The Little Shop of Found Things by Paula Brackston

Author:Paula Brackston [Brackston, Paula]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Amazon: B079DW82NL
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2018-10-16T00:00:00+00:00

16

By the time Xanthe climbed aboard the cart, taking her place next to Willis on the front seat, the rain had stopped. There was still a cold wind blowing, and she was thankful for the thick woolen cape Jayne had loaned her. One look at Xanthe, with her own picnic rug wrapped around her shoulders, had reduced the kitchen maid to helpless laughter. Jayne had been certain Mary would change her mind about letting Xanthe go if she was to be seen looking such a sight, so she offered her own cloak. In her pocket Xanthe had some of the coins she had brought with her from Mr. Morris’s collection. At least Alice might be able to use them to pay for more food or bribe someone to help her, if only in a small way. In the back of the cart, beneath some burlap flour sacks, were the charred remnants of ruined harness and tack. Even days later and in the open air it was still possible to smell the fire on them. No one had yet found the cause of the blaze, but this did not seem to worry them greatly. Perhaps such fires were commonplace, and people were only relieved they had not lost any of the horses, or servants. Or perhaps Willis had his own suspicions about Peter’s fear of the dark and carelessness with candles and chose to keep them to himself.

There was a single brown mare pulling the cart. No fancy carriage for this journey, but Xanthe did not care. Here at last was the chance she had been hoping for. She would be able to reassure Alice that she was not alone, and to ask her where she had hidden the chatelaine pieces. She could return them to Mistress Lovewell’s room, and the charges against Alice would have to be dropped. Her main challenge was going to be getting the poor girl to trust this odd-looking stranger who had suddenly popped into her life. Would she have seen her in a dream, she wondered, in the same way Xanthe had seen her? Had the chatelaine worked its magic for both of them? It would make her task easier if the girl recognized her, though it might terrify her. This was an age of superstition and belief in witchcraft—she might be horrified to see someone from one of her own visions standing in front of her.

The countryside on the way to Marlborough was remarkably similar to how it was in the modern day. Much of the county was given over to arable farming rather than livestock, so that it remained largely unfenced or enclosed in any way in the twenty-first century. Crops did not need walls and hedges to keep them in, after all. The main difference was the road. The persistent rain had turned the muddy track into a rutted mess of soupy soil and sharp stones, so that the horse had to move at a frustratingly slow, plodding trot, and the cart

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