something more practical. Fancy had kept it, and now she knew why.
She would wear it during her supper with Severin Knight.
Beneath her worn robe, Fancy’s heart fluttered. She knew she was a dreamer…but what did it hurt to dream? As Ma had oft said, Ain’t nothing wrong with sticking your ’ead in the clouds from time to time, me girl…as long as you also keep both feet on the ground.
Ma had been a wonderful storyteller, and her tales of romantic adventure had fueled Fancy’s imagination as well as her inquisitive mind. In the story of the girl in the cinders, for instance, why was the slipper made of glass, a material every tinker knew was notoriously difficult to mend? What if it broke? Glass also did not stretch; what if the poor girl’s feet swelled after standing all day sweeping ashes, and the slipper didn’t fit her? How unfair would that be?
Ma would just laugh and say, That’s why these be faerie tales, me girl, and not stories o’ everyday living.
Nonetheless, Fancy took heart in her ma’s stories, whimsy and pragmatism waging a cheerful war within her. During the long trips with her family or whilst doing chores, she would dream about how she would meet her own prince. She’d never guessed that the meeting would take place over a grumpy donkey.
Da had brought Bertrand back from a fair a few months ago. Since Da had had a collection of silver spoons to barter, Fancy had been excited at what he might bring back.
A donkey brings good luck, he’d declared when she and her brothers groaned at Bertrand’s arrival. Mark me words, children: ain’t nothin’ more important than luck.
Fancy could have listed several more important things. New wheels for the wagon, for example. Or shoes for her fifteen-year-old brother Tommy, whose toes were poking out of an oft-mended hole at the end. Or candles to relieve the long, dark nights in the family caravan…
“Fancy!” Her eldest brother Oliver’s shout came from another room. Like all of her kin, he had a hawker’s booming voice, and it carried through the cottage. “’Ave you seen me neckerchief?”
“In the drawer next to your shirts,” she called back.
She heard the opening and slamming of drawers, followed by, “Found it, petal!”
O’ course you did. She shook her head with fond exasperation. That’s where I put it after I washed it, didn’t I?
“Fancy!” Tommy stuck his head into the room. Her youngest brother had the gangly build of an adolescent, his brown curls flopping over his brow and brushing the collar of his shirt.
She added giving him a trim to her mental list of tasks. “Yes, dear?”
“I’m ’ungry,” he announced. “What ’appened to the jam tarts?”
“Liam,” she said succinctly.
“Did you eat me tarts, Liam?” Tommy yelled.
Her second youngest brother, a slightly larger version of Tommy, sauntered by.
“Time and tide wait for no man, lad,” Liam said.
Fancy was not fooled by Liam’s philosophical tone. Or the casual way he ruffled their youngest sibling’s hair. Both actions were designed to rile Tommy who, of course, took the bait.
“It weren’t no time nor tide that took me tarts but your great greedy gut!” Tommy said, scowling. “I told you I be saving those last tarts Fancy made for me tea.”
“What’re you going to do ’bout it, eh?” Liam taunted.
The next instant the lads were brawling and bouncing off the walls. Since this was a regular occurrence, Fancy simply closed the door. She was grateful that there was a door to close. When her family was on the road, all of them confined in the wagon, her brothers were like lampreys trapped in a barrel, constantly tangled up and thrashing against one another.
She’d just donned her unmentionables when her father’s voice filtered into the room.
“Fancy, do you ’ave a moment?”
“Coming, Da.” Throwing her robe back on, she went to let him in.
Da was already dressed for supper, wearing his best jacket and waistcoat, both of which Fancy had altered to fit his short, wiry frame. His hair and beard shone silver from a recent wash, and a perfect, fragrant gardenia—she had no idea where he’d found it—graced his buttonhole. His blue eyes twinkled at her from behind his wire-rimmed spectacles.
Some folk saw her father as naught more than an eccentric beggar; to Fancy, he was the dearest person in the world. He was a man with big ideas and an even bigger heart. Two and twenty years ago, he’d discovered an infant in a field and brought her home to