Duainfey Read Online Free Page B

that the frailer plants could be grown in the conservatory, alongside whatever warmland fruits and flowers might survive there.
    She laughed, quietly, into the night.
    On her fourth birthday, she had horrified her father and her uncle, who had asked what occupation she should choose for herself, by answering that she would race horses. On her sixth, she had dismayed her mother and her aunt by declaring that she wished to be a physician.
    On her eighth birthday, Sonet had come to work in the kitchen at Barimuir, and had been only too happy to instruct the Earl's daughter from her considerable herb lore.
    It was an odd calling for a gentlewoman in these enlightened times, though when Father would have protested that he would not have his daughter grubbing in the dirt like a newlander, Mother had pointed out that her own grandmother had been notable for her herbal cures.
    After that, Rebecca was allowed to study, and to plant, to harvest and to make up various tinctures and lotions. As long as she went about these things quietly and drew no attention to herself, her father averted his eyes.
    The breeze ran more quickly, and Rebecca shivered where she sat on the stone bench. She should go inside, she thought, and opened her eyes. The moon was sinking rapidly toward the horizon.
    She stood, pain igniting her arm. Biting her lip, she remained motionless until the flare had died down to the usual dull ember. Tonight, after she had said her good-night to Mother, she would rub the arm with easewerth, which would warm the muscles. Since there was no treatment known either to the lord physicians in the city or to the lowly herb woman of the village which would restore the arm's strength and suppleness, it was the best she might do.
    And that, she thought, turning back toward the house along the darkening path, would have to be enough.
     

Chapter Two
    "Why must I wear white?" Caroline demanded, for what Rebecca conservatively estimated was the twenty-seventh time since Irene's package had arrived from the city.
    "Because you have not yet been presented to the Governors nor made your curtsy to the King," Mother said, just as she had twenty-six times before. "And because your cousin Irene has been so kind as to send the cloth."
    Beautiful cloth it was, too, Rebecca thought, smoothing Irene's letter out to read again. Caroline might choose to sneer at mere "white," but the bolt Irene had sent was sombasilk with flowers figured, white-on-white, which would be breathtaking made up into a girl's simple gown.
    Not, Becca thought, that Caroline was likely to see it that way.
    To her, Irene had sent a bolt of mahdobei, soft and slightly nubby; the color of wheat. It was far too rich a gift, and Becca had considered sending it back, and asking Mrs. Hintchston to make up the sprigged blue she had been saving—but Irene knew her too well.
    You will not, her letter read, return this bolt to me, Rebecca Beauvelley. I want you to picture me saying that most sternly . No, more sternly than that! For if you do return it, I shall be quite cross, as will Edward when I importune him to ride cross-country with neither sleep nor food to hand-carry it back to you and stand by while it's being made up. I would do these things myself, but I am in what Edward's mother insists on styling as "a family way," as if Edward and I weren't a perfectly good family. In any case, Becca, you must have the bolt made up for this ridiculous dance of Caro's—have I said yet in this letter how very indulged and spoilt that child is? Ah! Now I have. So, dearest Becca! Please do me the very great honor of having the wheat made up into something positively stunning—and tell Hintchston that I said stunning, so she will be in no doubt as to what is required! Thank you. Now I may be comforted in my isolation by the knowledge that you will be ravishing!
    There! No more scolding, I promise! Let us move on to gossip!
    I wonder if you have heard that Charlie Mason—that would be the