gave him a look as if to say, ‘You get a hold of yourself.’ And when he didn’t listen her ears went flat back. She’s telling him, all right.”
* * *
• • •
Alice watched the two horses walking side by side and marveled at the tiny differences Fred could distinguish. He could assess a horse’s conformation, sucking his teeth at sloping shoulders or cow hocks or an underdeveloped top line, when all Alice saw was “nice horsey.” He could assess their characters too—they were pretty much who they were from birth, as long as men didn’t muck them up too much, he said. “Course, most couldn’t help themselves.” She was often left with the impression that when Fred said these things he was talking about something else entirely.
He had taken to meeting her along her routes on a young Thoroughbred with a scarred ear—Pirate. He said it was helpful to have the young horse work alongside Spirit’s more level temperament, but she suspected he had other reasons for being there and she didn’t mind. It was hard enough being alone with her thoughts most of the day.
“Did you finish the Hardy?”
Fred screwed up his face. “I did. Couldn’t warm to that Angel character, though.”
“No?”
“Found myself kind of wanting to give him a kick half the time. There she was, that poor girl, just wanting to love him. And him like some kind of preacher, judging her. Even though none of it was her fault. And then at the end he goes and marries her sister!”
Alice stifled a laugh. “I’d forgotten that bit.”
They talked of books they had recommended to each other. She had quite enjoyed the Mark Twain, found the George Herbert poems unexpectedly moving. Lately it had seemed easier for them to talk about books than anything in real life.
“So . . . can I give you a ride home?” They had reached the library and turned the horses into Fred’s barn for the night. “It’s awful wet to be walking all the way up to Marge’s. I could drive you as far as the big oak.”
Oh, but it was tempting. The long walk in the dark was the worst part of the day, a point at which she was hungry and aching and her mind had nowhere good to settle. There was a time when she might have ridden Spirit and kept her there overnight, but they had an unspoken agreement not to keep any other animals at the cabin just now.
Fred had closed up the barn and was looking at her expectantly. She thought of the quiet pleasure of sitting alongside him, of watching his strong hands on the wheel, his smile as he told her things in small bursts, confidences offered up like shells in the palm of his hand. “I don’t know, Fred. I can’t really be seen—”
“Well, I was thinking . . .” He shifted on his feet a little. “I know you like to allow Margery and Sven a little space together . . . and right now more than most . . .”
Something odd was going on with Margery and Sven. It had taken her a week or two to notice, but the little cabin was no longer filled with the muffled cries of lovemaking. Sven was often gone before Alice rose in the morning, and when he was there, there were no whispered jokes or casual intimacies but stiff silences and loaded glances. Margery seemed preoccupied. Her face was set stern, and her manner short. The previous evening, though, when Alice had asked her if she would rather she left, the woman’s face had softened. Then she had responded quite unexpectedly—not by telling her dismissively that she was fine, and not to fuss, but by saying quietly, No. Please don’t leave. A lover’s tiff? She would not betray her friend by talking about her private business but she felt utterly at a loss.
“. . . so I was wondering if you would like to have some food with me? I’d be happy to cook. And I could—”
She dragged her attention back to the man in front of her.
“—have you back at the cabin by half past eight or thereabouts.”
“Fred, I can’t.”
He closed his mouth abruptly over his words.
“I—It’s not that I wouldn’t like to. It’s just . . . if I were seen—well, things are tricky just now. You know how this town talks.”
He looked like he had half expected it.
“I can’t risk making things worse for the library. Or .