Her Wicked Sin by Sarah Ballance Page B

“You are out late this eve.”
    She turned, a hard rock in her throat. The man in the road was gone.
    “Just on my way home from bread making,” she said, reaffirming her grip on the reins. Willard had calmed, but still turned his head to and fro, his large eyes no doubt scouting for the apparition of a man who had blocked their path.
    Thomas arranged his horse next to Willard, who remained understandably wary of the newcomers. He gave a solid snort and settled into a stilted walk, apparently no more at ease than Lydia, who could not keep her own attentions from scouring the tree-lined edges of the road.
    “Does your husband know you are out alone this night?”
    “He does. The hour grew late, but I am in good company and not far from home.”
    “Let me see you the rest of the way, then.”
    She wanted to deny the offer—she need not further stir Rebecca’s ire—but dared not leave herself alone with the woods this night. As such, though she remained wary, she did not discourage Thomas’s accompaniment to her home where Henry awaited.
    Several long strides passed before Thomas spoke. “Have you seen the devil in these trees?”
    Lydia flinched, and held no doubt the gesture was noticed through his appraisal. She tried nevertheless to keep her voice even. “The shadows are tricky beings. We often see what it is our will to see.”
    Thomas gave a humorless laugh. “Tell me, Goodwife, who desires to see the very devil walk among us?”
    “Those who seek evil will often find it,” she replied. But his words crept to the core of her fear. She had not sought the appearance of the man in her path, but he had been there all the same. The visage frightened her almost as much as the threat of accusation. Young Anne Scudder’s warning came to Lydia. The Abbot children claimed she had affected them, and now a dark figure waited in her path. What worry would be next?
    “And what of those who seek it not?”
    She looked to Thomas. “What of them?”
    “Are they deserving of its influence?”
    She measured her words. “There are few of us, Neighbor, who escape sin.”
    “And some of us sin more than others,” he replied evenly.
    Lydia’s heart leapt. Did he somehow know of her transgressions? Worry struck her, but fortunately she would soon escape his company, as her home sat around the next bend. She worried the impression of her happenstance meeting with Thomas, but she need not have. He halted his horse before nearing her house.
    Lydia turned when the footfalls ceased.
    “Fare thee well,” he said, touching his hat.
    “Good night, Thomas.”
    As she covered the last few paces to her home, she added one more fear to her list—the wrath Rebecca would no doubt conjure upon learning her husband had been alone in the woods with another woman.
    A transaction that, no matter how innocent, would add unneeded fuel to Rebecca’s fire.

Chapter Nine
    Lydia cast aside her discomfort when she arrived at her stable and found evidence of the work performed by Henry and Andrew. Neat, straight fencing circled the paddock, in which the bay gelding contentedly grazed on dead grass and leaves. He raised his head with a quiet whicker when Willard neared—a sentiment Willard returned with an enthusiastic high pitched whinny.
    “Oh, settle yourself,” Lydia said, sliding from her seat on his back. “You will have plenty of time to make acquaintance.”
    “I have told myself that very thing all day,” came Henry’s voice from behind, startling her. “But I have not wanted less for your return.”
    Lydia turned, biting her lip to settle her grin when her gaze lay upon her ruggedly handsome husband. “You seek my acquaintance? Are we not yet properly acquainted?”
    “An entire lifetime of making acquaintance would not settle my desires for you,” he said. Then he captured her face in his palms and kissed her deeply, his tongue sweeping her mouth with a firm decisiveness that left her thoroughly weakened.
    “You are every