When I reached my home and took the saddle off of Zara, I found the lily tucked into one of the saddle bags.
Twice more Avery repeated his gift of a flower after church.
“I am steadfast in my contrition, madam,” he promised upon presenting a third lily. “I do not ask for your forgiveness, but I do hope for it. One day.”
I shrugged. “What would my forgiveness do? What would it change?”
“If you forgive me, I can begin to court you.”
“Court me?”
“Are you in want of a husband?”
“I am not.”
“Perhaps I can show you why one might be useful to you.” Another of his bold smiles began to creep across his face, but he pressed his lips together as if to smother it, as if to keep any hidden meaning from his words. “What would it take for me to earn just abitof your forgiveness?”
“You should cut your hair and trim your beard,” I said on a whim. “You look half mad.”
He nodded. “Consider it done.”
“I may forgive you,” I offered. “But I prefer yoube yourself around me if it is courting you want to do. I know you are not regularly this tame.”
“What if I offend you again?”
“Refrain from discussing the shape of me and you should be safe.”
“I can try—no, Icando that,” he swore.
I could not explain to myself why I wanted this man to court me, especially when all I wanted was to show him scorn. At that time, I did not know that I was softened by him seeing me as something other than an outcast, an ungodly girl who lived in an old witch’s house and provided services no one wanted to name. He simply saw me as a woman he wanted, and that was a reprieve from a town of folk who despised me.
70
THEN: DOG
Several moons after I had allowed for Avery’s courtship to begin, I was in town watching Adelaide while Rowena was preoccupied with the delivery of a babe. I had been by her house to bring her some pennyroyal as she had requested. An older child from the family had been sent to her and Thane’s house to ask her to come, as his mother was in labor. Rowena had handed Adelaide to me and asked me to watch her until Thane came home from wherever he was.
I panicked at this but could only agree. Winters had passed without Thane and I being alone. I dreaded it ever happening. I passed the time telling the girl stories she only half understood, all the while listening for Thane’s footsteps at the door.
It was known about town that the new blacksmith was paying attention to Magda’s girl. Folk would say things like, “Good luck to him, poor man,” or “Should someone tell him of her, that she has already lain with other men?” or “Does he know she isn’t quite godly, that she prays to the earth?”
Rowena had commented on it, joyfully so, in front of Thane,asking me if I truly considered him for a husband and that he seemed like a good man. Thane’s head had snapped up from the ledger he was writing in while seated at their dinner table.
“Someone courts you?” he asked.
“Avery Finch,” Rowena had answered for me. “The Ecclestonian. Our new blacksmith. I like him.”
And so when Rowena had come sailing through the doorway that night, thanking the gods for such an easy birth, swooping up her daughter in her arms, I had breathed a sigh of relief.
I breathed it too early. I made my way to The Pale Horse, briefly stabling Zara outside it. I was low on my medicinal whiskey and did not relish the idea of coming back to town for anything other than church. Thane was in the tavern at a table with Wynne, Kent, and several other men his age, many of them Perpatanians. While I stood at the counter and waited for Gertie to fill a jug, I looked away from him purposely, but I felt the weight of his stare from across the room.
“This is a welcome surprise,” came a voice that sent relief through me. Avery stood next to me, his bulk leaning against the counter.
I should have greeted him, should have even smiled, but I said, “I am not staying,” in the most dismissive way and turned back towards watching Gertie.
I was overwhelmed by the rush of comfort I had felt at seeing him there. It frightened me how I had gone from self-conscious and unhappy to nearly elated at the sight of him.
“One drink?” he said, leaning down so that his words were in my ear.
