Ever After (Unfinished Fairy Tales #3)(30)
Mary still looks hesitant. “If you’re not that girl Lady Pembroke brought, then who are you? You look remarkably like the princess.”
“My name is Katherine Wilson.” When Katriona Bradshaw returns, it’s going to get out that I’m not Bianca’s sister, so I might as well tell the truth. Besides, it’s a relief that I can use my own name. There were times that I felt it wrong to take Katriona Bradshaw’s identity. Now I can be myself.
“And you are a noble woman?”
I hesitate. “A commoner, but gently bred.”
She folds up the letter, then places the coin bag on the table. “You may stay here, of course, but it’s unnecessary for His Highness to pay me. I already owe him my life and Joel’s as well. Sit down, please. Joel, stop scuffing your shoe on the ground, you’ll wear out the toe and I won’t be patching it up. Did you have any supper?”
Bertram looks like he has been waiting for that magic word. “Can I get a bite?”
And so we sit down to a hearty meal. Mary asks about Moryn, which Bertram supplies a colorful account. While she doesn't gush with friendliness and warmth, I feel like I could trust her. Like Amelie. When dinner is over, I offer to wash the dishes. Mary protests that I am a guest, but I insist that I need to do something.
“Joel can sleep with me,” Mary says. “I’m afraid you’ll have to take the storage room. There’s no fireplace, but I’ll get you a mattress and some bedding.”
“I’m sure I’ll be comfortable. I’ve been sleeping in a cabin on the ship for the past week. It was cramped and stuffy, not to mention the ship kept tossing and sinking with the tide. It’s a miracle I didn’t get seasick.”
“I did,” Bertram says, looking embarrassed.
Mary looks at him, amused. “And here I thought you were invincible.”
After helping us set up a makeshift bed in the storage room, Bertram announces he has to go, remarking that he’s glad to be back in Athelia. “The wedding was most interesting, but nothing beats your own bed and a good simple meal. Those Moryn pastries are a mite too rich fer my stomach.”
He also makes me promise I’d let him know if I have any problems. “His Highness trusted me to take care of you, Kat.”
“Thank you, Bertram.” I smile at him. “I’ll be fine here.”
The storage room is small and cluttered, but a teeny bit warmer than other rooms—one thing I appreciate in the cold weather. Drawing up the blankets to my chin, I wish Edward was beside me. I miss snuggling against him and enjoying the warmth from his body. I miss his kisses and caresses, whether they may be tender or passionate. Most of all, I miss a life with Edward in it.
Be patient, I tell myself. Edward and I have been through so many obstacles already. We’ll get through this eventually and reach that elusive happily-ever-after.
* * *
“Can I come to the hen house with you?”
Mary pauses in the doorway. She arches an eyebrow. “You want to come with me?”
“I’d like to help. If you don’t mind.”
“Katherine, His Highness asked me to take care of you as our guest. Not as an assistant helper.”
“Yes, but I hate being useless, and I can’t go out until His Highness returns. Let me do something for you.”
It has been two days since I came to Mary’s house. As a single mother, she has to work during the day, while also taking care of the cooking and cleaning. I do my best to help, but I’m an embarrassing disaster. When I try my hand at cooking, I keep coughing from the fumes, though when I get out of the cottage, I’m back to normal. The most I can do is break the eggs and whip them up—even Joel can do that. I’m sure I can get better with practice, but seeing that I’m giving Mary more work to do with my clumsiness, I have to stop.
Mary purses her lips. “All right,” she concedes. “But you must stop if you smash any eggs.”
I rub dirt on my face and hide my hair in a rather unflattering kerchief, just in case the servants might recognize me. Mary has lent me one of her old dresses (with some tweaking in the bust and waist), since the ones I brought from Moryn are too ladylike. Imagine wearing a peach-colored silk gown in the chicken coop.
The chicken coop is a short walk from the cottage. It’s huge—I can’t see the other side of the fence. It’s also noisy with the squawking and clucking, and smelly from chicken manure. I dodge a rooster that tried to peck my ankle and nearly sink my foot in a pile of manure.
“Are you in charge of this entire place?” I ask Mary disbelievingly. “There’s got to be hundreds of chickens in here.”
“We need to provide for the palace,” she says, heading to a wooden shelf. “The others will arrive later. The boys live in the stables and the girls near the kitchens, so they’re usually later than I. We manage all right, but it's a chore when we have to clean out the coop. Wouldn’t want the place unclean and the chickens getting disease.”
She hands me a basket. “Collect the eggs and put them in here. You can tell a hen is ready when she squawks. Then sort the eggs by color and place them in the cartons on that shelf. I’ve labeled the cartons already.”
“No problem.” If I can walk backwards with a long train, I can tackle this egg-collecting. I feel like the heroine in The Goose Girl. In the fairy tale, the real princess was tricked by her maid and had to tend geese before her true identity was revealed. In my case, I’m taking care of chickens instead of geese.