She watched him silently. His chest was heaving, and he glared, knowing that he was glaring. It couldn’t be helped. She had drawn the confession from him, broken down the gates. The footsteps of the innkeeper reached them, and Tristan composed himself. Mr. Reeve appeared and hovered respectfully at the threshold.
“I’ve sent a lad for hot tea, my lady. And for the vicar, if you wish him.”
“What I wish is a physician to be sent for from High Duxbury. Selwyn is a competent man. My wife was assaulted on the road here by highwaymen,” Tristan snarled as though it was the personal fault of the mayor.
“Highwaymen? At Duxworth?” Reeve exclaimed, mopping his brow with a handkerchief, “I’ve never heard the like. They’ll starve waiting on pickings around these parts. If you’ll pardon me, though, there's an old woman out by Thorn Brook who’ll do you better for a shock or a sprain. She’s the one we go to when it matters.”
Tristan’s gaze cooled a degree. “A hedge-witch.”
“A healer,” Reeve answered without blinking, “name of Mother Hobb. Been catching babies and setting bones in this parish since before I grew my first whisker. If you want speed and sense, you’ll have her. If you want a Latin phrase and a bill, send for Selwyn.”
Christine’s eyes had brightened with weary amusement. “And what do you want, Tristan?”
“To have you looked over by someone who knows more than the contents of a stillroom,” he said, “and to have those men in a ditch before sundown.”
Reeve looked to Christine. “My lady, will I send for Mother Hobb, then?”
“Yes,” she said, “please.”
“It’s settled. You’ve come to see me about the ball, my lady. You’ll forgive that you hear me twice at once, innkeeper and mayor. The town wears both hats without changing its head.”
His weathered face softened. “While you catch your breath, you’ll do me a kindness and glance down yonder.”
He nodded toward the landing. “You asked in the note your boy brought to me to meet us where we live.”
Christine rose, and Tristan was by her side in an instant, taking her by the arm.
“I am quite well,” she said.
“I know,” Tristan replied, his hand to the small of her back, “allow me.”
She smiled, intended for him alone, even though it was in full sight of Mr. Reeve. The meaning behind it wasn’t in his sight. They went down the stairs and to the common room. The noon crowd had not gathered yet. Half a dozen men stood at the counter with their tankards, a pair of apprentices lounged on the settle, a woman with a baby swayed as if the motion were a lullaby she had learnt before she could speak.
In the far corner near the hearth, a long board had been laid. On it: bowls, bread, a pot steaming gently. A boy whose clothes hadbeen mended more times than they had been new approached, hesitant. The innkeeper’s wife, Alice, with capable hands and a voice that travelled, handed him a bowl with a piece of cheese on top and ruffled his hair as if he were her own. A chalk slate hung on the wall beside the board. On it, in a clear hand, someone had written:
Parish Supper: Widow’s Fund and the Duke’s Rents, Michaelmas Quarter.
Underneath, a list of names he did not know. And a figure, modest, sufficient, drawn off each week and set aside, turned into bread. He felt the oddest sensation, as if a door he had expected to find bolted had opened instead. The gifts he sent down the hill each quarter did not merely vanish into Reeve’s pockets through the consumption of his customers. They walked out as loaves and soup into the bellies of people who would never look him in the eye.
“You see?” Christine asked.
“I do. I always knew such things were done. But I did not think of it. I assumed men seized on that which they came by freely and kept it to themselves. Men like Reeve anyway.”
“Mr. Reeve, I think, is a very decent man with a strong sense of community. Admirable,” Christine said.
“You have a different perspective. Seeing things from the point of view of the ordinary.”
“I am ordinary.”
“Do not be ridiculous!” Tristan chortled, then caught the dangerous glint in her eye, “I was not mocking you or scoffing,” he said.
“Then you were complimenting me?” Christine asked in a voice that said this was a ludicrous notion.
“Yes.”
She did not reply with words. Her hand squeezed his arm and did not release the tension immediately. Her eyes found his, and he was lost in them, unaware of his surroundings or the words being spoken to him. He wanted to kiss her, to wrap her in his arms, carry her away to some remote place where no one knew them. A place where individual privacy was prized so highly that a man would die before intruding.
Might as well wish for Christine to fall in love with me while I am wishing for the impossible. How could she when our relationship has begun and continues to be about nothing but necessity? Duty?
