Touch of Gold: (Rumpelstiltskin) (Tangled Tales Series Book 4) (4 page)

“Have you seen my new bride?” asked Stefan before Kin could answer.

“Do you mean Bonnibel?” he asked, stalling for time, trying to figure out what to say.

“Do I have another wife?” Stefan looked at him as if he thought Kin were daft.

The door opened, and Bonnibel slipped out of the room, and then the door closed again. The sound of the bar hold sliding into place was heard from the other side.

“Husband, shall we retire to our chamber now?” asked Bonnibel, only making Kin feel jealous. Still feeling randy from the whores teasing him earlier, Kin had hoped to sample the pleasures of the miller’s daughter, but it didn’t look like that was an option anymore.

“Go ahead. Go on in the room,” Arnon urged Kin, holding out his arm in invitation.

“Unless you’ve been locked out . . . by a spinster,” added MacKay and they all started laughing again.

“I don’t have time for this,” snapped Kin. “I told the girl to bar the door to keep her safe from curs like you!” He stormed off, wondering how much sleep he’d get in the stables.

Chapter 5

Morning came much too quickly, and Olivia felt exhausted since her father’s snoring kept her awake most the night. The room stank from whiskey, and she got up off the chair and made her way to the window, pulling open the shutters for some fresh air.

The sun was just rising on the horizon, and the sky lit up in beautiful tones of orange and yellow. It looked to be the start of a gorgeous day. Birds chirped and fluttered around the courtyard, and a robin had even built her nest just below the window on a merlon, stone structure, that stuck out of the wall. From Olivia’s position, she could see three blue speckled eggs in the nest. One of them had broken open, and a little beak stuck out.

Her eyes filled with tears when she saw the baby bird being born. She’d often thought about someday having children of her own, but that would never happen now. Once the baron found out about her father’s lie, her life would be over. There was no doubt in her mind. And although she’d gone over the situation in her head all night long, she hadn’t been able to think of a way to get out of this horrible situation. Their only choice now was to try to escape. It was still early, and only a few servants were stirring. If she moved quickly, they could sneak out of the castle and head to the woods to hide before Lord Kin came to escort them to the baron’s castle.

“Father, wake up,” she said, picking up her skirts and heading over to the bed. He lay sprawled out atop the pallet with his mouth open, still snoring. “Get up, let’s go.” She took hold of his shoulders and shook him. A gurgling sound came from his throat, and he choked on his spit, sitting up coughing and trying to regain his breath. She patted him on the back with a hard thump.

“Olivia?” he asked, rubbing his eyes and looking around the room in confusion. “Where are we and how did we get here?”

“We’re at Breckenridge Castle, Father. We were invited to Lord Stefan and Lady Bonnibel’s wedding celebration, or did you forget?”

“Oh, that’s right,” he said scratching his head. “Did we have a good time?”

“
Well,
you seemed to have enjoyed yourself immensely. Or don’t you remember being so far in your cups that you told the baron a tall tale to get him to marry me.”

“Oooooh, that’s right,” he said, rubbing his head. “I told him you could spin wool into gold.”

“Why would you say such a thing? Do you know how much trouble we are in right now?”

“I guess I might have gone a little overboard.” He dangled his feet off the side of the bed and held his head. “My head hurts.”

“Not half as much as it’ll hurt once the baron beheads us for your lie!”

“Olivia, I’m sorry.” He looked up, and she could see the sincerity in his gray eyes. “I wanted so much for you to be married to a noble that I guess I got carried away with my stories. Why didn’t you do something to stop me?”

“Because I didn’t hear what you said to the baron until it was too late. Now get up! We need to go.”

He held onto his daughter’s arm and stood, wavering and grabbing onto her tightly to steady himself. “I’m not sure I’m in any condition to travel.”

“You have no choice. We need to sneak out of here and hide in the woods before Lord Kin shows up to escort us to Shaftesbury.”

“Lord Kin?” He scratched his head. “Oh, I remember now. He was the knight you couldn’t keep your eyes off the entire evening. I remember he had a hard time standing as well. Is he the reason why you weren’t paying attention to what I was saying, and why we’re in this situation in the first place?”

“What? How dare you suggest that! If you weren’t my father, I’d abandon you here and leave by myself,” she snapped. “You can’t blame this on me when you know you are the one responsible for our lives being close to an end.”

“I told you, I’m sorry. And you are right. I deserve to die, but you don’t.” He sat back down on the bed and held his head. “Olivia, I’m sure you have heard the rumors through the years that there is question if you are my daughter.”

“You’re my father, now stop the idle chatter and put on your boots.” She hurried over and grabbed his boots and got down on her knees to push them onto his feet.

“Stop,” he said, with his hand on her shoulder. “I’m the one who should be on my knees bowing to you. Not the other way around. You are royal, Olivia, and I will do anything in my power to make sure the baron knows it.”

“Stop with the stories, Father. We need to escape quickly.” She continued to push the boot onto her father’s foot, but it didn’t seem to want to budge. He reached out and took her chin in his hand and raised her face to look directly in her eyes.

“This time, it’s not a story, it’s real. Olivia . . . I’m not your father. Your mother went to bed with another man while we were married, and your father is actually a sheik.”

Olivia’s heart jumped and tears formed in her eyes. She always wondered how she’d feel if the idle gossip was true and if she were royal. She thought she’d be so happy, but she wasn’t. Looking into his eyes, she realized it only made her sad.

“What are you saying?” she asked, wanting – needing to know more.

“Come, sit by me and I’ll explain everything,” he said, guiding her to sit next to him on the bed.

“The truth this time,” she said stubbornly. “I can’t stomach any more lies.”

“The truth,” he agreed, nodding his head. His bloodshot eyes met with hers. “Nearly four and twenty years ago, a ship docked in port, and it came from the land of sheiks. I happened to be on the docks that day and saw a way to make money quickly. The sheik was very wealthy, and looking for the company of a beautiful Englishwoman and willing to pay for it. So I told him my sister was a single woman and breathtaking and would love to show him around town.”

“Sister? You don’t have a sister,” she said in confusion.

“I meant your mother.”

“What? Please tell me you didn’t whore her out.”

“I didn’t understand at first what he wanted. I thought he just desired the company of an Englishwoman to escort him and show him around. I also told him she was a lady, and that I was a lord.”

“And he didn’t see through that lie by how you were dressed?”

“The funny part is, I did look like a noble that day. You see, I’m not proud to say it, but I found an unattended trunk on the docks during the unloading of the ships, and I stole some clothes from a noble. I took a gown for your mother as well.”

“Father, how could you?”

“My business wasn’t doing so well, and I did what I had to in order to survive, though I’m not proud of it.”

“I can’t even listen to this.” She started to get off the bed, but he held her arm and wouldn’t let her go.

“You will listen to this because this is the first thing I’ve ever told you that is true. I had to learn to lie to survive. And when I found out that the sheik had taken my wife to bed, I wanted to kill myself for ignorantly handing her over to him.”

“Then mayhap you should have killed yourself,” she said in disgust. “I know if I were Mother, I would have left you for what you did.”

“That’s where you differ from Irene,” he said, speaking of her mother. “Your mother was an angel, and even after everything that happened, she forgave me.”

“Now that’s a lie,” she spat.

“I wish it were,” he answered, shaking his head. “I didn’t deserve her and told her so, but she convinced me that God had sent us a baby and that there was nothing wrong with what I did.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Olivia, what you don’t know is that your mother and I were barren. We tried for years but were unable to conceive a baby. It was all your mother ever wanted. Just a baby to love and call her own.”

“Then why didn’t she leave you and go with the sheik if he was my real father?”

“She didn’t know she was pregnant until the sheik was long gone. So she pretended you were my baby instead of causing humiliation for both of us. But your mother became sick not long after that. She told me on her deathbed that she never wanted you to know the truth because she didn’t want you to hate me. She asked me to raise you like the princess we knew you were, and to find a way for you to be married to a noble because there was no way to track down your real father.”

Olivia let out an exasperated breath and took her father’s hand in hers. “You are the only father I’ve ever known, and I’ll continue to call you father until the day I die.”

“Olivia, I did the best I could, raising you by myself.”

“I know you did, but I don’t understand how you could keep pretending to be my father all these years without telling me. Didn’t it bother you at all?”

“It did. More than you know. And when you were ten years old, I saw that same sheik again when he docked his ship at the pier. He asked me about Irene, and I told him she died. You were with me at the time. Do you remember?”

“I do,” she said with tears in her eyes. “I remember the man and the way he looked at me as if he knew me.”

“I think he knew you were his daughter, but I told him you were mine and never admitted that Irene was my wife and not my sister.”

“You could have let me go with him that day. Why didn’t you?”

“Yes, I could have, but I didn’t because you were the last remembrance I had of my beloved. I loved your mother more than life itself, and to let you go would be to let her go as well.”

“She’s been dead for years now, Father. You need to let her go.”

He reached for the pearls around Olivia’s neck, playing with them in his fingers. “This pearl necklace was the only thing I ever bought your mother,” he told her with sadness in his eyes. “She always loved pearls and also anything to do with the sea. Her father – your grandfather, had been a sailor, and she used to go fishing with him when she was just a girl. Her father would shuck oysters with her, and she would get excited when they found a pearl.”

“Yes, I remember mother telling me that story.” Olivia smiled at the fond memory of her mother.

“What she didn’t tell you was that her father had been saving a pearl or two every time he sold some and had made her a necklace.”

“Is this that necklace?” she asked, holding up the string of pearls from around her neck.

“Nay. The necklace I spoke of was sold so they could eat when times got rough. She never got it. The one you wear is the necklace I bought your mother after I found out she was pregnant.”

“How could you afford something like this?” she asked.

“I was a fisherman too at one time, Olivia. I had done well and owned a ship and even had a crew.”

“I never knew that.”

“I sold everything – my ship, my nets, my gear, just to buy that necklace so I could give it to your mother.”

“That is crazy! Why would you do that?”

“I did it because I could never compare to the sheik and knew I’d always only be a poor fisherman and naught else. Your mother wasn’t happy with me for what I did. She said we needed the money to raise you and wanted to sell the necklace although she loved it.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I didn’t sell it because I couldn’t bear the thought of her having to give up a pearl necklace twice in one lifetime. Your mother deserved it. She deserved happiness, just like you do now.” He looked over to Olivia, and she could see years of hardship and worry creasing the skin around his eyes. “I told your mother I would find other ways for us to survive, but that I wanted her to keep the necklace.”

“That’s why you started up with all the tall tales and the stealing?”

“I have to admit, I stole before this all happened, but my lies got worse afterward because I was so desperate to give her as well as you, the lives your truly deserved.” He reached over and kissed her on the cheek, and her heart went out to him. Squeezing his hand tightly, her other hand reached for the pearl necklace around her throat.

“I love you, Father, and I don’t care if the man who sired me was someone else. You are the man who took me into your arms and into your care for all these years and I will always consider you my father.”

“Thank you, Olivia, but if it weren’t for my lies, you wouldn’t be in this position. I’ll fight to the death to keep you from dying. I love you, my little Olivia.”

She fell into his arms, and they hugged, and she knew now that no matter how many times through the years she’d despised him for his lies, he’d only been doing it because he loved her. “We aren’t going to die, Father. I promise you that.”

“How can you say that?” He pulled back and looked at her in question. “I’ve spun a tale so unbelievable that there is nothing we can do to save ourselves now.”

“We’re going to escape and hide somewhere where the baron can’t find us. We’ll stow away aboard a ship and go to Scotland or England or anywhere far away and start a new life. Now hurry, put on your boots and let’s get to the stables and steal some horses and save our lives.”

“Stealing? This doesn’t sound like you, Olivia. You shouldn’t have to do this, and you shouldn’t have to die because of me. I’m going to go to the baron and tell him the truth. When he finds out you are royal, he’ll marry you after all, even if you can’t spin wool into gold.”

“And he’ll have your head for lying. I’m not going to let that happen.” She bent down and pushed his boots onto his feet and pulled him to a standing position. “Besides, even if you told the baron the truth, he wouldn’t believe it after he finds out you lied about me being able to spin wool into gold. Now move quickly and be quiet. If we hurry, we can make it to the stables and out the castle gate before Lord Kin comes to collect us.”