“Eleanor will be here in a few weeks’ time,” I told him. “Maybe sooner. And we should wait for her blessing.”
He sighed. “You’re so adamant about not acting like a noblewoman, it’s a little strange you care so much about her blessing.”
I wanted to tell him. But I wanted to surprise him more than I wanted to tell him. Especially after a day that were so awful, I wanted there to be something wonderful left. More than anything, I wanted to give him this gift.
“Soon, love,” I told him. “Good night.”
He watched me go, and I went outside and into the forest.
The next days were awful. We were all slow moving, slow from all the work our desperate, scarred hearts had pulled from our bodies the day the tree fell. I ached everywhere, and more than that, there were a sadness that had drifted down onto us like a mist. Cutting peat we were all quiet, digging our hands into the cold, hard earth, and we stumbled home at night without much to say about it. Missy, for her part, had told more and more people about the secret wedding, and I couldn’t even fault her. It were clear on the faces of those that knew, shoring them up like holy water.
By the third afternoon, the sun had scared away the chill of the morning, and the woods were warm and bright. One of the women starting singing something, a song I’d heard before but didn’t know the words for. The rest of the women began to take it up, and the children too, leaving their tasks to dance with one another in the sudden compulsion that little ones have. The women kept singing as one of the little boys took a loose clod of dirt and threw it at a girl and she shrieked, and the dancing turned to running and chasing.
I heard a whistling and a low chorus to the song, and some of the women laughed as the men bundled up the road on the cart to load up the peat, responding to their song. Rob came to me and I stood, his body fitting against mine so easy, my shoulder tucked under his, his hip against the curve of my waist. I looked up at him, and he ducked his head to give me a soft, gentle, easy kiss.
It were a husband’s kiss, I rather thought. It weren’t the first kiss, a thing of hunger and new tastes. It weren’t all our sad kisses of leaving and coming back, full of desperation and scared. It were just a kiss. A kiss that felt like he’d done it before, a kiss that knew he could do it again.
Then again, it also sent lightning crackling down my back, and I remembered there were ways we weren’t husband and wife just yet. I felt a blush running up my face and he stroked my cheek, kissing me again.
“I don’t know, Sheriff,” Bess said. I broke away from Rob, surprised. She hadn’t been here a minute ago. She had the baby with her, and Much weren’t far off, but she had a wicked smile. “Keep kissing her like that and I think we’ll all have to go to your wedding fair soon,” she said.
To my surprise, this raised cheers from the women and hollers from the men. I felt myself burn red, glaring at her for even teasing at our secret, and Rob tucked me closer to him. “Mind your business,” Rob said, grinning. “Isn’t there a tax to pay?”
“You’ll never get them to the altar,” Much said, winking at me as he took the baby. “Unless it were up in a tree. Or a prison. Then Scar might attend.”
“Nonsense,” Brother Benedict said, hefting a stack of peat bricks onto the cart. “Lady Huntingdon spends more time in a pew than the rest of you.”
“Leave Scar alone,” Rob said, rubbing my back. “Benedict? Much? How are we doing?”
Benedict rubbed his forehead. “I think we’re coming along.”
Much tallied the bricks with a frown. “If we split the cargo to two different markets we’ll do better for price. Considering that, we’re a little over the tax amount.”
Rob started. “Over?”
Much nodded. “Well, given our luck and the nature of thieves here about, we really have to consider that we’ll lose some of the money somehow. Fortunately, we’re well ahead of the deadline and we have a lot of forest yet.”
“Still, let’s not use that opportunity if we don’t have to. One thing we certainly know is there’s always another tax.” Rob looked around. “I know everyone isn’t here, but those of you that are, gather close for a moment,” he called.
People drifted in, and children whooshed past me, bumping me closer to Rob. He kissed my temple.
“Our work is done,” he proclaimed, and everyone whooped and cheered. He grinned. “And now, we need to take all this to market and receive our bounty in coins. But before that,” he said, and people sighed, crestfallen. “I think we need to celebrate.”