Once Upon an Enchanted Well: A Medieval Historical Romance, page 1
Once Upon an Enchanted Well
The Enchanted Well Series
Novella
Mary Wine
© Copyright 2023 by Mary Wine
Text by Mary Wine
Cover by Dar Albert
Dragonblade Publishing, Inc. is an imprint of Kathryn Le Veque Novels, Inc.
P.O. Box 23
Moreno Valley, CA 92556
ceo@dragonbladepublishing.com
Produced in the United States of America
First Edition October 2024
Kindle Edition
Reproduction of any kind except where it pertains to short quotes in relation to advertising or promotion is strictly prohibited.
All Rights Reserved.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
License Notes:
This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook, once purchased, may not be re-sold. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it or borrow it, or it was not purchased for you and given as a gift for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. If this book was purchased on an unauthorized platform, then it is a pirated and/or unauthorized copy and violators will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Do not purchase or accept pirated copies. Thank you for respecting the author’s hard work. For subsidiary rights, contact Dragonblade Publishing, Inc.
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Dearest Reader;
Thank you for your support of a small press. At Dragonblade Publishing, we strive to bring you the highest quality Historical Romance from some of the best authors in the business. Without your support, there is no ‘us’, so we sincerely hope you adore these stories and find some new favorite authors along the way.
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CEO, Dragonblade Publishing
Additional Dragonblade books by Author Mary Wine
The Enchanted Well Series
Laird of Misrule (Book 1)
Once Upon an Enchanted Well (Novella)
Highland Rogues Series
The Highlander’s Demand (Book 1)
The Highlander’s Destiny (Book 2)
The Highlander’s Captive (Book 3)
The Highlander’s Promise (Book 4)
Also from Mary Wine
Midnight Flame (Novella)
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Publisher’s Note
Additional Dragonblade books by Author Mary Wine
An Ending is Also a Beginning…
Every Challenge Presents an Opportunity…
In a Blink of an Eye…a Child is Grown…and the Season has Passed…
By the Moon’s Light, New Beginnings Stir
Sometimes, Duty Places You Where You are Meant to Be…
Curiosity Always Leads the Way to Adventure…and Danger…
A Scotsman Never Surrenders…
Reality Knows No Mercy…
A Restless Spirit Finds Companionship in the Night…
Honor is a Gift a Man gives to Himself…
At the Cross Roads of Life…There is No Perfect Choice…
Longing Makes the Heart Feel Empty…
When Fate and Whimsy Combine…
And the End is, in Fact, a Beginning….
When, at Last, a Prophecy Comes to Pass….
About the Author
An Ending is Also a Beginning…
Lady Wilmiton was displeased.
Rhona knew the pinched look around the lady’s face heralded the arrival of the Lady of the House’s temper. Normally Rhona would have fled back to the cottage where she lived with her mother, but her father was dead now and Lady Wilmiton was in charge of everything until her son came of age.
So there would be no running away.
Rhona stood alongside her mother while the lawyers waited for Lady Wilmiton to sign the documents they had laid in front of her. But the Lady scowled at the paper, clearly displeased with what was written on it. She’d already signed more than a dozen sheets, a necessity of inheritance but this one seemed to anger her.
She looked at Rhona. The Lady had no love for her, that was something Rhona knew very well even at the age of ten.
“My Lady,” one of the lawyers decided to attempt to prod Lady Wilmiton. “It is but a small country house—with all the other holdings you have, it is nothing of significance. The will is very clear, if you do not sign this property over, you will not receive the rest of the estate and holdings.”
“As you will!” Lady Wilmiton hissed at Rhona.
She grabbed the quill, jabbed its silver point into the ink well, and put it on the paper. Her son looked down at the document, his eyes moving back and forth while he read.
“There,” Lady Wilmiton declared. She sent Rhona’s mother a scathing look. “Take your whore’s earnings. You will freeze up there on the borderland. I promise you the dowry promised to your daughter will go to the Church! For no man should have to suffer your bastard daughter for a wife! Put them out!”
Put them out…
Rhona had heard the words being whispered in the kitchen and back rooms since the night the Lord took the last sacrament. A hush had fallen over the house in the days that followed, only the whispers growing in volume.
They will be put out…
Rhona knew the whispers were about her mother and herself. And now, the silent footmen behind them came forward. Their gazes were averted, and tight expressions appeared on their faces. They began to herd her and her mother much in the same way that they might deal with geese, with their arms spread out wide.
Rhona’s mother darted around one of the men, dipping low to avoid his outstretched arms. There was a crinkle of paper when she grabbed the newly signed and sealed sheet of parchment. The lawyer’s assistant tossed a large bag to her.
“Put them out at once!” Lady Wilmiton’s voice became shrill. “Go to the border and die there!”
“Mother…Rhona is my sister,” the new Lord Wilmiton spoke up.
“You are never to say such a thing again.” Lady Wilmiton turned on her son. “She is the spawn of lust. A product of adultery. She is to take the veil, lest she follows her mother’s path.”
Whatever else Lady Wilmiton said, Rhona didn’t hear it because the footmen pushed them past the doors which were closed tightly behind them.
It was a relief to be out of the room and yet, Rhona shivered because she had known no other home.
“Psst…psst…”
Rhona looked over to see one of the kitchen maids hiding in the passageway. She looked fearfully toward the closed doors before waving at them.
Rhona’s mother grabbed her wrist and ran toward the woman. The footmen were left behind.
“I had the tinker wait.”
The tinker came around every month or so with items to trade. Rhona had always liked going to see what his wagon had collected on his journeys.
The kitchen maid took them through the storerooms. She stopped and looked behind them to make sure no one was following them.
“Here now,” the maid said. “Take these bundles. It’s not much. You understand I can’t have the lady notice anything missing, or I might lose my place.”
“I am grateful for your kindness,” Rhona’s mother whispered.
The maid nodded. “His Lordship loved you with all his heart. Here…” She pulled a little pouch from her bodice. “His Lordship wanted you to have this.”
There was a jingle of coins when her mother grasped it.
“Hurry…the tinker will be leaving soon.” The maid encouraged Rhona’s mother toward the door.
Rhona’s mother tugged her out into the yard beyond the kitchen. The tinker was there with his wagon. Instead of flashing Rhona a smile and bringing her something he hoped her father might purchase for her, today, the tinker pointed at an open place in his wagon. Her mother climbed up and pulled her along with her.
The tinker took his place at the front of the wagon. He made a clicking sound that the horses recognized. The wagon lumbered forward, Rhona and her mother swaying along with the rest of the cargo. Rhona looked back at the house.
“Look forward Rhona,” her mother advised her. “Always choose life. Never look back at death for it will catch us all soon enough.”
Every Challenge Presents an Opportunity…
Lady Wilmiton hadn’t lied about the borderland being cold.
Rhona shivered, hugging a tattered length of wool closer against her body. She’d lost count of how many days they had traveled. At times, they had needed to wait for another merchant who was heading north before they could continue their journey. Now, Rhona looked up to see a sky full of black, swollen clouds. The wind was whipping, and the trees had lost their leaves, so the thin branches slapped together making an eerie sound like bones dancing.
“Up that road.”
This man who had most recently traded them a spot on his cart for a few bits of silver pointed at what might have once been a road, but it was overgrown now. The plants were as high as Rhona’s chest because no cart or wagon had used it all summer. Still, there were ruts in the ground, proving that there was something—or had been something—up ahead of them.
“I can’t recall ever seeing any light up there.” The merchant dashed any further hopes of finding something welcoming at the end of the path. “For a few more shillings, I could take ye into the village.”
“No thank you.” Rhona’s mother was quick to turn his offer down.
The merchant shrugged. His feet made squishing sounds in the mud on his way back to the front of his cart. A little click of his tongue and his horse started forward.
Overhead there came the ominous rumble of thunder.
It was definitely not a cheery welcome to their new home.
Her mother squared her shoulders and began walking in the direction the merchant had pointed them. Not wanting to be a coward, Rhona lifted her chin and followed. She instantly felt better, like she had achieved something by refusing to give in to her fear. Even if that was her pride talking, it was certainly better than standing on the side of the road just waiting for the rain to begin drenching her.
The reeds which had grown up on the road swayed and danced with the wind. Rhona decided she liked the idea of them dancing, for that was a merry word. They followed the ruts and then went around a bend. The light was fading, and again, the thunder cracked above them.
And then, lightning zigzagged through the mass of black clouds. Rhona blinked, blinded temporarily by the white-hot light. When she could see again, there was a house in front of her.
She gasped.
And she heard her mother sucking in her breath.
The house was blackened by moss and the stone structure was dark and foreboding. The yard was overgrown. Once there had been a road in front of the steps but now there were broken tree limbs and a tangle of vines and brambles for them to weave through before they managed to make it to the bottom step.
As they made it, her mother muttered, “At last.” There was a hint of gratitude in her mother’s tone, but Rhona couldn’t see anything even remotely worthy of about which they should be pleased.
“Oh, Mother…will we freeze here? Did Lady Wilmiton curse us?” Rhona asked in a thin voice. “Or…is this Divine Retribution because Father was not wed to you?”
Her mother turned to face her. “Listen to me, Rhona. Lady Wilmiton drinks bitterness by choice. She has that entire, fine manor home, a healthy son, and rents to collect. Yet she rises each day to only see the things she does not have.”
Rhona felt her fear dissipating but even as she began to smile, the sky split open with another bolt of lightning. It illuminated the house with its closed shutters and dark stone. The thunder boomed and rumbled as though a demon was clawing its way out of the dark mass of clouds.
“Rhona,” her mother spoke again once the thunder had passed. “We shall be so very happy, for your father is watching us from Heaven.” With that, her mother opened the bag the lawyer had tossed to her during their hurried eviction. Inside there was a ring of at least twenty or more keys. That meant there were things of value inside the house.
“We have a place to call home, Rhona. Each morning we will smile and see all the goodness around us.”
“But it is dark and ominous, Mother.” Rhona was ashamed of how fearful she sounded, but she just couldn’t help it.
“It is strong, and will shelter us from the storm!” Her mother offered another way to see their circumstances.
“But this is the borderland…are there not savages and witches?” Every forbidden thing Rhona had ever heard while hiding near the kitchen door just began to bubble right out of her.
“Listen, my precious daughter.” Rhona’s mother smoothed the hair back from her face with gentle hands. “This is a land of enchantment. We will dance beneath the moon and listen to the song of fairies. Our hearts will be brimming full of merriment. And before you know it, you will fall in love with a fine man here on the borderland, far, far away from those nobles who lust to own every last thing that they see. Here, we shall have a full life where there is enough for everyone. We will brighten everything with our determination to live well so that your father need not worry about us.”
After the long trip north with naught but fear chilling her heart, Rhona was happy to see the light of hope shimmering in her mother’s eyes. Her mother shook the keys, so they jingled. It was a happy sound, for the most precious things in every house were always locked away and the ring of keys was always on the belt of the most senior staff member.
Now the keys were in her mother’s hand.
Rhona followed her mother up the steps of the house. The first key would be the one to the front door. Her mother pushed it in and gave the lock a turn. The wind howled behind them, but the door opened. A crack of lightning gave them a brief look at the room beyond the door and a boom of thunder sent them both across the threshold in a hurry to be inside no matter how ominous and thick the blackness was inside the house.
Her mother closed the door against the rain. It pelted the closed shutters, rather like it was frustrated over not being able to soak them.
They would brighten everything with their determination…
Rhona forced a smile onto her lips and followed her mother’s instructions.
In a Blink of an Eye…a Child is Grown…and the Season has Passed…
“What will you do now?” Norla asked.
Rhona looked over at her friend. Norla had blue eyes which reminded her of a summer sky.
Brighten your day with cheerful thoughts…
Rhona knew the words for she lived by them, even if some days tested her more than others.
But Norla was waiting for a response to her question. Rhona pulled her gaze away from the newly disturbed earth where her mother had been laid to rest. The men who had come up from the village to help dig the grave had pulled their hats back on now that the prayers were finished. It was hard work, so Rhona filled a small basket with some of the food that the villagers had brought with them and offered it to the men in exchange for their efforts.
“You really don’t have to worry,” Norla said. “You have a fine house which will make a good dowry.”
Norla looked up the way to where Samuel Birkins was standing in front of the house. He was rubbing his hands together like a child anticipating a treat. Rhona wanted to feel something kind toward him, but the truth was, she didn’t want to wed him.
And Samuel appeared more enamored with the house than her.
“I don’t have to get married,” Rhona muttered.
Norla shrugged. “Everyone gets married.” She thought for a moment. “I don’t know anyone who didn’t get married at least one time.”
“Rhona has been promised to the Church.”
Both girls turned to see the priest. He stood near them, his hands tucked beneath his chasuble. There was a satisfied smile on his lips, and he looked at Rhona very much in the same way that Samuel looked at the house.
“Your mother refused to honor your father’s wish that you take the veil.” He glanced over at the new grave, his insinuation clear.
There was a hint of tightness in her throat, but Rhona swallowed it.
“It was Lady Wilmiton who wanted me to take the veil,” Rhona recalled the day they’d been put out of her father’s house.
“I am pleased you remember,” the priest said. “It is time for you to take your place.”
Samuel Birkins had walked toward them. “What’s this?”
The priest turned to look at him. “Rhona has been promised to the Church. This house will pass—along with her—into service of the Church.”
Rhona felt as though she was being strangled. Drawing breath felt nearly impossible. But she had to protest. She had only herself now.
“I am sorry Father, but I have no calling to take the holy veil.” The words came out in a tone that was far from confident. She gulped down some more air in an attempt to steady herself.
The priest still had a smile on his lips but the look in his eyes was cold. “To serve the Church is your path to redemption. Your parents’ sins must be accounted for.”
