The Countess' Captive (The Fairytale Keeper Book 2) by Andrea Cefalo Page A

say. “That’s all. She caught something. You were only meant to make her sleep.”
    “That’s not what you thought when you slipped me into her drink,” the malicious potion laughs, and I escape into the hallway.
    I knock on Father’s door. It swings open, for it was already ajar. A doctor still has not arrived.
    “Papa…” I say. He turns his head but hasn’t moved from his spot beside Galadriel.
    I don’t know how to ask what I intend to, so I just stand before him, opening my mouth to speak and then closing it again.
    “What?” Father huffs. He looks so tired.
    “I was wondering if you would allow me to go into the city and fetch a doctor myself. I worry if it takes too long…”
    A resigning sigh breaks the long silence. “Yes.”
    That is all he says.
    I expect him to warn me, to tell me to do nothing else, but he does not, and so after a few moments of waiting for further instructions that do not come, I turn on my heel.

    I pound my fist on the door to the old doctor’s office. A sweet–faced, matronly woman answers. I ask to see the doctor, saying it is urgent. She says that it usually is but allows me in anyway. He turns to look at me and immediately orders the woman to make me leave, explaining that I was the rude urchin that summoned him and then turned him away. The woman’s sweet–face pinches, and she shoos me out like a stray cat. I duck below her arm.
    “What was in the potion? I have to know. What did you give me last night?”
    The woman grasps my arm and pulls me back. I grip the door frame. The doctor turns and raises an eyebrow quizzically. He turns back to his work and waves his hand in the air, dismissing the woman.
    “I told you it was for sleep and pain, but obviously you did not take it.”
    “No, I didn’t, but someone else did…and now she won’t rise.”
    “So that’s why you rushed me away. Thought your mistress was trying to poison you, eh? So you decided to slip her the potion instead?”
    “She’s not my mistress,” I spit. “She’s my father’s lover, though my mother hasn’t been dead a month. We’re cobblers, and she’s a countess. And we hate each other.” Why am I telling him this? “She threatened me yesterday morning, and then you came with your potion. So I thought…you can see how I might have assumed…”
    “That I was paid to poison you,” he finishes, and I nod. “If you hate her so much, why do you care if she lives or dies?”
    “I, I don’t know.”
    “It’s because you’re not a killer,” he concludes. “You see, girl, these things happen. A wife dies. A husband remarries.” He waves his hand dismissively again. “Your father may marry a countess. Although a fool of a countess she must be…to marry a cobbler. Either way, I suggest you accept your good fortune.”
    I ball my fists and bite my lip, confining fury at his suggestion: that my mother’s death and my father’s affair is somehow a blessing.
    His bristled eyebrows raise. “Now when did she take the wine?”
    “Last night near Compline.”
    “Oh, then it should wear off soon.” He shrugs and then turns back to his sheaf of parchments.
    “So it was not poison?”
    “No, it was medicine. Just as I said.”
    “So she’ll live?”
    “Of course.” He laughs. “You see, I am no killer either, no matter how much coin is offered to me.”
    “Did she offer you coin to kill me?”
    He raises his eyes from the parchments at his desk and faces me. “No,” he says evenly. “She offered me coin to heal you.” He turns back around, hunching over his desk.
    The soft indifference in his aged voice convince me that he tells the truth.
    If Galadriel wakes before I return, a doctor may be at her side. What if he discovers her deep sleep was induced by herbs? Who else, besides me, could have, would have slipped her such a potion?
    I have to keep her from finding out, and I know just how to do it, but first there is something else I must do.
    “I know I am in your debt,