Perfect Knave

by Kress, Alyssa

  Nothing but silence attended this statement. Agreement, Lucy supposed. Then she heard Emile shift on his bale of hay. "Well...what about my idea?"

  Lucy frowned.

  "Make you look like a widow," Emile reminded her. "We could both go free."

  She glanced at him then, with disdain. "Free—and penniless. That document you were so eager to sign made me unable to obtain my dowry without a full year in marriage to you. Your death would not serve."

  He looked as though she'd slapped him. Oh, he'd thought himself so clever. He'd thought he was going to be gone before the consequences hit.

  Her smile was brittle. "I am not going to lose that dowry." Oh, no. The dowry was hers. She would not allow it to fall into the hands of anyone else, and particularly not a man. Lucy practically trembled with the force of her determination. "I will have it."

  Emile stared at her. Slowly, he eased back onto his palms. "What do you suggest?"

  Was there derision in his drawl? Lucy could scarce credit it. Emile did not dare to oppose her. All the same, she felt a nervous jump as she lifted her chin and stared at a point over his right shoulder. "We do it."

  Deep silence greeted this announcement. Lucy could feel heat rise into her face. She hadn't realized how very physical the words sounded. Her fingers gripped her arms as she made herself more clear. "We live together, one year of our lives. We put up with it somehow. At the end of the year, we both get what we want."

  A chill seemed to surround Emile. "And what is it you think I want, pray?"

  Surprised, she looked at him. "Your freedom. Of course."

  He guffawed so hard it raised a knee. He wrapped an elbow around the upraised knee. "After a year? What there's left of it."

  Lucy's heart picked up speed. He was not acting submissive, as she had supposed he would. In fact, he was positively scoffing. "The only way to collect my dowry is by fulfilling my father's condition."

  "That is your desire, not mine." Rocking on his rear, Emile looked up at the ceiling. "Your desire is a farm. A year of toil in the soil. At the end of which you get your dowry, and I am gifted with—" His gaze sliced back to Lucy, his smile sharp as a knife. "—My freedom."

  Lucy lifted her chin. "It is what you—"

  "Booted forth," Emile spat, "like a beggar."

  She felt color rise into her cheeks. He was making it sound like slavery. "I would not boot you forth. You would be...compensated."

  Emile tilted his head. Money always spoke. She was passing certain he was now considering the idea. She certainly hoped so, as she would rather not have to play her bluff.

  Meanwhile, she calculated an offer, how much of the total she was willing to cede. "Twenty percent," she declared. "Once my dowry comes, you will get twenty percent of it."

  "Twenty percent." Emile made a derogatory noise.

  Lucy pulled her lips into a dry smile. "That is five thousand pounds."

  He couldn't hide his astonishment, his eyes going wide. "Five...? Oh." Dazedly, he lowered his gaze to his knee.

  He would accept. Of course he would. What man, particularly one of Emile's station, would refuse a sum like that?

  Slowly, the dazed look faded from his eyes. With an utterly sober expression, he shook his head. "No."

  No? He refused? But he knew what she held over him. Fear struck a jarring note in Lucy's breast. "Twenty percent. You stay with me a year." Carefully, Lucy added, "It is not as if you have a choice."

  That got his attention. He stopped shaking his head and froze. Slowly, he raised his eyes to meet Lucy's.

  Her heart was punching like a strongman in her chest but she kept her gaze steady. If he was not going to accept the bribe, then she had nothing but the blackmail. It was imperative he believe she would use her father's silver plate as evidence against him.

  If she wanted her dowry, she had to make him believe she would see him hang.

  Emile's face went hard. "You would, wouldn't you?"

  "Oh, yes, indeed. And do not think you would get far by your heels. My father's money would pay for enough hounds to sniff you out, whatever sty you fell into."

  He laughed, but Lucy saw the expression in his eyes. Pure, unadulterated loathing. He believed her. He thought she would make him hang.

  Relief flooded Lucy. He believed her. He wouldn't run. And if he hated her— Well! Lucy hated him right back. She shook out her skirts, crisp and businesslike. "We understand each other, then."

  "Not quite."

  Startled, Lucy looked at him.

  "I need you to be specific." His smile was derisive. "You want me to live with you for a year and..." He paused. "Anything else?"

  Heat jumped into her face. Could he mean—? "Absolutely not!" Lucy breathed.

  "Fortunate." He shrugged. "I doubt I could have managed it."

  While Lucy could do nothing about the heat in her face, she lifted her chin haughtily. "We leave the day after tomorrow."

  "So I heard."

  "Be ready."

  From his seated position, Emile made a flourish and a bow. "I am at your service."

  Falser words were never spoken. He was not at her service. He was constrained, trapped, and no doubt desperate for a way out. He was like a lion, Lucy thought, caught in a very deep pit. The lion couldn't get out, but that didn't make him any less fierce. On the contrary, the animal could be more dangerous for his dire straits.

  Outwardly serene, Lucy inclined her head. She was at the top of the pit, she reminded herself. Out of his reach. Besides, no matter how much Emile hated her, he wouldn't commit actual violence.

  Assuring herself she was correct about this assumption—he was a thief and not a murderer—Lucy left him to stew over his fate.

  ~~~

  He was going to strangle her. Drowning, a shaft of steel. Emile did not balk at the idea of poison. Two days after their 'bargain' in the barn, Emile was still devising methods of extermination.

  The morning they were to set out from Bonham, Emile again found himself on a joint-stool in Latham's exchequer. They had decided it was part of his 'responsibility' to watch the transfer of the year's portion into Lucy's strongbox.

  He sat with his elbow on an upraised knee and his head on his hand. It was a casual posture deliberately at odds with the seething fury inside him.

  "Three hundred sixty-eight, three hundred sixty-nine," Latham hummed.

  The clink of coin after coin might have made Emile feel trapped, like the sound of nails being driven into a coffin. But he didn't feel trapped. He felt liberated.

  Lucy had thrown down a gauntlet with her threat of the gallows. Now anything was allowed. No matter how low the tactic, it would be permissible in Emile's battle for freedom.

  Lucy sat by Latham's side, her appearance studious with the quill and parchment she held.

  Emile tried not to look at her. Every time he did, a sick, angry sensation turned his stomach. Instead he searched his mind, coolly, with pleasure, for the best means to outwit her. A suitably pernicious idea for eluding her blackmail would soon occur. Relaxed upon his stool, Emile's eyes narrowed to slits.

  "Three hundred seventy-five," Latham pronounced, adding a final gold coin. "That is all of it."

  Emile yawned. His idea would have to involve money, of course. The stakes were higher than before, but the principle was the same. Coin would blind the eye of all pursuers. Greed trumped loyalty: it was a universal law of human nature.

  Unfortunately, Emile hadn't a single groat. He didn't even have the purple doublet he'd worn for the wedding. They'd taken that back and returned his old and threadbare harlequin shirt. Smelling a rat?

  Lucy frowned down at her parchment. "Aye. That adds correctly."

  Beaming, Latham closed the lid of the strongbox. The action produced a sharp and final clang. Like a prison door closing. With a turn of the wrist, Latham removed the key. Flourishing, he handed it to Lucy.

  Emile opened one of his slit-eyes a bit wider.

  Lucy took the key. She was pre
pared for the responsibility. A length of black ribbon came off her belt. Emile watched as she slipped the key onto the ribbon, made an efficient little knot linking the two ends together, and then looped the ribbon necklace about her neck. The key itself Lucy dropped down her bodice.

  Emile lifted his head off his hand.

  "We are ready to depart," she declared. "The only thing left is to load this box into the wagon."

  Emile slid off his stool. "I can do that."

  Lucy gave him a patronizing look and then strode to the door. She opened it to reveal two hefty footmen.

  By the saints, she truly had prepared everything, down to appointing the carriers for the strongbox. Emile had to admit that the woman's capacity for organization was sobering.

  "Put this beneath the front seat of the wagon," Lucy instructed.

  The two servants arranged themselves around the box. Emile supposed it was just as well he hadn't tried to lift the thing. The two burly men had to heave and grunt just to get it off the tiled desktop.

  "Emile." Latham's voice managed to penetrate Emile's preoccupation. "Your wife asked you something."

  "Hm?" Without forethought, Emile turned to look at Lucy. Unprepared, he felt the now-familiar sick sensation attack his stomach. It knocked him off his high seat of fury; it muddled his brain. "Ahem. What?" Emile managed to ask.

  Lucy's lips pursed. "Do you know how to ride?"

  The way pigs knew how to fly. But Emile's brain was still in a muddle. He pulled on the thin sleeve of his shirt. "Do I know how to ride. Ha. What do you think I am? A peasant?"

  She arched her eyebrows.

  Emile made himself return her gaze, though the sick sensation grew. She thought to control him. She thought to keep him with her for an entire year. Emile's throat threatened to close.

  Such would destroy him.

  "No," Lucy mused. "You are not a peasant." Her pursed lips twisted into a smirk. You are a thief, she might as well have added.

  Emile ground his teeth. Aye, he was a thief and damned if he was going to look at that knowledge reflected in her eyes every day for the next year.

  "I can ride," Emile gritted forth. He vowed to do a passing excellent imitation of it at any rate. Meanwhile, his imagination pierced her bodice, straight to the location of the strongbox's key.

  "I will have Gawain choose you a suitable mount, then."

  Emile's gaze jerked back up to her face. "Gawain?"

  Lucy looked smug. "Father is giving him to me. I am going to need a steward of my own, after all."

  Emile switched his disbelieving gaze from Lucy to her father.

  Latham sat back in his chair. Coolly, his eyes met Emile's.

  Latham was sending Gawain—? Why, the pikestaff was half in love with Lucy. What kind of trouble was Latham fixing to brew? Then Emile stilled as he realized what kind. In love or not, Gawain was as loyal as a pit dog. He would be zealous against anybody who tried to hurt Lucy.

  Emile felt hot at the implied accusation. He was not going to lift a hand against his wife.

  He would not need to.

  Emile's mouth crooked.

  All he needed was to palm that key.

  CHAPTER NINE

  "Sing the song, 'My Celia.'"

  "No, no. Play again, 'Dear if You Change.'"

  In a clearing in the woods across a campfire from the singing lute player, Lucy leaned toward one of her lackeys. "Did you do as I asked?" she whispered.

  The lackey did not even glance in her direction. His eyes, like those of everybody else disposed about the fire, were trained eagerly upon the musician. "Yes, yes, mistress. I did as you asked, I put it right in his tent." To the musician he called, "'My Celia!'"

  Lucy bit her lower lip.

  Meanwhile, Emile compromised. "How about..." He set his fingers to the staff and strummed. A sweet hum of melody issued from the instrument.

  The servants sat rapt.

  Lucy looked down at her trencher and picked among the vegetables still on her supper plate. A week ago she never would have guessed her people loved music so well. It would have pleased her to lay their newly acquired love upon the fact they were using the music to delay cleaning up their tent camp after supper, but common observation told her otherwise.

  Emile had a way about him. He...engaged people. He'd been making Lucy's people smile and laugh and sing every night they'd been travelling.

  At least toward the servants he'd been engaging. Toward his wife, Emile's attitude was completely different. His attitude was so powerfully different toward Lucy that her sister had sought her out the day before Lucy'd left home.

  "Have the marriage set aside," Patrice had advised. "Do not go off alone with a man who hates you."

  At the campfire Lucy gazed musingly down at a carrot on her trencher. She might have suspected Patrice of wanting to make even more of a laughingstock of her older sister, to add the scandal of an annulment to the story of her curse, but Patrice's expression had been serious. She truly feared Emile would do something dire.

  Lucy picked up the carrot and gave it a harsh bite. Patrice's fear had been absurd. Emile would not hurt Lucy. That would mean putting his own neck in a noose. Aye, he hated her, but he didn't dare hurt her.

  Lucy could live with his hate. Ha! She hated him right back. The—the scoundrel.

  Lucy swallowed her carrot too soon. It made a painful lump in her throat. She put a hand to her neck and rubbed.

  Across the fire Emile put up his lute. The last strains of music faded into the night air.

  "The hour grows late," he sighed.

  "No, no!"

  "Don't stop yet."

  Emile shook his head. "I must stop. I can't leave you too tired to get up tomorrow morning." He shot a sidelong glance across the fire. "Your mistress would not be pleased."

  Lucy lowered her eyes to set down her trencher. Oh yes, he had to make her out to be the ogre as if he had not proved his sunny sweetness in great enough comparison with his songs and his jokes and his tricks.

  "Oh, well, if you have to," one of the servants said.

  "Until tomorrow, then," another consoled himself.

  Smiling, Emile handed the lute to its owner and got to his feet.

  Lucy made sure not to look at Emile as he strolled around the fire, but her heart began to pound. All right, she did care that Emile hated her. Life was miserable with hatred as a travelling companion. She hadn't guessed how miserable. But she now realized it had been an idiot impulse to send that gift to his tent. Having forced Emile into marriage and threatened him with his life, did she think she could sue for peace now?

  Nay, worse than that. She sought peace with items she had actually purchased for her own pride and not for Emile's pleasure. In the two days before leaving Bonham, she'd paid high prices for garments of excellent quality—but only in order to make sure her husband's garb would not embarrass her. They had not been intended as a gift.

  Now, leisurely, Emile moved around the fire in Lucy's direction.

  She stiffened, knowing the routine. He would appear to approach her, only to veer to the side at the last moment. Smiling, sometimes whistling, he would continue on to his tent. He made the situation perfectly clear. She was an unwanted bride.

  Lucy clasped her hands into fists beneath her cloak. From the corner of her eye, she could spy his boots. Already they were veering.

  Until they stopped.

  Lucy frowned. Why wasn't he veering? Bad enough she had to dread the moment he reached his tent and found her pathetic little offering. Did he have to delay the thing?

  He remained motionless.

  Slowly, Lucy looked up.

  Emile was staring off into the trees, but when he sensed Lucy's gaze, he looked down.

  Her heart kicked hard against her ribs. He hadn't looked at her directly since they'd left Bonham. Even that gaze had been cut short when his horse had taken its first step. As if the animal had lunged instead of simply walked, Emile had gasped and clung to the poor be
ast's neck.

  Lucy might have taken pleasure in his indignity, but he'd recovered quickly. Sitting back up, he'd glanced at the other riders in an obvious effort to learn how one kept one's seat. He hadn't looked at Lucy again.

  Now he appeared to measure her. One of his eyebrows lifted. "Aye," he said. "'Tis time."

  Lucy's heart made another kick against her ribs. Had he actually addressed her? Directly? "What say you?"

  "Come," he said and held out one hand.

  Lucy's heart danced wildly. Come? With him?

  Servants who had been on their way to their beds began to stop and watch. They were concerned, Lucy realized, for Emile.

  Her mouth twisted even as she told herself they were correct. She was the one who held the power. Not the power to throw a curse, as they all thought, but far greater and more effective power than that. The power of English justice. There was no reason for her to feel frightened.

  She held out her hand. "Very well." Her voice cracked, however, and the words came out in a whisper.

  His mouth crooked. Then his hand wrapped around her own.

  Lucy had no idea what he wanted with her, but the moment his hand closed over hers she knew there would be no retreat. His fingers felt like bands of steel.

  Exerting a slight, efficient pressure, Emile pulled Lucy to her feet. "Come this way." Still holding her hand, he led her from the campfire.

  Lucy glanced over her shoulder to see the servants continuing to look worried—for Emile. She turned back to her companion. "Where are we going?"

  "I want to show you something." Emile made a path through the forest of tents. He was not leading the way toward her tent nor toward his own. Instead he went straight through the encampment.

  "Halt!" a harsh voice suddenly cried. "Who goes there?"

  It was Toby. Beyond the camp of tents, the metal barrel of his pistol gleamed from the distant fire. He stood in front of the laden wagon, feet planted widely. "Stop!" he called.

  Emile stopped.

  Lucy nearly collided with his back. Catching her balance, she peered around her husband's shoulder. "Have your peace, Toby," she called, concerned at the direction of the pistol. The servants had been well rehearsed in how to protect the strongbox in the wagon. "'Tis only us."