The Wishing Well by Avril Borthiry

The Wishing Well by Avril Borthiry

Author:Avril Borthiry
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Medieval
Published: 2017-01-24T06:00:00+00:00


Chapter 12

ACCOMPANIED BY ITS knightly escort, the wagon stumbled along the rutted road away from Rothwyn. The unyielding wooden wheels made every pit feel like a chasm, every pebble a boulder. Jostled mercilessly, Lora gripped the side boards and watched the great walls of her home shrink into the distance. In her mind, she saw a ghost of herself, standing at her window, bidding a silent farewell to the naive girl she had been. Her young heart now bore ruinous scars, most still raw and one newly carved.

Master William.

“Curse your honor,” she murmured. “Why did you not lie to my father? It served no purpose to speak the truth, protected no one. My destiny was already assured, and Gareth…”

She paused, remembering Edward’s sinister smile the day he had left, and the message it plainly conveyed. A prickle ran across her scalp as the image of the covered well slid into her brain. The thought that Gareth had died such a cruel and painful death at Edward’s hands threatened to shatter her fragile emotions. Seeking comfort, she grasped at denial.

Maybe the tale Mama told me is true. Maybe a goat somehow managed to fall…

Doubt stalled her thoughts. After all, was the goat not one of God’s most sure-footed creatures? Perhaps I should ask Papa what happened to Gareth. What Edward did to him.

Lora’s grip on the side boards tightened. No, she would not ask. To face such a truth, in all its bloody nakedness, would be intolerable. For now, denial was easier. Her grief, while agonizing, was not as torturous as the shadow of guilt that darkened her soul.

At that moment, Rothwyn disappeared from sight as the wagon lurched onto the forest road. Lora’s throat tightened, but she raised her chin and faced forward, blinking away tears. Her gaze drifted past the driver, a hefty, bearded fellow whose stale odor tainted the air around him, and came to rest on the stiff arch of her father’s back. Flanked by two of his men, the earl rode in silence at the head of the escort. She wondered what thoughts occupied his mind.

He had shown neither sympathy nor compassion as she had clambered into the wagon. Then again, she reflected, he’d never expressed real love or affection for her. Until recently, he’d never treated her unkindly either, yet his manner had always been one of mild detachment. The expressions of love in her life had come from her mother, a mother she adored, whose haunted expression that morning spoke of a broken heart. And, God forgive me, I am to blame.

Behind the self-recrimination, an intuitive thought scurried through Lora’s mind like a beetle, only to disappear. It seemed important somehow. Frowning, she dropped her gaze, plagued by an odd feeling that she’d missed recognizing a truth. Something of significance. But what?

As she continued to ponder, a pebble fell at her feet. Her focus elsewhere, she paid it little heed. Then another pebble fell, this one bouncing off her lap.

“What in God’s name…?” For a moment, she stared at the two little stones resting at her feet.



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