Perfect Knave Read online

But when morning dawned, Emile was not far away. Instead, he stood in Lucy's commodious kitchen with his head still aching and a squat, elfin-faced manservant peering up at him.

  "You don't have to help," Toby, the manservant, told him, sounding solicitous.

  Emile rubbed his head and looked at the pile of dead hens lying before them. Meanwhile, the rest of the kitchen was in a flurry of activity. Servants chopped food, turned spits, and generally rushed to and fro. The very sight of so much honest toil was enough to make Emile's head ache even harder.

  Why had he slept the night away? In the dark he could have slipped off easily. Instead, he'd succumbed to the growing pain in his head and exhaustion. Though his bed had been a simple pile of hay in the barn, he'd slept deeply. It had taken one of Lucy's efficient servants to waken him this morning, at which time he'd been informed he should report to the kitchen—and work.

  "All of them?" he now asked his companion, nodding toward the pile of chickens.

  Toby bit his lower lip. "There's over a hundred coming to Master Simple's birthday dinner. But if you're not feeling...up to it."

  Emile sighed. Of all honest toil, plucking chickens had to be the least attractive, but it was clear the elf-faced manservant was alone with this pile. With his sympathy fully roused, Emile dropped his hand from his head and clapped it around the man's shoulders. "Nay, Toby. I would be delighted to help."

  Strangely, Toby did not look relieved. His gaze grew more worried than ever. "Are you sure? I mean, nobody wants to strain you, uh, considering." Toby put a fist to his mouth and coughed, turning red.

  "Considering?" Emile frowned.

  Toby drew his fist from his mouth. He leaned closer. "Yesterday," he hissed.

  At the word, Emile nearly turned red himself. Yesterday he'd been a perfect fool. Misjudging a woman, then letting her clobber him senseless. It was horribly embarrassing. And now, having snored through the night, he was constrained to devise a more elaborate method of escape than simple running. Not that he was worried. Emile was very good at escape.

  "Let's get a start on these hens," Emile said. While plucking, he would decide exactly how to flee.

  But as he bent over the moribund pile, a nerve skipped up his spine. He was careful to continue his motion, however, collecting a dry pair of chicken legs and slinging the bird onto an empty table. Only then did he allow himself to glance toward the door.

  It was Lucy, of course, who'd triggered his nerve. She stood on the threshold, chin high, surveying the activity in the kitchen as if she were a field marshal. The scurrying servants managed to scurry even faster beneath her critical glare.

  Deliberately, Emile yawned. Just as deliberately, he rested an elbow on his hen.

  Having invited her gaze, he received it. Her forest-colored eyes landed on his slothful self.

  At the same time, a fine heat ignited beneath the surface of his shirt.

  Emile was startled by the sensation. Surely he wasn't impassioned by her. Lucy looked about as alluring as a banshee. She wore a stiff scowl and her dark tresses were pulled back with severity. An ugly brown gown disguised every possible curve of her body.

  "You there." Her strident voice carried easily over the din of the busy kitchen.

  Emile raised his brows and set a querying palm to the center of his chest. But despite his posture of unconcern, his heart took a dismaying leap as the female started toward him.

  It made no sense. She'd abducted him. She'd threatened him with the law, for the sake of heaven. But still his heart thudded hard and fast beneath his hand. Emile quickly lowered his hand so he wouldn't have to feel the traitorous beat.

  Lucy's fists planted on her hips as she came to a stop before him. "Well, then? What is the trouble here?"

  "Trouble?" Emile could smell her now, the scent of the soap she'd been using in her bathtub the day before. "Why, there is no trouble that I know of." But there was. Her dress was not disguising her curves as well as he'd thought. The shape of her breast, a breast he remembered too well, could be discerned beneath the stiff wool. Emile's lazy smile faltered.

  Lucy made an elegant gesture toward the bird. "Then why are you not working?"

  Emile made an "O" of his mouth and glanced under his arm at the hen. Making a play of it, he jerked straight, as if only then noticing the carcass. "You mean—this is for me?"

  "That and all the rest. You will help Toby pluck them."

  Toby, Emile noticed, had shrunk back from this battlefield. On his own then, Emile huffed grandly and brushed his elbow of imaginary dirt. "Dear lady, our agreement was that I would play for your father's dinner, not help cook it."

  "Pff." She waved a hand in the air. "You will earn your bread."

  From his sleeve, Emile's gaze flicked over to her. "You think my playing will not do so?"

  She rolled her eyes.

  Emile straightened. "Oh, I will earn it."

  "Starting with those chickens," Lucy commanded. Peering at him, she took a jerky step closer. "What is the matter? You have gone pale."

  "Me? No, it's—" It was perfectly ridiculous is what it was, for Emile suddenly wondered if he hadn't slept the night away on purpose, if he wasn't harboring some silly fantasy of actually proving himself to the woman. He stumbled backward as Lucy marched yet closer. "What are you doing?" he demanded.

  She was almost touching him. "Hold still."

  Emile could do little else as her arm shot up. The tips of her fingers landed around the outside of his left eye. He gasped, utterly flabbergasted as she spread the lids and glared at their undersides.

  "Red," she murmured, clearly displeased. "Let us view the other one."

  "Whoa!" Emile grabbed her arm before she could do any such thing. He regarded her icily. "What do you mean by this, gentle mistress?"

  "What do you think I mean, fool? Let me at your other eye."

  Emile's brows curled.

  She took advantage of his confusion to wrest her hand from his grip. Five fingertips, a great deal less gentle than before, landed around his right eye.

  "Red!" she expostulated. "Much too red."

  Emile did not move. Something stirred, nervous and unhappy in his stomach.

  She next checked his gums, carelessly flipping up his lips. "The humours are all out of balance," Lucy complained, then pressed painfully on his jaw to make him open his mouth. "I do not like it. I do not like it at all."

  Emile liked it even less. He jerked his head out of her grasp. "You are checking my health," he accused.

  "I—" Belatedly, Lucy appeared to realize she'd been less than discreet. Her eyes flicked around the kitchen where the cook had stopped chopping veal and the industrious servants had slowed their peeling of carrots. "Why—I am doing nothing of the sort." She turned back to Emile, her face blazing with the lie. "That is...I am merely assuring you do not bring some mongrel disease into the household. That is all."

  "Is it?" Emile sniffed. A host of images rose, unwelcome, in his mind: a senseless body getting pulled from drowning, a decision to put him in her wagon rather than abandon him on the field. If he wanted to, he could construe that Lucy had saved his life, rather than abducted him. If he wanted to. The unhappy nerves in his stomach knotted. Emile shook his head vigorously.

  He did not want to construe things that way. It would be absurd. He would be giving into a very old—aye, and dangerous—fantasy. Hastily, he groped for the true explanation.

  "Nay, you do not fear disease, mistress. What you fear is that—that I not drop dead, your victim, from the knocking you gave me!"

  She gasped, most guiltily, and gave another glance around the room.

  Emile relaxed. He'd been correct. She had no particular care for his person. She didn't want a man's life on her conscience, that was all. He understood. He'd felt the same way about her when they'd been in her bathtub with Carver lurking outside.

  The tight clot in Emile's stomach unknotted. "Do not worry, mistress. I'm not about to drop dead. All parts and functions are
in excellent working order." And then, because he was feeling so much better, he gave her a wink. "All parts and functions."

  She got the joke. All trace of color fled from her face. Meanwhile, any remaining activity in the kitchen ground to a complete halt. For the first time that morning, not a hand moved a rag, not a knife met a vegetable. All eyes fixed on the mistress.

  "Of course you are healthy, hale as a horse." Lucy's voice rose shrilly as she looked about the room. "There is no reason—no reason—to believe otherwise!" Here she glared, most dauntingly, at a person beyond Emile's shoulder.

  "Oh, yes, mistress." Toby's voice was barely a quaver. "But of course."

  Lucy swung her gaze back to Emile. Her eyes fairly scorched. "As for you, sirrah, I plan to escort your knavish hide to the constable tonight. That is how much I care about your health."

  She did not care one drop for him. Emile's smile burned brighter.

  "You will be whipped for vagrancy," Lucy crowed, "at the very least."

  "Oh, at the very least. Assuming, of course, I am proved incompetent."

  Lucy snorted. "Oh, yes, the marvelous, tears-inducing player."

  "All I have to do is prove myself competent," Emile reminded her.

  "You were not even competent," Lucy scoffed, "as a thief."

  Emile felt as if his smile might spread right off his face. There was no danger here. She did not care about him in the slightest. On the contrary, she scorned him for a thief and believed him incompetent.

  "We shall see," Emile drawled. "Whether I'm a player or a thief. We shall see—at dinner time."

  Her lashes lowered haughtily. "Indeed we shall."

  For a moment longer they glared at each other. It was a moment long enough for Emile to feel his lust stroked, as by a hand.

  Breathing in deeply, he made sure not to let his eyes widen at the power of the sensation. The lady had an odd appeal. Just as well he'd be miles away from her by dinner.

  Willing his body back to calm, Emile deliberately turned away from Lucy and back toward his bird. Though he could still feel her behind him, he assured himself she did not bother him. By dinner he would be on his own again, a free man. Thinking about it, Emile chuckled under his breath.

  Then Lucy would know which he was: a player or a thief.

  ~~~

  The dinner for Latham Simple started badly, with the guest of honor dabbling yet again in matchmaking.

  "But—but—I compared your hair to a mink!" protested the proposed match, a thickset man with heavy, beetle brows.

  Seated at the high table in the great hall of her father's house, Lucy raised a shoulder. "Mink, rat—what is the difference? They are both disgusting vermin. And you think to compare me to them?"

  The man choked, spluttered, and ended by drowning his consternation in Latham Simple's fine wine.

  Lucy plucked a raisin off a nearby plate and popped it into her mouth. Where her father kept finding these 'admirers' was a mystery. Word of Lucy's ill name had spread far and wide. This one must have travelled a great distance. Either that or been bribed by an astonishing addition to her already incredible dowry.

  Lucy's gaze slid past her would-be suitor. But her father's white beard was turned away from her. She could not see his guilty face. Worse, he had not heard a word of the set-down she'd given his latest proposed son-in-law. Completely engrossed in a discussion of the northern wool trade, he barely paid heed to the bites of capon he brought to his mouth, let alone to his brilliant daughter.

  Lucy reached for another raisin. Her lower lip puffed out. Did her father think the dozens of different delicacies set upon the tables happened there all by themselves? And the guests disporting at the tables lining three sides of the great hall—did he suppose they had all just dropped by? Weeks of planning this dinner had involved, and Lucy had been behind every minute of it.

  Then her father brought these 'suitors' home, desperate to marry her off—as if he could manage for a single day without her!

  "Mistress?"

  Gawain's voice drew Lucy at once. Alarmed, she turned to face the steward.

  "Ah! Do you come about the bread? I knew we would run out!" Furrowing her brow, she began to plan furiously.

  "Nay, nay, there is plenty of bread. The menu was chosen with great skill and care." Gawain provided the compliment her father would never have thought to give. "It is the knave, rather." Acid moved into Gawain's voice. "Do you want him to 'perform' now?"

  Lucy blinked. "You mean he is still here?"

  "It is true he nearly got away, the baggage. But I caught him out by the rabbit hutch." Gawain smiled smugly. "He protested warmly, but I locked him in the ewery."

  The ewery. No windows, no doors, just shelves full of distilled essences and cordials. With a bolted door, no possible way out. "And he is still there?" Lucy asked, surprised despite this last fact.

  "Aye. I checked just before I came up here."

  "In sooth." Somehow Lucy had been sure the rogue would slip away. She'd even counted on it. It would have been worth a piece or two of her father's silver plate—objects she was sure the knave coveted—to have him off and gone. Not that Lucy feared the fellow. Why should she? It was simply that...she would rather not have him whipped. That took valuable time from the constable's men, punishing vagrants. And—and it would be an inconvenience to have to walk by him in the stocks in the village square.

  Lucy realized her teeth had hold of her lips. She made herself let go and then rotated her right wrist. "Excellent," she told Gawain. "Bring him out."

  "What is this? Who is he bringing?" Albert was something of a dandy among the town's merchants. Tonight the white neck lace he wore thrust up past his chin. Smirking, he leaned close to Lucy's sister, Patrice. "Oh, wait, I know. The man Lucy bought at market."

  "Nay, nay." Lucy's younger sister picked up her new-fangled fan and tapped its end on the tabletop. "Do you think a man would consent to travel so closely with my sister? In sooth, it must be a eunuch."

  There was laughter all around—from Patrice, her erstwhile suitor, Albert, and two further men who stood behind them, also suitors to Patrice's hand. Only the fellow to Lucy's other side, Latham's dupe, did not laugh. Instead, he turned white.

  Lucy set her jaw and faced forward. Experience told her there was no way to stop the coming tide.

  Patrice leaned past her sister in order to address Lucy's escort. "You know about Sir Robert, of course? He was betrothed to Lucy."

  Lucy's would-be suitor shook his head.

  Delighted by his ignorance, Patrice tapped Albert on the shoulder with her fan, indicating he should rectify the situation.

  "Caught the French pox," Albert dutifully supplied. "Became, uh—" He paused to glance at Lucy. "Well, let us say he is no longer a stallion."

  Lucy pressed her lips together. And how was Sir Robert's case of the pox, she would like to know, attributable to his virgin bride-to-be? But so it had been, ever since the breaking of the betrothal.

  "And Winchell," Patrice put in, then whipped open her fan and screened her lower face, as if too embarrassed to go on.

  Lucy's suitor took the cue. "What happened to Winchell?"

  "An accident with a bakery oven." Mock-sober, Albert pointed to his waist and then flicked his fingers downward. "Burned. A poor, earnest baker's son."

  Lucy's flattened lips flew open. "I was nowhere near that fire. You cannot blame it on me!"

  "Winchell was desolated by your rejection. It made him careless."

  Lucy turned on Albert. "My rejection! It was a boy's silly infatuation. He's only twelve years old!"

  "Not quite a boy...any more." Eyes sparkling, Albert gave his head a sad shake.

  Patrice fluttered her fan madly, hiding a burst of laughter.

  "Nobody knows that!" Lucy cried. Her gaze went from Albert to Patrice and finally to her suitor. "How could anybody possibly know that for sure? It is not as if little Winchell has the opportunity to try."

  Patrice snorted vigorou
sly. Her fan continued to demonstrate its usefulness by hiding the inelegant event.

  Coughing madly, the man with the beetle brows rose from his seat. "Er, excuse me." With awkward haste, he scurried backward.

  Patrice set down her fan, no longer hiding her laughter.

  Albert threw back his head and guffawed.

  Lucy might have said something more, no doubt making matters even worse, but a movement at the end of the hall caught her attention.

  Gawain was striding into the center space. Behind him he pulled that rogue, Emile.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Lucy's assurance of the knave's elusive powers plummeted as she watched him shuffle in. His arm arched as he lagged behind Gawain and his face was blank. Carefully blank, as if he wanted to make sure no one could see his pain and fear.

  At Gawain's sign, the hired musicians stopped playing. The break in the music turned everyone's attention to the center of the room.

  Feeling the multitude of stares, Emile stopped, then stumbled as Gawain gave him a shove. He landed on his knees in the center of the hall.

  Emile's fall directed every single eye in the room upon him.

  Lucy's heart sank. She had not wanted it to come to this. Well, perhaps for a minute or two when his teasing had pricked, she had envisioned him embarrassed in return, but not this.

  Slowly, with his eyes wide on the crowd, Emile regained his feet. Lucy now saw that he held the narrow end of two gourd-shaped pins in his left hand. In his right hand, he bounced a third. The movement was tentative and jerky, not the sure motion Lucy had seen in real jugglers.

  Apparently he had chosen to try his few, modest sleight-of-hand tricks rather than attempt to play a musical instrument. Probably he could do neither.

  Dry wood. That was how Lucy's bones began to feel.

  Emile's right hand bounced the pin a degree deeper, then threw it into the air. The other pins followed, too quickly, a frantic mess. In a clatter, all three pins fell to the ground.

  A huge silence followed the sound. In it could be heard Emile sighing as he bent to pick up his scattered pins. He tossed and dropped them once again.