Chapter Six #3
Trenton exhaled, long and slow, sensing a losing battle ahead.
He knew what his answer was going to be; his only concern was in telling Lysabel that he’d purchased a pony for Brencis.
He knew he shouldn’t, and he further knew that she would probably become angry with him, but he thought that it was time to put poor Brencis out of her misery when it came to her love for horses.
Clearly, she lived and breathed them, and this little pony needed an owner.
A six-year-old owner who would love her more than anything on earth.
Besides… he was afraid to deny her. As a man who held absolutely no fear, in any arena, the fear of tears from a lonely little girl had him surrendering.
He was a fool.
Stepping into the stall, Trenton crouched in front of the weeping girl and the fat, white pony, watching for a moment as Brencis snuggled with the pony “We have a long trip ahead of us,” he said. “It will be a very long trip for a pony with such little legs.”
He was giving a last-ditch effort to reason with her, but Brencis was beyond reason. She only knew what she wanted.
“She is strong, I know it,” she insisted, wiping the tears on her cheeks. “I will ride her the whole way. She will not be tired at all because I will be very gentle. I will not make her tired.”
She sounded so very sincere and Trenton could see that nothing short of an act of God could discourage her. So much for trying to reason with her.
“Half a crown and the pony is yours,” the livery man said, throwing another nail in the coffin of Trenton’s decision. “I’ll even throw in a bridle and a saddle for the little miss. They came with the pony.”
Trenton was close to throttling the man again, who was trying hard to seal the deal, but the truth was that the decision was already made. Standing up, he sighed heavily.
“Do you have another pony?” he asked. “There are two girls. I cannot purchase a pony for one and not the other.”
The livery man nodded quickly and scurried away.
Trenton returned his attention to Brencis as the little girl was now petting the back of the pony, running her fingers through the white hair.
He could see how delirious she was. That kind of happiness was foreign to him, so very happy that one could nearly burst with it.
Trenton couldn’t even remember when he’d been that happy, or if he’d ever been that happy, and he was wildly envious about it.
Perhaps in making Brencis so happy, he was living vicariously through her.
Was there truly such happiness in all the world?
As he continued to watch Brencis and her new pony, the livery man appeared again, leading another pony, a fat brown animal that was dark all over except for her flaxen-colored mane and tail. When Trenton turned to look at the animal, the livery man had the pony walk a circle.
“This little lass belongs to my own daughter, but she doesn’t ride her any longer,” he said. “She’s become too old for her, I fear, so Honey has no one to love her. Will your other little girl love her?”
Trenton didn’t even know how to answer that, considering he’d be giving the pony to Cynethryn, who hadn’t shown him much warmth since she’d known him. He simply shrugged and dug into his coin purse again, pulling out a couple of coins and handing them over to the livery man.
“Feed them and brush them, and when we leave in the morning, we shall take them both,” he said. “Include the bridles and blankets and anything else that comes with them.”
The livery man was thrilled, having offloaded two useless ponies for a tidy sum. As he took Honey back to her stall, Trenton turned to Brencis, who was now standing at the rear of the pony and trying to braid her tail.
“Well?” he said to her. “Did you hear all of that?”
Brencis looked up from the tail. “What?”
“You are now the proud owner of Snowdrop.”
Brencis blinked. “Me?”
“You.”
“She… she is mine?”
“She is yours.”
Brencis stared at him a moment before dropping the tail and running to him, throwing her arms around him and squeezing him as tightly as she could. He was so tall, and she was so short, that she ended up embracing his upper thighs, but the message was clear.
“Thank you,” she murmured as she hugged him. “Thank you for my pony. I love you very much.”
With that, she rushed back to the white pony and hugged the horse’s neck again, squeezing so much that the animal was once again startled. It was clear the pony wasn’t used to all of the attention, but that was going to soon change.
Trenton was sure of it.
Little Brencis had thanked him like no one else ever had.
I love you very much. He was certain she’d said it only because he’d given her the pony, but he was equally certain she meant every word and that fascinated him.
Were there really people in the world who loved so freely and showed emotion so freely?
He was seeing a good deal through the eyes of Brencis, a side of the world he’d never really seen before.
His world was death and espionage, and that was something he’d learned to guard himself against. But this…
this was something he’d never experienced before.
He thought he could get used to it.
“Now that you know she is yours, you will bid her a good eve,” he said. “We must return to your mother and tell her what we have done.”
Brencis looked at him, rather fearfully. “You will not let her give my pony back, will you?”
“Nay. It is my gift to you.”
She seemed relieved. “And my father? You will not let him take it away?”
He could hear the fear in her voice and he felt a stab of rage that was unexpected. He could hardly imagine this lovely, sensitive child subjected to Benoit’s horrific behavior. Shaking his head, he held out a hand to her.
“Nay, lass,” he said quietly. “I will not let him take it away. Come along, now. We must go.”
With the promise that the pony was hers – truly hers – Brencis separated herself from her new pet somewhat easily.
Her gaze still on the white pony, she took Trenton’s hand and let him take her from the stable, but she wouldn’t take her eyes off the pony until she could no longer see it.
Outside the livery, sunset was beginning to fall and the dark clouds overhead had obliterated the sky, and the smell of rain was in the air.
With Brencis in hand, Trenton hurriedly made his way down the road until he came to a sign that said The Greene and The Glory.
A small, two-storied building was attached to it and he pushed his way inside, coming into a small common room that was crowded with people, including Lysabel, Cynethryn, and Markus.
It was warm and fragrant in the tavern, with contrasting smells of baking bread and spilled ale, and as Trenton carefully planned out what to tell Lysabel, Brencis had no such restraint.
She ran to her mother, threw herself into the woman’s arms, and announced that she now had a pony named Snowdrop.
With the secret out, Trenton had no choice but to confess what he’d done and plead for forgiveness if necessary.
He tried to make it sound as if the pony would be thrown out into the wild had he not purchased it, making it appear as if he had little choice in the matter, but he could tell by Lysabel’s expression that she didn’t believe him.
But he could also see that she, too, couldn’t deny Brencis.
The little girl finally had what she wanted and there was no curbing her excitement.
It was palpable.
When Trenton told Lysabel that he’d also purchased a pony for Cynethryn, that seemed to bring the older girl around.
Hearing her name, and realizing that not only had her sister been given a pony, but she now had one as well, had her on her feet as she begged her mother to see it.
As the rain from a summer storm began to fall outside, Trenton found himself leading Lysabel and both girls back to the livery where Brencis ran to Snowdrop and Cynethryn was introduced to Honey.
As Lysabel stood with Brencis, admiring her new pony while casting Trenton expressions of both joy and exasperation, Trenton stood with Cynethryn as the girl looked over her pony with disbelief.
It appeared the girl was in shock. Trenton finally turned away from Lysabel to see that Cynethryn was staring at the dark pony with her mouth hanging open. She hadn’t even touched it yet.
“Do you like her, my lady?” he asked the little girl. “If you do not, I can ask the livery man if he has any others. He told me that his daughter had grown too old for Honey and that the pony had no one to love her any longer. I thought you might like to love her.”
Cynethryn couldn’t seem to take her eyes off the pony. “For me?” she finally asked. “She is truly for me?”
Trenton nodded. “Truly,” he said. “Do you know how to ride?”
Cynethryn nodded. Then, she shook her head. And then she burst into quiet tears, something that concerned Trenton greatly.
“What is the matter?” he asked. “If you do not like her, I shall find you another one, I promise. You needn’t be worried.”
Cynethryn shook her head. Weeping, she finally reached out to touch the pony as if hardly believing any of it.
“I want her,” she whispered tightly. “You… you gave me a pony.”
“Aye. You and your sister.”
“But why?”
“Because these ponies needed girls to love them.”
She turned to look at him, her big blue eyes watery. “But I did not ask for a pony.”
“You did not have to. I simply thought you would like one.”
Cynethryn digested his answer, wiping furiously at her eyes. “I… never ask for anything because my father will not… he tells me no.”