Teresa Medeiros - [FairyTale 02] Read Free

and was not the least bit surprised to find it empty. Even the Dragon would have been hard-pressed to murder Nessa in her bed, since she was most frequently to be found in someone else’s. Nor was Nessa always fastidious enough to require a bed. There were several strapping lads in the village who whispered that for a certain bonny Wilder lass, any haystack or mossy riverbank would do. As she threw a shawl over her nightdress, Gwendolyn could only pray that her older sister wouldn’t meet a dire fate at the beefy hands of some jealous wife.
    Gwendolyn reached the splintery railing of what had been a minstrel’s gallery in the manor’s finer days just in time to see Izzy hurl open the main door. Ham, the tinker’s apprentice, stood framed in the doorway, his eyes gleaming with fear.
    “The devil take ye, lad!” Izzy roared. “How dare yecome poundin’ on the door o’ decent Christian folk at this hour!”
    Although visibly shaken by the sight of the stout maidservant with hair wrapped in rags, Ham stood his ground. “If ye don’t wake yer mistress, ye auld cow, the devil’s goin’ to take us all. He’ll most likely burn the village to the ground if we don’t give him what he wants.”
    “And just what would that be this time?” Izzy demanded. “Yer scrawny gizzard on a platter? “
    Ham scratched his head. “No one knows for sure. That’s why I’ve been sent to fetch yer mistress.”
    Gwendolyn rolled her eyes. She never thought she’d have cause to rue her love of reading. But with Reverend Throckmorton away, she was the only one who could decipher the Dragon’s writing.
    She might have crept back to bed and left Ham to Izzy’s mercy had her papa not chosen that moment to drift into the hall. He floated out of the darkness of his chamber like a ghost of the handsome, vibrant man she remembered from her childhood, his ivory nightshirt hanging on his wasted frame and his fine white hair bristling around his head like the spores of a dandelion. Gwendolyn started down the stairs without thought, her heart clenching in her chest. She wasn’t sure which was more painful—his helplessness or her own.
    “Gwennie?” he called plaintively.
    “I’m right here, Papa,” she assured him, catching him by the elbow before he could stumble over the dog as Izzy had done. The dog gave her a grateful look.
    “I heard such a turrible commotion,” her father said, turning his rheumy gray eyes on her. “Is it the English? Has Cumberland returned? “
    “No, Papa,” Gwendolyn replied, gently smoothing a grizzled lock of his hair. Alastair Wilder sometimes forgot his own name, but he’d never forgotten the ruthless English lord who had robbed him of his sanity nearly fifteen years ago.
    “Cumberland’s not coming back,” Gwendolyn promised him. “Not tonight and not ever.”
    “Are yer sisters safely abed? ‘Twouldn’t do to have their virtue stolen by those wretched redcoats.”
    “Aye, Papa, they’re safely abed.” It was easier to lie than to explain that since so many of the clan’s young men had fled the village to seek their fortunes elsewhere, Glynnis would probably welcome a regiment of lusty English soldiers with open arms while Nessa welcomed them with open legs. It pained her to think of her sweet Kitty straying down that path. “ You needn’t fear Cumberland or his redcoats,” Gwendolyn assured him. “ ‘Tis nothing but that silly Dragon again, making mischief at our expense.”
    A feverish tinge brightened his cheeks, and he wagged a finger at her. “Ye must tell them to do whatever he says. If they don’t, ‘twill surely be the ruin of us all.”
    “ ‘Tis just what I was tryin’ to tell this stubborn auld…” Ham faltered as Izzy’s eyes narrowed. “Um… yer maid here. If ye’ll give Gwendolyn yer leave, sir, she can come with me and read the note the Dragonleft for us. There’s some that say ‘tis written not in ink, but in blood.”
    Her father’s fingers dug into