Кэндис Робб - The Apothecary Rose

More dreary thoughts. Even the quince blossoms could not cheer her. Lucie scooped Melisende up from the foot of the bed and cuddled her. The cat had been sleeping peacefully. Now she opened an eye to see why she had been disturbed. And, seeing her mistress’s teary face bent over her, applied a rough tongue to the tears.

“I thought if I had the shop I would be quite content,” Lucie whispered into Melisende’s warm fur, “but I had not thought what it would be like all alone.” She put the cat down and got out of bed. “The best antidote for this sort of mood is hard work.”

She had just poked the fire to life and started breakfast when Owen came in with a load of wood.

Lucie’s heart skipped a beat. “I hardly expected you so early.” She turned away from Owen to hide the relief on her face.

“I am sure there is much to be done.”

“I have managed.”

He stacked the wood by the hearth while she prepared the porridge.

They ate for a while in silence. Lucie tried to think how to ask Owen what his plans were, why he was here.

Owen broke the silence first. “Jehannes is to be the new Archdeacon of York.”

“Is that good?”

“I think he is an excellent man.”

Lucie nodded, staring at her bowl.

“And Michaelo is replacing Jehannes,” Owen said.

“That does not seem such a wise choice.”

“I would agree with you there. The Archbishop says that Michaelo feels he has been given a second chance at Heaven, and that will make him loyal.” Owen’s tone said the Archbishop was a fool.

Lucie was surprised. “You do not care for the Archbishop.”

“No.” Owen looked angry. “Michaelo’s family bought him.”

At the moment Lucie did not want her trust in the Archbishop undermined, so she changed the subject. “Did you while away all your time at the abbey in gossip? Were you not to decide what to do with yourself now?”

Owen looked guarded. “Has the Archbishop spoken with you?”

“Yes. I am to have the shop for my silence. And you? Has he spoken to you?”

“He told you nothing else?”

“What else was there to tell?”

“Anything about me?”

“He said you wanted to find honest work.”

“That is all?”

“Yes, Owen. What did you think?”

“I want to remain here. As your apprentice.”

Her eyes opened wide, then her face lit in a grin. “You are joking.”

“No.”

“I cannot imagine you being content with that.”

“I can imagine it.”

“You are running away from life.”

“From my old life, yes.”

“You will itch for action.”

“Then I will go out in the garden and work up a sweat. Chop wood. Dig holes. Move trees.”

Lucie laughed.

Owen was disappointed. He’d been a fool to hope. He should have known she would not agree. “You still think of me as a soldier. You have condemned me to that life forever.”

“I’m sorry.”

“People can change, but you’ll never believe it. Where would you be if Nicholas had assumed you could be happy only as lady of the manor? Would you have liked spending the rest of your life in a convent?”

Lucie blushed. “Someone else might have asked for my hand.”

There he went, insulting her. Jesus Lord, he had an unlucky tongue. “That is not the point. I have told you more times than I can count that I am finished with soldiering. Why won’t you believe it?”

“Why should I believe anything you say? You insinuated yourself in my household with a lie. You sneaked around and lied about what you were doing. Oh, surely, now you say that you want to be my apprentice, but how do I know that you’re not still in the Archbishop’s employ? Keeping an eye on me, perhaps? Just in case the widow Wilton was a poisoner after all?” She was shouting at him, as if her voice were a whip with which to hurt him for hurting her.

Owen stood up. “I never wanted to lie to you.”

“Nevertheless, you did.”

“I also saved your life.”

Lucie bit her tongue.

“I’m a fool to keep trying to make you believe me. You rejected me the moment you saw me.” Owen walked toward the door.

“Please sit down, Owen. I don’t mean to argue with you whenever we speak.”

He turned. “Perhaps it’s a sign that my apprenticeship is a bad idea.”

“What would the Archbishop think of this plan?”

Owen realized that she was stalling. She did not want him to walk out the door. All right. He would see where this led. He returned to the table. “I told him what I planned. He did not object.”

“He did not tell me.”

“I thought he would.”

Lucie picked up the dishes, wiped off the table, then sat down across from him again. “Aunt Phillippa left yesterday. I could use help. At least until the Guildmaster can find another apprentice.”

“Try me out.”

She sighed. “I have to, don’t I? I signed a contract. The Guildmaster witnessed it.”

“When I lied, I forfeited any right to hold you to the contract.”

“You have been far more helpful than an ordinary apprentice.”

And he continued to be, on through the spring. At first Lucie watched him, wondering why he stayed, and if perhaps the Archbishop had actually planted him there to watch her. But Owen stuck with his work all day, accompanied her to Mass on Sundays, and, according to Bess, met with no suspicious drinking companions at the tavern. Unless he did not sleep, Owen had no time to work for anyone but her. So Lucie relaxed. She let him work on his own more, and accepted his suggestions when she agreed with them. There even came an evening – it would have been Nicholas’s birthday – when Lucie needed company and invited Owen to stay after the meal and sing to her. As before, his voice moved her. Cheered her. She realized how fond she’d grown of his crooked smile, the birdlike way he moved his head to see everything with the one eye, even the way he argued with her when she was being stubborn. She liked having him here in front of the hearth with her at the end of the day.

She did not confide any of this to Bess.

The Breton jongleur haunted Owen’s dreams. The wild-eyed man crept toward him from the shadows. His leman crept up behind. Again and again Owen caught her arm as she reached for his eye and yanked the arm behind her. At dawn his comrades congratulated him on the corpse. And he was whole. He was Captain of Archers. Across the Channel his wife waited in his bed, dreaming of him, longing for his return. He could see her there, her white skin, her silky hair spilling down her naked breasts…

Owen woke in a sweat, as he had many nights through the spring. He slipped out of the York and walked. Walked fast. Walked until the tenderness of the dream, the joy, was sweated out of him, cleared from his head. It would not do to dream of Lucie Wilton as his wife. She had shown no such inclination. But this night he could not shake the feeling of tenderness. He returned to Davygate still disturbed. He opened the gate beside the shop and went back to the garden. There was a pit for compost to dig. He stripped to the waist and worked in the moonlight.

Lucie woke at the sound of the gate, terrified. It was too late to be Owen or Bess. The intruder passed under the window, and then silence. She held her breath. Then she heard someone shoveling, far back in the garden. She threw on a shawl and picked up the walking stick Owen had cut and shaped for Nicholas.

The full moon lit up the garden. Lucie kept to the shadows, tracking the intruder. But it was no intruder. Worse, perhaps. It was Owen, stripped to the waist, sweat shining on his back and arms. The muscles in his back flexed and rippled as he worked. Geof had once told her that archers had to be very strong to make an arrow fly all the way to the enemy. She remembered the feeling of Owen’s arms around her. He was as unlike Nicholas as a man could be. She wondered if those muscles were hot to the touch when he worked like that. God forgive me for such thoughts . She should go back inside. But she could not take her eyes off Owen. Moon-mad, both of them. He for digging a hole in the middle of the night, she for staring at him. She shivered, although her body was uncomfortably warm.