by Baird Wells
After an excruciating quarter of an hour, they wound down the last low rise and into the overgrown clearing where a cabin stood watch. The structure was deceptively placed, swallowed up by the towering trees on all sides, and he was impressed that Olivia had spotted it at all. As they came closer, he was pleased to discover that it was no tiny shack. The flat face of its wide timbers was weathered to a dark gray, but the chinking stood thick between the boards, staving off the elements. The high roof flowed down into a slanted, bark-shingled awning, sheltering the door and a narrow, dusty window. He was unreasonably happy to see a tapering, river stone chimney that looked sound enough to promise a toasty fire.
As if reading his mind, Olivia finally spoke. “Why don't you make up the fire? I'll get our things inside and see about water.”
She didn't wait for an answer, vaulting down and striking out for the cabin.
Ty massaged his temples, suddenly very tired. It was too late in the afternoon for the remaining day to feel so painfully long.
* * *
Olivia stood over the creek, watching it ripple past, irrationally annoyed that the easiest spot to reach was also the shallowest. She was hardly able to wet her bucket before the silt spilled in. After the last few days, it felt like the universe was giving her one last kick in the shins.
She wasn't mad at the water. She wasn't even mad at Ty.
Yes, she was mad at Ty, though not in the way he probably guessed. She was frustrated at what felt like a growing rift between them. Not that she was blameless. Bizarre jealous impulses regarding Thalia, a bitterness at Ty's pretend seduction of the woman, had planted the wedge. Not telling Grayfield where they’d be, the sleeping powder in the flask, the lack of communication with her had driven it deeper.
She was too tired to think about it right now. She cast everything else out of her mind, winnowing her concerns down to two things: a bath and clean clothes.
Even food could wait. The sight of her hands was making her increasingly nauseous. Ty had wondered during their argument if she had been crying. In truth, it was laughter, an unhinged fit of giggles warning that she had born all she could today. Her hands resting in front of her and caked in blood the entire journey had only intensified the feeling. Crouching beside the stream, Olivia dipped her hands into its icy path and sucked in a breath. The water stung her skin but relieved the sensitive throbbing in her raw fingertips. With a few swishes and a quick scrub, most of the blood was gone.
If only the memories were so easy to wash away.
She dipped one bucket, then the other, and this time they filled with ease. They were heavy; that had not occurred on the trip down when both vessels were empty. Hefting them up, Olivia told herself that it was just a short walk and begged weak limbs to cover the distance one last time. Reaching the clearing, her spirits were bolstered to see an enthusiastic wisp of smoke curling up from the chimney.
Stepping inside, Olivia got her first good look at the interior with a fire now offering some illumination. It was an impressive amount of light given how tiny the firebox was, no more than a small collection of bricks set back in the timbers on a wall opposite the door. One sturdy plank, probably left over from the walls, formed a crude mantle. Knotted logs overhead were set with boards to form a loft for sleeping. At the top of the ladder she could make out a kettle, a handmade stool, twin to another that sat beside the fireplace, and some other silhouettes she couldn't make out. They must have all been put up for storage to await a master who probably wasn’t coming back, judging by the layer of dust.
Under a king, the cabin would have been occupied at least half the year by a gamekeeper, charged with making preparations for the royal hunts and chasing off poachers. As such, it was as well appointed as any regular home, with a set of plates and bits of crockery, cast iron pots, and even boasting a few nicer pieces of furniture. The rectangular oak dining table had been cut and carved by skilled, if amateur, hands. A squat, double-doored cabinet standing beside the fire, perhaps a pantry, was crafted from more expensive materials. It was the sort of thing she would expect to find in a prosperous home.
Seeing that Ty had already added her first two buckets to a kettle over the fire, Olivia dumped hers directly into a high washtub that sat between the fireplace and the table. Relieved to be unburdened at last, she sank into one of two rough dining chairs, basking in the joy of doing absolutely nothing for a moment.
Ty came in a moment later, looking surprised to find her back already. “I moved our trusty mount into the trees out back. Just in case.” He took something down from the mantle and shook it. “I found this while you were gone.” He held out a small oval tin and lifted its lid, revealing half a cake of plain soap.
She nodded, ridiculously grateful but too tired to speak. Ty had found the clothes she’d packed and laid them out. Everything was ready except the water, and that was beginning to steam. Wrapping a wool stocking around the kettle's bail, Ty managed it around to the tub and dumped it in. “How should we...” He gestured at the tub, “Would you like to –”
“I don't care.” She didn't, not even if Ty stripped every last article from his body before her eyes. She was going to wash, and she was not going to wait. She wouldn't ask him to wait, either. He could figure out whether modesty was more important than cleanliness at the moment. In her case, nothing on God’s green earth would stop her from cleaning the blood and death of the last few days from her aching body.
Dipping her bucket, Olivia filled it with the warm water and set it atop the table. “Just turn around. I won't look if you don't.”
Ty was already wrestling free of his shirt. “You take the fun out of any activity.”
He was trying to soften the mood, make amends, and she was content to let him. She may not have had it in her to return his efforts, but she appreciated them all the same.
* * *
Grabbing the gray wool blanket Olivia had brought, Ty tossed it over one of the rafters. In the end, he'd lost his nerve, unable to go through with undressing in Olivia's line of sight and unable to give his hesitation a name. He had most certainly been naked with a woman before, women he couldn't claim to know half as well. Watching her raise the hem of her shift, he'd been struck by a rather foreign need for privacy. He wanted to look, to brush her skin, touch and be touched and give thanks at still being this side of the dirt. He admitted a desire to slip her clothes from her body, wanted to do everything that followed. Just not here, and not like this. He didn’t want it to be tainted by everything that had brought them into the forest.
Still, it was almost too much. He could hear her through the makeshift curtain, splashing, trickling, the sound of her hands washing her skin; they all kindled his imagination, fighting years of accumulated discipline. He winced when his rag grated over a cut, realizing he was engaged in some rather angry scrubbing and not paying particular attention to where.
Olivia's hand darted past the blanket, fingers smacking him in the chest. He almost groaned aloud; he was being tested, there was no other explanation.
Her voice came from the other side of the curtain, holding more of her old energy than he’d heard in days. “Oh! Sorry. Soap, please?”
He dropped the soap into her palm without touching her. At some point the noises stopped, and there was just an occasional rustle. She was getting dressed now, drying the water from her skin. Ty realized he was standing, staring at nothing. Snapping to, he slipped his breeches on.
“All done?” she called softly.
Snatching down the blanket, Ty panicked when he realized he'd failed to ask whether she was done. Luckily, it appeared that she was, though she was clad in only a man's shirt. Long enough to be modest, except it was undermined by the firelight. Holding the blanket out, he tried to appear more chivalrous than he felt. To his relief, she took it, wrapping up and settling near the hearth. Grabbing a shirt from the pile of clothes, he took up a spot opposite her, resting his back against the corner beside the firebox. “Now will you tell me
what happened at the camp?” Olivia tousled damp curls, hypnotizing him a moment into forgetting he had asked a question. “I recovered the letters, if that is what you're asking.”
He stretched arms still weary from the poison and decided that a frontal approach was best for the conversation they had to have. “It is, but I think you know I am asking more than that.”
“The others are dead. I've already told you so.”
Scrubbing hands over his eyes, Ty sighed and tried not to feel annoyed by her vagueness. “How? Where? We have to make our report to Grayfield… And...” He wanted to ask if she was all right. Wanted to know how Thalia had died, and how to interpret her distance. How to stop it. He realized that he desperately wanted to know where he stood with her.
“And when the time comes, we will.”
“Why are you being so damned coy about this, Olivia? We do not keep things from one another.”
“You're my partner, Tyler, but you are also my friend. I’ve done things...” Her voice trailed off, eyes far away for a moment, and he had his answer. “I don't want you to think of those things when you look at me. There are details it's just better you don't know.”
He recalled the blood on her hands and face, her dress, a greater quantity than her own. Ty doubted that his ignorance was really for the best, but he could gain those details from Whitehall, when the time came. It didn't seem there was any hope of getting them right now. He would bide his time; his main concern was that Olivia was safe, and that she could confide in him if she needed to. “Hungry?”
Olivia nodded, eyes half closed now. “Put on the kettle?”
He smiled. “Consider it done.” He managed the pot, with a decent amount of water, back over the fire. While he added wood and stoked the flame, Olivia rifled through their packs, handing him the food she'd brought. He dumped in the small sack of oats, adding the salt pork and leaving it all to simmer. Beside him, Olivia held her palms toward the fire and sucked in a breath.
“Cold?” he asked.
“Freezing.”
“Here,” Settling back against the wall, he patted the space beside him, inviting her to sit.
Olivia dropped beside him, draping them with the blanket. She wriggled against him until Ty had trouble believing they could be any closer. Laying her head in the crook of his arm at his breast, she closed her eyes. Moments later, she was fast asleep.
He still wasn’t sure where they stood, but this was a start. He could work with this. He wasn’t going to lose Olivia without a fight.
Brushing the hair at her temple, he watched her for a long time. They'd had a fair amount of friction today; he dreaded tomorrow, knowing it wasn't over. She had taken a dangerous and unnecessary risk coming back for him. The only thing of import, as far as Whitehall was concerned, was the intelligence they’d stolen from Thalia. Once Olivia had recovered it, she should have run for Paris and never looked back. Not that he wasn't grateful. What she had done was the sign of a good friend, just not a good partner. One of the primary truths of their assignment was that they were both expendable. He studied Olivia's face, listened to her slow, even breathing.
Never before had the idea left him so uncomfortable.
* * *
Olivia wriggled under the blanket just as he finished eating, rustling straw inside a mattress he had conscripted from the loft. After a moment, she sat halfway up, braced on her elbows, and took stock of the room with heavy-lidded eyes.
“Feeling better?”
Closing her eyes, she stretched. He should look away, not stare at her breasts filling out the shirt-front. A long moment passed before he was able to tear his eyes away.
“Mmm. Feeling cleaner.” She pressed a finger to her swollen lower lip. “Considering the bumps and bruises, I'm not certain I feel better.” Olivia laughed, but he did not. He stared at her for a moment, wondering if now was as good a time as any to clear the air between them. After all the time they’d spent together, she knew him well and must have sensed there was something on his mind. She feigned a yawn, the worst he had ever seen, and closed her eyes.
“Olivia.”
She lay still. Obviously, she had heard him. He knew her well enough to recognize that she was retrenching, buying time while she formed a new plan.
“Olivia, look at me.” He leaned forward on the stool, bracing elbows on his knees, and waited. Finally, she wriggled up against the wall and met his eyes.
He breathed deep, preparing himself. “You should have left me there. The moment I was a liability, the intelligence was your priority.”
“Understood.”
She didn't sound as agreeable as he'd hoped, just irritated, as he had expected. He felt compelled to drive the point home, again. He had to be certain she understood, remembered their purpose for being in Paris. “You should have left me behind. I'm not worth the mission. No one is.”
“Understood,” she bit again, closing her eyes. If he had to guess, and guessing was all he could do at the moment, she was angry. What did he say? He had no idea where to start. Olivia hadn't been herself for days. Sometimes, he wondered if they were speaking the same language. Other times, he wondered if she was simply finished with him.
“Olivia,” he repeated, unsure what else to say, desperate to pry something, anything from her.
She forced out a sigh. “What, Tyler?”
A drowning man, he cast about for anything. “I had a message from Grayfield. He is a little confused.”
That bit of information put a real expression on her face. Measuring, gauging what he might know, maybe a nervous draw around her eyes.
“Something about you asking to be recalled.”
Had it never occurred to her, that he might question the information?
She turned her face away and stared at the floor, where moon spots slipped in through the window cover. “I think you are confused. You must be misunderstanding him.”
“We're in the same business, Olivia,” he chided. “Your tricks do not work on me. Why did you ask to be reassigned?”
Her face began to crumple. Her eyes blinked faster, heavy with wetness he could see pooling along her lower lids. “I had my reasons, Tyler.”
“You have your reasons?” That was all she had to say? Fobbing him off with an answer that was no answer at all. It was certainly not the one he deserved. “You have your reasons?” Anger burned across his chest, pounding at his temples. It cut his self-control in its wake; he snapped, smacking a fist into the wall planks and jarring something from the mantle overhead. “Indeed you do! And I bloody well have a right to know what they are!”
Olivia slid furiously up the mattress, batting at tousled hair, red from her ears to the tip of her nose. “Why! Why must I tell you anything?”
Swallowing hard, Ty held his hands out. “Is it that you do not trust me?”
“No.”
“Do you feel I am a weak partner? That I cannot do the job?”
“No!”
He shook his fists, desperate to gain purchase, even the smallest foothold on her stubbornness. “Then what is it?” He wracked his brain, trying to think of something, anything that would cause her to act this way. Their partnership had always been colored by a mutual attraction; from their first embattled kiss at the comte’s estate to the many moments they’d spent in each other’s confidence, he’d grown to care for her as more than a partner long ago. But it was that trust, that blind faith that he’d held for a few people in his life, which he shared with Olivia, which made it so hard to believe that she asked for reassignment without a word. He desired her in so many ways, and though she was a convincing actress, he’d seen too many signs to doubt she felt something of it, too. But that couldn’t be what was driving them apart now. Olivia would tell him, honor his trust, and end his misery over something so easily addressed.
He looked to her, eyes pleading.
“I was compromised!” Olivia panted, chest heaving, openly struggling for control. “I was compromised, and I compromi
sed you in turn. Can we simply leave it at that?”
“Do I have a choice?” He hadn't meant for the words to shape an accusation.
“No. I don't suppose you do.” Falling back, she crossed her arms and looked away again. He could feel her closing up, putting space between them. The distance was palpable.
It stung that she could be so callous, when he was grasping for anything to set matters right. His chest ached as much as his head. “I guess I did not give you enough credit, after you drug my carcass from the pit. You are ruthless after all.” The words spilled out before he could check them, the barbs sharp on his lips, hinting too late that he had struck a low blow.
Olivia turned sharply onto her left side, away from him, relations going from frosty to glacial in two quick movements.
He fell back onto the stool, lacing fingers behind his head and staring up at the cobwebs waving across the ceiling. and silence filled the divide.
* * *
It was for his own good, and hers.
She had repeated that over and over, lying in the chill of a dying fire, listening to Ty breathe in the darkness. At some point she fell asleep, but it was fitful. When she woke the moon had hardly moved behind the window cover. Ty was silent next to her, deep asleep, his shape a dark outline. Olivia noticed he refused to share the mat, lying instead on the wood floor in quiet protest. She rolled over slowly, pressing him lightly through the blanket. There was no movement, no response. She rose from the mattress, barely daring to breathe.
Feeling carefully beneath the table, she located the rest of her clothing and grasped the cracked tongues of her leather boots. Clutching the bundle, she crept to the door.
It was old, weathered. It had been noisy in the afternoon heat. She had no doubt it would be worse on cold hinges. She raised the bar incrementally, resting it in the corner beside the frame. Breathing deeply, she was still, listening for any movement from the bed.