Page 80 of Hazard a Guest
“I think you should do what pleases you,” Joe told him, lifting his brows. “If it would disturb you to have them linger here, especially with a man like Penrose, then give them to the sea.”
“Oh, Joe,” Freddy said with a sigh and a chuckle. “I’d hate for the sea to develop a bad habit.”
Ember returned, knocking the door open and inviting them inside. “I just wanted to get the fire going,” she said, something bright green flashing in her hand as she walked backward, presenting the room, “and of course I had to hide all of our feminine underthings so neither of you became overtaken with scandal.”
“How many underthings could possibly have been out and about?” Freddy asked, sounding genuinely in want of an answer.
“You’ll never know, Bentley,” Ember replied happily, and then she held her hand out, revealing the green thing, the thing she’dmade with Hannah that was neither cross nor wheel nor relic. “This is for you.”
“For …” Freddy frowned, staring down at it. “But I gave that back to you.”
“Oh, Freddy,” she said with a grin and a shake of her head. “Don’t be an idiot. This one is brand-new. It’s not mine. It’s yours.”
“Mine?” he repeated, still clearly not understanding.
She sighed, pulling it back and turning it in her hands. “It’s a talisman, you understand? A protective item. You’re supposed to make a new one every year, actually. I’m being a very naughty Kildaran having preserved mine, but I think it still has its magic, despite its advanced age and heretical lacquer.”
“What?” said Freddy.
Silently, Joe agreed.
Ember made a click of annoyance with her tongue. “I think the protection still works, is what I mean. I think it protected you. I think it kept you whole all the time that you had it. It’s mine, though, it’s mine and I’m keeping it, so I made you one.Tuig?”
“I … I think Ituig,” Freddy replied, his brows still furrowed but his hand creeping out toward the thing. “You made it for me?”
“Yes,” she said, exhaling with relief as she handed it over. “And I’ll make you a new one next year. I’ll keep making them as long as you keep deserving them, Freddy Hightower. Do we have a deal?”
Freddy thought about it, looking down at the braided greenery in his hand. He looked at Joe and then he looked at Emberand then he looked down at the cross again, as though he were looking at himself.
“Yes, all right,” he said at last, fingers closing over the spaces between the points of the cross. “I’ll take that wager.”
EPILOGUE
MANY MONTHS LATER
Ember sneezed.
Once. Twice. Three times.
She used her hands to cover her face for the duration, each dry spasm lifting her almost off the ground. The sawdust, of course, could still get through the seams between her fingers, but it felt like a bit of a shield, even so.
“Here,” said Joe Cresson, his warm hand finding the back of her neck and his handkerchief finding purchase in her grip. “We could crack a window, you know.”
“That would just let in more torture,” she muttered, accepting it with gratitude and dabbing at the tears in her eyes. “I hate the summer. Thank the Saints it’s almost over. My gratitude for the kerchief, my own.”
He only chuckled in response, shaking his head but leaving the windows sealed for now.
The new construction was coming together very well. The space had been a café before, and as such had very little in the way of practical amenities for a new gambling hell. Still, it had come at a good price, and Ember thought there was something appealing about assembling it all herself, with not a single element inherited from what came before.
Even the windows were new, she thought with pride. The firmly closed windows.
Joe had asked her this morning if they had named the place yet. Beck, of course, had pitched calling it the Ace of Hearts, but Ember thought that both trite and a little ominous. She had suggested something irreverent likeThe Fool’s Folly, but Freddy had taken issue with that, assuming such a name would be a reference to him.
Joe had not suggested anything. “I’m a barrister,” he reminded her, “we just name our businesses after ourselves.”
It was true, of course. The man knew his strengths.
Her man, she reminded herself, thumbing the wedding ring on her third finger. Her husband.
