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“In a way, I suppose. I loved learning about herbs and how to use them, but I didn’t imagine it was a life I could have. Once I discovered the magical talent and learned to use it, I couldn’t imagine doing anything else, and I knew it would be wrong to waste the gift.”
“But you knew for certain you had the gift, and you were able to use it.”
“Yes. Actually, I’d been using it all my life without realizing what I was doing. It was useful for manipulating my parents and my sisters. I knew just how they felt and could persuade them by playing on that. It was when I tried to use it on Mother Alis that she recognized what I was doing and tested me. She realized I was a born healer. Maybe that was why I was so drawn to her cottage. I enjoyed working in her garden far more than I like music lessons.”
“I imagine your mother wasn’t open to you going off to train to be a healer instead of marrying nobility.”
She gave a wry chuckle. “My mother had just managed to get a hideous baronet interested in me. She wasn’t going to give up on her dream so that I could live in a cottage and commune with peasants. My parents absolutely insisted I marry, so I ran away from home, and my family disowned me.”
“That’s why you didn’t return to your family when you fled the duke’s court?”
“My family home would have been the first place they looked for me, but I wouldn’t have been welcome there.” She laughed softly to herself. “My mother would have been doubly furious to learn that I’d made it to a duke’s court, only to ruin everything and have to flee. Anyway, I spent a year or so training with Mother Alis before she sent me on to another healer in a different village. She didn’t think the local people would ever accept me as a healer, having known me all my life and knowing my origins, so I couldn’t replace her, and she wanted to start training a replacement. I worked another few years in a village before moving to a town, and from there began getting positions at various courts, first with an earl, then later with a duke. And then all that ended when I had to flee. I was on the run for a few months before I came here. Every time I thought I’d found a safe place, someone recognized me and reported me, and I barely got away. By the time I came here, I was just about starving to death. I had no money, and I didn’t dare work as a healer, lest someone realize who I was.”
“And you found your way to Rydding.”
“Fortunately. Though I did resist healing. I thought the tea shop would be a good compromise.”
“You were using your gift, though. That’s how you know exactly what kind of tea a person is craving. It’s not merely suggestion.”
“I do use it for that sometimes,” she admitted. “In fact, that’s about all I’ve used it for lately, other than when I treated you and the Chicken Lady. And the cow.”
“Because of that incident before?”
“Yes. I couldn’t trust that sense anymore.”
“You were right with me, with the cow, and with the Chicken Lady. Are you right about choosing the teas people want?”
“No one’s complained, but I suspect suggestion does play a role there, as well.”
“Has it ever failed you other than that one time with the knight?”
“Not that I’m aware of. I wasn’t perfect when I was training, but my mentors were there to back me up then.”
“So maybe you are born to do this. Trust yourself. That’s the best way you can use your talents and help others. You have a purpose in life. Appreciate that.”
She waited for him to say something else, but all she heard was the brook. “I’m sure there’s something you’re meant to do that you’re good at,” she said reassuringly after the silence became uncomfortable. “We merely haven’t found it yet because it’s not something that’s done here. You have an excellent hand. You may be a scribe. You might be a schoolmaster or a scholar. Or there’s always your idea about being a valet. You are a good cook.”
“No, I don’t think so,” he said, his voice so mournful that it made her heart break.
“This is why it’s important for you to get your memories back. You can’t go on like this, not knowing where you belong or what you can do. Or else you have to treat this as a blank slate and start over, doing what you want to do, without worrying about what happened before. The only problem there is not knowing if there’s someone out there who would be worried about you.”
“Yes, there is something about that blank slate, not only not knowing the good things, but also being blissfully ignorant of the bad things from my past.”
“Lucina has nightmares about her past. That hasn’t plagued you, has it? Have you had nightmares that might be clues?”
“No, I don’t think my past has come to me in dreams.”
“So that much is good, I guess.”
He stood and said, “I’m ready to turn in. I can find my way inside without the lantern if you’d like to stay out longer.”
“No, I think I’ll join you. Going inside, I mean.” She was glad it was too dark for him to see her face flushing. She was far too old to be acting like this about a man.
He picked up the lantern and led the way to the back door. He let her take the lead going up the stairs. She paused at the top and said, “Well, good night. Pleasant dreams.”
Much to her surprise, he bent and kissed her on the lips. It wasn’t merely a friendly kiss. There was warmth and passion in it, and it started a fire spreading through her. Had he changed his mind about not getting more involved until he knew he wasn’t being unfaithful to someone else? She was just starting to recover from the initial shock to return the kiss when he broke it off abruptly. “Good night, Elwyn,” he said, entering his room and shutting the door behind himself.
She was in her own room when it struck her that he’d used her real name, which she’d never told him. Had she let it slip or had he guessed? Was she even sure that’s what she’d heard? But then she remembered something else from their conversation the night of the festival: She didn’t think she’d ever mentioned that the person looking for her was a baron, but he’d referred to the baron who was looking for her.
