Read Online Carola Dunn by The Magic of Love - Free Book Online

will take us all some time to grow accustomed to the idea. Perhaps you would like to go home and acquaint your family with your good fortune?”
     “Oh yes, please, your Grace.”
     “Stay a few days, my dear, while we...while we settle matters,” said the duchess vaguely. “I must decide which rooms you are to have—I daresay Reggie will not wish you to stay at the mill until you are married. Oh dear, I simply cannot think straight!”
     “Do not stay away too long, Martha,” said Lady Elizabeth. “Remember Reggie told you to make my pelisses and spencers before he returns to take me to London.”
     “Yes, my lady.”
     “Oh dear, this is all most irregular, not to say improper,” the duchess sighed. She patted Martha’s hand. “Not your fault, my dear. What can Reggie have been thinking of? I must talk to Edward.”
     Recalling the fateful riddle Lord Tarnholm had set her, Martha ventured to ask the duchess, “If you please, ma’am, has Lord Tarnholm any other name?”
     “His Christian names are Edward James Frederick,” her Grace said. “However, when you are Reggie’s wife, it will be proper for you to call him Tarnholm, or Cousin.”
     “Those are all the names he has?”
     The duchess shuddered. “I cannot think what you mean,” she said with uneasy evasiveness. “I daresay his nurse may have called him Ned as a child.”
     Martha did not dare press her.
     No one thought to call out a carriage for the future duchess, nor did it cross her mind to ask for one, so she trudged wearily back across the park to the mill. As she walked, the crisp air revived her mind if not her body, and she tried to recollect the names of all the men and boys she knew.
     Most had ordinary names, like Edward, James, Frederick; like Pa, Thomas, and her brothers, Peter, Michael, Harry, and John; like Albert the footman and Will the cobbler. Will’s dad was Obadiah; Tad at the inn was Thaddeus; and Mr. Stewart, the vicar, was Swithin, all odd to be sure, but not quite odd enough to be faerie names.
     Then Martha recalled a play she had read to old Mrs. Stewart. The faeries in that had been called Cobweb and Mustardseed and Moth. Had William Shakespeare made them up, or did he really know? If Edward’s name was something like that, she would never guess in a hundred years.
     Reaching home, she fell into bed. Not rousing even when her sisters joined her, she slept the clock around and half way round again.
    * * * *
     When she awoke at last, Martha knew what she must do. One person was bound to know the answer: Edward’s mother.
     Lady Tarnholm was a nixie, Edward had said, a water sprite who could undoubtedly turn Martha into a frog, a toad, or a newt if she so chose. Yet a faerie given to turning people into frogs was not likely to bring up her son to be kind and gentle and chivalrous.
     That day, Martha could not get away from her family. She swore them to secrecy and told them, all but the littlest ones, everything that had happened at the great house, except her promise to Lord Tarnholm. They were incredulous, excited, doubtful.
     Mam frowned and said forebodingly, “I don’t know as I wants my daughter being a duchess up at the great house. They’re not our sorts of folks. You won’t know how to go on among ‘em, our Martha.”
     “I’ll learn, Mam.”
     “Then you’ll be getting so high and mighty you won’t want to speak to the likes o’ your family.”
     “I won’t, Mam, I promise.”
     “How’re we to know they’ll treat you right? His Grace ain’t done too well so far.”
     “It’ll be different once we’re wed,” Martha said hopefully, though not without a tiny twinge of doubt, quickly suppressed. “Just wait and see.”
     “O’ course it will,” roared Pa. He was ecstatic, his round, red face beaming so wide it was like to split in two. “My girl a duchess! Don’t that beat all?”
     “Ye’re a fool, Thomas Miller,” Mam snorted. “Never could see past the