Page 2 of Her Christmas White Knight

“You’re mine now, Master Gander, or Mistress Goose.” She grinned, looking the beast in its beady eyes, ensuring it understood she was its master.

Nay, surely such good fortune could never happen to her? The bird would turn out to belong to her landlord, or a watchman, or a soldier built like a brick wall. It would belong to someone who could make her life a misery or who’d turn her over to the constables as a common thief. She’d lose a hand, or an ear, or be branded, or suffer some other ghastly punishment.

If anything happened to her, what would become of Hal? She’d been teaching him to read, so he might better himself and start an apprenticeship, but without her influence, he’d return to his old criminal ways. Nay. She might as well throw herself into the Thames right now rather than appropriate the goose.

She heard a shout and the sound of heavy footsteps running toward the yard.

“Come back, you devil-spawned beast!”

It was a man’s voice, one that sounded oddly familiar. Faith! It must be the goose’s owner. Could she really afford to part with it? It would keep them fed for days, or if she kept it alive, they’d have eggs—presuming it was a female. It was a desperate decision to take. But she was desperate. She’d just have to make sure she was never caught. Thrusting the bird between her knees, she crouched on the ground, and covered it with her skirts.

The man puffed into the yard. “Goodwife—did you see a goose?”

All thoughts about the rectitude—or otherwise—of keeping the bird were forgotten. Her voice—nay, her very breath, was stolen from her.

She had recognized the voice. She did know him. Myall Farrar. Memories of drunken caresses on a star-lit beach heated her face.

She cast her eyes down, hoping he wouldn’t equate this pitiful pauper with the once beautiful—and much sought-after—Mistress Julia Wentworth. “Nay, Sir,” she croaked.

She glanced up as he cocked an eyebrow at her. “Are you certain?”

The goose wriggled, and she had to press its head down before its form became apparent beneath her skirts. It felt as if she were riding a miniature horse—a very silky but decidedly angry one.

The bird could provide so much bounty for her and Hal. Not just its flesh, but there was its grease to use for ointments, its fluffy down for stuffing a pillow, and its feathers for making quill pens. She’d be a fool to give it up.

“I’ve seen nothing, Sir. Best hurry if you want to catch it.”

“Thank you.” He gave her a brisk nod and took to his heels again, haring out of the yard.

She waited until her heart ceased its hammering, then extracted the goose. With one hand clamped firmly over its beak, she hurried indoors.

As the goose struggled in her grasp, she knew she should be considering the practicalities of hiding and feeding it until Christmas. But her mind was clamped like a limpet on the shocking reappearance of Myall Farrar.

He looked as lithe and powerful as he’d ever been. During the shipwreck at Southwold, back home in Suffolk, she’d seen him hefting kegs and barrels of liquor as if they weighed nothing. He’d carried her, too, behind a grassy sand dune, so they could kiss and whisper sweet nothings to one another, as drunken youths and maids were wont to do.

But now, he was a man full-fledged, and much had changed about him. In those few moments when she’d dared to raise her eyes, she’d noticed he wasn’t dressed in the finery befitting a wealthy wool merchant’s son. His shirt cuffs, where they protruded from his unadorned doublet, had brown ink stains on them, and his boots were scuffed and worn. Had some disaster struck him, as it had her, and reduced his circumstances? She was desperate to know.

She’d also spotted some peculiar marks on his face. At first, she’d thought it was a trick of the light, or that he was wearing his hat at an odd angle. But when he’d turned to go, the shadows hadn’t moved.

Regardless of how poorly dressed he was, the essence that was Myall Farrar remained. If anything, it was intensified by the fact that he was now a man, without the bloom of youth on his face. He looked strong, rugged, determined. And, curse it, as eminently kissable as he had been all those years ago.

Her heart had sped up again. Was it from fear, because she’d stolen his goose? Or burning attraction, the first she’d felt for any man since Walter de Glanville had taught her to hate his sex?

Whichever it was that had so affected her, to see Myall again could end in disaster, whether he recognized her or not.