Isobelle pursed her lips again. “Does your father ever do anything more ornate?”
“My father?” Gwen was beginning to sound like one of the town criers, repeating what they hear over and over.
“He’s the one who makes these, no? Amos himself?” Isobelle’s eyes dipped, falling on the spot where Gwen’s fingers curled around one of the horseshoes, her grip familiar and possessive.
Gwen let go, then immediately wished she hadn’t.
The other girl’s gaze, suddenly shrewd, met hers again. “Well, if yourfatherever does make any with decorations, they’ll go like hotcakes the next Market Day. I guarantee this time next month, every girl will want one for her own wall.”
She knew. Somehow, this airheaded noblewoman with her pink dress and perfectly sculpted hairknew. The people in Gwen’s village pretended not to notice that Amos’s daughter had taken over his smithing tasks with increasing frequency these past years—with her dad unable to work with any consistency, it was either accept Gwen or live without a blacksmith at all.Don’t ask about the blacksmith girl, and we won’t tell you about the blacksmith girl.
It wasn’t technically against the law for women to be tradesmen, but men didn’t find the idea particularly comfortable. A lotof female crafters tended to find themselves thrown into debtors’ prison after guards confiscated their “ill-gotten” wealth by calling it stolen.
Panic interrupted the rising blush, threatening to drain all that blood away again.
Then Lady Isobelle smiled, delight radiating from her every perfect pore. “I’ll take five of them,” she said. “How much?”
Gwen was beginning to feel like a fence post in a raging tempest—clinging to the tiniest scrap of dry ground while the hurricane that was Lady Isobelle threatened to tear her loose and swirl her all about.
“That’ll be five...” she began, but then stopped. Behind Isobelle, the lady’s maid—Olivia—was shaking her head and signaling to catch Gwen’s attention. While she watched, the other woman stuck out her thumb, turned it upward, and bounced it. “Uh, I mean, ten...? Ten pen—” The thumb bounced again.
Gwen hesitated again, unwilling to raise the price more than double what it ought to be.
“Ten pennies?” Isobelle asked. “Or ten shillings?”
The bottom dropped out of Gwen’s stomach.
Isobelle flashed her that radiant smile. “Ten shillings it is.”
Olivia cleared her throat again. “And we’ll need nails to hang them on,” she reminded her lady.
Isobelle nodded vaguely. “Oh, yes. Add another five shillings onto that, would you, Liv? Thanks.”
While her maid dug in a fat purse jingling with coins, Isobelle leaned forward, palms flat on the counter, and beamed at Gwen, who’d lost all ability to move or speak.
“It’s been an absolute pleasure meeting you and perusing yourwares,” she said. “Your father’s wares, I mean.” The smile turned decidedly impish. One of the other ladies made an impatient sound, prompting a roll of Isobelle’s eyes. “Oh, all right. Olivia will pay you, and I’m sure Sir Orson will be only too pleased to carry the horseshoes back.” Then she paused, winked—actuallywinked—at Gwen, and whirled away, the storm sweeping on across the market, the other ladies following in her wake like bits of colored fabric swirling in the gale.
Gwen stayed where she was, standing utterly still, staring down at the handful of coins the lady’s maid deposited into her hand.
It was enough to buy her way into the qualifying round of the tournament.
All she needed now was the courage to show up among the knights and ladies and pageantry—and enough luck that no one would notice she could never really belong in that world. To hide long enough to prove to herself, just once, that she was good enough.
Chapter Two
Ridiculously, fabulously pink
Most of Lady Isobelle’s attention was currently devoted to a particularly good slice of cheesecake on a stick. The vendor had tried to market it as being dragon-shaped and impaled on a knight’s lance—everyone was merchandising around the tournament—but if it had ever resembled that legendary beast, that resemblance had ended when she’d nibbled its head off.
The others had wanted one of those potato-on-a-stick snacks, where they cut it into one enormous spiral, impaled it (quite the theme, she mused), and fried it. It was outrageous that the superior cheesecake had the shorter line, but itdidmean she had time on her hands. Even dear old Orson, slightly puzzled to find himself weighed down by a bag holding five horseshoes, was lining up with the ladies, listening with a polite expression to Hilde’s firm opinions on the proper treatment of potatoes.
Isobelle’s maid, Olivia, was watching her back away into the crowd with a stern eye. Isobelle wrinkled her nose in reply, wordlessly signaling that she wouldn’t go far, and ducked behind a passing wagon.
And so Lady Isobelle of Avington, jewel of her absent father’s eye, setter of fashions, center of the castle’s famed gossip network, and most eligible bachelorette of the king’s court, vanished into the bustling crowd.
As much as she could ever vanish, anyway. The owners of the stalls and carts tended to track Isobelle’s progress, recognizing instantly that she had wealth to spare. Isobelle often imagined someone would be able to follow her all throughout the hubbub of the market, just by listening for the rise and fall of voices from the merchants.
One voice penetrated the din, sweet but demanding, and Isobelle found her steps turning toward the stall even before she realized what she was doing.
