Teresa Medeiros - [FairyTale 02] Read Online Free PDF Page A

elsewhere as well.
    “Aye, we shall never forget you,” Glynnis vowed with a watery sigh.
    “I doubt you’ll have the chance,” Gwendolyn said firmly, “since I have every intention of being back in my own bed come morning.”
    But Marsali and her mates had other ideas. Each time Gwendolyn tried to rise from the stool they’d set before the fire, they shoved her back down. They’d already dragged off her practical woolen gown and stuffed her into a white linen garment more suited to a virgin sacrifice.
    As the other women tugged away the drab snood and unwound her coil of braids, Granny Hay peered into her face. “Her mother was such a beauty. ‘Tis a pity the lass isn’t comely like her sisters.”
    The old woman’s words caused Gwendolyn only the faintest sting. She’d long ago resigned herself to being the smart sister in a family of legendary beauties.
    Granny seized her lower lip and peered into her mouth. “She does have sweet dimples and bonny teeth, though,” she said, baring her own yellowing stumps.
    “And lovely golden hair,” said Marsali, raking her grimy fingernails through the shimmering mass. Her own mousy brown locks hung in lank, unwashed strands around her face.
    “If only she weren’t so fat,” snapped Ailbert’s wife, still smarting from Gwendolyn’s attempt to claim her husband as a lover. Gwendolyn had to bite her lip tokeep from pointing out that the portly woman outweighed her by more than eight stone on a dry day.
    “ ‘Tis just as well ye were chosen, lass,” Marsali said gently, casting a doting look toward the cradle in the corner where her baby daughter slept, safe from the Dragon’s greedy claws. “After all, ye’re nearly twenty-five years old. Ye’ve little enough hope o’ finding a husband at yer age.”
    “I’m younger than both Glynnis and Nessa,” Gwendolyn pointed out.
    “Aye, but Glynnis has already buried two husbands and Nessa can have her pick of any lad in the village.”
    “Perhaps Auld Tavis would take Gwennie to bride,” Kitty suggested hopefully.
    Gwendolyn shuddered. “No thank you. I’d rather be eaten by a dragon than gummed to death by that old scoundrel.”
    As Marsali spread Gwendolyn’s hair around her shoulders in a gleaming mantle, a crack of thunder shook the cottage, making them all jump. Gwendolyn folded her hands in her lap to hide their sudden trembling.
    “You needn’t worry about Papa,” Nessa assured her. “We shall look after him.”
    “The last time I gave you charge of him,” Gwendolyn said, “his nightshirt caught fire when you went off with the butcher’s nephew and left him sitting too close to the hearth.”
    Glynnis lowered her handkerchief. “But this time she’ll have me to help her.”
    “You’re the one who let him go charging off into the blizzard to fight invisible ‘redcoats’ wearing nothing but a short kilt and a claymore. He nearly froze to death before I could find him,” Gwendolyn reminded her sister.
    She twisted her hands together, fighting a flare of panic. It was painfully obvious that Kitty didn’t need her anymore, but what would become of Papa if anything were to happen to her? It wouldn’t take more than an hour for Izzy’s short-tempered bellowing to reduce the confused old soul to tears.
    “There’s no such thing as a dragon,” she mumbled beneath her breath. “I’ll be home in time to spoon Papa’s morning porridge into his bowl.”
    A loud crash shook the rafters, giving Gwendolyn a violent start. But it wasn’t until she saw the mingled guilt and dread on the ashen faces of the other women, however, that she realized the crash was not thunder, but the clamor of fists pounding on the door.
    They’d come for her.
    Although they had bound her hands in front of her, Gwendolyn marched grimly along at the head of the mob, refusing to be dragged. The wind whipped her hair across her cheeks in stinging cords. Lightning crackled across the sky and thunder rolled and swelled