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

me.  “Is he also mad?” I asked.
    “No, he’s not mad, he’s royal, which may be worse.”
    “Royal, you say?”
    “So far as any of us here knows.  He hasn’t said, and neither has papa, but his demeanor is a telltale.  We think he may be a prince, and we’ve heard him speaking in another tongue, but it’s not one any of us can parse.”
    “Your mother, surely she knows.”
    “Oh yes, surely, but she’s not sharing it.  No, I mean us so to say myself or my maids.  I am not, at any rate, to speak to him.  It’s just as well.  He’s much too young to be interesting.  And I’m not entirely certain but I don’t think he much cares for women as a whole.”
    I laughed, which no doubt pleased Margritte to hear.
    “You can’t speak to the prince or the madman on the lawn, and your third option is me, another madman, shabbily dressed and a comparative pauper.  Surely there is a fourth option.”
    “As I said, Mr. Bates, I don’t believe you mad, and I know perfectly well you’re no pauper.   You are also not option number three.  Numbers one through seven or eight precede you, and do not include either of the men seated below.”
    “You’re not shy for suitors, then.”
    “They are the only thing I don’t lack excess of.”
    “And yet, under apparent duress, you’re being pushed toward lunatics.  I worry for the quality of your prior matches.”
    It was her turn to laugh, which was a lovely, infectious sound that was nearly good enough to distract me from the fact that I could see an imp named Silenus the Elder dancing at the edge of the woods with a bottle of wine and a goblet.  He wasn’t there, and I knew he wasn’t there, but it had been seemingly an eternity since my last taste of wine—and an actual eternity since I’d tasted the ancient Greek permutation—which made me wish I were wrong about him not being there.  Eventually, I was going to see something or someone I so preferred to think was actually there that I lacked the strength to convince myself otherwise.
    I turned all of my attention to Joanne.  Hopefully, she was real.
    “It pains me to say so,” she said, “but I fear my options have rolled downhill, not up.  There were the younger, the wealthier, the better dressed certainly.  Perhaps none so charming.”
    “I thank you, but I can’t imagine how you could mistake anything I’ve evinced thus far as charm.”
    “Not charm, then.  A levelness of character.  You’ve not spoken to me as a woman.”
    “Haven’t I?”  In my thinking, this meant I’d insulted her somehow.  “I apologize.”
    “No, no, you misunderstand.  I mean you’ve not spoken down to me, or behaved as though it was my honor to be in your company.  You are clearly a man with a congested mind and a deep reserve of private stories, but that only makes you more interesting.  I might even enjoy pretending to be courted by you for a while.  It would make mother so happy.”
    “Ours is to be an imaginary courtship, then?” 
    This was all very confusing, but not unpleasantly confusing.  She was an attractive young woman, and if I were in playing the scoundrel and not the lunatic I might consider pursuing her, only not with marriage in mind.  I’m not precisely in a good position to marry someone.  The problem begins and ends with the part where I don’t get any older, as this impacts my long-term relationships in a surprising number of ways.
    “I hope that’s all right,” she said.  “I’ve asked about, and the consolidated opinion regarding Mr. Reginald Bates is that he is not in the habit of eyeing women with any long-term perspective.  And I’m afraid my assets will not be made available to you on a short-term basis, although I can arrange that for you with another if you find yourself with an urgent need.”
    This was quickly becoming the most unusual conversation I’d had with a maiden in a hundred years.
    “Tell me, if we are to be honest with one another during