Page 20 of Sweetling
Heart racing, Molly ushered her cousins from her room. “Go on, now. I’ve got to change into something nice.”
The girls threw her uncertain looks, but Molly closed the door on them, too. She couldn’t bear their forlorn faces. It made her impending departure that much more real, even as she stood in her bedchamber in her last few moments of freedom.
This can’t be happening,her heart moaned as she went through the motions of donning her finest clothes.
She couldn’t help a grimace that her best bodice and kirtle were what she’d worn to serve drinks at the heiress’s wedding. She’d done all the embroidery on the brown bodice and white sleeves and butter yellow kirtle herself, and it was some of her best work, but a little bit of her withered to know she’d be handfasted in her barmaid clothes.
He’d seen her in them. He’d know.
Well, if he didn’t want a barmaid, he shouldn’t have bought one.
Righteous tears burned her eyes as she finished dressing. She didn’t bother with her hair—he gets what he gets—and made quick work of her best pair of boots. Hauling the bags over her shoulders, she trudged down the steps to the tavern below, not letting herself think.
It wasn’t until she’d set everything down that she realized a small crowd had gathered inside.
The fae was there, but she couldn’t bear to look at him. A few of their neighbors, a few of Brom’s friends, a few other tavern owners, the mayor. Jennet and a few other barmaids she was friendly with poked their heads through the windows, but none dared come to her and pass by the fae.
Other than the mayor. Seeing her, Mayor Doherty quickly approached. Thom Doherty was beloved throughout Dundúran, a wise, moderating voice for the people. He worked well with the Darrows and oversaw city business fairly. He was also spry for a man who’d gone white and wrinkled long ago, hurrying over to draw her aside.
Giving her hands a sympathetic pat, the mayor said, “Miss Molly, this is all very sudden and strange. I’d heard Lord Allarion visited this tavern, but I hadn’t thought…”
That he’d ever stop to look at a woman like you.
Molly bit her cheek.
“The fae can be strange,” was all Molly could think to say.
“So I gather.” When Doherty looked over his shoulder at the small crowd, it was at her uncle, not the fae, that he leveled a considering frown. “Is this what you want, Miss Molly? Your uncle isn’t doing something…untoward?”
Molly sucked in a breath, the truth on the tip of her tongue. She glanced over the mayor’s shoulder at her uncle to find him boring into her with a desperate stare.
Then, unwillingly but drawn there as surely as an avalanche rolled down the mountain, her gaze flicked to the fae.
He stood on his own, a silent, looming presence. He too was staring at her, his gaze unwavering and intense in its own right. Shestared back, weighing her next words.
I can end this. I don’t have to go through with it.
The mayor had enough power to stop whatever this was. He could appeal directly to the Darrows, maybe even bring her to the castle immediately.
But…
The money would be gone. And worse, what would the fae do in retribution?
She hadn’t ever sensed violence from him, and in her fantasies, he wasn’t capable of harming her or her family. But then, she’d never imagined he’d buy her.
Looking at him then, every nerve shook in trepidation but…not fear. She didn’t fear this fae.
He wanted her. Like so many men before him, he wanted something from her. It lessened him in her eyes—he was just like all the rest. More powerful, richer, to be sure, but the same, nevertheless. He didn’t use violence but money to get his way, to manipulate and force.
Molly had seen his type before. She knew how to handle men like him.
The realization gave her some comfort, as did her promise to herself that she would take this man for everything he was worth. Whatever he held dear, whatever he loved, she would find and take. Brom was right at least in that she didn’t have to stay with him. A handfasting was a year and a day; after that, if neither cried off, the couple was considered married. But until then, until that year and a day, it could be called off at any point.
Molly intended to make this a short handfasting. She would take her freedom back and the life she wanted. No man, not even a fae, was allowed to take it from her.
So she told the mayor, “It’s all right. I want to,” because she meant to make the fae regret it.
The mayor gave her another concerned look, as if trying to determine if she lied.
