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curtsied again, her knee bumping against
    the edge of the door.
    Glyn nodded his greeting and carried Valda over to a long trestle table where he
    placed her upon the bench. “The child needs the use of your facilities,” he told the
    woman.
    Looking confused, the woman started forward, nearly colliding with the young
    woman who came hurrying in out of the rain. “Oh, excuse me,” she said then got a
    good look at the female traveler. The fat woman’s mouth snapped shut and her piggish
    eyes narrowed, almost disappearing into the folds of her pale face. She turned her
    oversized head to a man standing behind a counter. “Judd?” she barked.
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    My Reaper’s Daughter
    The man—as thin and spindly as his wife was round and squat—shrugged
    helplessly then came from behind the counter, an ingratiating smile on his narrow face.
    “It’s a pleasure to have you with us again, Lord Glyn,” he said as his hands ran
    over and over one another.
    “The child?” Glyn repeated.
    “Oh yes, of course!” the stage station manager responded. He turned his attention
    to the young woman. “We have an outhouse…”
    “You have a bathroom,” Glyn cut in sharply, and the look he sent to the man was
    filled with reproach.
    “Aye, we do,” the man quickly agreed, his head bobbing up and down.
    “Through there, ma’am,” Glyn said, nudging his chin toward a door through which
    he passed a time or two when forced to stop at the station.
    Mystery Butler made no comment as she went to her daughter and held out her
    hand to Valda. The child took her mother’s hand and slid off the bench, following
    behind her as she was led to the bathroom.
    Once the two were out of sight, Glyn turned on the station man and his wife like an
    avenging angel.
    “Don’t you ever do that again,” he warned.
    “No, milord,” the man responded, backing away from the fury he saw etched on
    the Reaper’s lean face.
    “And don’t even think you’ll be denying that woman and her child a cot here
    tonight. Do you understand?”
    “No, milord,” the husband and wife said at the same time, though the woman’s
    words seemed to have been reluctantly drawn from her throat.
    “They are under my personal protection,” Glyn said, and his eyes swung to the
    man who had been riding with them in the stage. “Anyone who insults them insults
    me. Is that clear?”
    “Aye, milord!” the station manager concurred.
    The Reaper’s angry glare swept past the stage driver and his partner as they came
    into the common room and swung to the man’s wife. “Did you hear me, wench?”
    “Aye, milord,” she mumbled, and curtsied still again.
    “And the child is hungry so set her plate beside mine and be about it double-time,
    wench,” Glyn snapped.
    “Alice will be happy to get it, milord,” the station man said.
    Glyn was about to turn away but the fat woman’s thoughts were so powerful, so
    enraged, that he caught them like a solar blast. Sheer rage shot through every fiber of
    his being and his shout was loud enough to turn every other person in the room to
    stone.
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    Charlotte Boyett-Compo
    “You do that and I swear before the gods it will be the last fucking thing you ever
    do, bitch!” came the thunderous threat.
    Alice DePalmer’s face went parchment white and she staggered beneath the force of
    that enraged bellow. She put both hands up as though to ward off the lethal intent
    being aimed her way and shook her head so hard the pins came from her mop of mousy
    brown hair. The thin jumble fell to her shoulders in messy strands.
    “No, milord! No!” she said, backing away, her numerous chins trembling. “I would
    not. I would not!”
    “You’d best not!” Glyn snarled. His lips were drawn back over his teeth. “Now do
    what I told you to!”
    Every eye in the room was locked on the Reaper as he stood there with his hands
    clenching and unclenching at his side. No one else save the overweight woman dared
    move. They barely took a breath