Chapter 26
TWENTY-SIX
Lucine was working in the garden, a cap tied around her silver hair to protect her skin from the burning sun, when she heard his gentle voice, singing. She looked up to see John riding towards her on his beautiful steed. Standing with her hands on her hips, she smiled at him.
‘Good morning, Lucine, how fares you this fine day?’
‘Good morning, John, I am well. Yourself?’
‘I am very well now that I have laid eyes upon the fairest lady in all of the land.’
She felt the warmth flush her cheeks. ‘Shush, you must not talk that way in public.’
He jumped down off the horse, cupped a hand over his brow and made a show of looking around the area. Then turning back to her he grinned.
‘But we are not in public. I can confirm there is only you, I, Dapple, my trusty horse and May, who be so busy grazing over there that she did not even acknowledge me. A travesty given I was the one who rescued her from that boorish man who was starving her. Look at the life she is now living, it is a good life at the hands of thee and thy sisters, is it not?’
Lucine laughed. ‘You flatter yourself. You also forget this is Salem and the Puritans outnumber the rest of us.’
He shrugged. ‘No matter, there be no Puritans around at this very moment I am glad to tell thee.’
‘Good because there is much talk in the village about the number of times you have been calling.’
‘Let them talk, ’tis jealousy, is it not?’
Lucine shrugged.
‘Might you have time to come for a walk through the woods? I have something for you, but I dare not give it to you here in front of your sisters. I would prefer somewhere more private.’
She straightened up, brushed the dirt from her fingers and adjusted her cap.
‘If it is another animal, then pray do not give it to me. They have only just forgiven you for arriving with a cow. If thou were to turn up with a pig or a sheep it would be the end for thee, John Hadden. Lenora would put you out to pasture with it.’
He laughed, that warm, gentle belly laugh that gave Lucine goosebumps every time she heard it.
His eyes that sometimes looked so sad were bright when he laughed and she liked that.
Seraphina had told her and Lenny about John’s wife and child, which had explained her sisters’ change of heart.
They may be stubborn and protective, but they were kind and forgiving, always ready to help those less fortunate no matter the price they may pay, and both Lenora and Seraphina had agreed that John Hadden needed their kindness and help.
Lucine smiled at him. ‘Let me tell them where I am going so they do not worry.’
She walked back towards the cabin, where Seraphina handed her a small package wrapped in linen and a flagon of ale.
‘Feed the man, he must be hungry. The food in Ingersoll’s leaves much to be desired. Please be careful out there, Lucine. If any of those foolish girls happen to chance upon the both of you who knows what trouble they could cause.’
Lucine knew her sister was referring to the Putnams. They were trouble with capital T, but she had no fear of them. She could handle whatever they may throw at her. Washing her hands in the sink from water out of a jug, she dried them and removed the cap from her head.
‘I fear you should keep that on, or your head will burn with the heat from the sun this evening when you return to us.’ Lenora was watching her from the corner of the room.
‘I know you are a grown woman but please be careful, Lucine, you are far too precious to us to lose you because you are too stubborn for your own good.’
Lucine puckered her lips and blew a kiss in Lenora’s direction.
Then she wrapped her shawl around her shoulders in case it should be much cooler inside of the woods and went to join John, who hoisted her up onto the back of his horse with ease.
Having no choice but to put her arms around his waist, she inhaled the smell of horse, leather and the soap he used to wash himself and thought that this was what happiness smelled of.