Page 9 of The Secret of Drulea Cottage

“Now you’ve told me all I need to know, Briony. Mr. Mendes is in my sights fer you, so I’ll be doing my best to give you two the chance to get to know each other better.”

“Please don’ do that, Adaira. Please.”

“Why na? He would be a mighty lucky man to snag you.”

Briony sighed. “I may have been a wee bit rude to him earlier. I’m sure his opinion o’ me is na good.”

Adaira frowned. “Why were you rude? Did he say something that made you angry? You know you let that temper get the better o’ you all too often.”

Briony shook her head and dropped her voice to a whisper. “Nay. He was—I think he was…flirtingwith me.”

Adaira’s face lit up like the fires of Johnsmas. “Briony, that’s wonderful! I told you yer a catch! ’Tis about time someone else noticed how pretty you are.”

“So you say,” Briony groaned.

“And I’ll keep saying it until you start to believe it,” Adaira declared, placing a hand on her hip. She gave Briony a sharp look, daring her to say anything else.

Briony rolled her eyes and turned to leave.

But Adaira wasn’t finished. “I still don’ understand why you were rude.”

How can she na get it?Briony turned back to her friend. “Because it can’ go anywhere! I’m illegitimate. I have no chance at finding a husband.”

“Briony, yer a great person. Yer parents’ status when you were born does na change that.”

“O’ course it does! It changes everything! You don’ understand. Yer na like me. You did na grow up with everyone hating you fer something you had no control over.”

Adaira’s eyes filled with hurt. “Yer right, I’m na like you. I’m just the daughter o’ the town drunk.”

Shame colored Briony’s cheeks. She reached out a hand to the woman’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, Adaira. I know you’ve had to overcome yer father’s reputation. And you have! No one resents you fer his behavior. They know yer different from him. But they can’ see past what my mother did. And my grandmother. And even my great-grandmother. I have a legacy o’ illegitimacy. Everyone is just waiting fer me to end up the same way they did. No man will think me worthy o’ being a wife. ’Tis a hard truth, but I’ve come to accept it.”

“Well, I will never accept that fer you. I willalwayskeep hoping and praying that the right man comes along who sees you fer who you are.”

Briony didn’t know how she got to have such a good friend, a true sister. She released Adaira’s shoulder with a smile. “Thank you. If it weren’ fer you, I don’ know where I’d be. I better get going though. I need to go to the market, but I have to go back home first to get my basket. Do you need anything?”

“Nay, I’m stocked up pretty well right now. I’ll see you later, then.”

Briony nodded and left, humming to herself. Adaira’s words were comforting, but as she walked, her thoughts strayed back to Terrence Stubbins’s comment and the village’s general outlook on her family. While she understood their aversion to an extent, she also knew one misdeed didn’t destroy everything good about a person.

Briony’s mother had always shown kindness, despite what she had received in return. She had always been so strong. Briony wouldn’t have even thought her mother was capable of tears if not for one night—

Briony paused, remembering that moment:

She was eight years old. Someone was crying in her dream, and it woke her up, but as soon as she opened her eyes, she realized the sound wasn’t coming from her head; it was coming from outside. She tiptoed out the back door only to find her mother gazing at the ocean. That wasn’t so strange, since she often caught Bethany doing that when she thought Briony wasn’t looking.

But why is she crying? She never cries.

“Mum, why are you sad?” Briony whispered.

Bethany slowly turned to her daughter. She gave Briony a small grin, despite the sorrow in her eyes.

“Come here, my peedie freck,” she said as she held out her arms.

Briony eagerly got into her mother’s lap, but she continued to look at Bethany expectantly.

“I was only a wee bit homesick, and I thought that if I came out here, I would na wake you. Looks like I was wrong though,” Mum admitted with a yawn.

“But we are home, aren’ we?” Briony asked.