Hazel's Promise (The Fey Quartet Book 2) Read Online Free

again and pulled out a handful of nuts.
    Tam’s face lit up. “Vale walnuts? Those, I’ve missed. There are none sweeter in England.” He took a knife from his belt and began slicing bread and meat. “Nor juicier apples. I can’t tell you how I’ve longed for a vale apple.”
    Hazel eyed him curiously. “How long have you been gone?”
    “Five months.”
    “Why?”
    Tam shrugged with his shoulders, with his face. “Wanted to see a bit of England before settling down.”
    “Settling down as what?”
    Tam grinned. “As my father’s son.”
    Hazel sniffed. That was no answer. “What’s your family name?”
    “If you guess right, I’ll tell you.” He reached for the walnuts. “May I have one of these?”
    “Have all of them, if you wish.”
    Tam chose a walnut and cracked it between his fingers. He held both halves out to her. “Like some?”
    Hazel shook her head.
    Tam ate the walnut, not greedily, but slowly, savoring the taste. After he’d swallowed, he uttered a sigh of pleasure. “The best in all England.”
    Hazel studied him while he cracked more nuts. His hands were as lean and strong as the rest of him. A blacksmith’s hands?
    Tam didn’t look like a blacksmith. Or a thatcher or mason or baker.
    But do I look like a miller’s daughter?
    Tam laid the shelled nuts in a neat pile. “Bread, nuts, meat. An d— ” he flashed a grin, “I have some cider to wash it down with.” He delved into his packsaddle, pulled out a battered pewter flask and placed it alongside the food, then gave her a half-bow. “Shall we dine, m’lady?”
    Night closed around them. It didn’t feel dangerous; it felt cozy: the firelight, the shadows, the woodsmoke. The bread was fresh, the meat tender, the nuts sweet, the cider tangy. Tam had been hungry—she could tell by the amount he ate—but he didn’t shove the food into his mouth; he ate neatly, unhurriedly.
    Good manners, but poor. Who was he?
    Hazel reached for the pewter flask. The cider was stronger than she was used to. It fizzed on her tongue and warmed her blood. “Which is your family?” she asked.
    Tam glanced at her, chewed, swallowed, grinned. “If you guess right, I’ll tell you,” he said again.
    Hazel rolled her eyes. Did he know how irritating he was?
    She took another sip and watched Tam eat. Firelight and shadows flickered across his face. There was something vaguely familiar about the shape of his nose, the shape of his forehead. “Do you have a brother?” Hazel asked abruptly.
    “One.”
    “Older or younger?”
    “A year and a half older. He’s twenty-six.”
    “What’s his name?”
    “Hugh.”
    Hazel tried to remember if a Hugh had ever offered for her hand. “Do you look like him?”
    Tam shook his head. “He’s dark. Takes after our mother. I look like Father.”
    Hazel tilted her head, studying his face. Had she met Tam’s father? Was that the resemblance she saw? And if she had met his father, when and where?
    Tam looked like a peddler with his worn, travel-stained clothes. He walked like one, too, a ground-eating stride with a hint of merry swagger. And he had the glib tongue of a peddler.
    Hazel frowned, and drank more cider.
    There was a family of peddlers in Dapple Vale. Twice a year the men ventured from the vale and returned bearing spices, wines, fabrics, and news. Tam wasn’t one of them—she knew Dapple Vale’s peddlers by name—but he behaved like them. Would it offend him to hear that?
    “You dress like a peddler,” Hazel said. “You walk like one, you talk like one, therefore . . . I say you’re Tam Peddler.”
    Tam gave a hoot of laughter. “A peddler? Me?”
    No, not offended. Hazel sighed in exasperation.
    “Tam Peddler,” Tam said, rolling the words around in his mouth. “Has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?”
    “It sounds ridiculous,” Hazel told him. She put the pewter flask down with a thunk.
    Tam’s grin widened. He knows I’m annoyed .
    Hazel sniffed and looked