“Oh! My line!” Abigail shrieked.
Alistair turned and saw her pole bent nearly at a right angle, her line taut and disappearing under the water. “Hold it, Abigail!”
“What should I do?” Her eyes were as big as saucers, her face gone white.
“Just hold it steady, don’t pull.”
He was by her side now. Abigail had both feet braced on the riverbank and was arching backward using all her slim strength to keep the pole in her hands.
“Steady,” he murmured. The line was jerking through the water in circles. “He’s wearing himself out, that fish of yours. You’re bigger, stronger, and smarter, too, than the fish. All you have to do is wait him out.”
“Shouldn’t you help her?” Mrs. Halifax asked.
“She hooked the fish,” Sophia said stoutly. “She can land it, too, never you fear.”
“Aye, she can,” Alistair said quietly. “She’s a brave lass.”
Abigail’s face was set in determined concentration. The line was moving more slowly now.
“Don’t let go your hold,” Alistair said. “Sometimes one fish is a wee bit smarter than the rest of his family and pretends to be tired, only to jerk the pole from your grasp.”
“I won’t let go,” the little girl declared.
Soon the movement slowed to nearly a stop. Alistair reached out and caught the line, swiftly lifting a sparkling fish from the water.
“Oh!” Abigail breathed.
Alistair held up the fish, flopping on the end of the line. It wasn’t the biggest fish he’d ever seen, nor was it the smallest. “A very fine trout indeed. Wouldn’t you agree, Sophia?”
Sophia solemnly inspected the catch. “The finest, I declare, that I’ve seen in quite some time.”
Abigail’s cheeks tinged a faint pink, and Alistair realized she was blushing. Pretending he hadn’t noticed, he caught the fish and, kneeling, showed her how to remove the hook from its mouth.
She watched intently and then nodded as he placed her fish with the others in the basket. “I’ll do it myself next time.”
And a strange emotion welled in his chest, so foreign that it took him several seconds to identify it: pride. Pride in this prickly, determined child.
“Yes, you will,” he said, and she grinned at him.
And over her head, her mother smiled at him as if he’d handed her an emerald necklace.
Chapter Nine
Truth Teller turned to the monster’s cage, and there already lay the woman.
He walked close to the bars and asked, “Who are you?”
The woman drew herself wearily to her feet and spoke. “I am the Princess Sympathy. My father is the king of a great city to the west. I lived in halls of crystal, wore clothes woven from gold and silver, and had my slightest wish granted.”
Truth Teller frowned. “Then why—?”
“Hush.” The lady leaned forward. “Your master is coming. He has caught the swallows, and if he finds you talking to me, it will anger him.”
And Truth Teller had no choice but to go inside the castle, leaving the lady caged. . . .
—from TRUTH TELLER
By that afternoon, Helen was wishing she could take a nap. Abigail and Jamie didn’t seem at all tired from their early morning adventure. In fact, they’d eagerly accompanied Miss Munroe and Miss McDonald on an expedition to go hunting for badgers. Helen, however, was yawning as she climbed the stairs to Sir Alistair’s lair.
She hadn’t seen him since morning. He’d been closeted in his tower all this time, and she’d just about run out of patience. What had he meant by those kisses? Had he simply been playing with her? Or—awful thought!—had he lost interest after tasting her twice? The questions had nagged her since that morning until she felt she must find the answers.
Which was perhaps why she carried some tea and scones to him now.
The tower door was partially ajar, and instead of knocking, she simply leaned her shoulder against it and pushed. It opened silently. Sir Alistair sat at his accustomed table, oblivious to her presence. She stood and stared. He was drawing something, his head bent to the paper in front of him, but that wasn’t what had caught her attention.
He drew with his maimed right hand.
He held the pencil between his thumb and the two middle fingers of his right hand, the hand itself held in an awkward hook. Just looking at him, Helen’s hand ached in sympathy, but he continued to make small, precise movements. He’d obviously been using his hand thus for many years. She thought about what it must’ve been like, returning maimed from the Colonies and having to relearn how to draw. How to write. Had he been humiliated at having to practice a craft every schoolboy had mastered? Had he been frustrated?
Well, of course he’d been frustrated. Her mouth curved in a tiny smile. She knew something about Sir Alistair now. He would’ve broken pencils, torn up paper, been angered beyond bearing, and somehow he would’ve stubbornly kept at it until he could once again reproduce the fine drawings she’d seen in his book. He must’ve done so because she saw the result in front of her now—a scholar working on his manuscript.
She started forward, but as she did so, he exclaimed and dropped the pencil.
“What is it?” she asked.
His head jerked up and he glowered at her. “Nothing, Mrs. Halifax. You may leave the tea on that table.”
She set her tray down on the table indicated but ignored his demand to leave. Instead she hurried over to him. “What’s wrong?”
He was rubbing his right palm with his other hand and muttering about females who wouldn’t listen.
She sighed and took his right hand gently in hers, surprising him enough that he abruptly fell silent. His forefinger was a reddened stump under an inch long. His little finger had been amputated at the first knuckle. The remaining fingers were long with slightly broader tips, the nails well shaped. They were beautiful fingers on what had once been a handsome hand. She felt a streak of sorrow pierce her middle. How had something so beautiful come to be mutilated?
She swallowed down the lump in her throat and said huskily, “I don’t see an injury.”
He glanced sharply at her, and her eyes widened as she realized her faux pas. “A recent injury, I mean.”
He shook his head. “It’s merely a muscle cramp.”
He tried to withdraw his hand from hers, but she hung on. “I’ll see if Mrs. McCleod can warm a salve for you later. Tell me exactly where the cramp is.”