The well-kept garden beside the neat woodpile suggested the cottage’s occupant looked after the place, but she certainly wasn’t wealthy. She couldn’t refuse Archer’s offer. He was about to make this curse painter rich beyond her wildest dreams—if she ever opened the door.
Archer leaned his longbow against the wall and knocked again. Movement fluttered behind the green curtains, a hint of dark hair and white linen.
“Hello in there!” he called. “I know you’re home.”
The sound of careful footsteps filtered through the door. It occurred to him that the curse painter could be preparing a jinx.
“I mean you no harm,” he said quickly. “I’d like a word with you.”
Still no response. Did she really think pretending she wasn’t home was going to work? Archer had important business to discuss. He had no time for games.
“I could come back later,” he called through the door. “Maybe with Sheriff Flynn or some of Lord Barden’s oafs. I’m sure they’d be very interested in what I saw at Willem Winton’s house this afternoon—or what used to be his house.”
A brief silence. Then the door cracked open, and a pair of luminous brown eyes appeared. “What do you want?”
“Good evening.” He gave a bow fit for a duchess. “I am called Archer. I’m an accomplished thief and brigand. I serve the blade, the coin, and the open road. I have come to offer you an opportunity to escape your sordid circumstances and embark on the adventure of a dozen lifetimes.”
The girl stared at him, blinking her large, shimmering eyes. It was unsettling, being stared at like that.
“Do you always tell people you’re a thief?” she asked at last.
“Don’t you tell them you’re an unlicensed curse painter?”
“Please don’t say that so loud.” Urgency tinged the girl’s voice, though no one was around to hear it. The cottage’s location on the quieter side of the Brittlewyn River made sure of that.
“I’m not here to hurt you,” Archer said. “I have been looking to hire someone with your particular set of skills, and I must say, yours are the most particular I’ve ever seen.”
“I don’t work for criminals.” She began to shut the door.
Archer jammed the toe of his boot into the doorway. He’d misjudged her strength and winced as the door nearly chopped his foot in half. “I beg your pardon, miss,” Archer said, eyes watering from the pain. “But are you not a criminal yourself?”
There was another brief pause in the poorly lit hut. Archer felt like he was speaking to a pair of disembodied eyes floating in the shadows.
“I only accept clients under special circumstances.”
“Wouldn’t you like to hear my circumstances, then?”
The girl ground her teeth audibly. “If you’ll stop talking about it out here.” She released her hold on the door and stepped back. “You’d better come inside.”
Archer was surprised. Inviting a stranger into one’s home was risky even in this sleepy country town. But as he ducked beneath the low-hanging lintel, he realized the curse painter was holding an iron kettle, the spout steaming faintly. He was lucky she hadn’t thrown it in his face when he stuck his foot in her door.
The light from the crackling fireplace gave him a better look at the curse painter. Though rather short, she wasn’t quite as young as he had thought, perhaps eighteen or nineteen, only a few years younger than he was. There was a maturity in her bearing that he’d missed when she was clambering around in that maple tree. She wore a white blouse and a green wool skirt, and her dark hair fell around her shoulders in a frizzy cloud.
The cottage consisted of one room, with a quilt-covered bed in the corner, a small table, and a ladderback chair with a few missing rungs. A large easel with a half-finished painting on a stretched canvas occupied the center of the small space. Other paintings leaned against the walls, the images indistinct in the firelight.
Archer strode to the easel. The painting depicted a pastoral scene, a little farmhouse at the edge of a field of wheat. Tame work, considering what he’d seen the girl accomplish earlier that day.
“What does this painting do?” he asked, examining the swaths of green and gold.
“It doesn’t do anything. It’s just a picture.”
“Interesting hobby.” He glanced around the room, noting a large locked chest by the wall opposite the door and a basket full of rags by the chair. He could usually find the valuables after a few seconds in a room, but precious little there was worth stealing. “I thought you didn’t go around telling people what you are.”
“It’s an excuse to make the paints. Look, Mister Archer, I don’t want to be rude, but would you just tell me what you want?”
“In good time. You are unlicensed, correct? That wasn’t a crown-blessed hit on that house?”
“It was a private commission.” The girl moved over to the table, keeping as much distance between them as possible. She set down the steaming kettle, and he noticed her left hand was wrapped in rags. An injury from falling out of the tree, perhaps? He hoped it wouldn’t impede her work.
“That’s just what I wanted to hear. And you aren’t bound to any of the landed gentry in these parts, are you? No fine sir has your loyalty?”
“I am no lord’s lackey.”
Archer grinned at the ferocity in her tone. “I think you’ll do nicely.”
“I won’t do anything until you tell me what this is about, Mister Archer.”
“It’s just Archer. And what are you called, Miss Painter?”
She paused for a beat. “Briar.”
“No family name?”
“No family.”
Silence thrummed between them as she lifted her eyes to meet his.
“As I said, I think you’ll do very nicely indeed.” He gave her a bright smile and spread his hands with a flourish. “Shall we talk business?”
Briar sighed. “Would you like a cup of tea?”
A few minutes later, Archer was settled in the single chair, resting his shiny black boot on his knee. The girl sat cross-legged on the narrow bed, her skirt tucked tightly around her legs. They sipped mint tea from clay cups while Archer explained the mission.
“Lord Barden, the lord and protector of this fair county, has a daughter, the lovely Lady Mae. Several weeks ago, Lady Mae was kidnapped while out riding her favorite pony. Lord Barden has, quite naturally, been frantic to discover his daughter’s whereabouts.”
“I heard something about that.” Briar shifted back to sit against the wall, resting her injured hand at her side. “She’s young, isn’t she?”
“Young and beautiful. It has caused quite a scandal.”
“Someone at the market said she was taken by bandits,” Briar said. “Brigands, like you.”
“There is no one like me,” Archer said with a wink.
Briar didn’t react. She seemed exceptionally guarded, on the verge of fight or flight. He couldn’t tell which.
“Market rumors may hint at the truth,” he said, “but they rarely paint a complete picture. I have it on good authority that the lady fair was taken by none other than Lord Jasper Larke of the neighboring county.”