Danger's Kiss Read Free Page A

“An hour, Grimshaw!” he called over his shoulder.
    Nicholas cursed under his breath, then glanced at the executioner, who waited for his orders, his beefy arms crossed over his barrel chest.  From his earnings, he counted out the five shillings the man was owed.  “Go get yourself a pint.  I’ll put him in the ground.”
    As the executioner gratefully retired to the nearest inn, the constable, shivering with the cold, tucked his hands beneath his arms, glancing around the nearly empty square.  “No kin?”
    “He said he had a young granddaughter.”
    “Living in Canterbury?”
    Nicholas shook his head.  “They were passing through.”
    The constable winced.  “Not pilgrims, I hope?”
    “Nay.  The old man wasn’t looking for absolution.  He was a seasoned outlaw.”
    The constable nodded, then began pacing back and forth before the gallows, clapping his arms and rubbing his hands together for warmth, glancing up occasionally at Kabayn’s body.  “Why do you suppose he — ?”
    “I don’t know.”  That wasn’t exactly true.  He could guess why Kabayn had leaped from the ladder before the executioner had a chance to force him off.  He’d spoken to the outlaw long enough to learn that, feeble as he was, Kabayn was a man accustomed to making his own rules and steering his own fate.  It was one final act of defiance for him to cheat the hangman.
    Not that it mattered that he’d added suicide to his list of crimes.  Kabayn’s soul was already cursed by the sin of murder.  Nicholas would have to bury his body in unhallowed ground.
    “An hour indeed,” the constable muttered.  “’Tis a stupid law.  The man’s neck is obviously broken.”
    Nicholas agreed.  The law had been made for victims of simple strangulation, to ensure they were truly dead.  He sniffed.  “The law says at least an hour.”
    “Aye?”
    “If there’s no kin to know one way or the other, we’ll leave him for the night.  No one will steal the body.  Not even a carrion crow would brave this cold.  I’ll cut him down in the morn ere anyone’s up and about.”
    Bidding the thankful constable good afternoon and casting one last glance toward the silent, snow-dusted corpse, Nicholas shouldered his satchel and trudged down the lane toward his lodgings, trembling less from cold than from fatigue.
    At the moment, he desperately needed a belly full of ale and a good night’s sleep.  Early tomorrow, he’d bury Hubert Kabayn and seek out the man’s grandchild so he could honor the fellow’s last request.  It had been a long two days, and dispensing death always weighed heavily on his soul.

    Desirée’s breath made plumes in the air as she crept on kitten-soft feet through the shallow snow, her footprints dwarfed by the giant who trod the path several score yards before her.  He was but a shadow in the distance, disappearing around corners and down winding lanes.  But few other souls braved the snow-covered streets of Canterbury now, so she had no trouble following his tracks.
    He naturally didn’t live in the village proper.  Merchants of death like Nicholas Grimshaw lodged outside of town, away from decent folk, in order to thwart the kind of vengeance she was about to take.
    Desirée shivered, as much from apprehension as from the cold.  She’d never killed anyone before.  She wasn’t even sure she could do it, despite the icy rage filling her veins.  But she knew she’d never find peace until she avenged Hubert’s death.
    Hubert wouldn’t be pleased.  A good cheat would never succumb to passion, particularly anger.  A good cheat kept a level head, wore a guileless smile, and evened the score in more subtle ways, usually by lightening a man’s purse right under his nose.
    Perhaps Hubert was right.  Perhaps Desirée wasn’t a good cheat, after all.  Perhaps she should retire from her life of crime.
    And perhaps she would...right after she paid the ruthless shire-reeve back for his