Free Quintspinner by Dianne Greenlay Page B

her own. Her father’s accusation that they had fabricated the afternoon’s events to cover for a supposed scandalous liaison left her outraged. How could he mistrust them so much? Tess sprang to her feet and strode over to her dresser.
    “I’ll show him! Then he’ll have to believe us!”
    “What do you mean? Tess what are you going to do?” Cassie’s voice was wary.
    Tess spun around and stretched her left hand out. The spinner ring sparkled on her fifth finger; the tiny band fit perfectly there. “I’m going to show him this, Cassie. This is proof that things happened exactly as we said.” And with that, she left the room, closing the door behind her before Cassie could object.
    Her father was still in his study, poring over papers at his desk. He looked up in surprise as Tess entered the room.
    “Are you contradicting a direct order that I gave you?” he frowned.
    “Father, we are telling the truth about what happened this afternoon. It happened exactly as we told you. I have proof.”
    “You have witnesses willing to collaborate with your story of fantasy?”
    “It was not fantasy!” Tess replied, her voice shaking with indignant anger. “Here is the ring!” She thrust her hand forward. Dr. Willoughby’s face remained impassive and as smooth as a stone wall. Coming from around the back of his desk, he approached Tess and grabbed her hand to examine the ring. Silently he scrutinized it, and then met Tess’s eyes with his own.
    “Where did you get this?” His voice was cold.
    “The Crone said I was to have it. Those were her last words to me before she died!” Tess felt relief flood over her. He could not dispute the ring.
    Her father’s next words stunned her.
    “I can only assume that this is either a trinket given to you by whomever you had arranged to meet, or worse yet, you have stolen it from its rightful owner. Remove it at once and give it to me. I shall do what I can to redeem your reputation and prevent you from being hauled off to the public jail on charges of theft!”
    “What? Stolen? How could you even consider that to be possible? It was given to me!”
    “Remove it! Or I shall pull it from your hand!” he shouted, the fury building in his voice.
    “I won’t!” Tess shouted back, stamping her foot in defiance.
    The slap to her cheek arrived so hard and fast that Tess had no time to brace herself. It sent her reeling to the floor, where she landed on her outstretched hand. She screamed as her finger bearing the ring crumpled under the full weight of her body.
    “What on earth is happenin’ here? Sir! What are ya’ doin’? ” Mrs. Hanley cried in bewilderment from the study’s doorway. She rushed to Tess and crouched beside her in an instant.
    “Have you forgotten your position, Mrs. Hanley?” the doctor roared at her. “May I ask you, what it is that you are doing?”
    Mrs. Hanley looked up from where she held a sobbing Tess. “The Missus sent me to find ya’. She said it’s urgent. Wee Charles is gripped by the fits again.”
    Upon hearing this, the doctor bolted from the room and charged up the stairs towards his wife’s room, leaving the two of them clutching one another in a dazed heap upon the floor. Mrs. Hanley cradled Tess in her arms and rocked her as though she were a small child.
    “There, there,” she soothed, “Let’s have a look at ya’. Are ya’ hurt?”
    Tess’s cheek was already beginning to swell in a raised fiery red hand print. “It’s my hand!” she sobbed. “I think my finger’s broken!” Indeed, the finger was visibly swollen and had immediately turned a dusky purple at the knuckle just above the ring.
    “Come then, me darlin’,” Mrs. Hanley encouraged as she helped Tess to her feet. “Let’s get a poultice on that, an’ yer cheek too. I’ve just the thing fer that back in the kitchen.”
    “I don’t understand why he’s so angry,” Tess sobbed. “And I would never lie to him!” She walked alongside Mrs. Hanley, the