Fortune's Mistress Read Online Free Page A

had somehow arisen that his toplofty family had turned their collective back on her. For the most part, the villagers seemed content to leave her to the solitude of widowhood, and happy enough that her purchase and tenancy of the cottage would generate positions for several of their sons and daughters.
    She arose from her knees and stretched in the bright sunlight. Kneeling in the damp earth had made her a little stiff, and the notion of a ramble over the hills now seemed the very thing. She fetched a shawl from the house, for the wind off the sea seemed sometimes to penetrate to her very bones, then strolled off into the countryside.
    A winding path l ed the way to a green dale she had grown fond of, where a circle of stones, centuries old, stood stark against the horizon. She had encountered few other people on previous walks, and none in the vicinity of the stone circle. Local legend told of seven virgins who had been turned to stone there for dancing on the Sabbath, and the country folk considered the place to be haunted by both the spirits of the poor damsels and the fairy folk with which the land, she was told, abounded. In a way, it seemed she haunted it herself, for since she had first discovered the circle and heard the stories, she had returned to it time and again.
    Around the stones, she saw that bunches of bright violet flowers had sprung up since her last visit, and she stooped to pick a few. When she and Olivia had been children, it was their custom to fashion crowns for themselves out of any hapless wildflowers they discovered, and her fingers began to fashion a coronet, seemingly of their own accord.
    Marianne seated herself on one of the stones which had fallen sideways in the grass, and looked out over the landscape which stretched forward, green and gold, before giving way to more rugged outcroppings of dark rock. In the far distance, the dull roar of the sea made its timeless complaint.
    She had fashioned two small crowns when she heard an uneven gait approaching through the grass. Startled, she looked up and saw to her dismay a golden hound running toward her on three legs, its left quarter dipping as it bounded toward her. She sat perfectly still as the dog slowed, then ambled up and lay its large head in her lap, looking up at her with huge brown eyes. Her uncertainty faded.
    “ And where have you sprung from?” she asked as she began to stroke its head. “Did the fairy folk conjure you up to bear me company, or are you merely one of their number in disguise?”
    The dog yawned, then cast his soulful eyes up to her, as if to say he would certainly tell her if only he could. He leaned heavily into her as she scratched under his chin, and she saw that, though the dog was missing a leg, the wound was long healed and had closed almost invisibly. Along the thin scar she thought she could perceive faint evidence of stitches having once been set there. Who would take such care, go to such expense for a dog? she wondered.
    The dog sniffed at the flower wreaths that still lay in her lap, and, laughing, she placed one on his golden head and, in a extravagant moment of whimsy, another on her own. Panting, he smiled up at her in a doggish grin.
    “ There,” she said softly. “Though autumn is on the air, we shall both be crowned with summer while we may.”
    Just then, the dog pricked up his ears and turned away from her. Almost at once, she heard a distant voice call, “Caliban! Where the devil have you gone? Here, boy!”
    The dog wheeled away from her at this summons, the crown falling down over one ear as he ran. The sound of a human voice brought Marianne to her feet. She spun from her perch with an apprehensive start, and stepped behind the nearest stone pillar.
    Although she could not yet see the stranger, Marianne immediately had recognized in his tones the inflection of her own class. This was no mere countryman, but one who had undeniably sprung from the heart of the ton. The sensation of