Fortune's Mistress Read Online Free Page B

vulnerability, the fear of exposure, washed over her like a sudden shower, prompting a shudder she was unable to quell. As she flattened herself against the stone, she experienced as well an odd annoyance rising in her at the notion of an intruder in her dale. She recognized quite well the foolishness of such a feeling, but still, she felt deflated, as if a magic spell had been broken.
    “ Good boy, Caliban, but what is this?”
    Marianne peeped out from her shelter behind the stone column, and caught a glimpse of the gentleman as he emerged and knelt beside the dog. He fingered the wreath curiously for a moment before saying, “I cannot but say it becomes you, friend.”
    He looked about, then caught sight of Marianne before she could slip behind the boulder once more. He approached her at once, and closer inspection of him brought Marianne up short, for he was not at all what she had anticipated. His accent had brought to mind the polished figure and style of a Corinthian. She expected hair à la Brutus, and a cravat done in the Mathematical at the very least. The gentleman who greeted her just then fit this picture not at all.
    His hair was bright gold and badly in need of cutting; his linen was tied in a simple knot. While aristocratic, his face was marred by a long fine scar, which traced a path from his chin to his left ear. It looked, she thought unaccountably, as if he had been grazed by the sharp steel edge of an angel ’s wing in some encounter between the celestial and the mundane.
    There was something more, though. The gentleman looked . . . alive. That was the only word for it. His eyes smiled, his color was high. When he moved, it was with true purpose, rather than mere achievement of effect. The impact of his presence, of his eyes on her, was almost palpable, so very different from that of the indolent rakes who had until recently comprised her male acquaintance.
    He stepped forward, smiling pleasantly, as he placed one hand dramatically over his breast, “‘Most sure the goddess on whom these airs attend! Vouchsafe my prayer may know if you remain upon this island and that you will some good instruction give how I may bear me here; my prime request which I do last pronounce, is, 0 you wonder! if you be maid or no?’”
    “‘ No wonder, sir,’” Marianne replied, recognizing Shakespeare’s lines from The Tempest, “‘but…’”Her voice trailed off as she recalled the remainder of the speech, but certainly a maid. That would never do, for she had been anything but a maiden these five years. As the words died on her lips, she felt the color rise to her cheeks.
    When the gentleman stood before her, he exe cuted a deep bow and, despite her chagrin, Marianne felt a smile tug at the corners of her lips. It had been a long while since she had enjoyed even the smallest gallantry. She refrained, however, from returning the gesture with a curtsey, although the instinct to do so felt altogether natural, here on this greening hillside. Instead, she hastily pulled the coronet from her hair, and merely nodded at the gentleman.
    “ Forgive me,” he laughed. “I hope I have not dismayed you into silence with my ill-chosen whimsy! Whenever I come into the circle, though, the fairy folk seem to take hold of my good sense. For the most part, it is only Caliban here who must usually endure my ravings.”
    “ Do you suppose yourself to be Ariel, then?” she asked with mock incredulity.
    “ Alas, no,” he returned, “a mere creature of flesh and bone. A very Ferdinand, I am afraid— which must, perforce, make you Miranda!”
    “ Perhaps,” she replied, at last allowing a smile to form, “but I am very much afraid it is Miranda in later years.”
    “ Ah, yes,” he said speculatively. “I can see you are a veritable crone.”
    “ I should have thought the realms of faerie would have taught you to distrust appearances,” she replied. “For aught you know, I am a cruel hag, who will by my enchantment