Page 22 of The Pumpkin Bride

Bram lifted a shoulder. “I’m not your typical orc.”

“Couldn’t agree more.” Alfred fished his corncob pipe out of his pocket. “Speaking of . . . you ever want to come into town to sell your wares yourself? I like my share of the business—don’t misunderstand. But you’d rake it in hand over fist with folks wanting to get a look at you. Even more if you growled at ’em.”

Bram’s stomach turned. Even if he could leave the farm, he’d never try to profit from this predicament. “I can’t think of anything worse.”

“Suit yourself.” Alfred flicked his reins. “Not my business if you’re leaving money on the table. I’ll be back ’round this time tomorrow.”

As the horse clopped away, Bram raised his hand in farewell.

Tomorrow would be easier, because Marigold would be gone.

Chapter 6

Thick, overwhelming silence pressed on Marigold in the night-dark cottage.

Castle life meant noise. Even at its quietest, staff whispered, carts rolled, and guards’ footsteps echoed against stones. Church bells tolled, too. In the country, however, none of the comforting sounds that signaled human company could be heard.

This was a symphony of a different sort.

Above her, the thatch shifted. Outside, dry stalks whispered in the wind as well. In the distance, a hooting, but she wasn’t versed enough in bird calls to discern the type of owl. Fuzzle’s purring as she stroked his back was a roar in this silence. Mystery rustling perked her ears. Over time, she might be able to pick out the different noises. But for now—

Her thoughts scattered like startled birds as a scream cut through the courtyard.

The breath left her lungs, and cold seeped through her veins. Jask hadn’t stirred on the sofa below, however. Or maybe Jask caused the scream? But it was quiet again, save for the pounding blood in her ears. Maybe she’d imagined it? Nope, wait, there it was again. She flicked back the covers and lit her bedside candle. Marigold of Thornwick did not sit idly by as murder sat at the threshold.

“It’s only a fox,” Jask called, guessing her concern. “They get territorial in the fall as the young ones leave their dens. Nothing to worry about.”

She edged to the loft railing and peered at the shadowy lump on the divan. “Aren’t foxes cute and inquisitive? And not prone to banshee shrieking?”

“No to cute, yes to inquisitive and shrieking. And it’s already gone.”

This was the most he’d spoken since their humble meal together. The afternoon had gone much like the morning. Jask tackled chores outside while she repaired every textile and sorted everything within her reach. Then she dragged one of his big kitchen chairs around the cottage and tidied everything else. When he still hadn’t finished his long list of outdoor work, she reorganized his books in their proper alphabetical-by-author order.

In a desperate moment, she minimized herself and dashed across the courtyard to the privy. Had he told her to stay indoors? Yes, but she would have been mortified if he returned to an overflowing chamber pot.

At twilight, Jask popped inside to soak dried beans for the next day’s midday meal, then walked off with a stack of oatcakes, a towel, and a change of clothes. She put together a satisfying meal of bread, cheese, dried fruit and nuts, then inspected the contents of the bookcases’ lower cabinets. An hour later, the orc returned damp and smelling of warm pine and cloves, the same scent that surrounded her in his large bed. It suffused the pillow, the mattress, the linens.

It was familiar to her nose, but she couldn’t place it.

“Jask? Do you wear cologne?”

“No,” he said, scoffing at the suggestion. His eyes remained closed.

In the dark of the loft, she frowned. Where had she smelled the scent before? She hated when she couldn’t place something. The missing information nibbled at her mind, but experience taught her not to force it. If she let the mystery simmer, eventually the answer would reveal itself.

The hearth fire crackled and gasped.

The flickering light played on Jask’s stretched-out shape under a quilt. She’d rather be down there, chatting face to face. His expressions were difficult to read in full sunshine. In the dark, they were impossible.

She fiddled with a curl.

Despite brushing the twigs from her tresses and giving herself a bird bath while Jask was gone, she ached for a deep scrub. To rid herself of grime, yes. Also to cleanse herself of the castle, Crispin, and every moment between her escape last night and her arrival here.

Why had she agreed to marry Prince Crispin?

She wasn’t fully back to who she was before Bram’s death, but she was closer. That Marigold would’ve sussed out Crispin’s viperous intentions and flatly declined his offer, no matter what the boon to Thornwick. She was not a jewel to be traded between thrones.

Here, in this taciturn orc’s cottage, she was finally beginning to remember who the hell she was. If she stayed out of the prince’s clutches, her brothers were safe from his plot. She hadn’t yet worked out how to get to the sanctuary in Mareval and then how to inform her parents of the need to break the alliance with Harvest Hollow, but the solution would come to her.