Rescued Read Online Free Page A

Rescued
Book: Rescued Read Online Free
Author: Margaret Peterson Haddix
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course Leonid wouldn’t have known to call it a drawing room then. Across the room, a young girl in a sleek black dress and a frilly apron looked up and smiled.
    â€œIs that . . . is that one of the grand duchesses?” young Leonid whispered to his uncle.
    Ivan seemed to be doing his best to hide a smile.
    â€œNo, just one of the maids,” he whispered back. “See her feather duster?”
    Leonid had not. Not exactly. As much as he’d noticed the feathery thing in Clothilde’s hand, he’d thought it was yet another adornment, an oversize bracelet perhaps—some luxurious fashion that had not yet reached his village.
    And, indeed, no one used feather dusters there.
    â€œEven maids at the palace are that beautiful?” young Leonid asked, his eyes widening with amazement.
    Ivan laughed.
    â€œThis one is,” he said.
    Clothilde was beautiful; it wasn’t just Leonid’s memory playing tricks on him. Against her crisp black dress, her long, dark hair glistened in the sunlight coming through the perfectly polished window. Her green eyes were warm with laughter, because of course she’d heard Ivan and Leonid’s whispers. Her smile was more for Ivan than for Leonid—Leonid hadn’t seen that then, but he did now. It didn’t matter. Her eyes stayed kind when they alighted on Leonid in all his gawky, gaping awkwardness.
    She walked toward Ivan and Leonid, and gave an exaggerated curtsy. Then she reached over and boldly brushed the hair from Leonid’s forehead.
    â€œFresh from the countryside, I see,” she said. “I’m Clothilde. Pleased to meet you.”
    â€œFresh from France?” Ivan ventured to guess.
    Clothilde laughed, in a way Leonid hadn’t understood back then. There was an edge to it.
    â€œThat is what the tsarina—and I—would like everyone to believe,” she said.
    Leonid would learn later that Clothilde had once been an ordinary Russian Masha, but it was more convenient to take on a French name and accent. French maids made more money; they were less likely to be fired, no matter how bad they were at dusting or pouring tea.
    Back then, fresh from the countryside, Leonid could never have imagined trying to be anyone but himself. He never would have imagined that he could be anyone but himself: an ordinary peasant boy.
    Leonid got lost in his thoughts—he missed whatever Ivan said back to Clothilde. He’d probably missed half the conversation the first time around too.
    But he still remembered what Clothilde had said to him next.
    On the wall, she was turning toward the impossibly young, naïve peasant Leonid. She was about to speak. . . .
    â€œBe careful here, little country boy,” she said. “Don’t go falling for every pretty girl you see. I saw you first.”
    Leonid could remember how that had made him feel when he first heard those words. He felt claimed . He felt like Clothilde was really saying, I’ve fallen in love with you just as much as you’ve fallen in love with me. This is my promise: We’ll be together forever. We were fated for this moment. We were fated to be as one.
    Now Leonid saw how completely Clothilde had been teasing him. It had been cruel, really, to flirt so outrageously with such an innocent.
    But what if we were fated? Leonid wondered. What if Clothilde somehow sensed it, even then?
    Could they still be fated now? Could they have been meant to share something that transcended even Leonid being yanked out of time?
    â€œStop,” Leonid told the wall, because he remembered that he’d stumbled over his own feet walking away from Clothilde that first day, and he didn’t need to watch that. Also, he needed to do something before he lost his nerve. “Show me where Clothilde is right now.”
    â€œThere isn’t any such thing as ‘now’ in a time hollow,” the wall whispered back to him.
    â€œI mean in 1918,” Leonid
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