She thought she’d be glad to be home. During the days spent on the road, she’d forced her mind to be blank, only allowing herself to think about her bed and when she could collapse into it. Her mind hadn’t cooperated, however, and she kept hoping Tristan would slow down and let them catch up. She wished he’d have more questions for her and, when it was clear that wasn’t going to happen, she berated herself for spilling the beans in the first place. First rule. Don’t tell the truth.
By the time they all filed through the gates of the castle, she’d resolved to herself that she’d have to start over again. With whom, she had no clue. When, she hardly cared. Anne sat beside her, working the kinks out of her back and letting out a weak cough. Just as on the road, they sat in silence.
Even Batty had been morose on the way home. As soon as her maid realized Tristan and his men had ridden ahead, supposedly to scout for danger, she’d sensed something was wrong. Only the night before they left, everything had been merry and bright. Fay knew Batty longed to ask what had gone wrong in between supper and dawn. She felt she owed it to her maid since the poor woman lost out on Brom because of her. But she couldn’t make herself say anything. Not without crying, which she’d done enough of that night to last her a lifetime.
She’d sobbed until she made herself sick, then she broke several clay pots in a rage—at herself, at Tristan, at the curse, she didn’t know. After she had no more tears left for that night, she sat on Lady Heloise’s pretty rooftop and stared at the sky until it began to lighten. On the road, Fay had given Batty a cold glare to keep her from asking about the swollen, bloodshot eyes or why Tristan was almost a half-day ahead of them.
She’d failed. She’d arrogantly thought she could defeat a curse that had already claimed at least three lives and had failed miserably. But, lesson learned. She wouldn’t be so foolish next time and, as much as it sickened her, she knew there would have to be a next time. The damn curse had kicked her ass, but she’d get up again. Eventually. Someone else would seek her hand again. After all, she was a catch, with her father’s wealth and good standing with the King. Yes, she’d get up and get back in the ring, and hope to get a ring the next time, not spoil it by making the man think she was insane.
She sniffled again, clenching her jaw so she wouldn’t start crying again. Her throat was raw from holding back the tears the entire journey home.
“I’m so sorry, Fay,” Anne said quietly. “If you wish to speak about it, you know I’ll gladly listen. And if you don’t, that’s fine as well.”
The kindness very nearly pushed her over the edge, but she managed to keep the tears from spilling. “I’m sad, Anne. I don’t think it’s going to work out with Tristan.”
Anne coughed and placed her hand on Fay’s sleeve. “I only want you to be happy, and he’s done the opposite of that, so I hope he falls off his horse and looks foolish in front of his men for it.”
Fay didn’t think she’d be laughing any time soon, but that made her burst out with a shocked guffaw. “Anne!” she exclaimed. “We should get you to the chapel so you can repent.”
“I didn’t wish for him to be hurt, only humbled a bit.”
Fay sighed and looked at Anne, gasping at her pale cheeks and deep purple smudges under her eyes. She took the hand that rested on her sleeve and found it to be icy cold. “Oh goodness, why don’t you ever complain? You shouldn’t have been traveling if you were so ill.”
Anne shook her head. “I wanted to be home, not in some inn. I’ll be recovered enough in a moment and we can go upstairs.”
“Nice try. I’m going to get Gunther.” She stood but Anne gripped her hand with surprising strength.
“Let’s sit out here a bit longer. The weather’s the finest I’ve seen it in a long time.”
Fay sat back down and studied Anne worriedly, trying to remember how much coughing she’d heard on the road. She’d been so wrapped up in herself, she hadn’t noticed much of anything else. She felt selfish on top of heartbroken and the combination snapped something in her mind. She’d never once obsessed about a man, or being in love, or worried about getting married. Certainly things were different in this time and, yes, a deadly curse constantly threatened her. But she was done with crying over her own problems.
“I’m tired of needing to be in love,” she blurted. Either Anne would understand her and chalk it up to heartache over Tristan, or they could admire the weather some more.
“Don’t let Batty hear you say that,” Anne chuckled. “Nor Marjorie for that matter. Batty would wail inconsolably and Marjorie would lecture about how it’s all foolishness that doesn’t last. I couldn’t bear either of them right now.”
“Why is Marjorie so bitter?” Fay asked, less out of concern than happy to have the subject off her own misery.
Anne shrugged, the small action causing another coughing fit. “I don’t know. She’s never had a suitor … I don’t think … just destined to be an old maid like me, I suppose.” Speaking had winded her completely and she rested her palm on her chest, waiting to get her breath back.
Fay thought of the ginger-haired knight Harold, who’d once given Anne a token at a long ago tournament. She grunted, thinking how little such a gesture really meant. She’d thought her father would be outraged when Tristan hadn’t come home with them, but he hadn’t spoken a word about it.
“The three of us, then,” Fay said. “You can teach me to weave as beautifully as you do, and—” she paused. What else should she do while she waited for the next suitor? All of a sudden, she realized what a miracle it was that she got to experience this world. She was going to stop stressing immediately and learn all she could. Live and enjoy the life she’d fallen into. She had Uncle Randolph’s book to write, after all, and he’d want her to soak it all in. Staying busy would keep her heartbreak at bay until time healed it. She prayed that one old adage was right, that time healed all wounds. “What should I do, Anne? I don’t want to wait around for a man. I want to live.”
Anne smiled at her wistfully. “You won’t be an old maid, Fay. That, I guarantee. But if I were you, and had all your time, I would …” she trailed off, her eyes filling with tears.
“What? Tell me. I’ll do whatever you say, because you’re wise and I wish I could be more like you.”
“Goose. You’re perfectly lovely the way you are. But, I suppose I’d get outside more. Ride, run, splash in the fishing stream like when we were small. I’d like to spend time with those babies,” she said hungrily. “They’re going to crawl any day now, but I daren’t risk them getting sick.”
“Is that all?” Fay asked. It was a disappointingly small list, and she already spent a great deal of time with Catherine’s twins.
“That would be enough for me,” she said, slumping forward and resting her elbows on her knees. “I suppose you better find Gunther. I admit defeat.”
Fay jumped up, looking for one of the boys she could holler at to bring the burly squire to carry Anne. “Nonsense, you’re being reasonable for once. We’ll get you all sorted with your tinctures and potions and you’ll be rolling around with the babies in no time.”
“That would be wonderful, sister dear,” she said, closing her eyes.
Fay sat beside Anne and took her cold, bony hand while they waited for Gunther. She was exhausted from the journey and her heart ached so that she could hardly bear it, but she would carry on. Run and ride and splash in the stream, and help Catherine with the twins. She would ask her father for paper and brush up on her rudimentary sketching skills so she could fill dozens of pages with what the castle looked like in its glory in hopes that Uncle Randolph might see them one day. She would find a way to be happy and fulfilled, and if love came her way again, she’d be ready. That would show the damn curse.
Chapter 27
Fay rummaged around in her wardrobe until she found the book she’d stuffed all the way in the back. She’d spent almost a month frittering away the days with Anne and Batty, taking turns watching the babies. Cath
erine had finally convinced her husband to move into town, so they were spending as much time with them as they could before they left. Losing his master of the horses had put her father in a sour mood, and she didn’t want to draw any extra attention to herself by requesting parchment for the historical account she wanted to write.
Surprisingly, he hadn’t said a word about Tristan, and she wondered if he was being kind or if things just moved so slowly here that he thought not hearing from her suitor in a month was completely normal. The pain in her heart had settled down to a dull ache, but it still would have caused her a great deal of distress to have to discuss it. That was why she finally decided to disassemble the wretched instruction book for any pages that were still usable.
So much of it had been so thoroughly scratched out that she started gently pulling those pages out first. She could write in between the blotchy bits, and along the margins as she’d seen Anne do when writing letters. Some of the pages in the back were completely blank and she carefully picked at the stitches along the spine, trying to get them out without ripping them.
It was high time she got to work on this little project of hers, since she’d lollygagged the whole summer away. The weather had changed alarmingly fast and the sharp, cold winds had driven her inside without much else to do.
Batty had procured her a quill and some sickly brown ink that had a faintly familiar odor she couldn’t identify but that she didn’t care for one bit. As she flipped through the book looking for useable pages, she couldn’t help rereading a lot of it. She wasn’t so smugly confident anymore and had a deeper understanding for the ones who’d written in it.
I can’t do it anymore, I just can’t.
That passage had made her angry when she first read it, but the heart-wrenching pain of her first failure was so fresh, she wondered with compassion how many times that poor woman had gone through it before she’d given up completely. She shook her head, trying not to let the book pull her into such sorrow that she couldn’t get to work on Uncle Randolph’s historical notes, when another passage caught her eye.
The weather cleared up, just like that. Everything was the same. Oh, God, I have to start over again.
Fay quickly turned the page. The pain in the writing was palpable. Knowing that the previous writers had eventually given up and chosen death made a tear roll down her cheek and splash onto a nice, clean sheet. She angrily brushed it away and set about working that page free from the book.
While she’d gained a bit of insight into the previous girls’ attempts and no longer felt superior to them, she still couldn’t understand choosing to die over having to continue living in this lovely castle with an amazing family. Having just had her heart ripped to shreds, she knew how badly it sucked, but death?
She didn’t relish the idea of having to start over again either. Find a new man who was compatible, that she could love and who would love her in return? Nope, she didn’t care for that thought at all, at least not yet. But she’d keep trying. She did still feel superior in that regard. No amount of heartbreak could make her choose to put that gown back in its chest.
Batty wandered in as she flipped back to the beginning of the book. She didn’t hurry to hide it, as Batty had seen it once before and thought it was a prayer book. She grimaced down at the list of names on the first pages, the cast of characters in the charade she’d been playing for close to a year now.
Brom—likes Batty, at least the first time
It made her smile sadly at Batty and she wanted to apologize all over again for ruining things for both of them. Then something pinged in her brain, and she tried to remember that first night she arrived, when they were all in a tizzy to meet Sir Tristan.
“When Sir Tristan came to pledge his fealty to my father, was that the first time he’d been here?” she asked.
Batty slumped. Fay felt bad for bringing him up, forcing her maid to think about Brom. “Your father had met him before, I’m certain. But it was the first time he’d been to Grancourt Castle, yes.” She perked up. “Have you had a message from him at last?”
Poor Batty still had hope, no matter how many times Fay had assured her it was over. She ignored the question and scowled at the page. Many of the annotations in the book were hurriedly written, blotched with tears, or completely scratched out. Now that she thought about it, that one about Brom made no sense at all. How could the person before her have known that Brom liked Batty if they’d never met? And the rest of it was maddeningly stupid. She slammed it shut, pushing it away. She had pilfered enough pages to get started on her project. As usual, the book had put her in a bad mood and she no longer wanted to be in the same room with it.
“How’s Anne?” she asked, thinking to visit with her for a while.
“Better, I think,” Batty said, still looking wistful over the mention of Tristan. “But she’s sleeping now. Little Sam wanted to play his lute for her, but Marjorie scared him off.”
Fay sighed. A visit with Anne was out, the weather was too cold and blustery to go outside. She’d been excited to get started working on her historical account, but rereading the book had depressed her.
“Tell me something to cheer me up,” she begged Batty.
“Want me to get little Sam to play for us?” she suggested. At Fay’s listless shrug, she pointed out the window. “It may snow tomorrow,” she said. “Roric said he feels it in his bones, and his bones have never been wrong yet.”
“That’ll be nice,” Fay admitted.
She half-recalled something about snow being mentioned in the book, but couldn’t bring herself to open the thing again to find it. Maybe it was an important milestone in this time. Maybe they had a special dinner. Whatever it was, she was sure to find out. The thought of waking up to a fresh blanket of white, glittering snow covering the walkways and crenellations cheered her up enough to pick up her quill and stir the nasty smelling ink around.
“Is there anything I can do for you?” Batty asked sweetly, a sure sign she wanted to be dismissed from Fay’s dreary presence and go find something better to do.
“Just have Marjorie let me know when Anne’s awake, okay? And I guess if little Sam really wants to practice his lute, he can do it while I write. That might be relaxing.”
Batty smiled and clapped her hands, clearly pleased she was going to get a concert after all. “I’ll tell him. Do you mind if I sit quietly and listen?”
“Actually,” Fay said, realizing she had a veritable fount of medieval information at her fingertips, and a chatty one at that. “I wanted to write down some stories. True stories, about our lives. If you can think of anything interesting, just spout it out and I’ll write it.”
Batty’s eyes widened. “Ooh, that sounds lovely. I can think of dozens of stories.”
“Good, then. Let’s get started.”
Batty nodded and ran to find their musical entertainment. Fay felt as if a weight had lifted off her and, to put it completely from her thoughts, she put the book back in the wardrobe, out of her sight. She felt sorry for those other girls, but she wasn’t them. She wouldn’t become like them. Perhaps she had better skills for adapting, perhaps she had more patience. She didn’t know what set her apart, but she knew she could continue living in this time until she fell in love again.
Tristan’s blue eyes flashed through her mind and her skin felt warm as she remembered his touch. With a sigh, she pushed the memories aside, the same as she had to do several times a day. The same as she would continue to do until they no longer plagued her.
Little Sam, who was actually of average size for his age of thirteen, was better than she expected. Between his gentle plucking of the strings and Batty talking faster than she could keep up with her stiff, nubby quill, she soon found herself exhausted and relaxed.
With a satisfied sigh, she looked down at her spattered, almost illegible writing and read the words she’d transcribed. It was a good enough start. At the top of the paragraph, she wrote “These accounts taken by the hand of Fay
Driscoll, who is living as Fay Grancourt, and was brought here from another year by a cursed gown. I hope someone can read these words and see their true meaning one day.”
Batty leaned over her shoulder, frowned at the terrible penmanship, then yawned hugely. Fay knew she would only see what the curse allowed her to see, so didn’t bother to hide it. She thanked little Sam for entertaining them and gazed out the window while Batty took down her hair.
“I think Roric’s bones might be right,” she said, shivering at the cold that seeped through the window. “What should we do if it snows?”
Batty shrugged. “I’ll need to gather up the winter bedding, and then I can air out your heavy cloaks. We can make sure that Catherine has enough warm things for the babies, as well.”
Fay smiled at sweet, busy Batty. She’d meant things more along the lines of snow angels or pelting the pages with snowballs. Her maid seemed frivolous sometimes, but she was practical to her marrow. Once again, guilt jabbed at Fay for ruining her chances with Brom. Batty would make the quintessential housewife.
“I’ll help with whatever I can,” she said as Batty pulled her huge down coverlet over her. It was still mildly embarrassing to be tucked in each night like a wee child, but she also found it comforting.
Batty clucked softly and blew out the candle, giving Fay one last pat before she left. Fay was asleep in no time, and the night flew by without bothering her with melancholy dreams. She awoke with the hard winter sun almost blinding her and knew there would be snow on the ground. Hurrying to the window, smug that she’d awakened before Batty for once, she gasped at the beauty that spread out beneath her. Everything was crisp, glistening white. Crystalline flakes clung to the windowpane and she reached out her hand to feel the icy glass.
Endearing (Knight Everlasting Book 1) Page 24
