Page 21 of Wicked with Him

The fellow’s eyes rose impossibly high on his face as he gaped. “Standish, you say?”

“Yes, indeed,” he promised. Amity had left a scoundrel of a husband to live here. He could very well be that man for her. “I’m quite keen to be reunited with my wife after so long apart. Have you met her?”

Fletcher seemed to swell, and Roman became alarmed when he drew closer and growled, “You are Mr. Standish? A man who betrayed his own wife with her relation?”

Clearly, Amity had painted a grim picture of her husband and had found a champion in this fellow. Was he a suitor, too? Perhaps he thought he was, but Roman couldn’t see them together as a couple. Even scandalously.

Roman straightened to his full height as well and looked Fletcher in the eye. “That is between my wife and I, sir.”

Sensing an unwinnable dispute in the wind, the fruit seller wisely placed a restraining hand on Fletcher’s shoulder. “She’s in the last house, on the edge of the village, sir.”

“Thank you,” Roman replied with a sincere smile and regal nod. “I’ll call on her shortly, after speaking with the innkeeper about a viewing.”

It was dishonest and presumptuous to pretend without consulting Amity first, but he would pretend to be her Mr. Standish, come to woo his reluctant wife back to their marriage. If he failed—and the odds were not on his side—there would be no harm done, really. No one here knew what her husband looked like because he didn’t even exist. If he kept the lie simple, he would likely be believed.

And if he played the part of her husband convincingly well, it could only solidify Amity’s claim that she was truly a wife.

Chapter 8

Amity startled at a loud knock on her front door in the late afternoon. The hour was unusual for callers, especially on market day. She threw a shawl over her shoulders and shoved her feet into her half-boots, quickly tying them in place so she looked somewhat respectable again.

But sometimes a local woman did visit her late on market day, often to escape a boorish husband deep in his cups. Sometimes it was just a gardener from the manor house come to look for a stray cow in her garden.

Her solitary maid was currently preparing her dinner at the back of the cottage, so she answered her front door herself, expecting to see a friend.

What she found was the old bookseller from the market, regarding her with a delighted grin as he swept his hat from his head and bowed. “Madam, I hope you don’t mind my unannounced call today, but as a lover of books, I hoped to gather your opinion on a volume of poetry that fell into my hands. It was after your visit to my stall, or I would have shown it to you then and there. Might I come in to show you?”

Amity glanced beyond him and thankfully could see no one else watching their exchange. She could not invite this stranger into her home, not without a servant present to protect her reputation. That would be unseemly and cause harmful gossip. She’d worked too hard on her ruse to see it spoiled by carelessness.

But Amity was interested in books, so she stepped out her door and shut it firmly behind her. “I should be very happy indeed to discuss your new book. May I see it?”

The bookseller picked up a leather satchel from beside his feet, then looked up at the sky. “Perhaps we might go somewhere with shade.”

She nodded and led the way to a shaded patch of ground near her garden gate.

“I must say, your presence has been a breath of fresh air to the district,” he confided to her with a smile.

“You flatter me.”

“No. No. Business is booming thanks to your discerning purchases over the past weeks,” he promised. He produced the slim volume with a flourish, handing it out to her to view.

She picked it up and opened the pages. But then she frowned as every page she turned revealed to her a book she’d seen before. At his stall.

Amity nearly rolled her eyes at his pretense in calling on her. Did he think her so dim-witted not to remember his small collection? No doubt, he’d come in the hope of selling her another book today. She handed it back to him promptly. “It’s very nice but I have read it.”

“It’s a very fine edition,” he promised with a keen smile as he stroked the binding while holding it out to her. “I think if we were to go inside, perhaps, we could read this together. You must be very lonely without your husband’s company after so long.”

Amity gaped. From the remark and from the nerve of the old man to make so bold a suggestion. But just as she was about to blister the fellow’s ears with all manner of insults, a whistle drew her attention. Someone was coming down the lane at the worst possible time.

She prayed that they would see the bookseller at her door and not recognize the nature of his visit for the scandal it clearly was.

The whistle grew louder, and Amity swept around the bookseller to stand by the garden gate to put more distance between them. The relief she felt upon seeing Crawford headed in her direction, though, tossing a pair of oranges into the air, defied belief. She awaited his arrival breathlessly, aware that the bookseller had followed her to the gate as well.

Crawford’s brows rose high when he noticed the other man behind her, but he continued to toss his pair of oranges into the air. “I’m afraid I only have two.”

“This gentleman was just leaving,” Amity assured him quickly.

The bookseller made a sound of protest.