The third girl smiled slyly and said in a knowing sing-song: “Well, maybe she an’t married yet, but she’s already been—”
“Hush!” interrupted the first, nodding toward the younger children.
“Just the same,” she insisted, though she had lowered her voice to a hiss, “my brother says Bob Starling told him he had his way with her on Mothering Sunday!”
But Lisbeth, who had started the conversation, gave a contemptuous snap of her fingers. “Uds Lud, Gartrude! Jack Clarke said the same thing six months ago—and she’s no bigger now than she was then.”
Gartrude had an answer. “And d‘ye want to know why, Lisbeth Morton? B’cause she can spit three times in a frog’s mouth, that’s why. Maggie Littlejohn seen her do it!”
“Pooh! My mother says nobody can spit three times in a frog’s mouth!”
But the argument was cut short. For suddenly a sound of galloping hoofs echoed through the quiet little valley and a body of men on horseback rounded the turn of the road above St. Catherine’s and came rushing headlong up the narrow street toward them. One of the six-year-olds gave a scream of terror and ran to hide behind Lisbeth’s skirts.
“It’s Old Noll! Come back from the Devil to get us!” Even dead, Oliver Cromwell had not lost his salutary effect on disobedient youngsters.
The men reined in their horses, bringing them to a prancing nervous halt not more than ten yards from where the girls stood in a close group, their earlier fright and apprehension giving way now to frank admiring interest. There were perhaps fourteen men in all but more than half of them were either serving-men or guides, for they wore plain clothes and kept at a discreet distance from the others. The half-dozen in the lead were obviously gentlemen.
They wore their hair in the shoulder-length cut of the Cavaliers, and their dress was magnificent. Their suits were black velvet, dark red velvet, green satin, with broad white linen collars and white linen shirts. On their heads were wide brimmed hats with swirling plumes, and long riding capes hung from their shoulders. Their high leather boots were silver-spurred and each man wore a sword at his hip. They had evidently been riding hard for some considerable distance for their clothes were dusty and their faces streaked with dirt and sweat, but in the girls’ eyes they had an almost terrifying grandeur.
Now one of the men took off his hat and spoke to Lisbeth, presumably because she was the prettiest. “My services, madame,” he said, his voice and eyes lazily good-humoured, and as he looked her over slowly from head to foot Lisbeth blushed crimson and found it difficult to breathe. “We’re looking for a place to eat. Have you a good tavern in these parts?”
Lisbeth stared at him, temporarily speechless, while he continued to smile down at her, his hands resting easily on the saddle before him. His suit was black velvet with a short doublet and wide knee-length breeches, finished with golden braid. He had dark hair and green-grey eyes and a narrow black mustache lined his upper lip. His good looks were spectacular—but they were not the most important thing about him. For his face had an uncompromising ruthlessness and strength which marked him, in spite of his obvious aristocracy, as an adventurer and gambler, a man free from bonds and ties.
Lisbeth swallowed and made a little curtsy. “Ye mun like the Three Cups in Heathstone, m’lord.” She was afraid to recommend her own poor little village to these splendid strangers.
“Where’s Heathstone from here?”
“Heathstone be damned!” protested one of the men. “What’s wrong with your own ordinary? I’ll fall off this jade if I go another mile without food!” He was a handsome blonde red-faced young man and in spite of his scowl he was obviously happy and good-natured. As he spoke the others laughed and one of them leaned over to clap him on the shoulder.
“By God, we’re a set of rascals! Almsbury hasn’t had a mouthful since he ate that side of mutton this morning!”
They laughed again at this for apparently Almsbury’s appetite was a well-established joke among them. The girls giggled too, more at ease now, and the six-year-old who had mistaken them for Puritan ghosts came out boldly from behind Lisbeth’s skirts and edged a step or two nearer. At that instant something happened to create an abrupt change in the relationship between the men and girls.
“There’s nothing wrong with our inn, your Lordship!” cried a low-pitched feminine voice, and the girl who had been talking to the two young farmers came running across the green toward them. The girls had stiffened like wary cats but the men looked about with surprise and sudden interest. “The hostess there brews the finest ale in Essex!”
She made a quick little curtsy to Almsbury and then her eyes turned to meet those of the man who had spoken first and who was now watching her with a new expression on his face, speculative, admiring, alert. While the others watched, it seemed that time stopped for a moment and then, reluctantly, went on again.
Amber St. Clare raised her arm and pointed back down the street to the great sign with its weather-beaten gilt lion shimmering faintly as the falling sun struck it. “Next the blacksmith’s shop, m’lord.”
Her honey-coloured hair fell in heavy waves below her shoulders and as she stared up at him her eyes, clear, speckled amber, seemed to tilt at the corners; her brows were black and swept up in arcs, and she had thick black lashes. There was about her a kind of warm luxuriance, something immediately suggestive to the men of pleasurable fulfillment—something for which she was not responsible but of which she was acutely conscious. It was that, more than her beauty, which the other girls resented.
She was dressed, very much as they were, in a rust wool skirt tucked up over a green petticoat, a white blouse and yellow apron and tight-laced black stomacher; her ankles were bare and she wore a pair of neat black shoes. And yet she was no more like them than a field flower is like a cultivated one or a sparrow is like a golden pheasant.
Almsbury leaned forward, crossing his arms on his saddle bow. “What in the name of Jesus,” he said slowly, “are you doing out here in God’s forgotten country?”
The girl looked at him, dragging her eyes away from the other man, and now she smiled, showing teeth that were white and even and beautifully shaped. “I live here, m’lord.”
“The deuce you do! Then how the devil did you get here? What are you? Some nobleman’s bastard put out to suck with a cottager’s wife and forgotten these fifteen years?” It was no uncommon occurrence, but she looked suddenly angry, her brows drawing in an indignant scowl.
“I am not, sir! I’m as much my father’s child as you are—or more!”
The men, including Almsbury, laughed heartily at this and he gave her a grin. “No offense, sweetheart. Lord, I only meant you haven’t the look of a farmer’s daughter.”
She smiled at him quickly then, as though in apology for her show of temper, but her eyes went back immediately to the other man. He was still watching her with a look that warmed all her body and brought a swift-rising sense of excitement. The men were wheeling their horses around and as his turned, its forelegs lifted high, he smiled and nodded his head. Almsbury thanked her and lifted his hat and then they rode off, clattering back up the street to the inn. For a moment longer the girls stood silently, watching them dismount and go through the doorway while the inn-keeper’s young sons came to take care of their horses.
When they were out of sight Lisbeth suddenly stuck out her tongue and gave Amber a shove. “There!” she cried triumphantly, and made a sound like a bleating female goat. “Much good it did you, Mrs. Minx!”
Swiftly Amber returned the shove, almost knocking the girl off balance, crying, “Mind your knitting, chatterbox!”