As Good as Gold Read Online Free PDF Page B

you’ve done.”
    She drew a deep breath before turning to him. “Your grandmother gave me a gift. She’d gotten it from her mother, and so on. I have no daughters--only you.” She made a small sound that could have been a sob. “And now my line will end with you.”
    He pointed to his forehead. His voice was gentler, but he still needed answers. “What did you do?”
    A knock sounded on the door.
    His mother looked at him, and Bel sighed. He answered the door, sparing his mother’s poor, arthritic joints.
    A punch to the face sent him reeling back.
    “I hope you’re happy!” said a furious Daywen, striding after the retreating Bel. “Thanks to you, I have an empty heart, an empty future, and an empty purse.”
    Was he bleeding? He checked his nose, but his fingers didn’t come away tinged with red. It hurt, but not as bad as the words she spoke.
    “I am not paying ye back a single groat, Belenus MacEuros. Not in coin, not in favor, not in anything!” She shook her finger in his face. “You’re a greedy, selfish, ignorant lout, and I hope ye die as miserable and alone as I am!” she shouted at him.
    “How did ye find me?” he asked.
    “Lachlan. He seemed quite amused at the prospect of the likes of me catching up with ye.”
    His mother sat up straight. “Belenus? What’s this?” Bel tore his attention from Daywen to his mother when he heard the tone of warning in her voice. “She’s the one, isn’t she? Oh, I’m disappointed in ye, boy. Ye went and asked for your gold back.”
    For the first time since her assault on Bel, Daywen seemed to notice Bel’s mother in the room. “Oh. My apologies, goodwife.”
    Bel’s mother waved her hand dismissively. “Not goodwife any longer. Widow MacEuros now, but I wager you knew that. Forgive me if I don’t rise and greet you properly. My old bones are not what they once were.”
    Daywen looked from mother to son and back again. “Oh...” She looked like she was going to cry.
    “Belenus,” his mother warned. “Have you done ill by this young lass?”
    “I...” His eyes on Daywen, he felt the lingering effects of magic spread warmth across his forehead and tickle the back of his mind. A tiny corner of his heart irked at having done her ill. He couldn’t lie to his mother.
    So he changed the subject. “We are not discussing what I did to her, but rather what ye did to me, Mother.”
    Daywen folded her arms. “Oh, I think we should discuss what ye have done to me.”
    His mother studied Bel and Daywen. “If I understand this correctly, this is the lass that stole the gold from ye to get the faerie?”
    “Yes,” affirmed Daywen, her voice unsure.
    “And where is the faerie now?”
    Daywen’s eyes narrowed. “He stole it from me and returned it to Alishandra,” she spat.
    “Oh, Belenus,” his mother cried. “I am disappointed in ye. No amount of money can compensate for shattering someone’s dreams.”
    “I didn’t get me money back from the gypsy, if that’s what ye mean.”
    “No, that is not what I mean.” She slapped her arthritic hand against the arm of her rocking chair. “I am sorry I gave ye that gift and if I could take it back, I would, because I am ashamed of ye, lad.”
    That stung. Between Daywen’s tearful, angry countenance and his mother’s disappointment, Bel felt smaller than a rat.
    He gave in. “All right, Mother. At least tell me what it was ye gave me. What was it that was so important that you passed it down from generation to generation?”
    His mother closed her eyes. “I tell ye this only if ye will set things to rights.”
    “Mother...”
    “Promise! On your father’s grave.”
    Bel didn’t know what to say. But if he didn’t find out what it was, how was he to rid himself of it? How was he to free himself from the distraction that was Daywen? Even now his heart ached to take her into his arms and make everything better. “I promise,” he finally said.
    His mother nodded. “What I gave ye was a