You should have specified the color of the boots if you had a preference. I cannot read minds, you know. If you’d like black, you’ll need to return and purchase them yourself.
Mother has now been convinced that you’ve taken up with a boggle and are set to wed them. Once I explained that no self-respecting boggle would have you, she calmed.
Best wishes,
Davina
P.S. Whatever Mr. Summers has told you is a gross exaggeration.
XANDER
I managedto coax Godfrey into continuing his employment at double his current pay. To be quite honest, I rather suspected it was a bargain given what I was putting him through. Especially when I learned that he’d also been to the market that morning while he was out.
The three of us had managed to shoo a displeased Fenella from the house while the men set up the beds in the drawing room—no one thought the stairs were sturdy enough to support several burly men in addition to the beds.
Miss McAllen and Godfrey worked to rig a door from one of the large cloths covering the furniture—one Fenella hadn’t pissed on.
Meanwhile, I located a dilapidated garden shed. It took a bit of maneuvering to open the rusted door and once I did, I immediately regretted it. The distinctive sound of something skittering into the shadows sent a shiver down my spine—I was only grateful no one was nearby to hear my pathetic whimper. The sunlight caught an infinite collection of spider webs, some with beasts still inside them, lining every available surface.
When I could finally bring myself to look again, I found a shovel hung against the wall—whether that was by a hook or webbing was anyone’s guess.
The time it took to weigh my desire to sleep in a home without piles of sheep shit against my desire to never set foot in the infested hell before me was shamefully long. With a fortifying breath, I toed a boot into the shed. The wooden floor creaked in irritation but held. I shuffled another inch forward,then another. One foot remained firmly on the safe grass outside—as though that would save me.
At last, my fingertips brushed the handle—the least cobwebby part—and I nudged it toward me. It swayed, banging against other tools I didn’t know the names of. I shuffled a tiny bit deeper inside and managed to catch the thing, knocking it off the wall and onto the floor with a clang.
More skitters echoed in response.
I leaned down to grab it, a wretched mistake, because when I rose again, prize in hand, I backed into a spider web. Instinctively I turned and was then smacked in the face with another.
In my haste to remove it, I dropped the shovel directly on my foot.
Fenella once again bleated out my “Fuck!” as I hopped about, trying to dislodge the webbing while not putting weight on my surely maimed foot. Hermehhehhehestill echoed very much like laughter.
I rounded on her, still teetering on one foot. “Fuck you too!”
“What are ye doing?” came a feminine lilt from the house.
“Praying for death to take me.”
Miss McAllen padded up next to me, head tilted in curiosity. “Does that have anything to do with the spider on yer forehead?”
My squeal was anything but masculine as I brushed furiously at my head, desperate to dislodge wayward arachnids, and jumped in pain every time I accidentally set my injured foot on the ground even as I danced about.
Her peals of laughter bled into Fenella’s, an indistinguishable cacophony of self-satisfied mockery.
“It’s just a wee thing. Ye dinnae need to panic.”
My desperate, fortifying breath wasn’t enough to ease the terror entirely. “Is it gone?” I ground out, moving my lips as little as possible to prevent the beast from climbing in.
“Yes. It was a harmless wee jumpy one, probably dead under yer boot now. Honestly, ye’d think it was a man eater the way ye were flailing aboot.”
Summoning the dignity I’d lost somewhere between stepping in Fenella’s shit the first time and shuffling into the shed, I limped to the house without a word. Miss McAllen trailed after me and, while she didn’t say anything, I could sense the mirth emanating from her very being.
“What happened to ye, lad?” Lock asked when he caught sight of me.
“Spider,” Miss McAllen filled in.
Ignoring them both, I flung the curtain to my home open, and stomped inside to remove Fenella’s gifts, leaving them free to snicker behind me.
