Page 45 of Black and Silver

“Lady Minerva does not have the plague,” he said, trying for his most reassuring voice as he spoke to the woman, but mostly sounding irritated. “As you can see, she is well on her way to recovery.”

The village woman continued to look askance at her, still holding the hymnal up. “Old Lucy said you would most likely die. She said the fever had taken you. It’s all over the village that you’ve brought the plague to us.”

Again, Lawrence sighed. This time he pinched the bridge of his nose as well. “Lady Minerva is recovering from a head cold,” he said, downplaying the severity of her illness over the last few days. “She will recover quite soon.”

The woman relaxed a bit, but still eyed Minerva suspiciously. In a way, Lawrence could not blame her. Dressed in black as she was, her black hair with its silver streaks long and flowing around her shoulders and her face a bit sallow from her illness, aside from her bright red nose, Minerva did look very much like a witch.

She sounded more like the noblewoman she was when she asked, “I beg your pardon, but if you are so afraid of contracting the plague, why have you come all this way?”

The woman shifted a bit, finally lowering the hymnal. “I’m Mary,” she said. “I clean the church once a week, rain or shine, summer or winter, even when Pastor Cleverley is away.”

“I see,” Minerva said, then pulled out the handkerchief she had stuck up her sleeve to blow her nose.

“I came to clean,” Mary went on, “and then I saw this abomination desecrating the church!” She flung a hand out topoint accusatorily at the statue. “What bit of Satanic filth is this? How did it come to crush the holy baptismal font?”

Lawrence’s shoulders relaxed a bit as he shrugged them and said, “Um, er, you see, the thing is, this statue belongs to me. It’s Primavera in Splendor.”

The woman’s eyes widened. “Devil worshiper! Spawn of Satan!”

Lawrence sighed and rolled his eyes. Although he supposed he did look less than holy in his current state of undress.

“This is all a terrible misunderstanding,” he said, trying to smile and present himself as kind and gentlemanly instead of half-dressed and deranged. “My driver found it necessary to unburden our carriage of all it contained so that he could take it to a wainwright in your good village, you see. He left two days ago, and I bade him stay in the village until the carriage was repaired rather than be bored to tears here by myself and Lady Minerva.”

“Lies!” the village woman said. “All lies and deceit.”

“Lord Lawrence does not lie,” Minerva said, glaring fire at the woman.

The woman flung her arm out again, this time pointing to one of the church windows. “Is that not your carriage and your driver now?”

Both Lawrence and Minerva turned to gaze out through the window. Sure enough, Silas was just stopping the horses as the carriage, looking much more balanced and sound, rolled to a stop.

“How fortunate,” Lawrence said, forcing a smile as the woman continued to glare at him. “He has returned.”

As glad as Lawrence was to see Silas and the carriage back and in good condition, he was immediately on his guard as he watched Silas jump down from the driver’s seat to open the carriage’s door.

Worse still, at the sight of a gentleman of middling years stepped down and looked around with a scowl, Minerva gasped and ducked, as if someone had thrown something at her.

“Minerva?” Lawrence asked.

“Owen!” Minerva hissed in return.

At first, Lawrence thought her fever had returned and she had called him by the wrong name. But when Minerva kept her stance low and hurried quickly to the window so that she could peek out while exposing as little of herself to outside view as possible, another possibility came to mind.

“He is your intended,” Lawrence said, uncertain whether he should have been angry or alarmed or jealous about the turn of events as he walked over to join Minerva. “We saw him at that other inn. You believed he had been following us since London.”

Minerva sighed, then sank to lean against the wall beside the window. She stared at Lawrence for several heavy seconds before pinching her face and nodding.

“It appears as though he has,” she said thickly, then took a moment to blow her nose.

Lawrence frowned at the sticky turn of events as he glanced out the window. Silas was arguing with the man, Owen. Lawrence had not informed him of the problem of Lord Owen Scurloch, but Silas was clever and loyal enough to have puzzled things out, he guessed.

“It seems Owen has caught up to us again after Tidworth Hall,” Minnie said once her nose was clear. “And it seems we can no longer count on the hope that he was merely returning to Wales by the same route as us.”

“He is most definitely searching for you,” Lawrence said, his frown darker still.

To the side, Mary from the village was still looking on, as though she were suddenly more interested in the drama playing out in front of her than her fear of demons and witches.Lawrence did not trust her not to dash out of the church, calling out to Lord Owen that Minerva was hiding inside the church. The only way he could be certain such a thing did not happen was if he got rid of Lord Owen as quickly as possible.

“I have an idea,” he said, marching for the church door. “Stay here,” he told Minerva firmly, then charged Mary with, “Watch over her. If she dies, I will hold you responsible.”

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