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under the brawny arm holding her pinned to the rough planking of the blacksmith’s shed. “You forget yourself! I have no interest in you or your cods, so please allow me to pass.”
    The fetid smell increased as the blacksmith laughed in her face. Plum turned her head, wishing she’d sent Thom to have the pot mended—the convenient ploy she had used to meet and consider the blacksmith as husband material—then immediately regretted such a cowardly thought.
    â€œYe play coy with me, missus, but I know how much ye want me too. Give us a kiss.”
    Plum tightened her fingers around the handle of the pot and gritted her teeth. Her life, one moment only mildly horrible, had turned into full-fledged, raging nightmare. “Mr. Snaffle, if you do not let me pass this instant, I shall be forced to take action against you.”
    He leaned up against her, flattening her against the wall with his broad, sweaty chest. She shifted the pot, relieved he was just leaning his upper parts against her.
    â€œNo one cares iff’n ye scream, missus. They all know ye for the trollop ye are, pretendin’ ye’re all high and mighty by marryin’ a man what was already married. Miss Stone says that yer own family won’t have nothin’ to do with ye. Give us a kiss,” he demanded again, spittle collecting in the corners of his fleshy lips.
    â€œI am not a trollop,” Plum said softly, moving the pot slightly, so as to give her a longer backswing. “I have no idea how this Miss Stone—whoever she might be—found out about my marriage, but I can assure you that I am innocent of her charges. Now please release me, or I shall do you a bodily injury.”
    He rubbed his chest against hers, his hands on her upper arms, holding her in place. “Everyone knows that ye’ll spread yer legs for any man what gives ye a taste of his manflesh.” He slid one hand up, grabbing a handful of her hair, jerking her head back. “I told ye to give us a kiss. I’m not of a mind to tell ye again!”
    â€œMr. Snaffle?” Plum swung the pot as far back as she could.
    â€œAye?” His repulsive lips were descending on hers.
    â€œThis is for your cods.” She brought the pot forward as hard as she could, striking him right at the junction of his legs. He screamed and fell backward, clutching at himself, spitting curses and profanities as he rolled over into a ball. Plum took a deep breath of relatively clean air and stepped forward to stand over the writhing man.
    â€œHenceforth I shall take my smithy business elsewhere,” she said and gave him a swift kick in the kidneys just because she felt like it. “You’re lucky I’m a lady and not given to spite!”
    With her head held high she left the smithy, a stubborn, brittle smile on her face, the eyes of what felt like the entire village scoring her flesh as she hurried home, clinging to the hope that perhaps it wasn’t as bad as Mr. Snaffle made out, but knowing it was much, much worse. She would have to move again, leave Ram’s Bottom, and how was she to accomplish that with only five shillings and no friends but Cordelia?
    â€œBlessed St. Genevieve,” Plum all but sobbed as she stumbled into the tiny cottage she shared with Thom. “I’m going to have to marry Mr. T. Harris, no matter what sort of man he is. With luck, no one in Raving will know about me until I can marry him.”
    â€œMarry who?” a low, disinterested voice asked.
    Plum clutched the wall and fought to regain her breath as well as swallow her tears of self-pity. “Oh, Thom, I didn’t see you. What are you doing down there by the coal scuttle?”
    Thom’s golden brown eyes considered her aunt for a moment before her head dipped below the rough-planked table in front of her, returning a moment later when she stood up, a tiny kitten cupped in her hand. “Maple has had her litter. Only three,