With This Ring Read Online Free PDF

and handed the tray back to the maid.“Good enough?”
    The girl gave an astonished gasp.“Good enough?Miss, most ladies would slap me for spotting their … er … gown.”
    Her gaze passed over Elektra’s ensemble.“But if I may be so bold … you don’t look very much like a boy.If you wish to pass inspection, you might want to…” The girl mimed putting up her hair.“I’ll be right back, miss!”
    Elektra opened her mouth to object, but the dark, elfin girl was gone in a flash.She was right about the hair, however.With a twist and a quick repinning, Elektra had her softly waved chignon pulled into a tight, sleek bun.
    Then, just as Elektra was beginning to fidget in earnest, the little maid was back, breathlessly waving a brown woolen cap in triumph.
    “The boys in this valley wouldn’t step out the door wi’out one of these on their heads.”
    “It’s perfect!”Elektra snatched it and plunked it over her hair.The cap said, Pay no mind to me, I’m just a poor common lad. Elektra smiled, her real smile.“Thank you!”
    The girl blinked.“’Tis nothing, miss.I’d best be on my way now.”
    Elektra looked at her closely.“Aren’t you curious why I’m trying to pass as a boy?”
    The girl blinked again.“No, miss.I know why.It’s a better life, bein’ a boy, isn’t it?Safer’n all?”
    Elektra sobered slightly.Here she was, a protected woman, surrounded by men like her father and her brothers, who would die to save her.What must life be like for this defenseless little creature?She wasn’t big enough to fight off a hedgehog, much less a man with evil on his mind.
    On impulse, Elektra dug into Zander’s weskit pocket and pressed her last coins into the girl’s palm.
    “Oh, no, miss!I can’t take all this!”
    “All this” would buy Elektra no more than a few ribbons and a tin of sweets for Attie.“Take it,” she urged the girl.“What is your name?”
    “I be Edith, miss.”
    “Edith, take this.Just save it for … for Someday.”Elektra didn’t know a woman in the world who didn’t dream about Someday.
    Edith looked down at the coins in her palm.“Aye,” she said slowly.“For Someday.”
    “Now I truly must be on my way.Farewell, Edith!”
    Elektra took off down the hall at a full run, for the future of her family was fast getting away!
    *   *   *
    Edith watched the strange beauty depart until the woman was nothing but an echo of booted feet on the stairs.
    To think, a lady like that, getting on her knees to clean up a tray!
    Edith had waited on many a toff at the Green Donkey, for it was the only reputable inn on this long stretch of road.Never in her years of service had a lady spoken to her in any fashion other than to command.
    And then there was his lordship …
    Lord Aaron Arbogast was a handsome fellow, sure enough.A big strapping, dark-haired man with the bright blue eyes of a chancer.
    That was what Edith’s mum called a man like that one.A chancer was a fellow who gambled as easily as he breathed.He gambled with his money, he gambled with his woman, he gambled with his life.
    Edith had never met one of the nobility before this week.She wondered if all lords were chancers.Perhaps they were, for they had little to lose by it.
    That had nothing to do with her.Edith had always imagined herself taking up with some stolid farm boy, with whom she might have some farm boy sons, and perhaps a clever daughter to pass on the Knowledge.Unfortunately, she had never encountered that farm boy—at least, she had never encountered one she thought she might like to keep.
    His lordship, on the other hand, was in sore need of a firm feminine hand.Edith had only ever really met two ladies, those bright golden-haired creatures who had convened here at the Green Donkey Inn before they had rolled off together onward down the road.
    If all ladies were like the two of them, vibrant and indomitable, Edith could just about imagine a lady of that sort taking his lordship in hand.
    On the