His horse shifted a step as Royce pulled the straps tight on the saddlebags and then buckled down the blanket over the top. Baron McMannis’s estate was only three days’ ride, but winter doubled their gear. Inns could not be counted on, and while the season was early, storms were plentiful. They had to pack for the worst, and that meant bringing everything. No matter how much forethought he put into it, he always felt he forgot something. The feeling usually proved true, with the discovery always made ten miles down the road.
Hadrian had already packed and his mare looked like a miner’s mule. He was across Wayward Street at the tavern helping the girls move the heavy stuff. Gwen had bought the certificate to Grue’s tavern and together they were rolling old casks out of the way while the girls swept and scrubbed. Dixon was well enough to leave the doctor’s place and had returned to the House. He sat out front wrapped in blankets, looking frustrated. The big man was thinner than Royce remembered from the previous year, but at least he was up and eating again.
Gwen stepped out of the dusty shadows of the tavern. Her dress was filthy and there were smudges on her face. With one hand leaning on her crutch and the other shielding her eyes, she peered back at the building. She, too, looked better. The bruises and cuts were fading, but the presence of the crutch made him wish he could kill Exeter twice.
“Shouldn’t you leave the work to the girls?” he asked.
“There’s so much to do.”
“You’re still healing.”
“Thanks to you, I’ll be fine.” She wiped her hands on her apron. “We all will.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He tried to keep a straight face but couldn’t resist a smile, not while she was staring. How she did that baffled him. He made a living out of lying. He was good at it, but not with her. He wanted to tell her everything—the way even a sane man who stood on the brink of a cliff might think about jumping. Knowing disaster would follow didn’t change the desire; something about the view begged it. For now, the view was enough.
Hadrian came out, unrolling sleeves. “By Mar, that place was a mess, but I think you can handle the rest without me. And Royce gets grumpy when I make him wait.”
“Thank you,” Gwen said. “I don’t suppose you’d let me pay you.”
Hadrian gave her a smirk; then his eyebrows rose. “You could tell me what you saw in my palm … well, maybe not all of what you saw. Maybe just something good.”
She glanced at Royce briefly and offered a weak smile, but there was a sadness that bothered him.
“What is it?” Hadrian asked. “Did you see my death?”
“No,” she replied.
Gwen paused briefly, then smiled to herself and said, “One day you’ll remember this moment. It will have faded to a mere wisp, a ghost of a long-forgotten past, but it will return to you. You’ll have white hair and feeling your years. You’ll be thinking about your life, about what you achieved and what you failed at and be troubled. You’ll be sharpening a blade and cut yourself. You’ll see the blood and it will remind you that I said this would happen. You’ll remember and you’ll smile, then you’ll frown, and finally in the silence of that little room, you’ll cry. You’ll cry because it will all make sense then. Your wife will find you crying and she’ll hold you and ask what happened. You’ll look at her and see she’s frightened. In all the years she’s known you, through all the troubles you faced together, she’s almost never seen you cry. You’ll shake your head and simply say, ‘Gwen.’ She’ll understand and the two of you will hold each other. You’ll both cry and the moment will pass. It will be a good moment. Whatever was troubling you will be washed away by those tears and remind you of many things, some that you’ll have forgotten about but shouldn’t have, and that day will be the better for it.”
Looking embarrassed, Hadrian turned to Royce and said, “Hear that, I’m going to have a wife.”
“You deserve one,” he replied, and was pleased to see Hadrian and Gwen each took his meaning differently. Words were rarely so accommodating.
Gwen looked back at the tavern. “It will take years to make it really presentable. I’ll need to rip out whole floors and still I wonder if I will ever manage to clean the memories of Grue and Stane from it.”
“Make it too pretty and you’ll have to change the name,” Hadrian said, grabbing his horse.
“Oh, I plan to change the name. I won’t own a place called The Hideous Head.”
“What are you gonna call it?” Hadrian asked.
“The Rose,” she told him, and this caused a round of smiles. “I was thinking of clearing out that old kitchen storage room for you and Royce. It’s back away from the public rooms. You could talk business there. Store your gear if you like. I’ll watch over you as I did when we first met.”
“How much?” Royce asked.
“How much, what?”
Royce approached her. “How much rent will you charge?”
Gwen looked stunned. “I won’t charge you rent.”
“That’s not smart.”
Gwen pivoted around the crutch with two petite hops to face him full-on. “I couldn’t have bought the certificate to the tavern without you. If you hadn’t come—” She looked away and took a breath. “If you hadn’t come, Grue would have driven me out of business, or worse, and I honestly think it would have been the or worse. And who knows how many more Avons and Roses there would have been.” She placed a small hand on his chest. “You changed everything. And I owe you that—how could I charge?”
“Okay, fine. You’ll get a percentage.”
“I don’t want a percentage. Honestly, I’m offering the use of the room in the selfish hope it will keep you coming back.”
“I don’t think you need to worry about that,” Hadrian told her with a wink.
Royce wanted to stab him, but then noticed her smile, and … was she turning red? “There’s a risk to hosting thieves,” he said quickly. “You could be arrested, have your holdings taken, your hands cut off, for Maribor’s sake. I won’t let you take that risk without payment. As long as we work out of your tavern, you’ll get a cut of what we make.”
“But I—”
“I won’t stay otherwise.”
She had her mouth open but slowly closed it. He longed to wipe away the smudge on her cheek. His hand moved partway before he caught himself. What is it about her that makes me feel I can do such a thing?
“You’ll stay? You’ll live here?”
Royce glanced at Hadrian and shrugged, trying his best to sound casual. “Be nice to have a safe place to come back to. But I insist you take a cut.”
Hadrian chuckled. “If this is going to be Royce’s permanent home, maybe you should call it The Rose and the Thorn.”
Royce glared, but Gwen beamed. “I think I will. Yes, The Rose and the Thorn. It has a ring, don’t you think?”
“Oh good, I caught you!” Albert came out of the House wrapping a robe about him and squinting at the bright sky.
“It’s midmorning Winslow,” Royce growled. “You’re starting to act like a real noble.”
“Thank you. I’m putting weight back on too. Now if I could only afford a decent coat I—”
“What did you want?” Royce asked, pulling himself up on his mount and snapping his cloak behind him.
“There’s a party at Lord Harrington’s tomorrow night that I thought I should attend.”