Free The Spinster and the Earl by Beverly Adam

of nine and a cool night wind blew dead leaves around his horse’s feet. Lord Patrick, an old, stout gentleman, carefully walked the animal through the maze of fallen square stones while holding onto a walking stick. The ruins had once been part of the castle’s stone walls.
    He heard a twig break and froze. Had he been followed? Perhaps a cutthroat purse-snatcher hoping to catch him out here alone was even now about to pounce upon him? Tensing, he let go of the horse’s leash and put a hand on his sturdy blunderbuss.
    A familiar young trebling voice called out, “Who goes there?”
    “’Tis I, lad, your master, Lord Patrick,” he replied roughly, easing the weapon down again.
    A slight lad of thirteen stepped out from the shadows. Tommy Flander’s freckled face greeted him with a broad grin of welcome. His own rude weapon, a large pitchfork, he carried defensively in one hand.
    “Aye, so it be. ’Tis grand seeing your lordship up and about again. Bessy’s not been making her best. It was as if she knew you weren’t here to test her out, my lord.”
    “Is that so, Tommy, me boy? Well, now that be a grand shame, especially when I’m certain you kept her going at a fine trot.”
    The lord picked up a tumbler full of freshly brewed whiskey from a rough hewn table. He drank, swishing the liquid around in his mouth as he did so, tasting the flavors. “You fed her plenty of the secret ingredient like I told you to, lad?”
    He touched the distillery’s copper belly as if he were milking a cow of the most temperamental variety.
    “Aye, my lord. Though ’twas difficult warming her with the wind blowing about tonight. And I’ll be telling you, true, the moon was full-hitched in the sky. Afraid I was. They say the wee folk dance here when it be like this.”
    The lad glanced superstitiously at the half-ruined parts of the castle. In the moonlight, the ruins loomed forbiddingly in the quiet. Rumors had been spread aplenty and as fertile as the meadows in spring, as to the certain downfall of the Drennan clan. The talk now was that the new lord’s recent fall from his mount had not been an accident.
    For all the village knew that Lady Beatrice was one of the best shots in the parish. If she shot his lordship down, it was certain he would have been greeting the heavenly saints themselves that morn, instead of lying in a comfortable featherbed at Brightwood Manor as a convalescing guest. “Nay,” cackled, Mother O’Donnell, a wizened lady of some advanced years. “’Twas them rascally wee folk who’d whispered a word into the horse’s ear, which brought about his lordship’s present condition.” Young Tommy, one of the avid listeners, believed the old woman.
    He turned to his master. “’Tis been ever so quiet since the new earl settled at Brightwood to heal, m’lord. Faith, been right silent enough to wonder if the banshee wouldn’t howl at us at night in mourning for them noble dead knights buried over there.”
    He nodded in the direction of the castle’s silent cemetery, fearfully eyeing the tilted tall grave stones of long gone lords and ladies. He took a step back into the warm firelight. Their ghosts were rumored to walk about on nights such as this, capering with the fairies under the moonlight.
    “Nay, lad. There’s naught to concern yourself in that quarter. Dinna you know that the ghosts like it when it be quiet. ’Tis said to give them a bit o’ rest. Though if one had seen me lass come running from here, you’d think she’d seen one of the fey herself.”
    He winked at the servant and said in a voice full of confidence, “As long as we leave them in peace to do their fairy craft, there be no harm in putting ourselves under their protection. Why, tonight we’ll even leave a jug offering out to keep them from making mischief. I hear they take to a fine brew. And I’d like even to go so far as to say ours has begun to taste, quite magical.”
    Lord Patrick took another sip from the jug,