Читать онлайн «A Spell of Vengeance»

Автор Д.Б. Джексон

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Ethan Kaille could count on one hand the number of times in recent years he had refused an ale in favor of some stronger spirit. He rarely had enough coin for anything more than the cheap ales that came out of Boston’s local breweries, and even when he did, he usually preferred the pale ales of Kent to whiskey or rum. But December had brought gray skies and frigid winds to the New England colonies, and even the fine fish chowder served here in the Dowsing Rod, a tavern on Sudbury Street, wasn’t enough to ward off the chill.

With a cup of hot rum warming his hands, however, and several sips of the toddy already heating his belly, Ethan could convince himself that winter’s advance had been slowed, at least for the evening.

Most of the tavern’s patrons sat or stood in a tight arc around the hearth, where a bright fire blazed. They laughed and told stories; a few sang songs like “Ye Good Fellows All” and “Preach Not to Me Your Musty Rules. ” Ethan, though, kept to himself. A few of the others might have welcomed him, but most knew him to be a convict and thought of him as a troublemaker and an unrepentant mutineer. A few might even have known that he was a conjurer.

On the other hand, the tavern’s owner, a young widow named Kannice Lester, had lately taken an interest in him, and he in her. As he sat watching the men by the fire and chuckling to himself at their poor singing, Kannice brought him a second bowl of chowder. He hadn’t asked for it.

“I thought you might enjoy a bit more,” she said, placing it in front of him.

“What with the others hogging the fire and all. ”

“Thank you. ”

She tucked a strand of auburn hair behind her ear and gestured at the empty chair opposite his. “May I sit for a moment?”

He grinned at that. “I believe it’s your tavern, isn’t it?”

“Aye, it is. ” She sat, rested an elbow on the table and her chin in her palm. “You’re an odd man, Ethan Kaille. ”

“Am I?”

She nodded. “You keep apart from the others, as if you don’t want any company. Yet you come in here night after night, when you could just as easily be alone, which is what you seem to prefer. ”

He leaned forward, his gaze holding hers. Her eyes were periwinkle blue, and when she smiled a small crease dimpled her cheek, just to the right of her lips.

“Maybe I don’t want their company,” he said, nodding toward the fire. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t want any company at all. ”