Page 28 of The Stag & The Owl
“There you go, my faerie girl,” Alina said asshe removed the lead rope from Etain’s neck.It was the mare’sfirst outing in the paddock since foaling Ash.Alina watched thehigh-stepping, flaxen-maned, chestnut beauty dance and prancearound with a happy smile.“I bet you’re as fast as my Brynja onthose long legs of yours.”
Brynja.How Alina would love to be riding heralong the sea’s shore right now, free as the wind.She glanced overat the stables where Gare sat on a bench outside working onbraiding leather straps into a bridle and keeping an eye on heralong with one of the laird’s men-at-arms, who sat on the benchbeside him, whittling a piece of wood.
Everywhere she went outside of the manorhouse, one of Roger’s men followed, which was still better thanbeing inside the house.Peg and Jenny were friendly enough, butLynette, Gwyneth, and Myrna never hesitated to show their hatred.She couldn’t be in their sights without their eyes boring holesinto her like maggots in a days’-old carcass.
She shook her shoulders and squared them.Shewas a princess of the Northlands, born and raised.She could dealwith these women for another fortnight and a half.She had to.Whatshe didn’t have to do was subject herself to them any more than wasnecessary.
She wandered over to an old oak in a grassycorner of the paddock and sat down under its shady branches,leaning her back against the trunk.She hadn’t slept well lastnight, alone in the bed without Roark nearby.She’d felt hisabsence keenly since he rode off on Artur, his big, powerfullybuilt, dapple grey stallion, this morning.
“He’ll be back,” she told Etain, closing hereyes and leaning her head back.“He won’t leave me here alone.”
She woke with Etain next to her, the mare’slong legs folded up beneath her, her head bobbing in the dappledsunlight under the oaks sprawling branches.By the sun, they’dslept their way well into the afternoon.
“What does it say about me that I sleepbetter on the ground amongst horses than in a clean, soft bed in ahouse?”she asked the mare, standing and stretching her back.
She slipped the lead around the mare’s neckand led her past the sleeping guard and Gare into her stall.Smokeyand Ash were curled up together in their pen, Ash’s belly roundedand the milk bucket half empty.
“Gare.”She nudged the stable hand’sshoulder.“Gare.”He woke with a snort and blinked up at her.“I’mreturning to the house now,” she said in her Northern tongue, usinghand gestures pointing to herself and then the house.
He stood and left the guard snoring away,walking Alina to the front entrance himself.“Best of luck,lassie,” he said as she pushed the door open and walked in.
The ladies of the house were sitting andsewing in the common room, and Alina turned for the kitchens.She’dbarely eaten any breakfast in her haste to get out of the house andout to the horses, and her belly was grumbling.
“Alina,” Lynette’s commanding voice stoppedher in her tracks.“Where are you skulking off to, girl?”
Alina turned and faced the women.“To thekitchens.”
“We serve breakfast and supper here,” Lynettetold her.“The staff have enough to do without worrying aboutfeeding you special meals.If you’re hungry this early in the day,I suggest you take the time to eat a sufficient breakfast, unlikethis morning.”
“Yes, Mistress,” Alina said, biting hertongue to keep from pointing out the half-eaten tray of sweet cakeson the table between Lynette and Myrna.“I’ll keep it in mind.”
“See that you do,” Lynette admonished.“You’re not here to be coddled.”
Alina chuffed.
“What was that supposed to mean?”Myrnahuffed.She tossed her sewing aside and strode over to Alina.“Iasked you a question, little miss high and mighty bastard daughterof a stable hand and a cuckolding mother.”
Alina laughed, short and quick.What was itwith these women that they kept spewing this same tired lie overand over?Did they really think if they said it enough it wouldsomehow be true?
“Well?”Myrna demanded when Alina stilldidn’t answer.
“Well, what?”
“Don’t take that attitude with me,” Myrnasquawked.
She drew her hand up and back and swung atAlina, who’d been taken by surprise in the bath chambers, but notthis time.She grabbed Myrna’s wrist mid-air and held it as theolder woman struggled and squirmed.“I may be the laird’sprisoner,” she said through grit teeth, throwing Myrna’s hand down,“but I will not willingly take such abuse.Not from you.Not fromanybody.”
Myrna rubbed her wrist and smiled.“Oh mydear,” she said smugly in her Green Isles tongue.“You have no ideawhat humiliations and abuses await you.”
***
By the grim set of his jaw and the silverglint in his eyes, Alina could see there was something botheringRoark the moment he sat down at the high table for supper.Myrna,on the other hand, looked overly pleased with herself.
It’d taken every bit of Alina’s willpower notto recoil at the woman’s vile threat of humiliation and abuse in alanguage she thought Alina ignorant of this afternoon.To remaincalm and simply walk away when she’d wanted to scratch the smugsmile off not only Myrna’s face, but Lynette’s and Gwyneth’s too.To scream at them, demanding to know what she’d done to deservesuch blind hatred.
Instead, she’d climbed the stairs to herchambers and paced and brooded at the unfairness of it all, missingher parents and the rest of her family so much it felt as if herheart had actually dropped out of her chest.
And then she remembered who she was.
