Page 7 of Historical Hotties
“Then you should be careful what you say about her. Your accusations are serious.”
Amata shrugged him off. “Everyone knows it,” she insisted. “Oh, I know how good she is and truth be told, she is very sweet. She tends the poor and ill who cannot afford a physic, and she feeds those who cannot feed themselves, but it is purely in penitence because of the marks she bears.”
“Marks on the flesh do not make her a witch.”
Amata wasn’t pleased that he wasn’t listening to her. She wagged a finger at him. “Do not say that you were not warned,” she said. “Whatever your business is with the duke, you should not stay at Edenthorpe. You must come to my father’s home for lodgings. He will be more than happy to have you and I would be honored to entertain you.”
At that point, it was all he could do not to roll his eyes at her. “Thank you for the offer, but I will remain at Edenthorpe,” he said, moving around her and continuing towards Bose and Rhori. “Good day to you, Lady Amata.”
“But –”
“Du Bois!” Cassius bellowed, drowning her out. “De Shera! We ride to Edenthorpe!”
He had all but forgotten about Amata. He didn’t even notice when she stopped running after him. He was focused on his knights and as Amata stood there and watched, Cassius and his men ran off towards the livery where they’d left their horses and the dog. The duke was expecting them and they wouldn’t keep the man waiting.
But Amata didn’t see it that way. She saw a deliciously handsome knight getting away from her, but he wasn’t going to get far.
She wasn’t going to let him get away.
Her father was somewhere in the crowd and she headed off to find him. She would tell him of the gorgeous de Wolfe knight and make sure her father sent word to Doncaster, inviting the man to their home to sup. As a cousin of Doncaster, it would be rude to refuse. One way or another, she wanted de Wolfe to come to Silverdale.
To her.
Amata was convinced she had just met her future husband.
CHAPTER TWO
“What do youthink of this shade, my lady?”
The question had come from an older woman, her neck and head tightly wimpled in white, wearing the brown broadcloth garments of a servant as she held up a piece of wet fabric that she had been stirring in a stone cauldron. The woman she was addressing had just come down the stone steps that led into this den of activity. As weak sunlight streamed in through a series of small, barred windows, the woman on the steps peered closely at the fabric without touching it.
“A lovely shade of yellow,” she said. “Well done, Edie.”
The older woman carefully put the cloth back in the stone vat and continued to stir carefully. “Onion skins and as much saffron as we could spare, mixed with the alum,” she said. “It makes a beautiful color.”
She wasn’t looking at the young woman, now bending over the vat to inspect the color of the water. If she happened to look up, she would see what she had always seen– a petite lass with a womanly shape, big breasts, and eyes of the purest and palest blue. They were almost unnatural in their magnificent beauty. But she would also see a face full of tiny spots. Some called themwitch’s marks, some called them sun spots, and some even called them freckles.
Whatever they were, they were that by which Dacia of Doncaster was defined.
It was a pity, too. Dacia, under any other circumstances, would have been one of the most sought-after women in all of England because she was the sole heiress to a vast and rich dukedom. Unfortunately, the fates had not been kind to her, and just after her first birthday, a sea of freckles began to appear on the bridge of her nose and cheeks.
That had only been the beginning.
Her nursemaid had kept her covered up and out of the sun but, still, the freckles kept coming. By the time she was five years old, they covered her nose, her cheeks, and down her neck. Since Dacia’s parents had died when she had been very young, the only person to tend to her had been her nursemaid, who had been convinced that the devil was trying to mark her charge.
As a child, she’d had a few friends and had been allowed to interact somewhat normally with allies and children her own age. But as she grew, the freckles darkened and the comments began to come. When the rumors and whispers started, and the children grew cruel, the withdrawal from normal life came.
Dacia of Doncaster retreated from the social circles.
As a result of this stringent and paranoid upbringing, Dacia had never been sent away to foster. She had been kept at Edenthorpe Castle, considered a safe haven, because of her zealously religious nursemaid. Even on her deathbed, the old woman was still convinced that the devil had been trying to mark her beloved Dacia and made her promise to always keep her face covered.
All Dacia had ever known was to hide those marks from the world.
Oddly enough, however, she grew into a thoughtful, intelligent, and well-educated young woman who was determined to do good in the world. She had a genuine desire to help the less fortunate, possibly because she knew what it was like to be an outcast. There was no lingering hint of the strangeness her nursemaid had imprinted upon her other than the fact that she rarely left Edenthorpe and when she did, she was covered from head to toe in veils to disguise the heavy dusting of freckles.
Marks of the devil, the old woman had called them.
Unfortunately for Dacia, she had to live with that stigma.
