Daughter of Mystery Read Online Free

consider it.”
    She had begun the lesson nearly exhausted but in the end the exercise substituted for the lost hours of sleep. The desire to seek her bed again had faded by the time she’d washed and changed afterward.
    The baron’s valet, quizzed in the kitchen over a late breakfast of bread and tea, allowed that his master was awake, if not yet up. That would be sufficient for arranging the duties of the day. Barbara tapped on the door and entered on a faint assent. At first she thought she must have imagined his response and that he still slept, but then his eyes opened and turned in her direction.
    “Pray pardon for disturbing you. May I speak?”
    “You usually do in the end.” His voice was thin and querulous. Barbara waited silently. “Yes, yes, what is it?”
    “I thought I might take the bay mare out for some exercise this afternoon…unless you’ll have need of me.”
    “Do I look like I plan to go gallivanting about the town? No, do as you please until the afternoon. I may not get up until supper, so there’s no sense in you kicking your heels here.”
    Barbara hesitated. When he became snappish it meant he was feeling truly unwell. “Perhaps you’d like me to read to you?”
    “No, be off with you. I only need to rest and I can do that by myself. But if you see Ponivin, make sure that he’s sent that letter off to Maistir LeFevre.”
    Does he mean to increase the girl’s dowry after all? But no, LeFevre had already planned to follow them to Chalanz. This was just the baron’s impatience at work. “I’ll see to it.”
    The butler, of course, had sent the letter days before and was more than a little piqued at the suggestion he might need a reminder. “For it isn’t as if he could be here any sooner. And with a storm coming it may well be later.”
    But the storm—if it existed anywhere other than the butler’s arthritic joints—was nowhere to be seen at the moment and the crisp air was perfect for shaking the fidgets out of the mare.
    * * *
    The town of Chalanz filled the circle of land where the Esikon River bent westward and spilled out onto the opposite bank across a bridge said to have been built in Roman times. To the right of the bridge, on the site of the old Axian Palace, stretched a long grassy park dotted with ruined walls and mysterious hollows. It was there that the energetic and the fashionable paraded on horseback or in carriages or even on foot, along pathways interlacing the riverside, thickly planted with flowers and hedges.
    Barbara cantered the mare twice up and down the outermost road where such speed was allowed, up to the broad parade ground where the local militia was practicing, then back to the park gate. After that she reined back to a more sedate walk along a middling path that meandered back and forth among the scattered trees, now drawing near the riverbank, now falling back to touch the carriageway. On previous days she hadn’t paid much attention to the other park-goers as individuals, noting them only to stay out of their way. But now, as she neared one of the walking paths, she recognized the girl from the evening before. The baron’s goddaughter had left little impression the night before. She’d seen a hundred girls in their first season. They all looked much the same and none of them fell within the scope of her duties. But here in the open air she looked different. What was it the girl had said? I know I’m not pretty but the dress is and that helps. It wasn’t true, though. The gown had been a hindrance if anything, drowning her heart-shaped face in a sea of lace and ruffles. The deep blue of her pelisse suited her coloring far better than a debutante’s pastels and the chill air of the park had left roses in her cheeks and teased a few chestnut-colored curls out to escape from her bonnet. In the moment that Barbara noticed her, she glanced up and their eyes met across the grassy span. The girl leaned toward the older woman at her side and said