The Penwyth Bride (The Witch's Daughter Book 1) by Bolton Ani

Author:Bolton, Ani [Bolton, Ani]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2015-05-29T07:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

I pulled myself together and made my way back to the house. Nanny came upon me as I hobbled gingerly through the kitchen, spent by the release of my affinity and burdened with the weight of secrets I was never meant to know.

I needed to sooth my distracted mind, but I knew what to do. I begged from Nanny the use of a spinning wheel.

She giggled at my request, putting a cracked black nail in her mouth. “Eh, miss, I don’t know what mistress will say, me letting a quality lady do such humble work.”

“Oh, spinning is a fine genteel occupation,” I assured her. “My stepmother always approved of it at home, and she is Lady Penwyth’s sister.”

“Genteel, you say? Humph, I never feel genteel while I be spinning greasy hanks o’wool. But whatever you say, miss. Oh, did you know that old Tom Pyder come by? He brought ye something.”

“Something for me? How strange.” I hadn’t seen Tom Pyder since he showed me where the walled garden lay.

Nanny smiled, as secretive as anything Jenny could produce.

“I’ll let ye see it for yourself. It be in the front hall on the inlay cabinet. I’ll bring the spinning wheel into the sunroom, if that be where you’d like it to go, miss?”

“Yes, the light will be better there. You’ve set my curiosity quite on fire, Nanny!”

I limped to the front hall. On the cabinet, as promised, sat a potted plant choked with purple blossoms. The flowers dripped like bells from slim stems, and an exotic, clove-like fragrance filled the hall.

“Oh Tom, you rascal,” I breathed as I gently touched a bloom. A bead of nectar slid down the stamen and onto my finger. Suddenly my skin suffocated with unbearable heat, and my ears filled with the screek of equatorial birds.

I was about to fall into dark mysteries when my fingers brushed a piece of folded paper.

The vision shredded as I came in contact with smooth vellum pressed, the wood pulp told me, in an Amsterdam warehouse. Reluctantly I opened the note.

This plant needs an admirer. It should serve to remind you to keep your feet on the ground.

It was signed with a spiky RP.

###

As promised, Nanny brought the spinning wheel to the sunroom where the waning light could best be had. She also fetched a large basket of wool already washed and carded into creamy piles, and ready to be spun into yarn.

I settled next to the well-used wheel, smelling the homely musk of new wool, and felt myself search for, and find, my center. Loading onto the distaff the long-stapled, tough wool of the local sheep--very different from the lustrous, silky wool of the North--I began to spin, putting aside the unpleasant aftertaste that eavesdropping had left in my mouth.

The wheel whirred and clicked to taps from my good foot on the treadle. The spokes became invisible, spinning hypnotically.

My mind flew over the centuries to the other women who were spinning as I was now, and I shared in our collective satisfaction at creating a useful object from animal hair.

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