“You needn’t worry about the constabulary bothering you. My father is a respected Beladine citizen. They’ll accept his word and my testimony as well. And Culkhen Goa has already spent many a night locked in the Zela for petty crimes.”
Gaeres’s eyebrows lowered into that same forbidding expression she found both intriguing and not a little intimidating. “Breaking into your house to wait for you with the intent to commit violence against you isn’t petty, Emerence. You’ll need to be on your guard when they release him from the gaol.”
She nodded. “I know. I will.” She’d underestimated Culkhen’s drive for revenge or the fiery blame he’d assigned her for slandering his already notorious reputation. She wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.
“Come to the Sun and Rose celebration tomorrow night,” he told her. At her hesitation, he employed the words that guaranteed she’d show up. “Come so I may have a last chance to tell you farewell before I leave Timsiora.”
“All right,” she said. “I’ll be there, though I don’t know when.”
“I’ll wait for you.” His gaze drifted to a point behind her. Emerence didn’t need to turn to know what he stared at: all her neighbors avidly watching the two of them converse and trying their very best to overhear what was said. Gaeres winked at her. “Until tomorrow, Emerence.”
She watched him go until he turned a corner and disappeared from sight. Even then, she didn’t move until her stepmother’s voice at her shoulder startled her out of her reverie. “A constable is here to speak with you, Emerence.”
Questions and statements by the constabulary and her father’s insistence she sleep at his house for the rest of her life made the night long and tiresome. At dawn she was still wide awake and cleaning her small abode with a demon’s fury. She’d resisted Tocqua’s demands to come home with him and Linnet.
“There’s no possible way I’ll sleep tonight, Papa,” she’d told him. “I just want to clean my house, boil my sheets and get rid of any sense of Culkhen being there.”
“You can do that in the morning,” he began, only to be interrupted by Linnett who came to Emerence’s rescue.
“Remember that time the pair of thieves broke into the apothecary and made off with the emergency fund? Only the coin box was taken, but you had all of us clean the store from top to bottom.”
At that reminder, a glint of understanding dawned in Tocqua’s eyes. He grasped Emerence’s hands. “We can stay to help.”
She pressed his hand to her cheek. “Go home. It’s late. Get your rest. You can help by giving me the day free away from the shops.”
“Done,” he declared.
After promising him and Linnett she’d be fine and wishing a good night to the other neighbors who finally dispersed and went home, she returned to her house and began her cleaning frenzy. She’d presented a calm front to everyone and hadn’t lied when she’d said she was fine, but every creak of the house or noise in the street made her jump. The arrival of the dawn and Linnett at her door with a basket of cleaning supplies had been welcoming sights.
Several hours later, with her house sparkling and new linens on her bed while the ones she washed dried on a line in her back garden, Emerence took pity on her hard-working stepmother. “You’re right. I don’t’ think there’s a spot of dirt to be found.” The lingering sense of being somehow violated remained. No mop or cleaning rag would get rid of that, only time.
“May I use your washtub?” she asked Linnett. “I’m attending the Sun and Rose party tonight, and I’m too dirty for a just a sponge bath.”
Delighted by the request and the fact Emerence didn’t plan to hide in her house from fear, Linnett had readily agreed. When Emerence arrived next door, she found not only a hip bath full of hot water but scented soaps and oils available for her use. And it was Linnett who dressed her freshly washed hair in an intricate knot of braids wrapped in a bun that rested against her nape and was decorated with a sprinkling of pearl hair pins.
She donned the nicest outfit she owned, a gown of forest-green embossed velvet with cuffs, hem and bodice embroidered in silver thread. Her father’s eyes widened when she entered the parlor where he sat by the fire enjoying a cup of tea. “Well,” he said. “Aren’t you a fine sight in the that gown with your