you, but you’re quite wrong.”
He put his head on one side. “I thought you didn
’t care what I think?”
“I…I don’t.” Pressing herself away from the wall, she straightened up. “You ought to marry Alice and put her out of her misery. Then you’d have someone to kiss who couldn’t say no.”
“A wife can’t say no?”
Moving out of the sunset, she paled a few shades and her fingers rose to the small white scar under her eye. “A wife is her husband’s chattel. He can do what he likes with her.”
“Hmmm.” He tipped his head back, pretending to consider. “You’re right. I will get myself a wife then.” Sighing, he leaned on the wall. “Maybe it’s time I stopped spreading all this about and gave it to just one woman instead.”
She sniffed. “Won’t she be honored?”
“Oh, yes. At least once a day.”
“Full of yourself, aren’t you?”
He laughed. “I don’t recall hearing any complaint from your lips, only commands for more.”
She scurried into the house, rushing to get away, almost tripping over the step. One of these days, she’d stop running away, he mused. She’d better, because he prided himself on not chasing after women, and he’d already broken that rule several times since she came to live in his house.
* * * *
On Wednesday he went to market in Norwich and since Lucy refused to go with him, he took Alice Croft.
They were home by supper.
Altering one of Mistress Carver’s old gowns, Lucy was seated in the window seat, making the most of the lingering summer evening light, and when the cart rolled up through the gates, she saw Alice was still with him. Nudging the window open further with her elbow, she heard him ask the girl inside and Alice, smiling, agreed. Then he put up his arms to help her down.
“Ouch,” Lucy pricked her finger and sucked on it quickly.
Mistress Carver peered over her shoulder. “Looks as if she’s coming in.”
Setting her sewing aside, Lucy hurried over to sit with the piglet, claiming her place in the shadows of the hearth. She supposed it was inevitable other young women would come to the house sometimes and she had no right to be bothered by it. Poor Alice deserved his attention. She, a married woman who would bring him nothing but harm, did not.