LuckyPlum

And also CelticWarriorQueen17, nightwraith17, Illeandir, and GadSul: because I promised you a chapter for SaS today, and have nothing to show for it.

This is part 1 of how Sandy and Inspector Dickson ended up where they are now, a.k.a. married in Delgrass for 20+ years. It's part 1 only because I felt really bad not finishing an SaS chapter and so just broke off this where I was writing and decided to post it before finishing the whole thing. So you guys get something today. (I mean it's kind of tomorrow by now but anyway)

Fair warning to anyone else, it's sprinkled with spoilers for The Claw and The War

***

I hate you.

The words were on the tip of her tongue.

Two things held her back: one, she couldn't make a scene at Fred's wedding, and two, Fred would disapprove of the words far more than the scene they would make.

"Hello," said the man in front of her, with the well-bred, diffident politeness of one stranger greeting another. He tipped his head in a nod. "I am Inspector Wilhelm—"

"I know who you are," she cut him off. Hang social code of conduct — she'd speak her mind as brutally as threat of Fred's disapproval would allow.

"Ah, of course." He was disconcerted, but he masked it well. "And you are, ma'am?"

She held him levelly with her most quenching stare. "Sandy Thorne."

A thoroughly wicked pleasure swept through her at the fluster on his face. "Miss — Sandy Thorne," he stammered with another, agitated nod. "Fred's sister, yes?"

Sandy reconsidered saying "I hate you". She rolled her eyes. "Yes."

"I — I suppose your brother has told you about me." She had never seen a man blushing so deeply. The red crept over his cheeks and down his neck and up to his ears.

"I've heard things," said Sandy with consummate calm.

"Believe me, ma'am, I'm sorry over what happened — exceedingly sorry. Your brother is truly the most upright man I've ever had the pleasure to know, and it is entirely to my shame that I — that I arrested him. It is one of my most painful memories, and I quite understand, ma'am, that you—"

"Stop calling me ma'am," said Sandy, vexed and amused by the peculiar mode of address. What did he think she was, a married matron?

"Yes, ma'am," he floundered. "I mean—"

"Ah, never mind," said Sandy. "I guess I don't mind being an old crone once in a while."

At her pointed words, of the discomfiture on his face snapped to frustration. He pulled himself up, square shoulders firmly squared, eyes flashing, and suddenly she could see the law officer beneath the abjectly distressed figure of moments before. "Ma'am — miss, no slight was intended. I apologize for any misconstruction of my words; please believe they were meant with highest regard for your person."

He gave her a brief, low bow and excused himself with evident haste.

"Sandy!" Linda Boccin pranced up, her rosy cheeks rosier than usual and her black hair as glossy as Gwenda's under the hot July sun. She had a strut exactly like Mr. Earle's chickens. "Who on earth were you talking to?"

"Oh!" said Sandy indifferently. "H'lo, Linda. That was Inspector Dickson — you know, the man from Delgrass."

"Oh, that man!" exclaimed Linda Boccin. "The one who jailed Fred? I can't imagine how horrid it must be for you to have him at the wedding!"

"He's not that bad," said Sandy, and surprised herself by meaning it. "Fred forgave him, anyway."

Linda shrugged, her disinterest evident. "Mordred Kenhelm wouldn't dance with me," she complained. "And after all the pains I went to with my dress! This lace" — she shook the meager, fluttery adornment at the ends of her sleeves — "cost a whole thira. Doesn't his face give you such thrills, Sandy?"

Sandy could not fathom anyone's face giving anyone thrills. "Isn't Mordred's leg broken?" she said.

The puzzlement on Linda's face forced Sandy to turn and hide her grin. "Is it?" said Linda plaintively. "I hadn't heard. Was it a war wound?"

"I guess it is," said Sandy. "He fell off a dragon or something."

"How heroic," sighed Linda.

Sandy considered saying several things: for instance, that it wasn't particularly heroic to fall off a dragon; that Fred had fallen off a dragon too, which made him every bit as heroic as Mordred; that Linda was supremely disgusting. She said none of them.

She was suddenly sick of holding all her thoughts in. "I need to find Jonathan Denholm," she muttered vaguely, longing for the one person who would understand exactly how she felt.

Romance was absurd.

~

The field stretched out on one side of the hard-packed path, warm and rustling and burnt-gold. On the other, grass sprang in knee-high drifts, bowing and tossing under the wind until the trees took over halfway up the slope.

Sandy liked this stretch of road, and walked it often. She liked it mainly because of the field, the sown, thriving field that belonged to the Earles, and had been one of the few fields planted in Ceristen that spring. She liked to see it growing, to see it there, when so many things had not grown. A warm ripple of satisfaction, not unlike the satisfaction she had used to feel jumping out of the attic window, rocked in her stomach as she gazed over the sun-tipped sea.

As she lingered there by the roadside, switching a blade of the grass between her fingers, the man came striding by. He must have felt compelled to acknowledge her presence, because he checked and gave her a stiff nod.

"In a hurry, Inspector?" Sandy inquired comfortably. She was quite prepared to forgive him at the present moment.

"Yes," he said curtly, and then appeared to reconsider. "Not in a hurry to leave your presence, ma'am — pardon me, I didn't mean it that way — what I mean is simply, yes, I'm in a hurry — with or without your presence involved."

"Do you talk to everyone this way?" Sandy asked curiously.

His eyes went steely-hard again, like the day before. "Only to females whose brother I've had the misfortune to arrest, ma—miss."

"I can see you feel very bad over it," said Sandy. "I was being rather a nettle yesterday, and I apologize you had to take the sting. I usually take it out on Isabelle."

"Isabelle, your other sister."

"I suppose you're good at remembering things," said Sandy, noting the promptness with which he produced this piece of information. "One ought to be, in the police force. Do they teach you other things?"

"Such as?" He sounded ginger, dubious of the proffered truce. Sandy suddenly, rather wickedly, wanted to tease him.

Her meditative eye fell on the warped, listing fence that lined the field across the road. "How to walk rail fences, for instance." An upsurge of exhilaration, tainted heavily with nostalgia, filled her. The last time she had walked a fence had been — had been the day they left Harotha.

About time to change that, then.

She tossed away her grass and rolled her shoulders back, limbering up her arms, and ran across the road, reveling in the familiar competency as she scrambled onto the quavery boards and found her balance. It took a moment getting used to again; her first steps were slow and precise. Then she found the momentum and leaned into it, running lightly over the narrow surface until she reached the stile and hopped off.

Flushed with her triumph — she had surprised herself, for almost a year out of practice — she twisted to Inspector Dickson. "I dare you to do better. Go on."

She hoped to see his jaw drop, but he only stared blankly at her, and then his eyes flickered rapidly between her and the fence with a kind of obstinate disbelief.

"Haven't you ever walked a board fence?" The italics in her voice were as sultry as Linda Boccin's. She liked him better every second, and the urge to tease intensified with the liking. She could barely contain her glee under a straight front.

"I have no intention, ma'am, of attempting—"

"Let's see how you can do."

"Ma'am, I was in a hurry, if you'll excuse—"

"It'll only take a few moments," said Sandy. "You saw me go; it's easy."

"Easy for you," he said under his breath. He spun around with a reckless shrug and strode doggedly for the fence.

***

No wedding bells ringing yet... o_o