Page 3 of Centerpiece (Infinite Grace #2)

Or maybe the man didn’t care for lasses.

Agreeable abruptly remembered he was supposed to be a lass, with a false bosom and a skirt.

A shame the lovely fellow wasn’t interested.

Agreeable had always thought he would have done well as a lass.

A mouth was a mouth, after all, although perhaps a woman might get treated differently on her knees than Agreeable did.

Or perhaps not. Maybe this man would have been gentle with anyone.

Or perhaps not.

Agreeable reconsidered the man watching him muse about skirts and having his mouth taken, and felt himself grow hot beneath his clothes. Blushing like a lass now too. He gripped the ends of the scarf again.

“Don’t you have to go take care of things in the market? Or talk with other merchants?” Merchants always seemed to do that, share meals and wine while clapping each other on the back.

“Merchants?” The man glanced down over his breeches and doublet. “No,” he said slowly, “I’m not here to sell anything. I stopped to see the market.”

“And paid for a whole room for just yourself?” Agreeable nearly screeched it, unable to be soft. “Spending like that without being concerned about profit?” He opened and shut his mouth. “How rich are you?”

He looked over the doublet and breeches again. He could see now that the cloth was likely fine, and dye in that dark of a black could not have been cheap. The cloth would have to be re-dyed often to keep that midnight shade.

“Um,” he added when the man didn’t seem pleased by Agreeable’s foolish questions. “I wouldn’t know if you told me anyway.” He wondered if he should attempt a curtsy but just bowed his head. “Coin in the sort of amounts you might be used to would make no sense to me.”

There was a long, deep sigh. “I apologize again.”

“That also makes no sense to me,” Agreeable admitted. “But if you want me to talk while you eat, then I can. However, I must tell you that I’m not someone people go to for knowledge.”

“Well—” the man uncrossed his arms “—I’ve found that I get more truth from people who have no reason to lie.

Oh, you have reasons,” he went on, that hint of a smile reappearing under Agreeable’s rapt attention, “but that’s to lie in general.

Not about this. Though you perhaps should have. What if I were a friend of your count?”

“I said nothing but the truth!” Agreeable blurted immediately, leaving the door to make his case, then stopping with a shiver. “Are you?”

“Never met him,” the man responded, unfurling his brow.

“Stay out of sight and be silent,” he ordered, and then went to the door again, this time slipping outside.

Agreeable fussed with his scarf, ensuring it was firmly in place, and then the man was back.

“The food should arrive shortly. You should... hmm.”

“I can hide behind the bed,” Agreeable volunteered. “Was it clear downstairs? Is the bailiff still around?”

“I didn’t go all the way downstairs.” The man turned away to consider the room.

The space behind the bed was really all there was for a hiding place.

“The bailiff and innkeeper seemed to know you well. They insinuated,” he paused, then used a word Agreeable recognized, “they hinted that they knew you well . That many did.”

Some didn’t like women who were widely known.

Agreeable was a woman at the moment. Well, he was and he wasn’t.

But some also liked to laugh at men who were widely known.

Some didn’t like men knowing each other—but those were usually Church followers, and Agreeable had seen the way some of the priests looked at each other, so he didn’t respect that even a little.

He shrugged though the man couldn’t see. “I’m agreeable.”

The small laugh surprised him. “Must be, to have drawn attention in the market even before the chaos you caused.”

Agreeable cleared his throat. “I didn’t cause all of the chaos.”

“Your friends did,” the man guessed, turned back to Agreeable at last. “The ones you’re protecting. Though they left you.”

“Well, that’s.... They would have.... It’s.

...” Agreeable tried to cross his arms and then had to worry over his bosom.

If he put his arms beneath it, he would be pushing it out like the creature of suspect morals everyone believed him to be.

He cupped the side of one cloth breast, looked up into intent, jewel-like eyes, and quickly dropped his arms. “They might have faced more than a beating.”

“So might you have,” the man replied. “They left you.”

“Well, they are all that I.... They’re friends. In a sense. So... so....” Agreeable lowered his shoulders. “It’s no good to speak of it.”

“I apologize if my words stung.”

“You know they stung.” Agreeable pursed his lips. “And it’s funny, you apologizing to me. I’m nothing.”

“Your friends, or lovers, are disrespectful cads if they’ve convinced you of that.

” The man smiled when Agreeable gaped at him.

It was not the warm smile from before. “That, I won’t apologize for.

Ah.” A knock on the door sent him in that direction, but he didn’t open it until Agreeable had scurried across the room to duck between the bed and the wall.

The bed frame was solid. The bedding quality.

Agreeable heard footsteps and voices and the rattle of crockery, but saw nothing except the ceiling of the room.

When the door closed again, he stayed put, and flushed hotly for no reason he could name when the man said, “Very good of you to wait, but you may come out now.”

Betram or someone from the kitchens had brought a small table and set it before the fire.

It was laden with dishes, a bottle, and a jug.

The food smelled like chicken with herbs.

The man made no move to tear into it, however.

He held out a towel when Agreeable tried to slip past him and leave him to his meal, then coughed.

It wasn’t a real cough, but rather a delicate one. “Forgive me, but I asked them for some hot water in case you’d like to wash up.”

“Bathed in the river two days ago,” Agreeable informed him, not with ill will, then paused. “Hot water?”

The man gestured to the jug, which was steaming now that Agreeable took a better look at it, and an empty bowl.

Agreeable should have been embarrassed, but he was hardly a rich sort with the time and servants to arrange baths all the time. Especially with warm water.

“I did run around a lot today,” he allowed generously, pausing again when he noticed the sliver of soap waiting for him in the bowl. Between that and the heated water, he wasn’t going to waste his chance. “And the warm water is a treat, so thank you.”

He got a smile, a full one, fit to steal his breath, but then it was gone, the man stepping aside and turning to face the wall.

Because oh yes, they were a bit more shy than regular folk, the wealthy. Had their big houses with doors and many rooms and whatnot. And Agreeable was a good woman dressing to please the Church. That meant modesty.

He removed the cowl first, setting it carefully aside since it had been clean and on a wash line when he’d nicked it, like the rest of his clothes.

Then he washed his face and his neck, pausing to tie his scarf in place again, and then his hands, before giving himself a wipe beneath his clothes.

He didn’t think he was expected to fully undress.

.. although then he worried that he was.

And then that a bath did mean the man had a fuck on his mind, so he quickly splashed the last of the warm water into the bowl to scrub the rest of him as well.

In case, like. The man was a jewel and Agreeable was hardly going to say no.

“You’re on your way somewhere, then?” Agreeable asked while he scrubbed, keeping an eye on the man though he made no move to turn around.

Trusting. What if Agreeable was a liar and did want to rob him? What if he had a knife? There was one on the table, in fact.

That should not have warmed Agreeable even more, this fellow ready to have faith in him. It was only that he believed Agreeable to be a lass. That was all. That was why he was turned around as well, manners like a hero in a story, but because he thought Agreeable was a woman.

Of course, he also thought Agreeable was a thief yet was affording him the same respect anyway.

That did something strange and unspeakable to Agreeable’s insides. He tried to push past it.

“You’re on your way somewhere and stopped when you heard there was a market?” he pressed, staring with some dismay at the now-dirty water in the bowl. But at least his hands smelled of soap.

“Yes. I am due to return home.”

“And you’re not eager to get back there?” People could have many reasons for that. It wasn’t Agreeable’s business. But he got an answer.

“I love my home. But this time, the journey feels heavier. My grandfather died not long ago,” the man explained, stopping Agreeable with his hands over his mouth to enjoy the smell of the soap.

“I am sorry.” He truly was. The emotion in the man’s voice said he had cared for his grandfather.

“It wasn’t unexpected. But... he more or less raised me.” It emerged with a sigh.

Agreeable understood. “The place will be strange with him gone. A hole where he ought to be. With my da, it was like that. Of course, I wasn’t fit to manage a whole farm, and the Church claimed the land not long after that anyway.

So it’s more the memory of him now. And worry that he’d be upset with me for failing, even though there’s little I could do against a few bad years and the Church. ”

“I’m sorry.” The man bowed his head for a moment, and Agreeable realized he had a rosary in his pocket, part of the string of beads visible as he rolled them between his fingers.

Enchanted beads at that, glittering with blessings someone had paid well for.

“It’s like that, isn’t it? Loving them but also always wondering if we will do right by their memory. ”