Page 9 of Tusk Love

Oskar had thrown a cloak over Guinevere once the evening chill began to set in over the Amber Road. Now she clutched it tightly around herself, conscious of her bare legs beneath. The stares aimed her way ranged from perplexed to calculating, and it was all she could do to hold her head high and ignore them.

“Oskar,” she whispered, “where are we going?”

He stiffened at the nervous tremor in her voice. “My house. It’s fine, no one will bother you as long as you’re with me.”

“Why are we going to your house?”

“To eat and rest,” he said shortly. “It’s too late to shop, so we’ll do that tomorrow morning.”

“Oskar.” She was so shocked that she forgot her manners enough to pinch his arm. “I’m sorry, but I can’t stay at your house.”

He blinked. “Why not?”

“It’s not proper!”

A man ambling past them in the opposite direction chose that moment to spit out his chewing tobacco. The wet black glob landed at Guinevere’s feet, and she nearly twisted her ankle to avoid stepping onit.

Oskar shot her a wry glance. “As you can see, propriety is not foremost on the mind here in the Dustbellows.”

“Well, it’s foremost onmymind,” she replied with a sniff. “Unless…does your mother live with you?” It would be better than nothing, as far as chaperones went.

He hesitated a beat too long before shaking his head.

“Then—I really can’t,” Guinevere insisted. “Please take me to an inn. You may fetch me there in the morning.”

They’d already spent one night together with nobody else around, back in the cave, and she’d traveled the whole day with him, wearing his clothes. She didn’t know why she’d selected now, of all times, to cling this stubbornly to the rules of her world.

Perhaps because this town was so foreign. She felt unmoored. She would have taken any anchor.

“You don’t have a coin to your name,” Oskar reminded her. “How are you going to pay for a room?”

“I’ll barter, as you’ve said.” Guinevere sounded more confident than she actually felt. But she figured that she could reimburse her parents with the generous allowance that she was soon to receive. She just had to make it to Nicodranas with the trunk. The rest would come later.

Oskar blew out an exasperated puff of breath. “All right.” He turned around, back the way they came, taking her with him. “We’ll find somewhere for you in the Silverstreet district.”

“It’s a nicer part of town?”

He rolled his eyes. “Folks here in the Dustbellows—their bark is worse than their bite. But Silverstreet is less likely to offend milady’s sensibilities.”

The Silverstreet innkeeper behind thereception desk threw back his head and let out guffaw after roaring guffaw. Guinevere had never felt more humiliated in her entire life.

He was big-boned and middle-aged, with a rotund belly that shook like pudding from the sheer force of his humor. She lifted her chin defiantly, knuckles clenched to white around the golden comb that she’d offered in payment for a room.

“Lass,” he said, wiping tears of mirth from his eyes, “what am Isupposed to do with a comb?” He ran a hand over his shiny scalp. “I’m as bald as a badger’s arse over here.”

Guinevere flinched at the crude idiom. “I also have some cups—” she started to plead, but he waved her away impatiently.

“I only take coin, even from pretty faces such as yourself. Off with you if you don’t have any.”

Defeated and more than mildly vexed, Guinevere marched back to Oskar, who was leaning against the stone mantelpiece with his arms crossed, the pearwood trunk safely shoved behind him. At first, he’d observed her pitiful attempt at negotiation with bemused interest, but at some point he’d devoted himself to casting a baleful glare around the room at large.

She looked around, puzzled. Only then did it sink in that the crowded lobby had grown somewhat quieter since she and Oskar arrived. The patrons who weren’t openly staring at her were sneaking covert glances as they ate supper and played cards and puffed on pipes and nursed tankards of ale.

As soon as each one of them noticed the dour and hulking specter beside her, though, they couldn’t return to what they were doing fast enough.

Once the inn had resumed its previous level of noise and activity, Oskar turned his full attention to Guinevere. “I thought you’d be better at bargaining,” he remarked. “Being a merchant’s daughter and all.”

“Oh, stop it,” she groused. “Now what am I going to do?”

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