“Then . . .” The baker’s lips moved as he calculated. “Nine shillings a week for six months.”
“Six months,” Jack repeated. A slow burn ignited in his gut. “You have not been paid in all this time. Since my cousin died.”
Since Sloat took over the management of the estate.
The baker nodded warily.
Grimly, Jack began to count out sovereigns on the counter.
A commotion in the street outside filtered through the stone and daub walls.
“Thief!” The cry penetrated to the shop.
Sloat’s voice.
Jack’s head shot around. Through the dirty windows, he could see his estate steward’s broad, round-shouldered back nearly blocking the view of the street. And beyond Sloat, at the center of a tightening knot of villagers, was a woman in a sky blue dress with a cloud of hair pale as moonlight and floating like thistledown.
The fire in Jack’s gut shot to his chest. Morwenna.
Dropping the money on the counter, he strode to the door.
“I am not a thief.” Her voice rose above the crowd, clear and cool and edged with irritation like ice. “I offered to pay.”
“With stolen coin,” Sloat blustered.
“With gold, yes.” She drew her shawl more tightly over her elbows. “I thought he would prefer it to jewels. The other man said—”
“And where does the likes of you get gold or jewels?”
“Enough,” Jack ordered.
The word dropped into the crowd like a stone, sending ripples through the square. The villagers eddied and ebbed away, leaving him a clear path and a clear view of Morwenna. She stood in the street, straight as a Viking maiden at the prow of her ship, her loose hair tousled by the wind.
His heart slammed into his ribs. She was even more beautiful than he had remembered.
A face like an angel, the baker had said. Yes. But the cool perfection of her features only offset the wicked awareness of those eyes. She saw him and a slight, very slight smile lifted one corner of her mouth.
His breath stopped.
Sloat, the great, fat idiot, was too intent on his target to understand he had lost command of the situation. “Answer me, girl. Where would you get gold?”
She turned those wide, bright eyes on him. “I found it.”
He sneered. “Stole it, you mean.”
“Mr. Sloat.” Jack did not raise his voice, but any man in his battalion would have recognized and responded instantly to his tone. “You have no evidence of a crime, only of an offer to pay. Which I understand is more than you have managed these last six months.”
His estate manager flushed. But he did not back down. “No honest woman would have such a coin in her possession.” He scanned the circle of witnesses before beckoning forward a dark, thin man in a shabby brown coat.
Jack recognized the shopkeeper. Hodges? Hobson, that was his name.
“Tell him,” Sloat said.
The thin man fidgeted. “Well, she came in wanting some shoes, you see. I had some half boots ready-made. Not fine, but serviceable for a lady, and—”
“The coin,” Sloat snapped.
“Right.” Hobson looked once, apologetically, at Morwenna, before addressing Jack. “It was gold. And, er, old.”
Jack held out his hand. “Show me.”
“Er . . .”
Morwenna thrust her chin at Sloat. “He took it.”
“For safekeeping,” Sloat insisted. “The coin is evidence. It must be preserved until this woman can be brought before a magistrate.”
“Let me see,” Jack said.
Sloat dug in his waistcoat pocket and abstracted his prize.
Jack turned it over in his palm. Rather than the guinea he expected, the coin was roughly stamped on one side with a cross and on the other with two pillars. A Spanish doubloon, like the pirate treasure he used to dream of when he was a boy. He looked at Morwenna. “This is yours?”
She shrugged. “As much as anyone’s.”
Jack had a sudden vision of her confronting him in her cottage, the outlines of her body revealed through her loose white dress. I do not want your money, she had said. I laid with you for my pleasure.
“She’s a liar as well as a thief,” Sloat said.
Jack kept his hand from fisting on the coin. “I would not throw around public accusations of thievery if I were you. Go back to the hall. I want the household accounts for the past six months on my desk when I return.”
Sloat wet his lips. “I only want to see justice done.”
“So do I,” Jack said grimly. “The accounts, Mr. Sloat.”
Sloat’s gaze darted around the circle of interested and unsympathetic faces. A soft catcall carried through the ranks of the villagers. A snigger. A hush. For months the steward had been the power here; it would take time to establish Jack as master of Arden Hall.
Sloat delivered a jerky bow and stalked toward their tethered horses.
The tension loosened in Jack’s shoulders. He held out the gold piece to Morwenna. “I believe this is yours.”
“His now,” she said, with a nod toward Hobson. “He gave me shoes.”
Jack glanced from her new boots to Hobson’s avid face.
“It is too much,” Jack explained. “Nor can he spend it here. I will pay him for the boots.”
Such a fuss over a coin, Morwenna thought.
The children of the sea flowed as the sea flowed, free from attachments or possessions. What they needed they retrieved from the deep, the gifts of the tide, and the shipwrecks of men.
She regarded the tall, dark-haired human with the hard mouth and gentle, weary eyes, holding out the treasure from the sea. Her lover from yesterday. How amusing.
How adorable.
He had come to her rescue. Anyway, he thought he had, which was unexpectedly appealing.
Her brother had been right. There was much she did not understand about human ways. She had blundered with the pearl, she acknowledged. Floundered with the gold.
But she was right, too. She could make a place for herself among humankind if she chose.
She smiled as she took the coin like a tribute from her lover’s hand.
She had her own ways of getting what she wanted.
She watched him confer with the shopkeeper; saw more coins exchange hands.
“Thank you, Hobson,” the man said quietly.
The shopkeeper bowed deeply, clutching the money. “Thank you, Major.”
His name was Major, Morwenna noted as he came back to her. She really must make an effort to remember it this time.
“Have you completed your errands?” the man—Major—asked.
She had purchased bread and shoes. Surely that was enough to prove to Morgan that she could function perfectly well onshore.
“Yes. Thank you,” she added, because he and the shopkeeper had both used the phrase and it seemed like the right thing to say.
“Then may I escort you home?”
He was so stiff, so considerate. Something about that strong, composed face, those warm, observant eyes, got her juices flowing.
Her smile broadened. “You may.”
“My horse must carry us both, I am afraid,” he said, a rueful expression in his eyes. “I could lead you, but my leg would undoubtedly give out on the walk over the bluffs.”
She regarded the great gray animal standing placidly in front of the shop and felt almost breathless. He expected her to ride on that? And the animal would allow it?
This day was proving full of new experiences.
“Your leg and my feet,” she said.
“I beg your pardon?”
She gestured toward her feet, already chafing in their laced leather boots.
His face cleared in comprehension. “Your new shoes.”
Her first shoes, she thought, wiggling her toes cautiously. They were very uncomfortable. Very human. She could not wait to show them to Morgan.
Major mounted with surprising grace for a big man with a bad leg. He leaned down from the saddle. “Take my hand,” he instructed. “And put your foot on mine.”