Immortal and the Madman (The Immortal Chronicles Book 3) Read Online Free

frightened I was by a few trees.
    It was maybe my fourth or fifth day on the veranda before someone developed the courage to strike up a conversation.  That person was Joanne, of all people.  She hadn’t even been interested in introducing herself upon my arrival, and so was just about the last person I expected to find in the chair next to mine.
    “Papa goes hunting,” she said, after a lengthy silence in which we took turns sampling cucumber sandwiches and sipping tea.
    “Pardon?”  My voice sounded weird to my ears, as I’d not used it for a little while.  Her voice sounded very pleasant.  She was also comelier than memory served, but that might have been because it didn’t look as if she was making any particular effort to impress. She had her auburn hair down and wore a casual dress, and her face had no heavy makeup to it.  Everyone in her family was a natural beauty, but somehow when she tried to make herself attractive she looked worse than when she made no effort at all.
    “In the trees you can’t seem to stop looking at,” she said.  “Papa goes hunting in there, on Sundays.  Fox hunting, with the dogs.  I’m certain if you asked he would happily bring you along.”
    “Ah,” I said.  “Thank you.  Is Cornelius here?”
    “Oh no, he’s in the city for a time.  He’s not expected back for a month or more.  Business, I’m told.  As much as I’m told anything.”
    “I see.” 
    In the uncomfortable silence that followed I went back to staring, while Joanne remained where she was and we made a game attempt at not feeling awkward.
    She started and stopped two or three different sentences, before settling on one.  “They want me to talk to you,” she said.  It was in a conspiratorial near-whisper.  “But I don’t know what to say.”
    I leaned forward.  “They?”
    She nodded over her shoulder.  Behind us was a set of French doors that led to an indoor sitting room.  As it was bright and sunny outside, the inner room appeared dark, but not so dark I couldn’t see Margritte and another woman trying hard to pretend they weren’t looking at us.
    “I don’t think I understand,” I said.
    I sort of did understand, but it was hardly polite to say so.  At twenty-seven, Joanne was approaching spinsterhood.  It was something of a minor family scandal that she had thus far failed to land an appropriate suitor, although it must also be said that as the youngest daughter she had the least pressure of any of them to marry.  Cornelius and Margritte didn’t need her to wed for political, social or financial reasons, so far as I knew.  She should have been more or less free to marry for her own interests alone.  That she’d not done so I took to mean she simply hadn’t found the right man.
    “Oh, sir, of course you must,” she said.
    “It would be my pleasure to enjoy your company for as long as you wish to extend it, but surely all concerned are aware of my current mental state.”
    “There is your unseemly preoccupation with the local flora.  But you are hardly mad.  I have met madmen, and you don’t meet the qualifications.”
    “You are an expert?”
    “I have become one.  Papa has been tending to the… exhausted , shall we say… for some time.”
    Looking down the lawn, she pointed out another guest.  “There, that is a madman.”  There were several tables and chairs set up on the manicured grass, and sitting at one such table was a man I’d seen a few times but not spoken to.  (Not that I’d been speaking to anybody.)
    “He’s reading a book,” I pointed out.  “I fear your definition of madness is wanting.”
    “That depends on what he’s reading, doesn’t it? I agree right now he doesn’t appear fearsome, but he is very much mad.  Speak to him if you don’t believe me.”
    “Perhaps I will.” 
    There was a second guest on the lawn, one who had a vague sort of foreign quality that was difficult to pin down but impossible to ignore, even for