Especially if that place to sleep was in Nicholas Grimshaw’s comfortable cottage.
Maybe Hubert had known what he was doing, after all, when he’d tricked the shire-reeve into taking her in, for Nicholas Grimshaw was not the somber, menacing figure everyone imagined. He was a man of quiet authority, great wit, and deep compassion. Indeed, she was still astounded to discover he used his own earnings to pay others’ taxes. If a man like Nicholas had been shire-reeve when she was a girl, maybe her parents wouldn’t have needed to sell her.
The most astonishing thing was she found herself actually looking forward to his arrival this evening. Charming him was as easy and pleasurable as deceiving him at Fast and Loose. And tonight she planned to surprise him with what he’d confided was his favorite supper—roast partridge with mashed neeps and onions, and a golden custard afterward.
If his full belly didn’t convince him that she was worth keeping, she’d simply have to dazzle him with seductive charm.
She glanced over her shoulder one last time before she left the square and thought she saw the flicker of a face staring in her direction. But the man pulled a cap down over his eyes and swiftly disappeared into the crowd.
She started the trek toward the cottage, but not without keeping a firm grip on the dagger she wore upon her belt. She might give up her outlaw ways, but she’d never lose her instinct for danger. If someone pursued her, she’d be well prepared to defend herself.
She’d been walking along the wet lanes for but a few hundred yards when the hairs at the back of her neck began to rise again. Now that she was out of the throng, the sensation of a presence following her was more pronounced.
She didn’t want to lead anyone to the lawman’s cottage. While it was no great secret where Nicholas Grimshaw made his home to someone intent on finding out, it was better to keep his whereabouts a vague mystery.
Shifting her purchases to leave her dagger hand free, she caressed the hilt, ready to draw the blade, and slowed her pace.
Maybe fifty yards behind her, she heard the scrape of a boot. Testing whether the man was indeed following her, she diverted down a side street. The sagging buildings leaned together overhead like gossiping old trots, and Desirée wondered if she’d made a wise choice in going down the dark and narrow passage. She walked with a light step, listening for sounds of pursuit.
Within moments, she heard faint footfalls behind her in the lane. Someone was following her.
A lifetime of evading the law lent her calm when another woman might have panicked. Keeping her gaze fixed on the lane ahead, she strode purposefully to the end and turned right, onto another narrow passage.
Ducking out of sight around the corner, she dropped her packages, drew her dagger, and waited for him to arrive.
The hooded cloak that came swirling past obscured the man’s face, but she saw the silver flash of a dagger within the folds and reacted instantly.
She sprang forward with her own weapon and grazed the man’s arm. He shrieked in alarm and staggered backward, dislodging his hood.
“You!”
It was Odger again—the master of the mews. What the devil was he doing following her? Hadn’t Nicholas put the fear of death into the man yesterday?
Now that Odger was discovered, he quickly lost his love of the chase. Scrabbling the hood back over his head as if he could obliterate his face from her memory, he skipped back and fled down the lane.
A less intrepid lass might have let him go, counting herself lucky to escape with her life. But Desirée wasn’t a woman to be daunted by danger. She wasn’t finished with the miserable master of the mews. Abandoning her purchases, she tore after him, dagger in hand.
“Stop! Stop it, damn you!”
Her words only fueled his fear, accelerating his flight.
“You cursed son of the devil! Come back here!”
He sped away on legs much longer than hers. She chased him until she was breathless, and still it was obvious he didn’t intend to stop anytime soon. So she halted in her tracks, took aim, and hurled her dagger forward.
The blade stuck in his shoulder, and he yelped. But it hadn’t gone deep. As she bolted forward, he yanked the blade out and dropped it on the ground, casting one last fearful glance at her, and then fleeing as if death itself nipped at his heels.
“Ballocks!”
She’d lost him.
Her heart still throbbing with the excitement of the chase, she strode forward to reclaim her weapon. She rinsed the blood from it in a puddle of rain, sheathed it, and then returned slowly down the lane to retrieve her purchases.
Unfortunately, when she rounded the corner, vultures had already descended upon her goods. A half-dozen beggar children were digging through her things.
“Shoo!”
They scattered at her shout. But one of them had already made off with her neeps. Two more hefted the jug of wine between them, staggering down the lane.
“Bloody buzzards!”
She supposed she could have given chase. If she weren’t already winded from chasing Odger, she might have caught up with the little robbers.
But she was suddenly assailed with the image of poor Nicholas forced to flog the starving waifs for thievery.
She didn’t have the heart to turn them in. After all, they needed the sustenance more than she did. She’d been such a waif once, hungry and desperate. And now that she knew how kind Nicholas was to such wretches, she could hardly be less charitable.
Still, losing half of Nicholas’s supper did nothing to improve her mood. She’d spent her own wages on that cursed partridge. Now she had no more coin and not even the heart to steal what she couldn’t purchase. She’d have to make do with what she had.
Arriving at the cottage in a foul temper, she kicked open the door and slammed down the packages, frightening the cat into a mad scurry for the bedchamber.
Heaving a guilty sigh, she set to work building a fire and preparing supper. She hoped Nicholas wouldn’t be too late. He’d traveled to the neighboring village of Chartham for the day.
She cleaned the partridge and set aside the offal for Snowflake, in the event he ever emerged from hiding again. Then she searched for a spit upon which to roast the fowl.
She looked through all the cupboards, beside the hearth, even at the back of the cottage, where a shovel and ax were perched against the wall. But he seemed to have no spit.
Then she remembered. A selection of iron tools hung on his bedchamber wall. She could use one of them.
Indeed, she found an instrument that looked like a curious cross between a short spear and a poker. She threaded the partridge onto the makeshift spit and hung it over the fire, smiling in satisfaction.
Beneath it, instead of Nicholas’s favorite mashed neeps, she’d place a pot of cabbage and onions to catch the drippings, making a savory accompaniment to the fowl.
While the partridge cooked, she prepared a custard, breaking eggs into a pot of warm milk and adding the precious thread of saffron. She needed a second pot in which to nest the first, for the custard should steam over a bath of simmering water.
Again, his shelves yielded nothing, but that wasn’t surprising. After all, a man living alone had little use for more than two pots.
Once more she ventured into his chamber to view his work tools, and her gaze alit on a strange instrument pushed up against the corner of the wall. It was made up of a wooden frame with an enormous metal screw going down the middle. The screw was attached to an iron bowl, just the perfect size to hold a water bath for the custard. All she had to do was remove the bolts of the iron strapping that held the bowl in place.
It wasn’t as easy as it appeared. The bolts seemed to be rusted on, as if the thing hadn’t been used in a long while. She had to use a pair of ominous-looking pincers from the wall to pry them loose.
Snowflake watched her from a dark corner of the room, his eyes glowing with curiosity and mistrust.
Finally she wrested the bowl free. It proved a sat
isfactory vessel, once she perched it on an improvised rack made of long steel rasps she discovered among his tools.
With supper sizzling successfully on the hearth, she took a moment to sit on the bench, reflecting on what had transpired at the market.
Odger must have come after her for revenge. She’d hurt his pride, luring him to the shire-reeve’s house the way she did, and he itched to pay her back.
It wasn’t an unfamiliar situation for Desirée.
Most of the time the men she gulled at dice or Three Shells and a Pea or any of the numerous games Hubert had taught her took their losses in stride. They sheepishly gave up their coin, realizing they’d fallen prey to wittier minds and quicker fingers.
But once in a while, some men took the game too seriously. They stung more from the loss of their pride than the loss of their silver, and they yearned to exorcize their humiliation. Usually with violence.
That was the reason Desirée slept with a dagger close at hand and why she looked over her shoulder when she traveled. One never knew, Hubert had taught her, when a target would come to reclaim his losses in flesh.
But Odger was a coward at heart. Even if he’d caught up with her today, she doubted he would have had the ballocks to actually stab her. If he had stabbed her, didn’t he realize he’d have to answer to the shire-reeve? Desirée had heard Nicholas warn the master of the mews that he knew where he lived, that he’d come for him if there were trouble. Surely, after catching the sharp end of her dagger today, he wouldn’t be bothering her anytime soon.
Of course, Desirée didn’t plan to tell Nicholas anything. There was no need to involve him. It was her affair. Besides, she was trying to barter her way into a permanent place in his household. The last thing she wanted was for him to believe she was the kind of person who attracted trouble.
Gradually, the soft crackle of the fire, the sumptuous scent of roasting partridge, and the warmth that seeped into her rain-soaked bones combined to lull Desirée into a half doze.
When the door suddenly scraped open, it startled her so, she leaped out of sleep and off the bench, every muscle primed, her heart pounding.
“’Tis only me, lass,” Nicholas said with a chuckle, pulling off his hood and shaking out his messy locks. “Were you dreaming the Grim Reaper had come to the door?”
Desirée didn’t know what she’d been dreaming—probably that Odger had come back for her, after all. She clapped a hand to her racing heart.
He set a large bundle down next to his keg and sniffed the air. “Mmmm.” He glanced toward the hearth. “What have you got—“ Then he narrowed his eyes in disapproval at the fire. “Is that...is that the bowl from my brain crusher?”
“Your what?”
“My brain crusher. That bowl sitting atop...” His frown deepened, and he moved closer to the hearth. “Atop my...my rasps. Bloody hell, wench, those aren’t cooking implements!”
Unintimidated by his bark, she shrugged. “Well, you don’t seem to use them for anything else.”
He opened his mouth to argue, then closed it again. She was right. He didn’t use them, ever. He settled for grumbling, “Well, I can’t use them now, can I?”
She grinned. “And see?” she said, pointing to the spit. “’Tis the perfect size for the hearth.”
His face went suddenly white. For an instant, she thought his heart might have stopped.
“What is it?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”
He’d dropped his satchel of tools and was staring in horror at the partridge, which was browning nicely over the fire.
“Where’s Azrael?”
CHAPTER 16
Nicholas felt sick.
Broken crockery, burnt supper, and scorched clothing were one thing, but this...
He was further confounded when Desirée abruptly burst into laughter. “God’s eyes!” she cried. “You don’t think...”
He didn’t know what to think.
Desirée crossed her arms and shook her head, frowning in mock disgust. “Lucifer’s arse! I spent my own good coin on your favorite partridge when I could have simply roasted up your cat.”
“Partridge?”
She nodded, then called out, “Snowflake! Come out, lad. Your master fears I’ve made minced meat out of you.”
The cat came trotting obediently out of his bedchamber, not a whisker out of place, and Nicholas felt like a fool. He bent to scoop the furry beast up and gave him a scratch under the chin.
“Roast cat indeed,” Desirée said with a smirk, going to the hearth to stir the pot hanging below the carcass.
It suddenly occurred to Nicholas what she’d said. She was roasting partridge, his favorite, and she’d spent her own silver to purchase it.
Desirée continued to grumble as she turned the partridge on its makeshift spit. “After that remark, I’m inclined to eat it all myself.”
“Nay!”
“Well, perhaps I’ll share a bit with Snowflake.”
He set Azrael down on the floor again and approached the hearth, his mouth watering at the sight of the partridge, golden and gleaming and dripping with luscious juices. “Is there nothing I can do to regain your favor?” He rubbed at his chin. “I’d do nearly anything for a bite of that partridge.”
She arched a brow and gazed up at him. “Anything?”
He nodded. After all, what could she ask of him that he wouldn’t gladly give? He’d already provided her a roof over her head, honest employment, and, as of today, a new kirtle he’d picked out himself, one in her favorite color.
Desirée grinned. “I’d never realized the bargaining power of partridges before.”
“Oh, aye,” he said with mock gravity. “Men will lay down their lives for a partridge.”
A chuckle escaped her. “I don’t think I’ll ask you to lay down your life.”
“What then, my lady? Shall I slay a dragon for you? Bring you the Holy Grail? Capture the moon and the stars for your crown?”
She giggled. “All that for a partridge?”
He glanced at the fire. “As long as ‘tisn’t burnt.”
She gave him the sultry gaze of a temptress, murmuring, “Don’t fret. ’Twill be roasted to perfection.”
“In that case, name your price, my lady.”
“Hmm.” She crossed her arms, considering her options. “Ah,” she decided. “Let me cut your hair.”
“My hair?”
“Aye.”
“What’s wrong with my hair?” He pinched a lock between his fingers.
“’Tis ragged, and it hangs upon your shoulders. When was the last time you cut it?”
He shrugged.
She smirked. “’Tisn’t as if you’ve a shortage of scissors.”
He arched a chiding brow. “Those scissors aren’t meant for cutting hair.”
“Well, they might as well serve some useful purpose.”
“All right,” he conceded with a grumble. “But see you don’t forget what you’re about and lop off my head.”
Desirée grinned, turning the spit while Nicholas sharpened the carving knife on a whetstone.
“So how was your day, my lady?”
“Uneventful. Just the usual haggling with shopkeepers and dodging raindrops. And yours?”
“Put a woman in the stocks for an hour.”
“For?”
“Cursing in church.”
“Ah. She should do as I do and stay out of churches.”
Nicholas smiled. They understood each other now. An outlaw was as unwelcome in church as the lawman who enforced attendance.
She stirred the vegetables. “I’m afraid you’ll have to settle for cabbage and onions. On the way home, I tossed the neeps to some starving children.”
He shook his head. “Poor souls. England’s full of them. And full of unscrupulous merchants, as well. I marched a baker through the streets of Chartham today with one of his short-weight loaves about his neck.”
She clucked her tongue.
What a curious conv
ersation, Desirée thought. Though their tone was familiar and nonchalant, she was lying through her teeth about an attack that might have killed her, and he was speaking casually about his occupation of inflicting punishments. They were an odd pair indeed.
Snowflake hovered close, licking his whiskers, and Desirée took mercy on him, setting the bowl of partridge offal on the floor for him before serving up supper.
Nicholas ate with as much relish as his cat, smacking his lips and lapping at his fingers, and Desirée decided her coin had been well spent indeed, even if she’d had to make do without the neeps and wine.
“Divine,” he told her around his last bite of partridge.
She smiled as she rose from the table. “I hope you’ve left room for custard.”
“Custard?” His eyes lit up like a child’s.
She lifted the pot from its water bath, setting it on the counter, then topping it with a thick slab of butter, which began to melt at once atop the warm custard.
“You’ll spoil me, wench,” he told her.
“Are you complaining?” she asked, drizzling honey over the top of the melting butter to make a sweet, golden glaze.
“Indeed,” he told her. “I shall grow accustomed to playing draughts and eating partridge and having company by the fire.” She glanced at him. He was staring into his ale. “How will I manage without you?”
“Without me?”
Her heart stuttered in her breast. She’d prayed he might have forgotten about her leaving.
Aye, he’d specifically said theirs was a temporary arrangement. Aye, he’d hired her only out of pity and honor in the first place. And aye, since her business in Canterbury was concluded, he’d expect her to move on.
But she’d hoped all that had slipped his mind.
She bit at her lip, watching the honey pool atop the custard, sweet and warm and tempting.
Damn it all, she could be sweet and warm and tempting. She wasn’t going to give up that easily. She’d change his mind, if it took every last ounce of her charm. In fact, she’d have him begging her to stay. Forcing a bright smile to her face, she carried the custard to the table.
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