Wyrde and Wayward by Charlotte E. English

Author:Charlotte E. English [English, Charlotte E.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: historical fantasy, funny fantasy, regency fantasy, gothic fantasy
Publisher: Charlotte E. English
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

***

‘I must warn you,’ Gussie had said earlier in the morning. ‘I am like to keel over of hunger before very much longer, and you will have a corpse on your hands. Most embarrassing for you.’

Lord Maundevyle, recumbent still upon the floor of the cave, having scarcely moved since the night before, made no answer.

‘Though I am not at all sure that my aunt and uncle might not be better pleased to be rid of me,’ she reflected. ‘I am an inconveniently Wyrded Werth, as it turns out, and my aunt was perhaps justified in keeping me tucked away at the Towers.’

In the strong light of a sunny morning, she had been able to explore her new quarters more thoroughly, though not much to her satisfaction. The cave was large enough to accommodate so monstrously-sized a creature as a dragon, but had little to recommend it beyond this spaciousness. No hidden depths, no trickling stream, no twisting passageways leading into an unknown network of caverns laced through the Somerset hills. It was just a cave, grey and hard and stony and utterly without interest.

Or sustenance.

‘Well,’ said Gussie, when his lordship evinced no desire whatsoever to move, ‘then I shall have to procure my own breakfast, though I hardly know how I am to do so. Still, obstacles exist in order to spur us into useful activity, and activity leads to growth, does it not? I shall be equal to anything, after this.’ So saying, she made her disreputable garments as respectable as she could, acutely aware that she proposed to face her fellow man not only clad in the outlandish costume gown of last night’s ball, but a shockingly torn specimen of evening attire at that. She might be taken for a beggar, save that the silks of her gown, however tattered or oddly styled, were too obviously costly.

‘I shall doubtless be taken up as a thief,’ she remarked. ‘And I can in no way assist you from the inside of a gaol. That need not trouble you, however.’

This appeared at last to motivate his lordship, or perhaps her commentary had finally filtered through to his sleep-fogged brain. There came a great rustling and scraping behind her as the enormous creature stirred, and rose; and then, just as Gussie was on the point of exiting the cave herself, Lord Maundevyle stormed past her, and with an athletic leap hurled himself into the sky. He was even too generous to swipe her with his tail on his way past, or to contrive, “accidentally”, to jostle her into the dirt.

‘Excellent,’ said Gussie, satisfied, and sat down again to wait.

When Lord Maundevyle returned, some half an hour later, Gussie had migrated to the thready grasses immediately before the cave, and sat sunning herself. The hour was some way advanced, which suggested she had slept longer and deeper than might have been imagined possible, under the circumstances. Weariness must be the cause, and the shock she had sustained the night before. She felt very well now, or she would as soon as her gnawing hunger pangs were satisfied.

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