Deception's Pawn (Princesses of Myth) Read Online Free Page B

just my carelessness. I’ll try to do better in the future. Thank you for being so gracious to me. I hope I can repay you for it.”
    “Repay me?” The older woman was momentarily flustered,but her confusion swiftly gave way to a look of relief. “Don’t speak as though you owe me anything, my dear.” She rose from her place and gave me a soft kiss on the cheek.
    Lady Lassaire didn’t know quite what to make of the way things had turned out between Lady Moriath and me. She was left with an interrupted scolding on her lips and for a moment looked almost as though she’d been cheated out of a treat. Then she shrugged it off and the embroidery lesson began.
    I was never very clever with my needle. My frustration must have showed on my face because Ula noticed it and whispered, “Why are you scowling? Did the thread insult your family too?”
    “Very funny,” I hissed back, fighting a fresh knot that had magically tied itself. “Look at your work! You’ve filled that cloth with a whole legion of fantastic animals. And there”—I nodded toward the dress Gormlaith was adorning with mazes of intertwining vines—“I can’t even manage a simple triquetra pattern.” I spread my needlework across my knees to show Ula the full measure of my failure. I’d been given a clean new piece of fabric because this was my first day of lessons, but I’d already turned it into a rumpled rag. Lady Lassaire glanced my way and frowned. Gormlaith flicked her eyes at the drunken parade of too-big, too-small, too-loose, too-tight threads disgracing my cloth and offered me a pitying look.
    “May I see that, Lady Maeve?” Lady Moriath’s wrinkled hands took the fabric from my grasp and held it close to her eyes. “Ah, there’s the problem.” She began undoing the mess I’d made as if she dealt with such catastrophes every day. “You want a stronger thread to begin with, and a sharper needle.”
    “Maeve has been given everything she needs for her lesson,” Lady Lassaire responded crisply. “The best of everything.”
    “Of course, of course.” Lady Moriath hastened to ease away her mistress’s ruffled feelings. “I’d have seen that if not for my poor old eyesight. Well, if it isn’t Lady Maeve’s tools, the fault lies in her confidence. She should practice making designs on something more easily corrected than cloth, don’t you agree?”
    Lady Lassaire’s pride was soothed. “Just what I was going to suggest myself.”
    “Then permit me to carry out your wonderful suggestion. Let Lady Maeve take her needlework lessons privately with me until her work improves.”
    A fresh frown creased Lady Lassaire’s high white forehead. “How will you see her work when you failed to see the quality of the supplies I gave her? I can’t give charge of something as important as needlework to someone too blind to see stitches.”
    I gasped to hear such casual meanness. Why remind the poor woman of her failing body? But Lady Moriath remained as serene as if she’d been paid a compliment.
    “I can still see my own handwork if I hold the cloth close to my eyes, but I won’t need to do that for Lady Maeve,” she said calmly. “My plan is to have her gain self-assurance by making embroidery designs with a bit of charcoal or even with a stick in the dirt. She can make them as large as necessary for me to see them. Once she knows her hand is capable of creating intricate, beautiful patterns, it won’t be hard for her to reduce their size when she re-creates them on cloth.”
    “I want Maeve to feel like she’s a part of this household, and the sooner, the better. How will singling her out and separating her from the other girls help accomplish that?”
    “It wouldn’t be for long, my lady. I used to be the best needlewoman in Dún Beithe from the time Lord Artegal’s father ruled these lands. I can teach as quickly as she’s willing to learn. She’ll be back with the others in less than fourteen days, if she applies