“How industrious of you,” she laughed as she crossed the shed. “You know, they say that the early bird gets the worm, but they never say what the late bird gets.”
“Nothing, is my guess,” Hugh grinned.
She laughed. “Oh, I don’t know about that…” She flashed her eyes at him as she reached into the front of her dress. There, she pulled out a slice of lemon cake that she had brought specifically, knowing that there would be at least one child here who wanted it. Truthfully, she was glad it was Hugh.
His eyes widened when he saw the cake, and she could see the hunger in them. “Is that…”
“This?” She acted nonchalant. “Oh, this is just a little something extra I had on me. Why…” She frowned as if confused. “You don’t want this, do you, Hugh?”
He licked his lips and edged closer.
Yvette hesitated. What she wanted to do was use this moment to learn more about Hugh. He had been coming here for a year now, he was easily the most starved and uncared-for of the children, and she was desperate to find out why so that she could help him. Where did he come from? What happened to his parents? And who was he?
However, she also did not want to blackmail him. Yvette was trying to build trust between the two of them and figured that using food to force him to open to her was not a good idea.
“Here you are.” She held out the slice of cake. “Take it – oh!” she yelped in surprise when he snatched it from her hands.
She laughed as he hurried back around the table and began to shovel it into his mouth. And she smiled when she saw his eyes light up and heard the moan escape his lips.
It warmed her heart to see how happy he was. Yvette did not have children of her own, nor did she want any. The reason for that… it was not something that she liked to think about, nor was it important, as she doubted that she would ever be in a position to have children anyway. For now, caring for these orphans was enough to satisfy her, and if she never had a child of her own, she was sure that she would still die a happy woman.
“Thank you,” Hugh made sure to say when he finished eating; he licked his fingers clean, making sure to get every single crumb.
“For you, Hugh, anytime,” she said. “Now…” She clapped her hands together. “You and your friends have left quite the messfor me to deal with here, so if there is nothing else…” She raised a questioning eyebrow at him.
“Do you need help?” he asked her, his stutter now gone, as was always the case once he calmed down and his nervousness left him.
She beamed. “That would be lovely. Thank you, Hugh.”
They spent the following hour cleaning up the mess. Mostly, it was stacking bowls to be washed later. But they also swept up the crumbs, packed away the tables, and checked that nothing had fallen to the floor and rolled into corners or under tables where rats and mice might get to them.
Once they were done, she asked Hugh if he wished to come home with her and take a bath. Perhaps she could even mend his tattered clothes.
“I am sure we might even have some clothes that will fit you,” she offered him.
He took a nervous step back. “I… that’s fine. I do – don’t… I have somewhere I need…” He looked around anxiously.
It was always this way. As soon as Yvette offered him help of any kind, he would deny it and act as if he worried that she was trying to trick him.
“That is fine,” she said with a soft smile. “Maybe next time.”
Once Hugh left her, Yvette spent the rest of the morning washing the dirty bowls so that they could be returned to their owners; those who had brought the food in the first place. When that was finished, she figured it was time to be getting home.
Yvette’s home was located half a mile from the church, and she walked the dusty road with a smile on her face; memories of her day and the joy it brought her. It wasn’t a particularly important life, nor was it exciting, but it was her own, and that was what mattered.
The smile fell from her lips when she spied her home at the end of the road.
It was a small house, just the two rooms for her and her father, no bigger than the church and not nearly as well maintained. What had Yvette coming to a sudden stop, was the black stallion tied to a post by the front door.
She had completely forgotten that her father told her that he had a visitor, and when she saw the horse she hesitated, wondering if it would be better to turn and leave because whoever this was, her father had not wanted her to know about it.
Before she got the chance to do such a thing, the front door opened, out walked the owner of the horse, and Yvette’s mouth fell open and a pang of nerves flooded through her the likes of which she could not have predicted but she felt were perfectly justified.
I really should have listened to my father…
CHAPTER TWO
“It will be done, Your Grace,” Yvette’s father said as he followed the visitor out of his home. “I will send word if there are any delays.”
