Cupids Read Online Free Page B

“But you have a new world now.”
    â€œA new world without the comforts of home. You can’t bring a lady to such a wild and untamed region. It’s too dangerous. At night the sky itself is like crystal, the voluptuous moon four times its usual size. As the oceans roll onto the endless sands you can hear the mermaids whispering to each other on the spice-fumed air. And Mr. Guy misled your mistress about that too. No air is sweeter than that of Cupers Cove. The atmosphere is different in the far west; it hangs like vapour of honey, tinged with cinnamon and clove.”
    â€œIt doesn’t sound dangerous,” Helen says, turning her body from the fire. Her knee bumps against mine as she faces me full on. “It sounds marvellous!”
    â€œWould you not find it too much for your senses?”
    â€œI scrub floors and empty chamber pots for my keep. That’s too much for my senses, not the world that you describe.”
    I nod and throw the second length of twig into the fire. “But there is a cost, young Helen.”
    â€œDon’t call me young Helen. I’m at least as old as you.” Her dark eyes, moist with anger, have caught the flame now. “I was schooled too, with Miss Eliza, at least for a while when we were children.”
    â€œYears and school. I’m talking of experience.”
    â€œExperience of what, exactly?” She cocks her head and frowns, and looks achingly pretty. “Why do men always talk like that? You think life is about miles traversed? Women bedded? Ale swilled? How about ovens fired, floors swept, silver polished? My broom has travelled more miles than any ship. That’s experience for you!”
    â€œExperience of drudgery, yes.”
    She straightens her neck and leans away from me. For a moment I think I’ve gone too far, and that I might have lost her.
    â€œWhat exactly would you have me do to change my situation?” I know it’s meant sarcastically, but this is the opening I’ve been looking for.
    I smile and consider for a moment.
    â€œHow did you leave your household, Helen? Are they all safely asleep? No disturbances?”
    â€œYes, everyone is asleep.”
    â€œMr. Egret too?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œI’m glad to hear he sleeps so soundly, and there was no commotion about the place.”
    â€œNow it is you who is talking in riddles.”
    I pause again and look into the flames.
    â€œThe Egret household bulges at the seams with riches. How does a woman like you polish and dust trinkets of little account to their owner, but of a value that might make the fortune of a modest man, or woman?”
    â€œI don’t know ‘how,’ as you put it, but I can tell you that fear of the hangman’s noose keeps my fingers where they ought to be.”
    â€œAh, but there you have it, Helen: fear. Listen for a second!”
    I take hold of her wrist.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œJust listen,” I whisper.
    I loosen my grip upon her wrist and let my hand fall. Her startled eyes, still searching mine, widen. A woman coughs and spits somewhere in the deepest shadows near the road. The gibbet creaks. A cold-fingered breeze creeps around us.
    â€œIt’s everywhere, closing in on us. Wouldn’t you prefer to skirmish with death than let it come upon you slowly, unopposed?” I feel her sigh, and know the thought is not new to her. “Experience, the only experience worth having, is about risk. I was not Mr. Guy’s deputy when we set out from Minehead eighteen months ago.”
    â€œI’d say not. You couldn’t have been more than sixteen years old.”
    â€œIt’s risk-taking that elevated me to where I am today. That’s what the new world is all about. Its wonders are not for the faint-hearted.”
    â€œI’m not faint-hearted,” she says, a wounded look returning. “You should know that by now. I’ve broken my master’s curfew three