The Chocolatier's Wife (8 page)

She
moved
at
last,
only
enough
to
take
her
hair
down.
She
stared
at
the pins
in
her
hands.
No.
She
could
not
believe
that
William was
capable
of cunning.
He
was
smart,
aye.
But
practical
smart.
Not
without
imagination, of
course,
you
could
not
accuse
a
man
who
wanted
to
make
chocolates
of a
lack
of
imagination, but
he
was
also
not
the
sort
of
man
to
go
around blithely
killing
people
with
the
very
product
he
hoped
to
sell.
She
could
not believe it.

After
a
while,
the
surprise
wearing
off, she
tried
to
imagine
the
two paths
her
life
might
take.
She
thought
of
being
at
the
university. She
had trained
there,
and
so
she
had
friends
as
well
as
colleagues
among
the
staff. Eventually
she
would
have
the
se
n
iority
to
teach
only
the
advanced
students, perhaps
even
ascend
to
the
Circle, as
her
mother
hoped.
A
life
of
teaching and learning
how
to
use
herbs,
divining
the
secret
meanings
hidden
in
the wind,
the
rain,
and
the
veins
of
leaves
was
hers.
She
was
no
master
wizard, but
she
was
very,
very
good,
and
she
knew
her
life
was
mapped
out
for
her here,
a
scholarly
life
of
respect
and decent
wages
and wanting
for nothing. It
was,
clearly, a
good life, which was why her family wanted it for
her.

Then there
was
William.
She
tried
to
imagine
him,
blurry
in
her
mind, by
her
side.
A
life
of
children,
shop-keeping.
It
did
not
seem
as
glamorous or
interesting,
though
she
trusted
she
would
be
able
to
continue
her
studies and
believed
that
William
would
provide
for
her,
but
her
fame
would
be
as
his
wife
alone.
No
one
would
remember
her
save
their
children.
Still,
it was
not
without
its
appeal,
the
idea
of
having someone
who
was
all
yours, someone
to
curl
up
against
in
the
winter. It
was
harder to
imagine
the future,
here,
for
she
knew
so
little
in
comparison.
The
unknown
could
hold pain
as well as joy.

She
sighed,
and went
to
bed,
in
a
restless
attempt
at
sleep
for
what remained of the night.

When
she
came
down
the
next
day
she
had
two
cases
in
her
hands, and
she
was
wearing
her
best
traveling
clothes.
Her
family
looked
up
at her
from
their
brea
k
fast,
as
she
put
the
heavier
of
the
two
down,
her
hands switching
the
other
bag
back
and
forth,
nervous
and
moist
on
the
hard, wooden handle.
“You see,” she said
by
way of
good-morning-and-here’s- my-explanation, “the problem is that I
rather
like him.”

Chapter
5

Marco First,

Pale
Moon Quarter 1787

Dear
William,

As for my
own family,
there
is not much
that
I
can
tell. There are
my
parents,
my
f
a
ther
is a
baker
and
my
mother is a midwife. I
suppose that
is why
I’ve
always
been
so interested in herbs
and
food-magic,
because
they
have
been
so central
to my life.

My
uncle
on
my
father’s
side owns half
the
bakery.
He
creates the
pretty things,
and
has
a
delicate
hand
with the
marzipans
and
the
roses. My
aunt,
on
my
mother’s side,
is a
traveling elementalist.
I
shall
be
apprenticed
to her
this spring, and
you may
not hear
from me for a
few
months,
so if
my
replies are
late, I
beg
your indulgence
in the
matter. She
wishes to see
if
I
have any
of
the
other
talents
that
run in our blood,
I
suppose, so it will be
a
good experience
for me.
You should not be
the
only
one
who gets
to travel...

Yours, eventually,

Tasmin

“
So
,
i
t
couldn’
t
hav
e
bee
n
anythin
g
yo
u
accidentall
y
spille
d
int
o
th
e
pot?
”
Andre
w
hazarded
,
pullin
g
ove
r
a
n
empt
y
ke
g
o
n
whic
h
t
o
sit
.
T
here
were
no
chairs;
people who visited murde
r
ers were not encouraged to be comfortable.

William
gritted
his
teeth
and
reminded
himself
that
Andrew
was
trying very
hard
to
play
the
role
that
William
had
given
him,
that
of
the
responsible brother and
future head of the family.

“No, as
I
told
you, I
saw
the
poisoned
chocolates,
and
they
are
like nothing I
would ever sell and
expect to keep my business.”

“Are
you
sure?”
Andrew
asked,
chewing
the
quill
he
had
brought
to
take notes with.

“For
God’s
sake,
I’ve
only
been
open
for
a week,
‘tis
not
like
it’s
hard
to remember.”

His
brother
winced
and
pretended
to
write
something
in
the
old
log book
he was using for
notes.

“Forgive
me,
pray,”
William
said
quietly.
“I
am
merely
overwhelmed
by my
circu
m
stances.
My
business
is
going
to
be
a shambles
by
the
time
I get back
to it.
I
don’t
know
how I
shall ever recover.”