Posing as a servant in Bosc Castle, Mally serves tea and tends fires for the most dangerous men in the kingdom. Her goal is to learn the truth of what happened sixteen years ago, when the infant princess met her death ... a death that is surrounded by more questions than answers.
Along her search for the truth, Mally meets the energized Lita Stump, the strict and matriarchal Meriyal Boyd, and the opinionated Archibald Diggleby. Then of course there are the knights: Leon Gibbs who is slicker than a greased hog, Adrian Bayard, hot tempered and violent, and the worst of the lot: Sir Illius Molick, Captain of the Knights. And then there is Maud, a mysterious woman who just might know everything...
Snippet!
Whether it was due to the stress of nearly poisoning herself or Gibbs’ new tendency to lash out at everyone, Mally couldn’t decide, but four days after the mushroom incident, Lita was in the sickroom, covered by three wool blankets, and still had chills.
“How am I supposed to help you find you-know-who when I’m laid up in bed?” she asked thickly.
“Badger the other poor souls who are just as miserable as you?” Mally shrugged.
“How are you not sick?” Lita grumbled, wiping her streaming nose.
“It’s all that country air I grew up in,” Mally replied playfully.
Lita’s watery eyes scowled at her sourly. Thankfully, Gladys took that moment to interrupt.
“Mally, are you doing anything?”
“Well—”
“Excellent!” Gladys thrust a small moneybag and a list in her hands. “Go to Maud’s and pick up the ingredients for my cold tonic. I’m much too low.”
“Who’s Maud?” Mally asked.
“The only reliable apothecary owner in the city,” said Gladys.
Lita suddenly snickered.
“Something wrong, Lita?” Gladys asked primly.
“Crazy, batty Maud,” Lita teased, wiping her nose across her sleeve and staring at Mally wickedly. “Ooooh, be careful, she might cut off your hair! She’ll bargain for your fingernails!”
Melissa LeGette lives in Georgia where she helps run a family farm, so her nails are a fright. The Tale of Mally Biddle is her second novel.
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