Free The Rose Red Bride JK2 by Claire Delacroix Page A

attractive creature and did not always have the kindest motives. Elizabeth regarded her with her usual measure of suspicion.
    With a final leap, the fairy dropped to sit cross-legged on Elizabeth’s new curves, and whispered gleefully. “A tale was told, some of it true; a wager made, the price come due. The man’s true name, no soul knows; what shall be done when he leaves no rose?”
    Then the spriggan clicked her tongue in disapproval, sounding like an agitated bird.
    Darg must mean the tale that Alexander had told the night before! One of Elizabeth’s sisters must have been beguiled by it -- and Alexander must have been playing one of his pranks. The sister would be claimed not by a fairy lover, as the tale recounted, but a mortal man.
    Elizabeth sat up so hastily that the fairy tumbled head over heels from maiden to hard floor. Darg cursed long after she came to a halt, upside down on the bare wood, but Elizabeth did not care. She looked around the chamber and was relieved to see the tumbled tresses of Annelise and Isabella, auburn and fiery red in their turn. Vivienne, however, had burrowed beneath her covers and only the mound of her body was visible.
    Certain that she would be cursed by Vivienne for her deed, hoping Darg was wrong, Elizabeth crept toward Vivienne’s pallet and abruptly cast back the covers.
    Then she gasped in dismay, for the mound in the bed was not Vivienne. It was an old cloak, bundled to look like a body in the bed.
    She spun to confront the fairy. “Darg, where is Vivienne? What has happened to her?”
    The spriggan arched a brow, then brushed down her garb in obvious and elaborate reference to her rough ousting from Elizabeth’s bed. She took great care in straightening her cuffs before she replied, undoubtedly aware that Elizabeth seethed with impatience. “Ill-mannered mortals would show themselves wise, to look upon messengers with kindly eyes.” Darg put her nose in the air and marched away from Elizabeth.
    The girl darted after her, knowing that only fulsome flattery would see her question answered. “Darg, I am sorry to have roused you so roughly. I was fearful for my sister.” Elizabeth bowed her head at the fairy’s indignant glance. “Though that is no excuse to be rude to one so wise as yourself. I apologize, truly I do.”
    Darg sniffed, though paused to preen slightly.
    “Please tell me what has happened to Vivienne. Only you are sufficiently clever to know the truth of it, while we mortals stumble in darkness in comparison. ”
    “No more, no less than what she desired, ” Darg laughed and the sound was a little bit mean. “Blades are not known until touched to fire.”
    Elizabeth was fearful of these tidings, though her discussion with Darg was interrupted by the arrival of Vera, the older maid who roused the sisters each morn.
    Vera thumped noisily through the portal, dropped her buckets of steaming water with a curse, then rubbed a heavy hand across her brow. “Awaken, my ladies! The church bells ring and the laird himself insists that you all hasten yourselves to early mass.”
    Darg spat on the floor, communicating an opinion of early mass quite clearly, then disappeared through a chink in the wall. Elizabeth fairly growled in vexation, then turned to find Vera’s bright eye upon her.
    “Talking with the fey again, are you, lass?” Vera chuckled at the whimsy of that and Elizabeth felt her cheeks burn. Any inclination she had to confess Vivienne’s absence faded before the maid’s skeptical manner.
    Perhaps Vivienne had a good reason to be gone so early this morn. Perhaps Darg was mistaken. Perhaps Vivienne had a tryst, or a secret courtier, or a mission she wished none to know about. It certainly looked as if Vivienne had meant to deceive others about her presence, which could only mean that she had departed willingly.
    “Awaken, my lovely lasses, the laird makes no concession for those of us who must labor to see you all, nay, nay, not he. He raises his