The hand slowly eased away from Tiny’s mouth, just enough for her lips to move, and the hooded head leaned closer, pressing into the side of Tiny’s face.
“L-London,” she whispered.
The woman seemed to give Tiny a squeeze, and instead of the hand clamping back across her face, it disappeared for a moment.
“Good girl,” the woman whispered. “The lady’s pet has scampered up the tree where she is sleeping. You are safe from your parents’ wrath as long as you don’t turn ‘round until I am gone, and then you scurry up to your own bed. Tell no one I was here, and you may keep this for yourself.”
Tiny’s wrist was seized and a hard, flat object was forced beneath her fingers.
With a rush of cold air and snow, Tiny was free. She closed her eyes and counted twenty before turning around, and even then, she only cracked one eyelid at first.
She was alone.
Her heart began beating so fast in her chest that she thought her ribs might break, and she began to cry quietly. She swiped at her face and then looked down at the object in her hand.
She stared at it for a long time, the wind chilling her until she shivered. Then she began to walk slowly to her family’s tree, to go to bed as she’d been told.
Chapter 19
Piers was already dressed and moving about the frigid tree house when Alys awoke the next morning. She opened her eyes and he was the first thing she saw—folding his new clothes and placing them carefully in his pack, which he had set on the edge of the cot.
She lay there for several moments, watching him silently. He was dressed in his old tunic once more, and as he put the fine costume away, Alys couldn’t help but feel a sharp stab of fear—it was as if he was already putting away the days and nights they had shared on their long journey together. But she would not yet give up. She was still to travel the remainder of the way to London with him. Perhaps it was only a matter of days before a brighter, easier future was laid out surely before them both.
His eyes caught a glimpse of her watching him and he paused in his chores.
She gave him a little smile. “Good morrow.”
“Sleep well?” he asked lightly.
“Not really,” she said and felt a strand of her hair being pulled.
“I’d set out as soon as you are ready,” he said, cinchingup the straps of his pack and then glancing beyond her shoulder. “Little wonder neither one of us slept—that cot is hardly big enough for two, let alone three.”
Alys realized the pulling on her hair was Layla. She turned her head. “Hello, traitor,” she said in a cool voice.
Layla reached out with lightning speed and tweaked her nose—hard.
“Ouch! The thanks I get for saving your life. Ungrateful little beast.” She turned a smile to Piers, hoping he would be amused by her play, but he had already turned away, throwing the straps of his bag over one shoulder.
“I’d seek Ira before we depart,” he said. “Come down when you’re ready.” He walked to the flap in the sidewall.
Alys sat up, pulling the blanket around her shoulders and knocking Layla from her perch. She pushed the long strands of hair escaped from her plait from her eyes. “Piers?”
He paused, turned his face halfway to her, his eyebrows raised in question.
Alys swallowed, tried to keep her voice light. “We’re going to be alright. Aren’t we?”
He nodded. “I’ll meet you below.”
Then he sidled through the wall and was gone, leaving Alys alone with a monkey in her lap and the cold, cold wind in her ears.
Piers’s heart sank lower with every rung of the rope ladder he descended. Suddenly, he dreaded London, and all that it stood for: the uncertain as well as certain paths of his future. A future without Alys.
Ira was waiting for him at the bottom of the tree, as Piers had known he would be. The old man had terrible disapproval in his eyes.
“You’re a fool and an idiot,” was the old man’s greeting.
“Good morning, Grandfather,” Piers said lightly, as he reached the ground and turned to face Ira. It was obvious Ira suspected that he and Alys had spent the night together in an intimate manner.
