Read Online Love's Tangle by Isabelle Goddard - Free Book Online

said slowly, “we simply lay on its soft turf and watched the sky, whiling the hours away, daydreaming our futures.”
    There was a long silence and Elinor knew instinctively not to speak. The very air seemed to crumble beneath the weight of his sadness. “This is one future neither of us could have dreamed.”
    But when she reached out tentatively to touch his arm, he said lightly enough, “I trust, Mistress Nell, that with a secret place to visit, your love of Allingham will grow even greater.”
    She was unsure if she would ever dare the snakes alone but charmed he had shared with her what seemed the happiest moments of his life. He jumped up from the fallen log and turned to head back the way they had come.
    “We should return. I have to speak to Parsons and it must be time for you to find Martha.” His breezy tone blew away the last threads of intimacy.
    His parting words were just as business-like. “The fair is quite an occasion, you know. I hope you’ll go tomorrow. The servants are free to attend and you should make sure to enjoy yourself.”
    Elinor was left to make a belated curtsy and slowly find her way back to the creamery. It had been a strange encounter but Gabriel Claremont was home again and the knowledge warmed her.
    ****
    As the duke promised, every member of his staff was granted leave to attend the fair the following afternoon. Elinor had no real wish to go. She had seen plenty of such affairs, and far more elaborate ones, during her time in Bath, but neither did she relish being the sole servant left behind. Even the stately Mr. Jarvis intended to be there. So she donned her laundered poplin and her only bonnet and sallied forth with her fellows. As soon as they arrived at the village green, the party from Allingham Hall broke into smaller groups, men and maids going their separate ways to enjoy the merrymaking on offer. Sometimes going the same way, Elinor noted. She wished she could lead their uncomplicated lives.
    A veritable cacophony of smells and noises greeted her as she stepped onto the green. The space had been parceled out into a large number of booths and standings, many of which were crammed high with food. The stalls for oysters and sausages seemed particularly popular but there were lines of gilt gingerbread and a number of hot pie sellers. Tables were set here and there for people to sit and eat their fill. There were stalls selling clothes and a number of toy stalls for the children, gay with decorative paint and many colored lamps. But the predominant interest of the fair was entertainment. Elinor saw in the distance the Rector of Allingham, looking somewhat aghast, and wondered whether he had given his approval to such wholesale abandonment: horse riders doing tricks, tumblers, illusionists, even a knife swallower. In the background a band of itinerant musicians consisting of a double drum, a Dutch organ, a tambourine, violin and pipes was playing a selection of military tunes. She walked past food and toy stalls, past the fire eater who drew gasps from his captive crowd, past the puppet show clearly entrancing Tilly. On and on, never pausing until she was outside the tent of the fair’s clairvoyant. Why ever had she had stopped here when she considered fortune telling thoroughly foolish?
    It was dingy inside and the figure seated towards the back of the tent was wrapped in so many scarves of gauze that it was impossible to discern much of her features. Elinor wished she had not entered; it was a stupid thing to have done. But the figure’s outstretched arm beckoned her to sit down, while a hand opened to receive the small coin Elinor had taken from her reticule.
    “You have chosen well, my dear.” The voice was rasping as though it had traveled through layers of dusty parchment.
    “I have?” She was nonplussed, having no idea what this strange creature was talking about.
    “You have chosen well in visiting me. Of all those at the fair, I am the one you have