Maythorn's Wish (The Fey Quartet Book 1) (8 page)

Finally, Maythorn could run no more. She lurched to hands and knees, crying so fiercely she almost couldn’t breathe, retching, painful tears that went on and on and on. There had been times in her life when she’d cried, but never like this, never with such deep and anguished despair—despair worse than any she’d felt during her marriage, worse than the despair of being crippled—because this, she had brought upon herself.

Eventually the tears came to an end. Maythorn lay on the leaf litter, raw-throated, swollen-eyed, curled up tightly, hugging herself. Her breath hitched with each inhalation, each exhalation.
What have I done?

She loved Ren—had loved him for years, a bone-deep, aching love—and yet she’d chosen to deceive him. Ren had tried to talk to her at the bridge and she’d turned his questions aside with kisses—and he had known. He’d
known
.

Maythorn squeezed her eyes shut. The joyous exhilaration of being youthful again was gone. In its place was shame.

The undergrowth rustled and something large bounded at her. A wet nose touched her cheek and a familiar dog voice whined in her ear.

Maythorn pushed up to sit, groggy with misery. “Bess? Bartlemay?”

The wriggling body was Bartlemay’s, the wagging tail, the enthusiastic tongue. He tried to climb into her lap. Maythorn put her arms around him and wept into his shoulder.
I have ruined it all, Bartlemay.

“Maythorn?”

Her head jerked up. She looked around blind-eyed.

A twig snapped, the bushes rustled again, and someone loomed over her in the darkness. The voice told her who: Ren Blacksmith. And here was Bess, pushing close, gently licking her neck.

The sense of being loomed over vanished. Boot leather creaked softly as Ren crouched. “Maythorn? Why did you run? What’s wrong?”

I ran because I’m not worthy to be your wife.

Maythorn swallowed a sob. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“What for?”

“For deceiving you.” She closed her eyes tightly and pressed her face into Bartlemay’s warm, bony shoulder.

“You didn’t deceive me. I knew who you were the instant I saw you.”

“I
tried
to deceive you. I
meant
to deceive you.” Her voice cracked, and the tears were back, pushing their way up her throat, spilling from her eyes.

“Maythorn . . .” Ren’s arm came around her shoulders. “Don’t cry.”

But now that she’d started again, she couldn’t stop. She cried in great, gulping, painful, despairing sobs.
Please tell me the truth,
Ren had said, and she hadn’t been planning to. She’d been planning to
lie
to him.

“Hush,” Ren said, and he gathered her closer, both his arms around her now, rocking her gently.

Even endless tears eventually come to their end, and so they did. Maythorn inhaled a shuddering breath and tried to draw away from Ren.
I’m not worthy of you. I am selfish and greedy
.

Ren’s grip on her tightened. “Tell me what happened. Please, Maythorn.”

“You were right,” she whispered. “It’s Faerie magic.”

She tried to pull away again, but Ren didn’t release her. “Tell me it all,” he said.

Maythorn wiped her face with a trembling hand. Tears still leaked from her eyes, warm and salty. “I found a babe in the woods. A Faerie babe. I saved it from drowning and brought it home.”

“Drowning? Was that why you were soaking wet that day?”

Maythorn nodded against his chest. “You carried the baby. It was in the basket.”

She felt his body stiffen. “What? Why didn’t you tell me!”

“Because I was afraid you’d want to help.”

“Of course I would have helped!”

“You have a son, Ren. A son with no mother. And the Fey are dangerous.”

Ren was silent for a long moment, then he released his breath in a sound like a sigh. “Tell me what happened after I met you.”

“The girls looked after the baby all night. And the next day, I went to the border and gave it back to its mother—and asked for wishes for the girls and me.”

“For your daughters? But Iv
y—
”

“She’ll receive her wish on her birthday. They all will.”

Ren was silent a moment. “They have summer birthdays, don’t they?”

“Hazel first, and then Larkspur. Ivy’s just before midsummer.” Maythorn inhaled a hitching breath. “I wanted it to be now, but the Faerie was displeased and I . . . I was too much a coward to press for it.”

“Not a coward,” Ren said firmly. “By all the gods! Do you
know
how much danger you were in? She could have cursed you. Killed you!”

“I thought it worth the risk. I wanted to be whole again. I wanted Ivy to be whole.” Maythorn’s breath hitched again. She tried to draw away from him.

Ren’s grip on her tightened. “Why did you run from me?”

Maythorn squeezed her eyes shut. She struggled to keep her voice steady. “Because you deserve a better wife.”

“I do? Why?”

“Because I was going to lie to you.”

“If I hadn’t known who you were, that’s exactly what you should have done. Of course you mustn’t tell anyone! Gods, Maythorn, can you imagine? If folk knew you’d won Faerie wishes, they’d be out searching for the border tomorrow—and most of them would end up dead! You mustn’t tell
anyone
.” Ren paused. “Except the Lord Warder. It’s Faerie magic, and he needs to know.”

Maythorn shrank into herself. “Do you think . . . he’ll expel me?”

“Dappleward? Of course not. But you may be certain he’ll swear you to silence. He won’t want anyone else trying to win wishes from the Fey.” Ren bent his head. She felt him press a kiss into her hair. “You had no reason to run from me, love.”

“I’m selfish and greedy, and you deserve better,” she whispered.

Ren snorted a laugh. “Maythorn, anyone
less
selfish than you I have yet to meet.” His grip on her eased. One hand found her chin and tilted her face towards him. He kissed her. His mouth was achingly gentle, achingly tender. “I deserve you,” he whispered against her lips. “Only you.”

Tears gathered in her eyes again.

“I remember the first time I saw you.” Ren stroked her cheek, then slid his fingers into her hair. “I was nigh on fifteen. I came to Dapple Bend to visit my uncle.”

“I don’t remember you,” Maythorn whispered, and felt a pang of regret.

“Why should you?” Ren stroked her hair, running the strands through his fingers. “I fell in love with you that week. Infatuation. You were the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.” His hand stilled. “And then five months later, Gyles beat you half to death.”

Maythorn tasted blood in her mouth for an instant. She repressed a shudder. “I don’t remember much of that, either.”

Ren cupped his hand protectively around her head. “When my uncle offered me his forge, you were one of the reasons I took it. I had this foolish idea . . . I thought you might need a husband.”

“What?” Maythorn stiffened in shock.

Ren made a sound, part grunt, part laugh. “Infatuation,” he said. “Even after six years.”

“Ren . . .” She drew back slightly, disturbed.

“Oh, I got over it quick enough. Got over it the first time I saw you again. Gods, Maythorn! I knew Gyles had hurt you, but I hadn’t realize
d—
” Ren’s fingers clenched in her hair, a grip that was almost painful. His voice roughened: “If he’d still been alive, I swear I would have killed him.”

Maythorn shivered. “Don’t say that,” she whispered.

Ren’s grip on her hair relaxed. “It’s true.” And then he sighed. “It took me a while, but I learned to see past what Gyles had done to you, and I fell in love with you again. Only, it wasn’t infatuation this time.”

Maythorn shook her head. “Re
n—
”

“I wanted . . . I hoped . . . to marry you.”

Maythorn pulled back. Ren’s fingers slid from her hair. “But I was
years
older than yo
u—
”

“Only six.”

“And I was crippled! My fac
e—
”

“It wasn’t your face that made you beautiful; it was your heart.”

The words silenced Maythorn. Her throat grew so tight she could barely breathe.

“My mother guessed, when she came to live with me. She saw how I looked at you. She begged me on her death bed . . .” He paused, swallowed. “Begged a promise of me, not to offer for you, begged me to marry one of the village girls.”

“Ren . . .” Maythorn reached out in the dark and found his face, laid a comforting hand on his cheek.

“It’s not that she didn’t like you, it was just . . .”

“I was a cripple, and older than you. No wife for a young man. If you
had
asked me, Ren . . . I would have had to refuse.”

“No.” Ren shook his head.

“Yes.” Maythorn laid her hand across his mouth, silencing him. “You deserved a wife who matched you, in youth and vigor and health. And that wasn’t me. But I did love you. That, I can promise you.”

She didn’t remember Ren as a youth, but she remembered the man who’d come to take over the Dapple Bend forge. The young giant with more kindness and patience than any man she’d ever met.

“How could I not love you once I came to know you?” Maythorn whispered. “How could any woman not love you? The kindest man in the vale. The
best
man in the vale.”

Ren huffed a faint, almost soundless laugh against her hand. “There are better men than I.”

“No. It’s not possible.” She lifted her hand, leaned closer, kissed him. “Haven’t you noticed how people respect you? How they listen when you speak? How they come to you when they’ve difficult decisions to make?”

“The Lord Warde
r—
”

“You are as wise as Dappleward.”

Ren opened his mouth to protest, and she kissed him again, softly, her lips clinging to his.

Ren’s arms came around her. He gathered her close.

The kisses they’d shared at the bridge and in the hayloft had been hungry; this kiss was quiet and tender. It spoke of love, years of silent, overflowing love.

Time slowed. Their mouths slowed. They leaned into each other, holding each other, breathing each other’s breath.
I love you. I will always love you.

Faintly, far away, an owl hooted, and much closer, a hound scratched itself, grunting, tail thumping the ground.

Ren pulled away from her, and shuffled sideways, changing his position, and said “Here,” and gathered her on his lap.

Maythorn nestled into his arms, pillowing her cheek on his chest. His heart thumped beneath her ear. “How did you know I was me, and not my niece?” she whispered.

Ren grunted a laugh. His breath stirred her hair, tickling. “Maythorn, have you never looked at yourself in a mirror? There is no one—
no one
—who has such a face as yours.” Callused fingertips gently touched her cheek. “I knew it had to be magic of some kind. But I was afraid . . . I wasn’t sure if you were still
you,
or if you’d altered inside in some way.”

“Not altered. Just me as I always was.”

“So I concluded.”

“How?”

“Tibald, first. You walked up to him without fear, and you knew exactly where to scratch him—which told me that you
were
you and not some other creature wearing your face.” Ren stroked her hair back from her temple. “And then there was Gavain . . . When you danced with him, when he fell asleep in your arms . . . I saw that you loved him—it was plain to see on your face—but it wasn’t a scant day’s worth of love, it was
years’
worth, as if you’d treasured him from the moment he was born.”

“I have. I always have.”

All children were precious, but Gavain especially so. Maud had suffered three miscarriages before his birth, and two afterwards, the last taking her life.

Poor Maud. So desperate to have children. And now dead. Maythorn closed her eyes.
I will look after them both for you, Maud,
she promised silently.
I will love them as much as you did.

They sat in silence for several minutes, Maythorn nestled in Ren’s lap, his hand stroking her hair. Was Ren thinking of his dead wife, too? “After Maud died, I thought—I hoped—you might offer for one of my daughters,” Maythorn confessed in a low voice. “I could think of no better husband for them than you.”

“Marry one of your daughters?” Ren seemed to recoil. His hand lifted from her hair.

Maythorn stiffened. “You don’t like them?”

“Of course I
like
them. They’re kind, good-hearted girls, but how could I marry one of them when it was their mother I loved? It would have been a terrible thing to do! A betrayal to them and myself.”

“Oh . . .” Maythorn’s stiffness eased. She rested her cheek on his chest again.

The deep peacefulness of Glade Forest settled around them. Ren stroked her hair, then cupped the back of her head in one large hand. Maythorn burrowed into his warmth. “When can we get married?” she asked. “Tomorrow?”

“I’d like to wait a week or two, if you don’t mind. I want Gavain to have time to get to know you. I want him to think of you as a friend, not a stranger.”

“Of course I don’t mind.” She wanted Gavain to be happy about having a new mother, not bewildered, not anxious.

Ren stroked her hair again. “And before we marry, you should speak to the Lord Warder. He needs to know what’s happened.”

Maythorn shivered. “Must I tell him?”

“Are you afraid of Dappleward? Don’t be. He’s a good man.”

“I know.” And she
did
know. But . . . the Lord Warder. Maythorn suppressed another shiver. “Will you come with me?”

“Of course I will.”

CHAPTER TEN

THE RIVER DAPPLE
sprang from its source deep in Glade Forest and wandered almost fifty miles before flowing into the sparkling waters of Lake Dapple. Along its banks lay a dozen villages, the largest being Dapple Meadow, in the lower reaches of the vale, where the river meandered gently and the pastures were wide and fertile, and where the Lord Warder made his home. On the third day of summer, Maythorn set out with Ren to walk the thirty miles to Dapple Meadow. Hazel and Gavain came as far as Dapple Orchard, Gavain riding on patient Githa, and those miles passed merrily, but once Hazel and Gavain had turned back, Maythorn found herself growing apprehensive. It was all very well to say that Dappleward was a good man—for he was—but he was also Lord Warder of all Dapple Vale, and as such, he had the power to expel folk from the vale.