Read Online Cut to the Quick by Kate Ross - Free Book Online

since you’re an outsider, people would have to behave in your presence. That sounds an awful thing to say about one’s own family, but they're not themselves right now. None of us is. I wish I knew how it was all going to end. This waiting is worse than anything. It’s like one of those nightmares where you know something terrible is going to happen, and you don’t know what it is, but you know there’s nothing you can do to stop it.”

6. Other People’s Business
    The main road to Whitford passed through Alderton, the village nearest to Bellegarde. It boasted a proud old coaching house, the Blue Lion, with a brick lower story painted pink and an overhanging upper floor of timber. The houses had white, blue, or yellow facades, embellished with designs that had been swirled on the plaster while it was still wet. An occasional swinging sign announced a stationer, a greengrocer, a milliner, a blacksmith. The village was very quiet, with women and children, but few men, on the streets. Hugh said the men must have gone to Whitford for the horse fair.
    At Whitford, copers had set up shop across the village green, and were loudly extolling the horses they had to sell. The gullible listened eagerly, while more seasoned onlookers cynically shook their heads. Potential buyers walked round and round the horses, inspecting their teeth, their hooves, their coats.
    The party from Bellegarde turned their own horses over to a groom and explored the fair on foot. They quickly agreed that there was nothing worth buying, but they strolled about good-naturedly and listened to the horse-chanters ply their trade. Julian, on the alert for their tricks, noted wryly how one horse’s knees had been stained to conceal blemishes, and another’s gums were burned black with caustic to give an appearance of youth.
    After a while Colonel Fontclair went off alone, saying he needed to give his lame leg a rest. Guy, Hugh, and Julian were standing about drinking ale they had bought at a nearby stall, when a reedy voice sounded behind them: “Will you buy a whistle, gentlemen? Some’ut to call your dogs?”
    They turned and saw a wizened old man peering at them. He had a face as browned and wrinkled as a raisin, and long, stringy white hair darkened with dirt. He wore stained, baggy trousers and a brown coat buttoned wrong. A cap like a battered flatiron perched on his head. The immense sack he carried was strangely at odds with his drab clothes: it was a patchwork of hundreds of stray bits of cloth, in all manner of colours, patterns, and shapes.
    “Hullo, Bliss,” said Hugh. “I didn’t know you were in the neighbourhood.”
    “Passing through, as always, sir—passing through. And how is your lady mother?”
    “My lady mother is fine,” said Hugh, smiling. “If you come to Bellegarde, I’m sure she’ll see you don’t go away empty-handed.” The person called Bliss grinned, screwing up his eyes into slits. “Oh, I mean to, sir, I mean to. But in the meantime, won’t you buy a doll for your young sisters?” He reached into his sack and brought out a rough-cut wooden figure in a calico dress. “Or maybe this one as is so finely turned out”—he jerked his head toward Julian—“might like a comb for his hair or a brush for his coat. And how about you, sir?” His gaze slewed round to Guy. “Perhaps a flute to play to your lady friends?”
    “Get along with you, curse your impudence!” Guy said, between laughter and indignation.
    Hugh gave Bliss a coin. “Bless you, young sir!” he cried out. Several bystanders looked around, laughing, at which Hugh got very red. Bliss went on, unheeding, “You’re a credit to your lady mother, whose al’ays got a kind word and some’ut to give an old man as is struggling to make his way in the world. Not like that Lady Tarleton, who says I ought to be sent to the work’hus. She’ll get her comeuppance one of these days!”
    “I’d like to see the man who could give it to her,” said