Free To Kiss a Thief by Susanna Craig Page A

Fairfax!”
    Dressed in a morning gown of green striped poplin, Fanny Kittery stood in the doorway of her husband’s apothecary shop like a brightly colored spider in the center of her web, awaiting her unwary prey.
    Clarissa clutched her mother’s skirts. Sarah paused without stepping closer. “I can’t chat this morning, Mrs. Kittery. I’m meeting Mrs. Norris to finalize arrangements for the festival. You haven’t forgotten your promise to sell some of your delightful soaps to help our cause?”
    â€œSo you plan to stay on until Michaelmas, then?” Mrs. Kittery pressed. “I had thought perhaps, with the sudden reappearance of Mr. Fairfax, you would be leaving Haverhythe.”
    So insistent had been her recollections of the past and her anxieties about the future, Sarah had not fully considered how she ought to respond in the present. How would a woman who had believed her husband dead react to his sudden reappearance? She dearly hoped that shock was an acceptable response, because she did not think she could manage joy.
    Fortunately, Mrs. Kittery required no response at all. “I guess one never can tell what the merry widow will decide to do,” she concluded with a sneer.
    The merry widow . It was a slight Sarah had not heard spoken aloud in years.
    How could it hurt worse now than it had then?
    â€œMy husband and I have much to discuss. In the meantime, however, I intend to go on as I have done.”
    â€œYou’ll find that a married woman is not so free, Mrs. Fairfax.” She stressed the word married in such a way as to make clear her doubt that any such bond existed between Sarah and the stranger who had just arrived in Haverhythe.
    Sarah inclined her head, feeling the shadow of the noose fall along her neck. “No woman is truly free, Mrs. Kittery. I’ll wish you good morning.”
    She had curved a hand around Clarissa’s narrow shoulders to lead her away up the street, when she heard steps on the cobblestones behind her. Turning, she saw St. John striding purposefully into Haverhythe’s only general store. Desperate to escape another meeting, Sarah all but pushed Clarissa through the first opened doorway that presented itself.
    â€œNow then, I told Ma you’d be along, Mrs. F. Surely I did.” Emily Dawlish set aside her workbasket and fairly jumped from her chair by the window, setting her glossy black ringlets bouncing. “But Ma said she didn’t think it likely and stepped down to Widow Thomas’s for a bit. Won’t she be shamefaced to have missed you! And you, too, Miss Clarissa!”
    Sarah looked about herself, bewildered, to discover they had landed in the seamstress’s shop.
    â€œWhy, Emily,” Sarah began, uncertain how to explain their sudden arrival.
    But Emily Dawlish needed no explanation. “I knew when I heard the news that you’d want outta that old black dress, first thing. I would, if it was me.”
    Emily was just a year or so younger than Sarah, but unlike Sarah, she kept no dark secrets. Nothing had happened to blight the girl’s vivacity. She was all smiling pink cheeks and shining black-currant eyes. Sarah knew for a fact that she had turned the heads of half a dozen young fishermen, but so far, Emily seemed to favor none of them. Though the shop belonged to Emily’s mother, all of Haverhythe knew the real artistry came from the daughter’s hands, and Sarah suspected the young woman was loath to surrender what Fanny Kittery was pleased to call Emily’s “dangerous independence.”
    Sarah curled her fingers in the fabric of her skirt, her shield for more than three years. “Why, no. I hadn’t thought to—”
    But Clarissa eagerly clapped her approval and Emily already had a tape in her hands. “Of course you want a change. I saw your man walk up-along this mornin’. He’s a right handsome one!” As she went about the task of