Crow Hollow (12 page)

You killed one of those men yourself. They weren’t expecting that, either.

“They have to know we’re on our way to Winton,” James said. “If they catch me alone, I’m a dead man.”

“You’re not alone.” She shifted on her feet. The cold of the floorboards seeped up through her socks.

“I appreciate that, but they’ll be ready for you next time too. I need to reach Springfield. I’ll have help then.”

“What kind of help?”

He shifted in the bed. “Are you climbing in where it’s warm or standing there all night?”

“Is standing here all night a possibility?”

“Come on, I’m all the way over by the wall. I won’t touch you.”

At last she ventured over and pulled back the covers. There she stood for a long moment until he grumbled that he was getting cold. Finally, she climbed in quickly and pulled the covers up. She felt his body next to hers, but thankfully, his back was turned.

“You can trust me,” he said. “I am capable of mastering my urges.”

“Let’s not talk about your urges.”

“This might surprise you,” he said, “but women have urges too. They’re not all as cold as Newfoundland.”

“I know that.” Prudence felt prickly at this. “I’m a human of flesh and blood. I have desires too.”

“You do?” He sounded shocked.

“I was married nigh three years, Master Bailey. I am a woman of flesh and blood.”

“So now it’s Master Bailey, is it? Generally, women get
more
familiar when they climb into my bed, not less.”

“I shall pretend I don’t know what that implies.”

He chuckled. “A jest, that’s all.”

“Of course,” she said, drily. “I understand both lovemaking and jests. You think girls—even unmarried girls—don’t talk about men?”

“I hadn’t thought about it much, to be honest. But yes, I can imagine that easily enough.”

“You should see the way the Branch girls coo over handsome men. I heard them talking about you, in fact.”

“Really?” He rolled over to face her. “Tell me more.”

“Lucy thought you’d make a fine husband. It’s a good thing you left when you did or she might have come to your bed the first time Peter was out.”

“Who said she didn’t?” This time he didn’t sound like he was joking.

“What?” She shot out of bed. “You didn’t!”

“No, I didn’t. I could have, though. She made her interest clear enough. And I’m plenty man enough that I wanted to, that’s for sure.”

Prudence climbed back into bed. “You can turn back to the wall again.”

He obeyed with a sigh. “There is nothing about this situation that suggests that a good night of sleep is in store.”

No, there wasn’t. All this talk had left her flushed, and a new worry niggled at her. Supposing James
didn’t
behave himself. Could she guarantee that her own response would be virtuous?

C
HAPTER
F
IFTEEN

They were back on the road the next morning after a quick breakfast of cold bread, milk, and hard cheese. Prudence ached all over, and she was exhausted from a poor night of sleep. The inn had been cold and the bed hard.

To keep up their story, they rode two horses out of town and led the rest. The inn’s stable boy had cared for the animals well, and they weren’t as surly to be on the road as Prudence had expected. They made good time for the first two hours.

The day wasn’t as frigid as the past two, but the easing temperatures were accompanied by snow. At first it fell as light and fine as flour through a sifter, but gradually the sky turned from a slate gray to the shade of twilight, though it was midday. Soon, the snow fell in fat, lazy flakes, gradually growing in intensity.

James had been riding in silence, his brow furrowed and his gaze distant, but now he looked skyward. “Was that thunder?”

“Aye, thunder snow.”

“I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

“They say that when there is thunder during a snowstorm, someone important has died.”

His face darkened and he drew his lips into a narrow, hard line.

Prudence studied him, worried. “What troubles you?”

“I have been thinking about Peter Church. He may not count as important in the celestial mathematics of such things, but he was important to me. I will bring the king’s justice upon those villains, Prudence, as God is my witness.”

She knew what it was like to fall into dark, brooding memories, so to distract him she asked him about France, and he was soon telling her about Versailles, where the Sun King was building a palace of such magnificent size and opulence that she could scarcely imagine it. The grounds alone were the size of Boston, he claimed. He seemed to cheer in the telling.

Within an hour, a good two inches had fallen, and every stone wall, house, and barn carried a fresh white cap. Where the ground was flat they found it difficult to pick out the road from the surrounding fields.

About an hour later, they passed a horse-drawn sled carrying hogsheads of grain. The driver hailed them, demanded where they were going and from where they’d come, then asked for word from Boston. The news about the French off Nantucket agitated him greatly. He was still rumbling something about a war with the French in Quebec when they finally pulled out of earshot.

“Haven’t we had enough war?” she asked James.

“You’ll never get rid of it. War is the natural condition of man.”

“It shouldn’t be. Not here, anyway. New England is consecrated for the Lord.”

“Don’t deceive yourself. The devil is about his mischief here, just as he is anywhere.”

“But he shouldn’t be,” she insisted, more out of stubbornness than because she was convinced he was wrong. “He should have no place here. When every Godly soul bends his knee, Satan shall be dead in this land.”

“Dead?” James said. “What a shame to leave so many fatherless children in Boston.”

Prudence turned away with a snort and urged the horse ahead. But she couldn’t get the image of the devil’s fatherless children out of her mind, and an inadvertent laugh burst from her mouth. James came up beside her, grinning mischievously.

They’d hoped to make it to Springfield by nightfall, but they were still twenty miles outside the town and struggling through a foot of snow when James called a surrender and they started looking for lodging. The storm was easing, but in its wake came a biting wind that drove snow across the road. It stung at Prudence’s face and dug deep into her lungs.

They passed through a sleepy hamlet locked in by snow. There was no inn. James stopped his horse and eyed the houses.

“Don’t you think we’re better off trying one of the farmhouses outside of the village?” she asked. “Less gossip to pass around.”

“Probably, yes. I was just looking. It’s so beautiful.”

Was it? It wasn’t much different from fifty other New England villages, except that it did look white and clean with all the snow and icicles. The village meetinghouse boasted a steeple that was too tall to merely serve as a bell tower and seemed almost vain, except she did admit it looked striking against the snow-covered pine hills behind the town.

“’Twould be even more handsome with candles in the windows and Advent wreaths above the lintels,” James said. “It’s December nineteenth already. Why aren’t they decorated for Christmas?”

“We don’t celebrate Christmas,” she said. “That’s a Papist, pagan celebration.”

“Nonsense.”

“They still celebrate it in England?”

“We do have dissenting sects who eschew the holiday, but it’s hard to imagine a whole country of Christians casting it aside. I suppose you don’t have plum puddings, yule logs, fruitcakes, or gift giving, either.”

“No, those are all pagan rituals.”

“Drains the pleasure from life, that’s what it does.”

He seemed more disgusted by this than anything he’d seen so far in New England, and as they rode out of town she felt a twinge of shame. Her husband had often raised an eyebrow at the quirks of local customs, but somehow he’d never made her feel embarrassed about her home.

James began searching for a farmhouse to beg lodging as soon as they got out of the village, but they’d entered another stretch of ruined homes from the war. It was growing dark, the horses were shivering, and Prudence was about to suggest they turn around, when a light flickered from behind windows ahead of them just before the road plunged back into the forest.

It took some pounding to bring the startled owners of the house to the door. James exchanged introductions with the couple, who were named Meyer, then asked about spending the night. While he spoke, Prudence looked over his shoulder into the front room and was dismayed by what she saw. The simple, two-room house held half a dozen young children already, plus the couple. The place was tidy but hardly prosperous.

Goodwife Meyer was a stout, kindly faced woman with ruddy cheeks, who seemed more intrigued by the unexpected visitors than suspicious. But when James asked about a bed, she cast a doubtful glance at her already-crowded living quarters.

James got out his purse. “I’ll pay you, of course. Six shillings for a bed and supper, plus stabling the horses in your barn. Is that sufficient?”

That was overly generous, and the woman’s eyes widened as she glanced quickly at her husband.

“We could put the boys in the barn,” Goodman Meyer said quickly.

“Pray, don’t trouble yourself,” James said. “We’ll take the barn. Do you have fresh hay and extra blankets?”

“Of course, but I could never ask guests to sleep with the animals.”

“We have to rub down the horses anyway. We may as well sleep out there too. No, no, I insist. Here, take the money.”

It went back and forth a couple of times before the couple relented, obviously torn between the money and the desire not to cheat their overly generous guests. A few minutes later James and Prudence were leading the horses back to the barn, laden with blankets and a clay pot holding succotash—corn and beans cooked in lard—together with a bit of salted pork and corn bread wrapped in a cloth.

“Whatever else you can say about New Englanders,” James said, “they are dignified people. And even the poor have plenty of food.”

“So long as you like Indian corn,” she said.

Prudence wanted to ask him why he’d given them so much money. It was more than he’d paid Reverend Stone, only in this case for a cold night in a barn and little meat with supper.

She was initially pleased that the barn smelled more of straw than manure, but she soon discovered this was because the wind driving through the chinks in the wood planks kept it well ventilated. The family’s sheep huddled in one corner, which they shared with a milk cow, leaving plenty of room for the horses. It was so cold that Prudence and James soon moved their own hay beds back by the animals. They slept in all their clothes.

Sometime in the night, she woke to find herself snuggled next to James. Worse, as she came to, she realized that she had her arms around him, and not the other way around. He was nice and warm. If not for her feet, which felt like blocks of ice, she’d have been quite comfortable in spite of the wind groaning against the barn planks. Still, she pulled gently away until there was distance between their two bodies.

It was only proper.

Prudence woke in the morning to men’s voices outside. She sat up in the straw. Light streamed through a gap in the roof, and the animals were stirring, growing restless for their breakfast.

James stood near the barn door, his boots on, pistols in hand, and sword tucked into his belt. The way he carried himself, tense and coiled, reminded her of that moment in the coach before he’d knocked open the door and sprung out shooting. He spotted her rising and lifted a warning finger to his lips.

One of the voices rose outside, calling to someone else. A horse snorted, and she heard shuffling that sounded like more horses. A group of riders, then.

The voices trailed away. James didn’t take his eyes off the door, but he lowered the pistols.

She made her way quietly over. “What is it?” she whispered.

“I couldn’t pick out much. They’re looking for someone. No doubt us.”

“The highwaymen again?”

He didn’t answer. For a long minute they stood in silence. Then footsteps sounded outside. James tensed again and pushed her behind him.

But when the door creaked open, it was only Goodman Meyer. The snow lay all trampled outside and up to the house, but there was no sign of riders.

James hastily put away the guns, but not before Meyer noted them with a frown. His eyes flickered to Prudence, and there was deep suspicion there.

“This is your lawful wife, Goodman Smith?” he asked. “You haven’t run off with some man’s daughter, have you?”

“Of course she is my wife. What do you take me for?”

Meyer lowered his eyes. “Pray forgive me, good sir.”

“No need to apologize, I understand. A man’s hospitality doesn’t extend to protecting criminals and adulterers. But we are neither of those things.”

Meyer glanced at Prudence and blushed hard. “I beg your pardon.”

She nodded demurely, as if accepting his apology for the slight. Inside, her heart was pounding.

“I was certain you were innocent,” Meyer continued. “They claimed you robbed a coach and stole the horses. That seemed impossible.”

“Then you didn’t tell them we were here?” James asked.

“There were four men, demanding and rude. And there was something . . .
untrustworthy
about them.” Meyer shook his head. “Nay, I said nothing. You were fortunate the wind swept away your prints, and they thought you were most likely further east, anyway.”

“Thank you for that,” Prudence said.

The man hesitated and looked them over again. “I was sure they were up to no good. But then I saw your pistols, Goodman Smith, and I wondered . . .”

“That is only natural,” James said. “Any other man would have wondered the same.”

Yet he seemed at a loss to explain why he’d been standing at the door with a sword at his belt and two pistols in his hands if he weren’t up to something suspicious, and the suspicion hadn’t entirely faded from Goodman Meyer’s face.

Prudence took James’s hand and gave him a sympathetic look. “You had better show him the king’s commission. We can trust this good man.”

The hesitation vanished from James’s eyes. “Of course we can.”

He pulled out the king’s commission from his cloak and showed the seal to Meyer, but not, she noted, the actual contents.

Meyer stared, mouth agape. “An agent of the king? Are you moving against our rights and privileges?”

“Of course not. His Majesty respects the colony’s charter. I’m only here to settle some matters stirred up in the war. I brought my wife, as we are considering settling in this Godly country. I didn’t expect to be attacked on the road.”

“Nay, I would think not. Not here. The devil must truly be abroad in the land.”

“Indeed, he must.”

Prudence pretended not to notice James’s significant look.

James seemed glum when they were back on the road, leading the horses west toward Springfield. The wind was finally easing.