Not Quite a Lady Not Quite a Knight: Nettlefold Chronicles Read online

  “Given how little I think you could possibly know, it would not surprise me in the least if you do,” Addie replied smartly.

  Mr. Brassey approached and bid the pair a good day. Addie smiled at him and asked after his new wife.

  “She made me this new shirt,” he said proudly pulling a bit of it from under his apron, “It fits without pulling the buttons, and I haven’t yet burnt it.”

  Addie laughed and introduced Mr. Brassey to Sir Ainsworth. “Tell Phoebe and her sister Mary to come and have tea at the Bell and Whistle. I haven’t spoken to them in an age,” she said as she turned to go.

  “Not the tearoom?” Mr. Brassey said.

  Addie shook her head. “The Bell and Whistle. I’m working there now.”

  Mr. Brassey nodded and then addressed his customer, while Addie set off down the road to the market, the basket swinging gaily from one hand and bouncing against her leg as she walked.

  * * *

  3

  It was not far to the market. Normally Addie would have liked to linger. The harvest had produced such bounty to choose from, and she loved autumn better than any other season. The air was cool and crisp, the sky the impossible blue it sometimes got after a storm. A handful of clouds chased the sun, never quite covering it fully.

  On the distant hillsides, the trees bent in a wild profusion of color against the wind that teased at the branches, stripping brilliant gold, crimson, and orange leaves into a dance down into the streets of the town. Addie reached out a hand, catching a single crimson leaf upon the wind, a smile of delight crossing her face. To catch a leaf before it touched the ground meant a wish granted, only she had no idea what to ask. Considering how difficult her life had been, she was now in a good place with a warm bed and enough to eat. She had a job and friends. What more could she wish for?

  ‘You wonder if there is more to this world than you can see with your eyes.’

  The fortune-teller’s words haunted her steps. Maybe it was so, but was such a wish an oddity? Surely there were others beside herself that wondered what was over the next hill, over the next river or mountain. Maybe she did want to see London again someday. Or Bath. Both seemed utterly foreign to her now, almost exotic. Had she ever lived that life?

  Addie had come to the Bell and Whistle as a means of escape, a way to leave wretched times behind, but she would not whine at her misfortune. She had left her father’s farm to see the world. She had told that lie so often she nearly believed it. She had thought to be content here in Upper Nettlefold, but the truth was, the traveler’s stories last night had reminded her, how very much bigger the world was than this small town, delightful as it was.

  The market was not crowded. Most of the sellers had long since run out of wares and packed up for the day. She truly was late. Thankfully she found what she was looking for quickly and was ready to head back when she spied a green and orange gourd in a basket. She picked up the knobby object and turned it over in her hands. This was not a large gourd by any means; it would fit well in her cupped hands. But it had a certain amiable look to it, and it reminded her of the stories last night that the travelers had told.

  What did they say? That in Ireland and Wales, people would carve a face in a gourd and light it with a candle to keep evil spirits away? What foolishness! It was prayer that kept away evil. Still, it seemed a quaint and interesting tradition. She didn’t believe in evil spirts of course. Nonetheless, she bought it impulsively, spending her own penny and laying it carefully atop her other purchases in the basket.

  Of course Sir Ainsworth was waiting for her as she came back.

  “Allow me,” he said taking the basket from her, and slinging it over his own arm before she could even think to protest.

  Addie gave a frustrated sigh, and absolutely refused to go another step. She looked pointedly at the basket. “Sir, you take far too many liberties. I am only a servant girl at the inn, and you seem to think it proper to take my basket from me without so much as a by your leave?”

  “Would a true knight allow a fair damsel to carry a burden so heavy when his own hands were unencumbered?” he said, pausing to address her over his shoulder.

  “Oh? Are you a true knight, now?” she asked, crossing her arms. “I think this is all part of the humbug that you perpetuate with your false fortune telling.” She lunged for the basket on his arm, but he kept it easily away, though the gourd she’d purchased last tumbled into the dirt at their feet. She bent and grabbed it with a cry of dismay. “I hope you have not hurt it!”

  “A gourd?” he asked, taking it from her and examining it.

  “I daresay if it were any good at its job, you would not be able to hold it thus. Sir, please give that back. There will be no end of trouble for me if my employer were to see you, a guest at the inn, carrying the very basket I am tasked to fill and bring back posthaste.”

  He set the gourd back into the basket and turned back toward the inn, ignoring her plea entirely. “Were your employer here to see, I would explain the basic rules of chivalry to him, and I am sure he would understand.”

  “Mrs. Truscott is my employer.”

  “Not Mr. Martin?”

  Addie laughed, but she could see how he would make the mistake. Mr. Martin tended to put on airs. “Mr. Martin is Mrs. Truscott’s serving man, lest the fine customers of the inn become too rowdy of a night.”

  Sir Ainsworth smiled and gave her a gallant bow. “Well, then all the more reason to allow a knight to escort you safely.”

  “I suspect you spend too much time in the tales of Sir Walter Scott for your own good. You are no more a knight than I, title or no.” She reached for the handle of the basket. “We are here.” She sighed and put on a dramatic role. “Pray, Sir Knight, allow me to carry the basket the rest of the way that I might thereby earn the good thoughts of my employer, lest I be cast out.”

  “You likewise seem well versed in Scott,” he said with a certain appreciation, surrendering the basket into her hands.

  “Which only proves that you are, in fact, no knight at all,” she said with a toss of her head as she headed for the kitchen door. She hefted the gourd in one hand and studied the ornament. “Perhaps you, my friend, will have more luck once a candle is safely within your round form.

  “You would need a face upon the gourd to be truly effective,” Sir Ainsworth reminded her. “They are quite tricky things to carve. I offer my services, if you find that you need assistance,” he called after her.

  “Would that not render the object impotent were it carved by the very demon it is meant to repel?” she asked from the kitchen door.

  He grinned at her. “Perhaps we should try it and find out.”

  “You make light. You know naught of the spirit realm at all, no more than those storytellers did last night with their pucas and fairies and things that hid in the dark.” She tossed her head.

  “O-ho, so you are saying that you are well-versed in such things? Perhaps it is I who should be seeking my fortune from you, instead of the other way around.”

  She paused, the basket on her arm, feeling heavier by the second, but she was unable it seemed to will her feet through that doorway into the warmth of the kitchen fire. The sun had disappeared behind the clouds completely now, and the air was turning more chill by the minute. Dry leaves rattled in the trees, the sound like bones rattling in their graves. Oh she was being foolish.

  “You seem rather assured that I would ask you my fortune,” she said quietly. “I wonder why.”

  He shrugged, his expression carefully casual, but those dark eyes bored into her as he spoke. “Because most maids would know the name or face of the lover that is best suited to them.”

  “Perhaps I seek no suitor, but am content in my life as it is.”

  “Staying in one place, forever seeing the same faces?”

  Addie laughed at this. “I hardly am victim of such a thing. I see new faces every night. Why just yesterday, a charlatan blew into town, insisting he was a fortune-te
ller.”

  He was silent a long moment. When he moved it was to sketch a bow. “I think perhaps it is best to accede defeat while I am still able to withdraw from the field. My lady, you have bested me. I will leave you to your labors. I must away to an appointment at the Nettlefold Arms.”

  She blinked. “What business would you have at the Arms?” she asked, eyes narrowing suspiciously.

  “Why, charlatanry and chicanery of the basest nature, I am sure, if your fine opinion of me is anything to go by. My lady, I bid you adieu.”

  With that Sir Ainsworth sketched a second bow and left.

  Addie stood a long moment, staring after him. It took her a moment to realize that she was again holding the gourd in her hand, and wondered if there was perhaps something to the simple vegetable’s power after all.

  * * *

  4

  The gourd was not so hard to carve as Sir Ainsworth had made out. Addie figured that she probably should have waited for All Saints to do it, but could not wait, especially with her own evil spirit hovering right there in plain view. She found a candle stub and whittled it down to fit properly inside, lighting it briefly and using a dollop of hot wax to make it sit upright. The gourd’s face lit up, delightfully spooky, sending shivers down her spine. She showed it to Trudy by surprising her with it as she came down the stairs and the girl nearly fell in her haste to get away.

  Addie chuckled. Apparently it did some good as a ward against evil after all, for Trudy had been looking for her, so that she might clean the privy.

  Mrs. Truscott was enchanted with the affect though and somehow became owner of the gourd by way of placing it upon the mantle over the fireplace in the main room of the inn. It leered at the patrons, causing much laughter and a certain amount of discomfort among several in their midst who might have been more wicked in their ways. Mrs. Truscott said that if one little gourd could keep the crowd from becoming too boisterous, that perhaps a few more gourds might do well for business as a whole, and asked Addie to find several more in varying sizes for decoration of All Hallows Eve proper.

  Sir Ainsworth arrived in the midst of this merriment and going straight to the gourd looked it long and hard before turning to stare at Addie with such intensity that she blushed, and busied herself with wiping down a table she had already wiped twice since he’d come in. He, of course, ignored any such signals that she was busy and sat right where she was working so that she had no choice but to look at him, though right now, she would honestly rather not.

  “That chap looks somewhat familiar,” he said with a nod toward the grinning gourd.

  “We have chicken tonight that came out rather well. Or a beef pie in honor of the fair commencing in two days. Mrs. Truscott is trying something different she says, though if one was to believe the men at the far table, what she’s trying involves more gravy and less meat. All the same, the pies are quite the bargain.”

  “Miss Walker, I care little about what I eat, as evidenced by the lack of flesh upon my bones. I do have a curiosity as to why my face has been etched most cleverly upon that vegetable that is illuminating the room from the mantle-piece.”

  “How odd, it does seem to have a passing resemblance. I fail to imagine how such a thing happened.” Addie grinned as widely as the carved face on the gourd.

  “Yes, it is rather a strange coincidence, is it not?” he asked, laughter in his eyes, and then his voice turned low, almost intimate. “Amazing that the artist had such a face in mind, is it not?”

  Addie reeled back a little, suddenly feeling somewhat out of her depth. She sported her colors quite clearly as she stammered. “I think it would be best for you to enjoy the chicken tonight. Those pies are rather quite a lot of gravy and little else now that I think on it.” With that she spun and retreated to the kitchen, her face burning. She dished up a rather larger portion than normal.

  “Just how many pieces of bread are you serving him?” Trudy asked, her eyes wide as Addie threw another roll on the plate.

  “He is far too lean. A strong wind would knock him over,” Addie retorted, wishing the kitchen fire didn’t blaze quite so high, for her face felt very warm.

  “Yes, I am sure that is it.” Trudy took a quick look over her shoulder, before leaning in to speak. “Did you hear? He is a fortune-teller, and will be telling fortunes at the Nettlefold Arms for the gentry at the end of the festival on All Hallows Eve!”

  Addie blinked. “I thought that the festival was merely a hiring fair.”

  “Not with it ending on All Hallows Eve! There will be merriment of all kinds.”

  “Devilry, no doubt,” Addie said.

  “Even a country dance in the square for any who choose to take part,” Trudy continued. “While those finer have a harvest ball of their own.”

  “Though the likes of you will find little enough merriment in it.” Mrs. Truscott said appearing suddenly behind them. Both girls jumped, Addie nearly upset the plate she was still holding.

  “We will all be busy that night,” Mrs. Truscott stated firmly.

  “Yes, Mrs. Truscott,” Addie replied, ducking her head to flee past the lady intent on delivering Sir. Ainsworth his dinner, posthaste. Mrs. Truscott reached out and caught at her sleeve, snagging the extra roll from the plate and restoring it to the breadbasket. “One roll, Miss Walker unless he has the coin to pay for extra. We are not running a charity here.”

  “Yes, Mistress,” Addie said, ducking her head a second time, and this time escaping through the kitchen door into the main room, delivering the plate with such haste it was hardly likely that he could even have seen her deliver it.

  Heart pounding, she threw herself into her evenings work. Sir Ainsworth finished his meal and as the night wore on set up a corner of the hearth to ply his trade, asking all and sundry to show their palms, that he might read their future. The room was filled with laughter.

  Addie pursed her lips as she passed him. It bothered her that even those she would have assumed to be more sensible were falling in with his nonsense, asking which maid they might court, or whether it was time to build a house or dig a well. She had thought better of the townspeople of Upper Nettlefold, and when she saw not only the blacksmith Mr. Brassey asking advice of the handsome stranger, but Mr. William Allgood, the Master of Nettlefold Chase, and owner of the mills likewise curious, she could no longer hold her peace.

  She complained to Trudy. “I fail to see how anyone with even a modicum of intelligence could be so taken in by one who is obviously little more than a vagabond,” she said as she refilled several tankards with ale for Trudy to take to the table nearest the window. “Did you see Mr. Allgood’s letter?”

  Trudy stared at her thoughtfully as she turned the handles of the tankards toward her that she might carry several at once. “’Tis times you sound very little like a girl from a farm,” she said softly. “I hail from a farm, too. From good people. But I can nae puzzle out what letters on a paper mean, an’ I am thinking you can, Addie.”

  Addie paused in her work, an empty tankard in one hand, the other on the spigot on the cask itself. She found herself caught out by the simple fact that she could read “Trudy, I…”

  “It matters not to me,” Trudy said softly. “But it might to some.” She gave a nod of her head in the general direction of the farmers and drovers, the merchants, and workers that filled the common room. “You work hard and I hear nary a complaint. I like having you here helping me. But I think you have secrets and if wish ta keep em, you should be more careful. Still, I don’t know why yon fortune-teller is so troublesome to ye.”

  “Because it is men like him that prey upon the weak. That make them do things they should never do otherwise,” Addie said softly, filling the last tankard and setting it on the counter. “He knows very little of the spirit realm; I would stake my life upon it.”

  Trudy gasped. “You should nae swear in such a way!” she said as she hefted the tankards, becoming flustered when she could not quite carry them all. Addie came
around the counter to help her with the rest. “Besides, what know you of spirits?”

  Trudy surely meant it well, but the challenge was not one easily ignored.

  “Only the kind in a cup,” Addie said.

  Truly, Addie knew very little other than the stories she had heard here, and throughout her childhood from auld Willem who had little to do except tell tales to a small girl with an insatiable curiosity about the world. As she thought of her old life, Addie was suddenly sad. Willem had gone to the sea as a lad, and traveled many miles away, bringing home with him many a story of the strange and supernatural. Now, she was likely never to see him again.

  Maybe…maybe she truly did know more of the spirit realm than their guest there by the fire. Surely she was closer to death than most. As she moved about the room, refilling drinks and bantering with the customers a plan formed in her head.

  Tomorrow Sir Phineas Ainsworth would begin his rounds upon the first day of the fair, culminating in an exhibition of cartomancy at the Nettlefold Arms.

  What if he were to meet with a true spirit in that particular dark stretch of road between there and the Bell and Whistle? She smiled. The thought was too delicious to contemplate.

  Addie’s gaze went to Trudy, who stood laughing, talking to another lass who helped serve on busier nights. All she needed was a partner, Addie thought.

  * * *

  5

  The problem with autumn nights was that the air took on a rather distinctive chill after dark, especially if one was high in a tree. Addie shivered, pulling her shawl closer around her body, thinking she should have taken her cloak instead. The warmth of the inn had caused her to underestimate the force of the wind, especially when one was high off the ground. Was snow truly all that far off?

  She stared up through the branches of the tree, seeing glimpses of the moon, tendrils of clouds chasing across the near orange surface, giving it an eerie and strange look. The higher branches were near bare already. Winter would be upon them all too soon.