The Silver Lord by Miranda Jarrett

Author:Miranda Jarrett
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2013-01-28T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

Fan paused on the steps to the apothecary’s shop, tucking the packet with her purchase deeper into her basket for safekeeping. Danny, the cook’s young mate, had been complaining of the toothache, and before he made the ominous trek to the surgeon in Brighton to have the tooth drawn, Fan had offered to make a poultice to ease his suffering with less dire consequences.

Besides, she welcomed the chance to trade Feversham for Tunford, if only for a few hours, and on this balmy afternoon, the sun warm on her back and the meadows beginning to turn green with spring, she could even forget the wretched morning in George’s bedchamber.

She glanced up at the sky, gauging the hour. She just had time to stop at another shop for a new pair of cotton stockings before she began the ride home to oversee the evening meal—a considerably more elaborate process with the duke in residence. She tightened the ribbons of her hat beneath her chin and turned towards the lane, and very nearly into the barrel-broad chest of Will Hood.

“A word with you now, Mistress, if you please,” he said, though the way he was blocking her path left her little choice.

“Not here, Hood,” she whispered urgently, smiling for the benefit of anyone who might be watching. She saw him so seldom by day that he seemed almost like a stranger, his face pale and lined beneath a grizzled shadow of beard, and uneasily she thought of the gun and the knife that were surely hidden beneath his long homespun coat. “You know there’s no business between us like this.”

“And you should know, mistress, that I’ll not go again to Feversham, not with your bloody Navy-lord living there, ready to take me for the price on my head.” Pointedly he spat against the wall beside them. “This be quick, anyways. Tonight, by the churchyard, and we’ll ride together to Caddem’s.”

“Not tonight,” she said, glancing nervously over her shoulder to make sure no one could overhear. “On Thursday, three nights from this, the way I decided when we parted last.”

“Tonight,” countered Hood. “None o’ us can see the use in waiting, ’specially not with a rascal like Caddem. Your father always said Caddem’s the biggest catch in the Company’s net, mistress, and there’s no good reason for leaving him be after you’ve told the others last night.”

Fan hated it when Hood invoked her father like this, just short of out-and-out defying her. The reason she didn’t wish to go to Caddem’s tonight was that she was, quite simply, too tired after catching so little sleep here and there. She’d need all her wits about her to deal with John Caddem, and now those wits felt as dull as an old knife. Not, of course, that she could use that as an excuse to Hood or the others.

“Thursday night,” she said firmly, refusing to back down. “Not before.”

Hood narrowed his eyes, tugging the cocked brim of his old hat lower over his forehead. “The men won’t take to this, mistress,” he warned ominously.

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