Page 28 of Christmas Secrets

CHAPTERNINE

“Oh, my, this is beautiful,” exclaimed Holly, holding out her arms, looking at herself in the standing mirror.

“Of course, it is. It’s one of my gowns and all my clothes are the finest you’ll ever see,” said Willow. “I’m known for wearing nice things.”

“Willow, ye are comin’ across as haughty again,” Morag told her with a scowl.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean anything by that,” said Willow.

“Are you sure I should really wear this?” Holly couldn’t take her eyes of her reflection. It was as if she were dreaming. She looked like a princess. Someone like her should never be wearing anything like this. It was wrong. Really wrong. “I mean... this is the gown of a lady.”

“Of course, ye should wear it,” Morag told her, fussing with Holly’s long sleeve that covered her knuckles and hung all the way down to the floor. It is Christmastime. And today ye’ll feel like a lady even if you’re only a townsfolk.”

“What town are you from and what do your parents do?” asked Willow, brushing Holly’s hair with a boar bristle brush.

“I come from... Kestwick,” she told them. “My mother was a midwife.”

“Kestwick? That’s not far from here,” said Willow. “I believe my husband knows the lord of the castle.”

“Oh. Does he,” said Morag, not offering Lord Neville’s name.

“What kind of work does your father do?” Willow continued.

“My father is dead, as well as my mother,” she told them, suddenly feeling as if this conversation was going in a direction she didn’t want it to go. “So, you’re going to braid my hair?” she asked, changing the conversation. “Will it be wrapped up atop my head as well?”

“Yes, we’re braiding it and it’ll be adorned with holly, just like your name,” said Willow, putting down the boar’s-bristle brush. “You never told us what kind of work your father did.”

The girl wasn’t going to drop the subject. And she didn’t seem like the kind of woman who liked her questions ignored. Holly realized she was going to have to give her some kind of an answer.

“We have a... a farm,” she told him, which wasn’t a lie. She just didn’t relay the information that she was forced to farm the land for Lord Neville as well as pay lots of rent to the evil man.

“A farm?” Willow almost seemed stunned. “You don’t act like a farmer, or speak like one either. I would have guessed you were the daughter of a merchant.”

“My father liked farming,” she said, barely remembering her father since he died when she was young. “My mother actually worked for the nobles as well as the townsfolk. She was one of the best midwives in the land.”

Just when Willow was about to ask another question, there thankfully came a knock on the bedchamber door. Then Fia poked her head inside the room.

“The meal is startin’ and the children are already in the great hall,” announced Fia. “We need to hurry. Father willna like us bein’ late.”

“Och, she’s right,” said Morag, fastening a piece of holly into Holly’s hair. “Our da likes to eat and doesna like to wait when there is food present.”

“Yes, we should go,” said Holly, breathing out a sigh of relief. This couldn’t have come at a better time. Hopefully, she’d be able to avoid any more questions for the rest of the day.

“Wait!” said Willow with a halting hand in the air.

Holly cringed and turned back toward the girl. Mayhap she wouldn’t be so lucky after all.

“You don’t want to forget your mother’s brooch. This is very important.” Willow held it up in the air.

“Yes. Yes, it is,” said Holly as Willow pinned it onto Holly’s bodice. “Although, I’m not sure I should be wearing that either. I mean, I am not a member of the Followers of the Secret Heart.”

“If yer mother gave it to ye on her deathbed, she must have done so for a reason,” said Morag. “I wasn’t a member either, but Imanie gave me her pin and let me join the group.”

“Oh,” said Holly, now knowing what happened to her grandmother’s heart brooch and why she hadn’t found it at the cottage. In a way, Holly envied Morag, because it sounded as if mayhap she’d spent more time with Holly’s grandmother than she ever did.

“Aye,” agreed Willow. “I’m sure your mother saw you as a strong woman, and this heart brooch proves it.” She clasped the brooch and tapped it with her finger. “Mayhap, you’ll do something to make a difference in the world, like the rest of us,” Willow added.

Holly sincerely doubted that. After all, what difference could a common serf make with anything? She really wondered about her mother and what the woman had done as a member of this special group. No matter what it was, it no longer mattered since both her mother and grandmother were gone from this world for good. The only difference Holly could make was to change her life and the future for her brother by staying hidden for a year and a day. But that was never going to happen if these women kept asking her so many questions.