Chapter One
The Eve of the Feast of St. Remi
September 30, 1458
Willowglen Township, England
CATHERINE COULD NOT forget the woman’s eyes.
That grey-green gaze had probed into the depths of her soul and left her overwhelmed with puzzling emotions.
She tried not to dwell on it, not with all the preparations to make for the start of Willowglen’s Harvest Fair.
However, try as she might to ignore her feelings, it just was not possible. Catherine trembled. She felt bewildered because of a woman—a mystery woman that she could not erase from her mind—a stranger with compelling eyes capable of sending shivers dancing on the surface of Catherine’s skin.
How had one look banished the melancholy that she had endured for the seasons of a year? One look had cracked open the cold, impenetrable shell that surrounded her, bringing the first hint of joy in life since her father’s death.
As Catherine pulled open the shutters of the old shop window and breathed in the new day, a ray of morning sun sparkled on the window sill. It made her smile, and evoked the memory of the woman standing outside her shop.
Catherine tingled with excitement. Questions raced through her mind. What was this new passion that woke in her? Her chest pounded when she thought of the woman.
The dull ache that had not left her since she’d first seen those eyes was almost too much to bear.
As the sun rose, the light became more intense, crisper.
The familiar cupboard of rich, dark wood spanning the far wall almost glowed. Stoneware jars and small wooden boxes of herbs seemed luminescent. Carefully arranged linen, brocade and velvet, neatly piled on shelves, shimmered. Catherine saw it all with new eyes.
The thick-planked worktable in the middle of the room held last-minute preparations for the fair, reminding her that she did not have time to linger. Moving across the room, she negotiated the large baskets of herbs harvested from her garden. As she passed a small wooden chest containing her most costly and exotic spices, she ran her fingertips across the lid and smiled. The contents of the box came from places Catherine had only seen with her mind’s eye. When she was young, her father had let her stay and listen to stories told by traders who came from far-off lands; now, some of those same men told their tales to her.
As a youngster, Catherine had been careful to be quiet and well behaved so that she would not be banished from the room during those sessions. Her father would never do such a thing, of course, but the presence of a girl-child might be frowned upon by some. As she approached womanhood, Catherine Hawkins developed into a tall, stately individual. She commanded attention when she entered a room, even when she did not intend to be noticed.
Both her parents had encouraged her to be confident and self-assured—odd for a young woman in this time and in this place. Her teachers, the women of Wooster Abbey, also fostered this attitude.
Catherine reached for the hem of her outer skirt and deftly folded it up into her waistband. Plucking a well-worn broom from the corner with a large, slender hand, Catherine opened the door and stepped outside. Every morning, she performed the same ritual. It started with sweeping the front step of the spice shop.
Catherine whisked the cobbles in front of the building and smiled. She loved the old shop that held the herbs and spices she sold. When her father added the fabric, sturdy wool, linen and extravagant brocades and silks, she happily included them on the shop shelves. But it was the herbs that she especially favored, because she used them to heal.
“No time for daydreaming,” Catherine chided herself softly, plunging into her chore again. She thought of the woman’s eyes as she swept.
A customer had come to the shop before she opened for business the previous morning, seeking Catherine’s special blend of herbs to ease his wife’s aching joints. She packaged the ingredients and watched from the doorway as he hurried off with the bundle tucked under his arm.
Turning to go back inside, she noticed the young woman in the street opposite the shop. By her dress, Catherine deduced that she was a woman of means, perhaps of title, but the beauty of the fabric was as nothing compared to her eyes. Excited and uneasy, Catherine puzzled over the episode. Who is this stranger and why is she in the street, unescorted, so early in the morning?
In the end, both had shied away without speaking. A rush of heat that she couldn’t explain stole across her face, and, surprised by her feelings, Catherine stopped sweeping.
To try to overcome her uncharacteristic awkwardness, she attacked the cobblestones with her broom. She was unsuccessful in sweeping away the emotion she felt.
When she gained control, Catherine went back into the shop. Gathering up rosemary sprigs and several small baskets, she took everything outside to try a display for the fair the next day. After setting it up on the shelf beneath the shop’s open window, she stepped back to assess her creation, but she was distracted by a commotion down the street.