Free Teresa Medeiros - [FairyTale 02] by The Bride, the Beast Page B

that much gold.”
    Throckmorton wisely returned his attention to the paper. “ ‘Until that time, I will have need of the following: five dozen eggs, a half-dozen rounds of cheese, ten steak and kidney pies, three dozen biscuits, twelve loaves of crispbread, five pounds of smoked haddock, a bag of onions, a sack of oatmeal, seven turnips, twenty-five apples, two dozen oatcakes, a side of moor venison, three pounds of fresh mutton, three dozen potatoes, a head of kale, fourteen…’ “
    When Throckmorton’s recitation went on and on without so much as a pause for breath, Ailbert’s mouth dropped open. He snatched the paper out of the minister’s hand, then scanned it from right to left. He didn’t have to know how to read to recognize that it was covered from margin to margin on both sides with the same carelessly elegant scrawl.
    “There’s a postscript,” the reverend pointed out, lifting the lamp to squint at the back of the paper. “ ‘While your recent offering was much more delicious than I had anticipated,’ “ he read, “ ‘I should warn you that any more uninvited gifts will cost you not only a thousand pounds, but your miserable lives as well.’ “
    Ross rested his chin on his father’s shoulder, his broad face crestfallen. “Can ye believe he has the nerve to ask for all that? Ye’d have thought he’d be full after he ate that Wilder lass.”
    Granny Hay shook her grizzled head. “P’r’aps sheonly whet his appetite. Me puir Gavin was like that. The more he ate, the more he wanted.” She sighed. “The priest swore ‘twas his heart that gave out in the end, but I’ve always believed ‘twas that last mouthful o’ me haggis that done him in.”
    Reverend Throckmorton’s horrified gaze traveled the glum circle of their faces. “God in heaven,” he whispered, “what have you done? “
    Kitty Wilder tore herself out of her sisters’ arms, her face smeared with grimy tear tracks. “They fed my poor sister to that nasty old Dragon, that’s what they’ve done! And they ought to be ashamed!”
    “Hush, lass,” Nessa crooned, tugging her back. “Gwennie sacrificed herself for all of us, and she was more than glad to do it!”
    The reverend blinked his red-rimmed eyes in disbelief. “ You gave that poor child to this Dragon of yours? Why, she was the only one among you who had even a pinch of sense!”
    “Keep talkin’ like that,” Ailbert snapped, “and I’ll be thinkin’ the Dragon might like a nice juicy Presbyterian.”
    “He’s a bit on the scrawny side,” Ross noted, leaning forward until his bulk threw an ominous shadow over the stoop, “but we could always let Granny Hay take him home and fatten him up with a bit o’ her haggis.”
    Without warning, the good reverend hopped backward and slammed the door in their faces.
    Ailbert swung around, swearing violently. “I’d like to wring the neck o’ the muttonhead who talked us into tryin’ to break that blasted curse.” It was at that precisemoment that he spotted Auld Tavis on the fringes of the crowd, attempting to tiptoe away. “And there he is now!”
    He gestured to his youngest son. Lachlan grabbed the old man by the scruff of the neck. In his billowing shroud of a nightshirt, Auld Tavis looked even more like a moldering corpse than usual.
    “ ‘Twas only a suggestion,” Auld Tavis said in a wheedling tone as Lachlan hauled him toward the stoop. “I meant no harm by it.”
    “I say we stone him!” Ross shouted.
    Ailbert shook his head. “There’s no point in that now. The harm’s been done.”
    Lachlan lowered a relieved Tavis to the ground while Ross shook his head in disgust.
    “But whatever are we to do?” asked Marsali, hugging her baby daughter to her breast.
    Ailbert scowled down at the paper in his hand, his long face even grimmer than before. “Start gatherin’ eggs and milkin’ cows. There’s a dragon to be fed.”
    Gwendolyn’s second day in captivity began with a jarring thump and