Cinnia’s gaze followed him until he disappeared from view. She turned to Louvaen who frowned. “What?”
“When did you become just ‘Cinnia’ and he just ‘Gavin’?”
Cinnia’s chin jutted out in a stubborn angle. “It isn’t improper.”
“It’s certainly familiar.”
The girl peered into the kitchen’s open door and changed the subject. “Doesn’t Jimenin have something else to do besides lurk around here?”
Louvaen’s lips twitched at the similarity between Cinnia’s complaint and her own about Gavin. “Not until he can squeeze every last farthing out of us.”
Cinnia sighed. “What am I sick with today?”
“Take your pick.”
“Leprosy.” She grinned. “Wait. Scurvy. We haven’t used scurvy yet.”
This time Louvaen laughed. “I think he’d believe something a little less dramatic. A headache should suffice.”
Cinnia headed for the door with a long-suffering sigh. “I seem to get a lot of those lately.”
Louvaen followed her inside as far as the kitchen and watched as she tiptoed up the back stairs to her room. Jimenin didn’t believe a word of their tales regarding Cinnia’s many illnesses, but he hadn’t challenged them yet, and Louvaen happily played the game for as long as necessary to keep him away from her sister. She brushed the wrinkles out of her apron, took a calming breath so she wouldn’t succumb to the temptation of strangling their visitor with her bare hands and marched into the parlor.
She found both men seated near the small hearth appearing like two friends enjoying each other’s company on a winter’s day—at least until she looked closer at her father’s expression. Pinched, hunted, and pale with desperation, Mercer caught sight of her. His shoulders slumped in relief. “Louvaen, my dear, Don Jimenin has been kind enough to stop by and inquire about Cinnia’s health.”
Louvaen inclined her head to their guest who stood and offered her a courtly bow. Dressed in elegant garb of embroidered blacks and grays, Don Gabrilla Jimenin cut an impressive figure. A wealthy landowner with investments in everything from caravans to ships, he was Monteblanco’s most influential citizen. Men courted his favor and women his interest. His was a regular face, saved from banality by a sensual mouth and an oddly entrancing pair of eyes that looked out upon the world with cool hauteur. He styled his brown hair in the latest fashion of tight curls confined in a neat queue. Louvaen loathed him and knew he heartily returned the sentiment.
His gaze swept over her before he glanced past her shoulder to the empty kitchen. His lips quirked in a cold smile. “You’re looking well, mistress.”
She suspected she looked murderous, but this man had a knack for bringing out the anger in her. “Most kind, sir,” she said in a flat voice. “May we offer you tea?”
He dashed her small hope he’d refuse and leave when he resumed his seat. “Thank you, Mistress Duenda. I humbly accept.”
“Of course you do,” she muttered and stalked to the kitchen to add another teacup and prepare the tea.
By the time she returned and set the service on the small table between the chairs, tension had thickened the air to a soup. Jimenin helped himself to one of the cups and sipped. “A fine brew, mistress.” When Louvaen didn’t respond, he continued. “How is Miss Cinnia today? She was feeling ill and had taken to her room during my last visit.”
Louvaen seethed at his familiar use of her sister’s name. “Mistress Hallis,” she bit out between clenched teeth, “is still poorly I’m afraid. Headaches and fatigue. Change of seasons I think.” Snakes in men’s clothing more like it.
Jimenin glanced at Mercer. “Your lovely daughter has a delicate constitution.”
Mercer nodded. “Yes she does.” He downed his tea in a single gulp.
“Any news of the third ship? I hear wreckage from the first two has started washing ashore.”
Mercer slumped even further in his chair. Louvaen, who’d taken up guard duty behind him, squeezed his shoulder with one hand and clenched her skirts with the other. The bastard taunted her father. Everyone knew the loss of those ships had made the Hallis family nearly destitute. The hope the last ship had survived the storm which destroyed the others was fast fading.
“None, but with a little luck it will arrive in harbor any day now.”
Jimenin stretched his legs toward the fire. “You’re an optimistic man, Mercer.” He gestured with his teacup. “It’s been nearly four months since we had word the ship might have made it through the storm intact. I suspect it sits at the bottom of the ocean with its sister ships.” He bared a set of yellowed teeth in the parody of a smile.
If her house wasn’t at risk of burning down, Louvaen would have wished for a back draft of flame to rush out and consume him.
“I think a little more patience and we’ll...”
Jimenin straightened in his seat and slammed the cup down hard enough to make the service rattle and tea slosh in the teapot. His pale eyes reflected back the hearth fire, reminding Louvaen of a wolf’s gaze caught in a sliver of moonlight. “My patience is done! I want the balance on the investment and the accompanying interest.”
Mercer raised his hands in surrender. “We have nothing left,” he babbled. “Only Louvaen’s house and a draft horse.”
“We’ll sell the house, Papa.” She glared at Jimenin. He wasn’t here for money, but he’d use their debt to strong-arm Mercer into giving him Cinnia. Louvaen vowed they’d live wild in the woods before she let that happened.
Jimenin’s gloating laughter scraped across her ears. “You could sell six of these houses, and they’ll only cover a portion of the debt.”
She fisted her hands on her hips. “Liar,” she spat. I check the accounts. I know the numbers. There’s no way we owe you such a sum.”
He cocked one eyebrow. “Oh? Didn’t your father tell you about his venture with me into a caravan of saffron? All documents signed, witnessed and stored at the Merchant House.” He shook his head in mock sorrow. “An unlucky year for many of us, I’m afraid. Bandits attacked the caravan. Our goods were a total loss.”
The revelation stole her breath. Louvaen gripped Mercer’s shoulder until he turned to her. “Papa?”
His shame-filled expression verified Jimenin’s story. “I’m sorry, Lou. It seemed a sure thing at the time.”
No, no, no! She wanted to scream. She wanted to shake her father for his gullibility until his teeth rattled, and then she’d put a round of lead shot into Jimenin for his trickery.
Jimenin’s smile grew, his gaze feral. “I’m a man with deep pockets and a compassionate nature.” He ignored Louvaen’s snort. “Give me Cinnia as wife, and all debt will be forgiven.”
She’d seen it coming months earlier, had warned Mercer to have nothing to do with Jimenin, but his extortion still made her gasp. Mercer’s outraged “Absolutely not. I’ll not sell my daughter under any circumstance,” rang in her ears.
Her mind spinning with a hundred ways to outmaneuver Jimenin, she interrupted. “Would you take a widow instead?”
“Louvaen!” Her father gaped at her.
She kept her gaze trained on her adversary. “Don Jimenin?”
He rose from his chair but didn’t venture nearer. He usually only offered Louvaen a brief disinterested nod, his focus solely on Cinnia. Now his gaze raked her from her worn shoes, over her apron-covered gown, to her upswept hair. Louvaen squelched the need to scratch at her crawling skin. His eyes glittered for a moment as he considered her offer. He gave a dry chuckle. “You’re a handsome woman, Mistress Duenda, and still young enough to bear children, but some time in my life I’ll have to sleep. I don’t relish waking up skewered with one of my swords.”
Louvaen didn’t realize she’d been holding her breath. Relief warred with disappointment. She’d never marry the vile goat in a thousand lifetimes, but his acceptance and expected courtship would have bought them a little more time to plan. She’d lost the advantage with his refusal, yet the great
er part of her thanked merciful gods he wasn’t interested.
Mercer stood, and for once his outrage overwhelmed Jimenin’s smug superiority. “Neither of my daughters is for sale or trade, Jimenin.”
“Then you give me something of equal value or equal pleasure.” Jimenin poked him in the chest, and Mercer staggered. “You have a fortnight to decide. Afterwards, I call in my markers and strip you of everything you own. You can ponder your precious daughter’s innocence from a gaol cell.”
Louvaen strode to a small cupboard behind her father’s chair and retrieved a carved box. She lifted one of her husband’s pistols from its silk lined compartment, turned and took aim. Jimenin’s eyes rounded. “Get out,” she said in a low voice. “And don’t shadow our doorway again.”
He tried for a taunting grin, ruined by his chin’s nervous quiver. “That’s not loaded.”
The click of the flintlock’s hammer made him blanch. Louvaen’s heartbeat thudded in her ears. “You think not?” Her finger curled around the trigger.
He backed slowly toward the door, his features sharpening with hate the closer he got to safety. “You and me, bitch. We’re not done.”
Her arm hurt with the weight of the pistol, but Louvaen’s grip remained as steady as her voice. “We will be,” she promised.
The door’s slam rattled the pewter plates displayed along one wall, and Jimenin disappeared in an indignant flap of black cloak. Louvaen lowered her arm and carefully lowered the hammer down. Only the crackle of embers in the hearth sounded in the parlor as she returned the gun to its case and put it back in the cupboard.
“Lou, you almost shot him!” Mercer’s eyes swallowed his face and wisps of white hair stood straight up on his head as if he’d caught a bolt of lightning. Were Louvaen not struggling to keep her shaking hands hidden in her skirts and her stomach out of her throat, she might have laughed.
“Thomas is likely rolling in his grave that I didn’t, Papa. First rule: if you aim a pistol, you better shoot. I broke the rule.” The shock of her confrontation with Jimenin rolled over her, and she collapsed in the chair he vacated. Mercer poured her a cup of the now lukewarm tea, and she gripped the fragile piece hard to keep from spilling.
“What possessed you to offer yourself to him? You despise Jimenin.”
She sipped, praying her hands might halt their palsied dance. “I’d never wed such a loathsome tarse. I’d torch the house before I’d ruin my mop cleaning him off the floors.”
Mercer’s forehead knitted into a map of puzzled lines. “Then why?”
“To buy time.” She glanced at the ceiling. Cinnia’s room was directly above them. “If he had any honor, which he doesn’t, he’d court me. And since I have no honor where he’s concerned, I’d break the engagement after finding a way to either pay him off or get you and Cinnia away from him. I’ve no debt to him, and a broken engagement won’t earn me time in the gaol.” She still might see the inside of a cell and the outside of a gallows. Any confrontation after this and someone was definitely going to die. “Too bad he understands I’d sink a knife between his shoulders at the first opportunity.”
Mercer took his seat across from her, once again hunched in a defeated slouch. “We are in his debt. He’s a right to payment.”
“Yes, but no right to demand Cinnia in trade.” Her hands shook in anger now, not fear. “Why in all the gods’ names did you enter another venture with him, Papa? A saffron caravan? Didn’t you realize how risky such an investment was?” Louvaen desperately wished her stepmother were still alive. While Mercer had once been known as a successful businessman and merchant, it was his wife Abigail who possessed sound business sense, who understood profitable investments and hard negotiations. She’d been the family scrivener and could account for every ha’penny that left Mercer’s pockets. Louvaen was not hers by blood, but she’d inherited a similar mind for money, and Abigail had taught her everything she knew. Mercer’s fortunes only declined once Abigail died and Louvaen married. She still reeled over how quickly he’d managed to ruin his business and squander the family’s savings when no one was watching.
Mercer stiffened. “Of course I knew it, but Jimenin promised a huge return in profit once we got it to market.”
“If you got it to market, which you didn’t.”
“How was I to know bandits would attack the caravan?” He gripped the arms of the chair. “Gods, Lou, you’re like a dog with a bone.”
He was lucky he was her father, or she would have bitten through instead of just gnawing on him. “Are you serious?” Her fingers tightened on her cup, threatening to crack it in her grip. “Everyone knows the Ladlelow Hills are bandit country. The only surer bet to be made is the sun will rise each morning.”
“You’ll watch your tongue, miss! I’m still your father and head of this family.”
“Which you’ve managed to beggar with your bad judgment. You and Cinnia aren’t homeless right now because you’re living in my house!”
Mercer’s flushed face bled of all color, and Louvaen recoiled from the humiliation in his eyes. Guilt roiled the tea in her stomach, and she stretched out a supplicating hand to him. “Forgive me, Papa...”
“Is he gone?” Cinnia poked her head around the corner, gaze darting about the room.
Louvaen never took her eyes off her father. “Yes. Do you want tea? It’s only warm now.”
Mercer rose. Shoulders hunched, he shuffled out of the parlor, pausing long enough to hug Cinnia. “I’m off for a nap,” he told her. “I’ll see you at supper.” He didn’t look back at Louvaen. Both women listened as his footsteps thumped up the risers and then over their heads towards his room. At the snick of a door closing the two faced off.
Cinnia glared at Louvaen. “What did you say to him?”
Louvaen turned away to stare into the fire. “Nothing that wasn’t true.” True or not, she’d flayed her beloved father, shaming him in the harshest manner.
“Nothing that was kind either I’ll bet. You’re heartless sometimes, Lou.”
“Maybe if some of us thought more with our heads instead of our hearts around here, we wouldn’t be in this mess.” Louvaen rubbed circles at her temples with her fingertips. “Jimenin is calling in his markers. He’ll forgive the debt if Papa trades you to him in marriage, otherwise he’ll have Papa tossed into debtor’s prison.”
Cinnia gasped. “Can’t we pay him?”
“Not enough. I’ll sell the house, the land, what little furniture we have left and the rest of the livestock, but that will only cover a fraction of what’s owed. Jimenin convinced Papa to join another failed venture. We might have been able to pull him out of the pit he dug himself into before that arrangement. Not any longer.”
Cinnia rushed forward and knelt before her sister’s chair. She clutched Louvaen’s hand. “Gavin can help. His father is wealthy. We’ll borrow from him.”
Louvaen looked into the breathtaking face that often made life so difficult and squeezed Cinnia’s fingers. “Absolutely not. We trade the evil we know for the one we don’t.”
Cinnia dropped Louvaen’s hand as if scorched and jerked to her feet. “Gavin de Lovet isn’t evil!”
“Maybe not, but he might be a liar. You’ve known him what?” Louvaen snapped her fingers. “Three months? A fair face, good manners, fine clothes. Those don’t make a good man, Cinnia, or an honest one. We’ve never met his family. No one here has seen or heard of the de Sauveterres.”
Cinnia stamped her foot, quivering with indignation. “He wouldn’t lie to me! I believe him.”
Louvaen shrugged. “Good for you. I don’t. Even if he’s all the things you say, we’ve nothing left to trade. Pay off Jimenin with another man’s money, and what do we offer de Sauveterre in exchange? We’re right back where we started.” She frowned at the sly look entering her sister’s eyes.
“If I were Lady de Lovet...”
Ah, the crux of it all. It wasn’t a bad idea except for one missing key component. “Well you’re not, a
nd he hasn’t offered for your hand.” The headache threatening to crack her skull since she first caught sight of Jimenin lurking at their threshold struck her behind her the eyes. “You’ve wasted half the day flirting and accomplishing nothing, and I need to think. Go next door. Dame Niamh promised me a basket of rovings.
Cinnia crushed her skirts with hands curled into delicate fists. Her face flushed a becoming pink. “I am not an idiot! You never listen to me!”
“I would if you offered me a workable idea. What makes you assume de Lovet is rich and will just blissfully hand over his family’s money to us if you flutter your eyelashes at him.” Louvaen groaned as Cinnia’s face went as ashen as their father’s had earlier. She’d be drowning in apologies before the evening was over. “Cinnia—”
The girl spun on her heel and fled the parlor. Louvaen winced as the back door’s slam reverberated throughout the house and through her pounding head. Well, she’d manage to cock it up but good with all the members of her small family.
Supper was a silent, brooding affair. Louvaen decided the next morning would be a better time to beg forgiveness, as neither Cinnia nor Mercer were inclined to even look at her much less speak to her. With the mostly uneaten meal put away, Cinnia offered to read from Mercer’s favorite book of poems. He kissed her hand and led her to the parlor. Cinnia shot a baleful glare at Louvaen with the message she wasn’t welcome to join them.
Louvaen blew out the kitchen candles and went upstairs to her room. She unlaced her gown and draped it across the foot of the bed. Her shift brushed her skin like cold wings, and she shivered in the dark room. The bed was equally chilly, but she’d grown used to it since Thomas’s death. Her vision blurred as she thought of her husband. Kind, stout-hearted, always knowing the right words to smooth ruffled feathers, he’d been the perfect foil to Louvaen’s sharp edges, and oh gods did she miss him. She hugged his pillow to her breasts and buried her face in its softness. His scent was long gone, but she still imagined she smelled him on the pillow and the sheets. “Thomas, my love, what am I going to do?” Only the whisper of snow against the window replied.