Just to Have You (Blackwood & Friends #3)

Chapter One

It was an execution they had completed since they were children and with less frequency as the years wore on, but it was simple enough for the man to recall it.

As Oliver dropped onto the floor of her room, compelling Amy to take a step back to accommodate him, Henivieve protested in a series of aggrieved clucks and coos. "Allow me to serve her for dinner at my table," Oliver remarked dryly, brushing a few lingering streaks of dirt from his white shirt. It was creased and untucked, implying that he had thrown it on in haste, and Amy realised what he was about even before the furious voice came from a distance outside.

"I'll kill him! That swine's son, that whore's bastard! Where is he?"

"What did you do?" she hissed, snatching the edges of the window and hastily forcing them shut. The voice was far away yet and originated from within the village, but if it was the irate husband she thought she knew it to be, he wouldn't let up any time soon, especially if he had been deep in his cups at the tavern beforehand. Amy turned back to Oliver, raised her brows, and plunked her hands on her hips. "Or should I say who?"

He had the decency to look sheepish at least. "Interesting story, that," Oliver began. "I am a perfectly innocent victim in all this, you see. Mary failed to mention that-"

"Mary?" Amy interrupted shrilly and then caught herself, lowering her voice to a whisper. "Mary Townsend?" Her assumptions were correct then and she gave him a sternly exasperated glare. "Of all the available and willing women, you decided Mary was the one for you?"

He rolled his eyes, the effect ruined by the pair of neat wire spectacles he had pushed up his long nose and folded his arms churlishly. "She is not the one for me."

"Ben!" The nickname only she used seemed to soften him slightly and the petulant stiffness of his shoulders slackened slightly.

"She made a very convincing proposition," Oliver supplied helplessly.

"And I suppose this is now my prob-" They winced simultaneously at the slurred hollering now decidedly closer and very much louder than before.

"Where is he? Where- hic- come out, you beard splitter! Cow- hic!- coward!"

Together, they dropped to wooden floors, thumping solidly against the boards. Amy sighed in resignation and sidled along until her back was pressed against the edge of her bed for support. She may as well settle in. Mary's husband, Lucas Townsend, was a terrible drunk and prone to bouts of amazing obstinance. He had once taken a spill and fallen down the village well and refused rescue for three hours, hollering and blustering for all his worth. Their only saving grace in this predicament was that Amy's cottage that she shared with her mother was just less than a mile away from Haventry and along the gravel road that would lead to the cider orchards. The vast expanse of pastoral farmlands and other homesteads would hopefully serve to at least help sober Lucas Townsend up while he ambled along and hollered his obscenities at being cuckolded, but until then Oliver would have to stay put.

"Does he know it was you?" Amy asked as she tucked her legs under her and smoothed her night gown over her knees.

"Lud, Griff. No idea. I should hope not considering everybody knows where I live."

"Did he see you?"

Oliver gave her a dry look before easing himself next to her, mimicking a similar position. He leaned his head back against her mattress and turned to her, the corner of his lip quirking. It would have been endearing and rather effective on any other woman- but Amy had known this particular wastrel of a man for nigh twenty years.

Oliver Bennet Hollingsworth was her best friend and a terrible flirt, though his charms had been acquired later on in his early adulthood. And in the village of Haventry there were plenty of lonely women who were very susceptible to his irresistibility and Amy had been subjected to many a, "He just has a look about him that makes me want to take care of him..." from her susceptible friends in Haventry.  The men in the area were few and far between, either all married, decrepit or utilizing whatever means necessary to simply leave. As for a young lady hoping to make a suitable match... prospects were grim. If one couldn't afford a London season, such as Amy, one's prospects of ever finding a suitable man in Haventry were next to none.