Outrageous by Christina Dodd

tones.
    Too even. Griffith’s ear caught the firmness of a soul unjustly accused and resigned to misjudgment. He found himself excusing her. “But you can’t be thieving. As you said, the money is yours.”
    She tied the heavy purse to her belt. “I’m only mercenary, then.”
    Like a benevolent gnome, Art threw his arm around her shoulders. “Not at all. Ye have to feed yer babe, don’t ye?” Marian shied away from Art, but he pulled her close to the window. “Nay, lass, look at me and tell me ye don’t trust this face.”
    Of course, she did trust him. Once the moonlight had touched his vivid blue eye and his wrinkled, half-plucked chin and his kind smile, she trusted him as surely as did every other woman in the world.
    “Griffith, here”—Art extended a crooked finger—“Griffith doesn’t understand why ye need Her Majesty’s money, but Griffith’s never been a father. He’s never had to keep a growing child in shoes and clothes, or try to fill a babe’s endlessly hollow belly, or pay a witch to come with her herbs to cure a wee fever.”
    “Or pay a priest to bury the tiny bodies?”
    Marian’s gentle inquiry startled Griffith. He knew Art’s story, knew the pain behind the tale of the “wee fever.”
    But Marian must have heard the quaver in the old voice, for she asked, “Have you children, Art?”
    Art cleared his throat. “Not any more, lass. I saved them from a battle and lost them—all six of them, and their mother, too—in the famine and sickness that followed.”
    She nudged him with her shoulder, the kind of a nudge a tabby gives when she wants to be petted. He raised a hand and smoothed her hair back. Then, with artificial briskness, he said, “Now tell us, like a good lass, is it a fact that Wenthaven knows more than most folks about his guests and their business?”
    Her saucy smile denied she’d ever been touched by Art’s story, and Griffith might almost have believed that moment of compassion never happened—except that Art wiped a tear off his cheek.
    Waving at the walls around them, she whispered, “Wenthaven could sell information to the devil, but he’s too greedy and keeps it for himself. This room is the richest, rife with places to listen and to peek, and Wenthaven puts only his most important guests here.” She smirked at Griffith. “What have you done to so interest Wenthaven?”
    “A just inquiry,” he answered. “I’d like to know myself.”
    Her hand crept to the purse at her belt, and she rolled the coins around, looking at the wistfully appealing Art. “I’ll move you to a different room. A safe room.”
    Griffith observed her betraying movements. “Why do you imagine you may move Wenthaven’s guests and he’ll not protest?”
    Her hand dropped to her hip, and she smiled with cocky assurance. “I can handle Wenthaven.”
    “And how do you know the room is safe?” Griffith probed.
    “You’ll see.” She moved out of the betraying moonlight. “Get your master’s things, Art, and I’ll take you there.”
    “Got nothing to bring.” Art pulled a wry face. “Jane o’ the laundry took it all. Guess I’ll have to go looking for her tomorrow and have the clothes sent to our new room. Wherever that might be.”
    Marian stepped into the candlelit hallway and bent to pull on a pair of fine leather boots, appropriate for a young man.
    Hand on her arm, Griffith swung her around. “Why didn’t you just ask me for your gold?”
    He wanted to know the truth. He wanted to know what she thought, and she infuriated him with a prevaricating, “When?”
    “Tomorrow.”
    “You might have left tomorrow,” she answered.
    “If I had left tomorrow without giving you your gold, I would be a thief.”
    “No, not a thief, but possibly”—she looked at him, at his swollen nose—“but possibly an angry man.”
    “Is that what you think of me? That I would rob you as revenge for this puny injury?”
    “I do beg your pardon,” she said.
    Offended by this