Jayne Fresina by Once a Rogue Read Free Book Online Page A

lad,” the old lady added. “I daresay she’s forgot it already.”
    His pride didn’t want to believe it, but she was probably right. A woman who discarded her virtue in the bed of a complete stranger was obviously trouble.
    But those words haunted him.
    Take all of me. Leave nothing for him.
    * * * *
    He spent the morning searching Norwich, making inquiries around the town. Unfortunately he had no clear description of her face, only her lips. As for her hair, there might be fifty women with red hair in the town and everyone had their own opinion as to what was red, what was ginger, chestnut, fair or auburn. He was whistling against the wind and he had work to do at home. Spring plowing and planting wouldn’t wait. Turning reluctantly to one last matter of business before he left Norwich, he drove his cart to the large, rambling house of Lord Winton, a notoriously slippery old character who owed him for several weight of good fleeces.
    A harried servant finally came in answer to the seventh pull on the bell cord at the gate. Fortunately he knew John by sight, knew him to be a good fellow who always bought a round at the high street tavern on market day and who had, more than once, helped out in a fight. When John explained his purpose, the servant unlocked the gate and let him in, warning he’d be lucky to get a penny.
    “Until after tomorrow,” he added with a sly wink. “Then I daresay the old man will be flush again for a while. Should come back after Friday, young feller, after the wedding.”
    “Wedding?”
    “Aye he’s to be married again on the morrow. Rich young lady with a weighty dowry.”
    John shook his head. “I can’t wait here until Saturday. He’ll have to pay up today.”
    The servant led him through the great hall, currently being decorated with bowers of greenery in preparation for the feast, and into a small, paneled chamber off to one side, where three busy, overworked tailors gave Lord Walter Winton a final fitting for his garish wedding clothes.
    “Master John Carver is here, my lord,” the servant intoned solemnly. “A matter of business regarding fleeces.”
    The old man didn’t need to be told. He knew who John was and why he was there, but when it came to matters of money he maintained a curiously frangible memory. Bills due had a tendency to cause sudden illness, but the old man was far stronger than he looked. His gnarled, trembling hands, the wrinkled skin thin as gauze, might seem feeble, unfit for any purpose, but it was all an act. Those claws held onto his money purse with the deadly grip of an iron-toothed mantrap.
    Irritably regarding John’s arrival that afternoon as a great inconvenience, his eyes misted over, his back stooped and he snapped out for a chair, exclaiming he’d stood too long and his knees would no longer bear the strain. “I cannot think why you bother me with this today, of all days,” he muttered in John’s direction. “You young people have no sense of decorum, no manners, no respect for your elders.”
    “I’ll be on my way and disturb you not a moment longer, Lord Winton, once you pay me what I’m owed for those fleeces, fair and square.”
    “Fair and square indeed! You cheating young scoundrel. I know you look to overcharge me,” the old man grumbled, “and I suppose you come here today, thinking I will be in a charitable mood on the verge of my forthcoming nuptials.”
    Accustomed to Winton’s delay tactics, he waited, saying nothing, looking down at his fists.
    “Can you not see this is the very worst of times to come begging for coin, Carver? I have far more important matters at hand.” With a groan, clutching his chest, the old man stumbled back into the chair he was provided. A loud ripping sound caused one of the tailors to throw up his hands in despair and this too was blamed on John’s presence. “There, now. See? I split my dratted breeches.”
    Stepping up to his chair, John leaned over the wrinkled fellow and hissed,