Read Silvermay for Free Online Page B

stroll around the village most evenings,sharing our dreams of husbands and households and, if we dared, of love. But lately I had been too busy to join her; or was I just happy to stay home while Tamlyn was visiting Nerigold? That thought made me answer a little too sharply.
    â€˜Me! You should look in the mirror when you say that, Hespa.’
    â€˜I’m not the one who struts around the village with that baby in her arms, acting like the little thing’s her own.’
    I denied it hotly, of course, but that didn’t save me from a second barb.
    â€˜Then you sat with him on the roof today for the whole village to see. I don’t know how you can spend half the day being a friend to Nerigold and the other half trying to take her place.’
    Hespa flounced off. I knew that she would come to me in the morning full of sorrow and leaking enough tears to flood the millstream. I’d forgive her and we’d hug each other like we’d done after every spat since we were five years old. But, as I watched her go, I felt a terrible dread that she might be right.
    I dragged myself out of bed the next morning with that question snapping at me like an angry dog. How could I be so miserable yet elated at the same time?
    I spent the morning waiting for Hespa, who didn’t come. But Tamlyn did, on an errand for Mr Grentree.He spoke briefly to Nerigold, then sent me a smile that was every bit as intimate as his touch to my arm a few nights before. I swear, five whole minutes passed before my heartbeat returned to normal. Such a sensation had never swept over me before. Thank the gods no one could see my heart beating inside my chest.
    Hespa’s accusing words rang in my ears. You’re in love with him .
    How could I have let this happen?
    Tamlyn lingered in the house, seeming in no hurry to get started on the jobs our neighbours had lined up for him. Then Lucien began to cry, and oh, how that boy could cry. It was the wrong sound, at the wrong moment.
    â€˜Silvermay!’ my mother called from across the room.
    I turned to her, vaguely aware that she’d been calling my name for some moments already.
    â€˜Get a move on, girl,’ she said, her voice almost jolly. ‘Fetch Lucien while I settle Nerigold among the cushions.’
    â€˜No, I can’t,’ I said, too loudly.
    Birdie looked at me, not yet angry. Her eyes asked what was going on.
    â€˜I’m tired of this,’ I said. ‘The baby makes so much noise. I don’t want to be a nursemaid any more — not for him, not for anyone.’
    Before my terrible confusion caused any more hurt, I headed for the door.
    Birdie let me make it into the open before she caught me, careful to let enough ground pass under our feet so that our words wouldn’t reach back to the house. Her grip on my elbow would have snapped bone if I hadn’t stopped instantly.
    â€˜What’s got into you, speaking like that in front of poor Nerigold when there can’t be a gentler soul in the entire kingdom? Where’s my Silvermay, the daughter I’m so proud of?’
    It would need a seamstress of words to fit together the sobs and sounds that tumbled out of me; or, better still, a skilled puzzle maker. Birdie had a little of both in her, but mostly she was a mother with a keen eye. She hugged me and whispered, ‘It’s the young man, isn’t it? Your heart is pulling you in a hundred ways, and you want them all as much as you want none of them.’
    That was one way to describe it, and at least I’d earned a hug instead of the slap I deserved. Not that she let me off the hook.
    â€˜This is what you’re going to do, Silvermay. You’ll go back inside the house, you’ll say you’re sorry to Piet for being so rude, and you’ll help Nerigold finish feeding little Lucien. And you’ll go on looking after Lucien until his mother is well enough to care for him herself.’
    That’s exactly