The Bellerose Bargain Read Online Free PDF Page A

Rodney teased, remembering her displeasure with that idea from the night before.
    "Maybe I shall, sir. When it suits me."
    "Who allows you such freedom, lass?"
    "Nary a soul, milord. But for chores I have to do, I’m let clean alone." She shrugged, feigning lack of concern for something she actually worried over a great deal. "I’m to be given my own life shortly. I will either marry some poor begging farmer or be cast off to make my own way."
    "How is that?"
    "I’ve no dowry and no family. No one will ask for me, and Osmond, the miller who’s given me a place to sleep for the last few years, won’t support a grown woman much longer."
    "Grown woman," Rodney sighed. "You’re barely weaned."
    Alicia straightened her back indignantly. "I’ve reached seventeen since this summer, I’ll have you know."
    "Aye, I would’ve guessed. Still a child. What would you do on your own?"
    "A hundred things, if I can find honest work. I’m good with money, sir, and it don’t cost me much to keep alive."
    Rodney scooped up the last of his porridge and downed the cup of milk.
    "I’ll be looking for honest labor if I don’t hasten to my task and find the bride."
    "Why doesn’t he fetch his own bride, your young lord? Could be she thinks he can’t care much and is hiding till he comes after her himself."
    Rodney chuckled at her idea. "First, lass, there’s another love that needs his time. His most recent acquisition, a ship, bought on a borrowed dowry, is being completed. Second, it wouldn’t do for the groom to fetch the bride. It’s not proper. And last, I feel sure that young Geoffrey is more frightened of what he might have doomed himself to than Charlotte Bellamy is."
    Alicia rose and shook her apron. "Well, I wish you luck, sir, but if she’s mean and ugly as you say, your master may be pleased you couldn’t find her."
    "He won’t be pleased if he has to sell his ship."
    Alicia turned suddenly back. A thought struck her. "First I thought how grand to have all the men want to marry her. Now I think how sad for her. She’s got a problem black as mine. No one will choose her, only use her."
    Rodney nodded his head in silent agreement. "The court’s a lonely place, lass. There’s not an honest drop of love to be found there."
    "Then that makes me the lucky one, eh, sir? No chance that should happen to me."
    Rodney dug into the purse that hung at his belt. He pulled out a gold coin and tossed it to her. "There," he said, as she caught it. "For listening to my troubles."
    She smiled brightly and clutched at the coin. "But sir, I don’t deserve..."
    "It’s not for your poor farmer, should you choose that course. Buy something special for yourself, Alicia." He walked past her toward the door. "I wager you deserved it long ago."
    Holding fast to her gold piece, she watched Rodney leave from the door of the inn. He turned once to wave in her direction. It lifted her heart considerably to hold the coin. She had sacrificed nothing and was generously rewarded for being herself. A simple treasure turned rich.
    It was Monday morning, Alicia’s favorite time of the week, when the maids could take their baths after the laundry was done. This was the only time the girls could spend selfishly without repercussions. If one of them stole away for an afternoon walk, to be alone away from the others or to be with some lover just passing through, Armand would scream until he was blue. The innkeeper, it seemed, needed to know their whereabouts every minute of every day—except for that short time when they bathed.
    Alicia was the last to bathe. This was decided by a conspiracy of the other girls to remind her of her place as a person unattached to any other by family or any other bond. She was detached from the other maids because she was reluctant to share secrets. And her manner of behaving as though she were unaffected by the way they ostracized her led them to accuse her of being haughty and conceited.
    Finally her turn came in the