Mistress of Her Fate by Byrne Julia

Author:Byrne, Julia [Byrne, Julia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2015-03-12T07:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWELVE

The open field outside the small market town was teeming with people and animals, and alive with the scents and sounds of the fair.

Wealthy merchants, garbed in their finest gowns, rubbed shoulders with sharp-eyed pedlars in simple homespun. Craftsmen hammered and sewed. Townswomen in brightly-hued wools and velvets compared prices with soberly-clad farmers’ wives, while their husbands eyed the brilliant, cloudless sky and debated how long the fine autumn weather would last.

It seemed to Nell that everyone for miles around had chosen that morning to attend the fair. And there was plenty to see and marvel at, from the goldsmiths’ and jewelers’ precious goods, displayed in sturdy wooden booths, to trestle tables piled high with fine English wool and Flemish cloth, furs from the North, and spices and sweetmeats from the far-away East.

Even the spaces between the stalls and tables were occupied by people hoping to turn a profit—barbers, jongleurs, traveling players, quacks declaiming the dubious properties of whatever potion or elixir they were selling. Pie-vendors wandered through the crowd, adding their voices to the din; children and dogs abounded, darting between stalls and wagons and legs with reckless abandon.

And overlooking all, the castle that held license for the fair stood apart on its wooded rise above the town in grimly-fortified patronage.

“Do you know who lives there?” Bess asked, seeing Nell’s gaze go from the grey-walled towers above them to the uniformed men-at-arms mingling with the crowd.

“Nay, and even if I did, I doubt they would recognize me like this.” She glanced down at herself and tried to quell a growing feeling of nervousness. It hadn’t been so bad at first. The unaccustomed freedom to wander at will among the stalls and booths delighted her, as had the lavish way she’d been spending Beaudene’s money on various necessities for their outlaw hosts.

There was nothing, she told herself, to be nervous about. She looked no different to any other fair-goer. Her long hair was braided and coiled into a plain crespinette and the red wool gown Bess had found for her was modestly cut and worn beneath a sleeveless fitted surcoat of moss-green velvet, neatly trimmed with miniver. She could have passed for a respectable tradesman’s daughter. Neither the soldiers in the crowd, nor the group of apprentices who were following her and Bess around the fair, snickering and nudging each other but not venturing nearer, would suspect she was a lady abroad without male protection.

And there lay the real problem, she admitted, as she waited for Bess to purchase a supply of hemp and tallow with which to make candles. She wasn’t afraid of the risk of exposure; she missed Beaudene’s presence beside her.

So much for enjoying herself away from him. Somehow, in their brief time together, she had grown accustomed to his protection. After years of constant guardedness, of having to protect herself, there was something very reassuring in the knowledge that his solid strength stood between her and danger. He might be infuriating and intimidating, and much

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