Free The Princess Spy by Melanie Dickerson Page A

Colin. “You! Frog boy!” he said in German. “What do you think you’re doing, putting the Lady Margaretha on that devil of a horse?”
    Colin merely looked at him, shook his head, and kept searching the ground for the bracelet.
    The stable master stomped toward Colin and shoved his shoulder. “Answer me, frog boy.”
    Colin ceased his search and stared back at the stable master.
    “He doesn’t understand you,” Margaretha offered.
    “Oh, he understands.” The stable master, Dieter, shoved Colin’s shoulder again. “He understands he put you in danger by letting you ride that horse.”
    Margaretha stepped forward. “Please . I beg you not to punish him. It was not his fault. I forced him to saddle the stallion for me. He tried to tell me not to ride him, that he was dangerous, but I refused to listen.”
    Margaretha translated for Colin into English. “He is blaming you for me riding the stallion, but I am telling him it was my fault.” Then she turned back to Dieter. “I’m sorry. I realize I put myself in danger by trying to ride him. It won’t happen again, you have my word, but please don’t blame this man. He tried to save me and would have risked his life.”
    “As well he should.” He made a gruff sound in his throat as he shot a scornful look at Colin.
    Margaretha watched Dieter grab the black stallion’s reins. Surprisingly, the animal didn’t resist him, and he took the horse with him as he stomped toward the stable.
    “Thank you,” Colin said quietly. “I’m sure you must have talked him out of sending me to feed pigs or empty chamber pots.”
    “It was my fault I was nearly killed, not yours.” But why had Dieter called him ‘frog boy’?
    Margaretha’s cheeks burned as she realized his nickname was her fault too. No doubt, the first time Dieter had seen Colin, he had been wearing the ugly green-speckled clothing Frau Lena had given him. She had promised to bring Colin some better clothes, something of her brother’s, and she had failed to keep her word. The fact that he had gone back to looking for her bracelet made her feel even worse.
    Margaretha started searching again too, imagining the look on her mother’s face when she told her she had lost the gemencrusted heirloom, the only piece of jewelry that her mother had ever entrusted to her. Her sins were mounting. She had not kept her word to Colin, and now she had lost a valuable bracelet that was significant to her family.
    They searched near the well, all around it, and then continued on toward the stable. As she was staring down at the ground, Colin rushed up close to her.
    “I thought I saw something. It was only a feather.” He sighed and shook his head.
    As he went back to searching, she noticed again how he seemed to have regained his strength and was no longer pale. He still had a few bruises visible on his face, but they were fading, and his thick hair completely covered the stitched-up wound on his head. It was as if she was seeing him for the first time. Now he appeared as he must have been before the attack — not pitiable and weak and raving mad, but strong and handsome and determined. He had said he was the son of a wealthy lord back in England, and she had no reason not to believe him. Perhaps she shouldn’t treat him so much like a servant.
    “Thank you for trying to help me.”
    He looked up at her with raised eyebrows.
    “When you told me to jump and you would catch me.”
    “Oh. Of course.”
    “And I am sorry for not coming back to the healer’s chambers to visit you. I thought about you a lot and prayed for you.”
    “You thought I was addled.” There was no anger in his tone. “That the blow to the head had brought on madness. It’s understandable. Besides, you are the daughter of Duke Wilhelm. Your family would not have thought it prudent for you to befriend someone like me who could have been a beggar, a ruffian, anything.”
    “Frau Lena thought my presence made you anxious. She said