The Fate of Destiny (Fates #1) (33 page)

He smiled, a slow curve that didn’t expose any teeth.

“
Mistress Bailey. Are you not attending the festival?” he asked, weaving through the maze of vacant tables with uncanny grace. Arriving at the counter, he rested a hand there, long fingers spare of rings or adornment.

He stared across at the redheaded, gray-eyed woman and drew in her scent: apples, wine, spice, meat and rose soap. It was always some combination of food and flowers.

She lifted her chin and maintained eye contact, drying the goblet in her hands with quick, nervous swipes.

“
When Jared relieves me of my shift, yes. You may call me Nia, if it pleases,” she said.

He thought Miss Eugenia Bailey must not be overly fond of her given name, because this was the fourth time, at least, that she’d briskly offered an alternative. Intrigued, he watched her present a feisty façade while her fidgety body language suggested unease in his presence.

She set the heavy goblet down, snapped the small towel onto the counter and regarded him with
that
look.

The one that was too sweet to be suspicious and too knowing to be ignored.

In one fell swoop, she set the situation on edge. He stared at her from lidded eyes, nostrils flaring. The predator in him felt challenged by her boldness, real or perceived.

Sixty seconds passed in unrelenting tension until she glanced down at the counter and cleared her throat. The ends of the towel, already fraying, were now shredded into skinny strips. She picked and picked and pried and tugged.

Mollified by her retreat, his aggression eased.

“
I will consider it, Mistress Bailey.” There was a scratch and rasp to his voice that hadn't been there before.

Her voice cracked with a meek question, eyes downcast. “Will you have a drink before you go?”

He didn’t realize he’d leaned a few inches closer until he straightened to step away from the counter for the doors. Fighting for diplomacy he didn’t feel, he said, “No, but thank you. Perhaps I will see you at the festival.”

The woman tried his patience like no other.

“
Have a good time, Mister Trimble!” She sounded stubbornly cheery.

He paused just before he stepped out, looking back, half expecting to see her smiling and waving. She smiled and waved
when
he looked, like they had not just traded several minutes of awkward friction.

Humans were the most confusing creatures on earth. The door whispered closed on his shadow.

****

Eugenia exhaled a breath she didn't realize she was holding. Positive she hadn't imagined the threat she felt in the air, she willed her heart back into a normal rhythm and released her white knuckled grip on the towel.

Nehemiah Trimble remained an enigma. They had passed like ships in the night for months and she was no closer to knowing him,
really
knowing him, than she had been when he arrived. None of the other women knew him any better than she. Nor did any of the men she’d been brazen enough to ask. They knew the simple things; that he was six months new to the town, that he was living at the Rose and Lion, and that he worked as a scribe for scholars.

Usually, she had no trouble getting to know
anyone.
Exuberant and merry, she asserted her goodwill and compassion onto the citizens and people responded in kind. Except for the shoemaker, grumpy Mister Rou, who scowled and fussed and tried to pretend he wasn’t charmed by her smiles.

She wiped down the already clean bar and set a clean stack of trenchers on the back counter. Everyone was at the festival and business would be slow until morning.

Jared, the lumbering, giant man who tended the Inn at night, ambled in the side door a few minutes later. Blocky and bulky, he had the finesse of a bull in a china shop but fists the size of warhammers; it kept any rabble-rousers in check in the off hours. He had sandy blonde hair and gray eyes so light they almost looked white. His clothing consisted of a threadbare muslin shirt and dark suspenders that helped hold up tan colored breeches.

Eugenia perked when she saw him, putting away the last of the goblets she’d washed.

“
I am off to the festival, Jared. I do not think you will be too busy tonight.” Eugenia didn't expect a verbal answer from Jared, who preferred silence to speaking. Always.

She patted his arm on her way by, whisked out from behind the counter, and hurried to the door.

Eugenia left the Inn for her small cottage nestled at the very edge of the woods, hurrying past the stables where horses nickered when they heard her go by. It wasn’t her own, this little house, but she always warmed at the sight of it. Ivy twisted up the outer walls like skinny, seeking fingers. Leaves draped down from broad branches overhead, creating a whispering rustle on the roof that she’d grown used to over time.

Now she found it charming instead of annoying.

Most of the merry flowers lining the cobbled walk were starting to wane as the season inched toward winter. Patches of snapdragons and broad-faced pansies surrounded roses of red, pink and yellow. Morning glory twined around the post of a birdhouse in the yard.

The lock on the door had been broken for some time and she swished inside, closing it soundly behind her.

“
I am home, Honey!” She smiled, amused at the ritual of announcing her arrival.

A small living room sat to the right, a kitchen to the left, and a harrowing, rickety staircase between led up to the loft. Straight ahead, two bedrooms split off a short hall.

Bypassing the living room, Eugenia all but ran into her bedroom. A plaintive meow greeted her from the bed. The cat, roused from its sleep, yawned and sat up. Honey had been her companion for six years, twelve days and four hours. They shared a great affection and she paused to pet and coo, earning a lazy lick along the end of her nose.

Moonlight poured through the window in an elegant stream, bathing the dress she’d laid out in anticipation of the festival. It was the best one she owned, bought back in the spring after months of careful saving and planning for just this occasion. Burgundy and cream brocade, it had a fitted bodice, full sleeves and embroidery along the hem. Without any help, it took her fifteen minutes to change. At least it laced up the front instead of the back.

She traded her dusty work slippers for a newer pair and brushed her hair without the benefit of a looking glass, leaving the wavy tresses shining gloriously down her back.

“
I will be home late, Honey. Do not wait up for me!” She scratched the purring feline gently under the chin, laughing, and had just straightened when she heard rustling outside the open window. The crack of a twig drew her gaze there immediately. All she could see were deep shadows made by the trees. Eugenia had never feared for her safety until several members of Malmsbury society went missing.

The silence stretched thin, expectant, as if someone was standing just outside the window against the wall, listening to her. Honey’s ears flattened and she darted off the bed and under it, disappearing from sight. Eugenia saw it in periphery because she couldn’t take her eyes off the window. Any second a dark silhouette was going to blot out the moonlight, sinister and scary, intent on dragging her into the woods.

Eugenia Bailey wasn’t having it.

Picking up a heavy stick that she’d set by her bed, she stalked to the window.

“
Who goes there?” she shouted.

Leaning out with the stick raised, ready to strike, she glanced left and right.

No one waited on either side. She scoured the shadows and found nothing suspicious.

“
A deer then,” she surmised, pulling back inside with an indignant huff. It didn’t explain Honey’s strange dive off the bed or the eerie feeling of being stalked. Deliberately, she put it from her mind. She’d been listening to far too many rumors flying about town.

She leaned the stick against the wall and briskly left the cottage; the festivities were well under way and time was wasting.

. . .