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Hook Miller came to the burial on Copp’s Hill. As he made his way up to where A
The offering price was still an affront. When she shook her head, he nodded sadly, said he’d be back when she was more composed. She knew it wasn’t solicitousness but the eyes of the neighborhood that made him so nice. The next time Miller approached her, it would be in private. There would be no refusing that offer.
When Seaver came in for his drink later, she avoided his glance. She’d already made up her mind.
The next morning, she sent a note to Hook Miller. No reason to be seen going to him, when there was nothing more natural than for him to come to the tavern. And if his visit stood out among others, why, she was a propertied widow now, who had to keep an eye to the future.
He didn’t bother knocking, came in as if he already owned the place, and barred the door behind him. She was standing behind a chair, waiting, a bottle of wine on the table, squat-bodied and long-necked, along with two of her best glasses, polished to gleaming. One was half-filled, half-drunk. The fire was low, and there were only two candles lit.
He bowed and sat without being asked. His breath was thick with harsh New England rum. “Well?”
“I can’t sell the place. I’d be left with nothing.”
Miller was silent at first, but his eyes narrowed. “And?”
A
“You didn’t sign it over to Thomas.”
“Thomas Hoyt was as thick as two short planks. I couldn’t trust him to find his arse with both hands.”
Thomas’s absence now was not discussed.
Miller pondered. “If I do, you’ll sign the Queen’s Arms over to me.”
“The day we wed.” Her father had given her the hope and the means, but then slowly, painfully, she’d discovered she couldn’t keep the place alone. She swallowed. “I can’t do this by myself.”
“And what benefit to me to marry you?”
Her hours of thought had prepared the answer. “You’ll get a property you’ve always wanted, and with it, an eye and an ear to everything that happens all along the waterfront. More than that: respectability. This whole neighborhood is getting nothing but richer, and you’d be in the middle of it. What better way to advance than through deals with the merchant nobs themselves? To say nothing of window dressing for your other…affairs.”
Miller laughed, then stopped, considered what she was saying. “Sharp. And a clever wife to entertain my new friends? It makes sense.”
“Those merchants, they’re no more than a step above hustling themselves. We can be of use to each other,” she said carefully. She’d almost said need, but that would have been fatal. “Wine?”
He looked at her, looked at the bottle, the one empty glass. “Thanks.”
She poured, the ruby liquid turning blood-black in the green-tinged glasses, against the dark of the room.
He stared at the glass, his brow furrowing. “I’ve more of a mind for beer, if you don’t mind.”
She looked disappointed, but didn’t press him. “You’ll have to get a head for wine if you expect to move up in the world.” She rose and slid a pewter mug from a peg on the wall, then filled it from the large barrel behind her bar.
Miller smiled, thanked her. She raised her glass to him, sipped. He saluted and drank too.
It was then he noticed the large Bible on the table next to them. He reached over, flipped through carelessly.
“Too much theater for one about to be so soon remarried, don’t you think?” He flicked through the pages, as if looking for something he could make use of. “Devotion doesn’t play. Not around here, anyway.”
A
Miller shrugged. Piety was unexpected, especially after her reaction-or lack thereof-to her husband’s murder, but who could pretend to understand a woman? Her reaction aroused him, however. Any resistance did. “Let me see what I’ll be getting myself into. Lift your skirts.”
A
Repulsed, A
I must be better than this. I must manage.
She reached into the cracked binding of the Bible and withdrew a long steel needle. Its point picked up the light from the candle and glittered. Her breath held, she stood over the unconscious man, then, aiming carefully, she drove it deep into his ear.
Shortly, with a grunt, a shudder, a sigh, Miller stopped breathing.
She had been afraid she’d been too stingy, miscalculated the dose, unseen in the bottom of the pewter mug, not wanting to warn him with the smell of bellado
A
She would be better. She would manage.
She went to the back, brought out the barrow used to move stock. With careful work, and a little luck, A
Lighting a taper from the fireplace, she considered her plan. A change of clothes, from silk into something for scut work. She had hours of dirty business ahead of her, as bad and dirty as slaughtering season, but really, it was no different from butchering a hog.
A small price to pay for her freedom and the time to plan how better to keep it.
Holding the taper, she hurried up the narrow back stairs to the chamber over the public room. When she opened the door, her breath caught in her throat. There was a lit candle on the table across from her bed.