Secret Heart Read Online Free Page A

much
thinner and quieter than I recall, but she has been missing for
more than half a year and who knows what happened to her during
that time? Changes or not, you’d think my heart would tell me yes
or no at once, wouldn’t you? If she had looked at me there on the
beach and said, ‘Yes, Garit, it’s me,’ I’d have been absolutely
sure. But she says she doesn’t know, and that makes me doubt. I wish you
had known her beyond a formal introduction. You could view her
dispassionately, which I cannot. I’d trust your
opinion.”
    “ I didn’t
have time to know the lady,” Roarke told him. “While you were
wooing Lady Chantal, I was working for King Henryk. In any case, I
wasn’t looking at women; I was avoiding them. You know
why.”
    “ Aye.”
Garit heaved a heavy sigh. “That’s understandable after what my
sister did to you. I’m sorry I can’t answer your questions, Roarke,
but I cannot be sure that the lady is Chantal.” Seeing the grief on
Garit’s face, Roarke decided to jolt his friend out of a sorrow
that he considered had lasted too long. “In all these months I’ve
hesitated to ask, out of consideration for your feelings and in
hope that we’d find your Chantal alive and well. But now that we
are dealing with a woman so similar to her, who possibly is her, I must put to
you the question I should have asked last spring. Did Lady Chantal
have any marks or blemishes on her body that might help us to
identify her? A peculiar mole, a scar, a birthmark,
perhaps?”
    “ Certainly not! She was without blemish!” Garit exclaimed,
rather too loudly. At Roarke’s quieting gesture he lowered his
voice and continued. “I never saw her unclothed. That’s what you’re
implying, isn’t it? I love Chantal with all my heart and will until
the day I die, but I never knew her carnally. She was chaste; she
understood what she owed to her family name. Not that her guardian
deserved her loyalty.”
    “ I agree
with you about Lord Walderon,” Roarke said quickly, to forestall
the complaints he was sure Garit wanted to utter. Over the last
half year he had heard those same complaints with depressing
regularity. “Walderon is vain, ambitious—”
    “ And
unscrupulous,” Garit finished. “He married a great heiress, but
that wasn’t enough for him. Oh, no; he had to arrange an alliance
for his niece and ward that was advantageous to him. Chantal told me that she
loathed the man she was to wed. She loves me, not Lord Malin.
That’s why we planned to run away and marry in secret.”
    “ I know.”
Roarke rested his hand on Garit’s shoulder in a gesture of
sympathy. “We’ve been through the story many times, and we’ve never
found a sensible explanation for her disappearance.”
    “ She
could be Chantal,” Garit said, looking toward the sleeping woman.
“Perhaps something was done to her to alter her memory. A mage
could have done it.”
    “ For what
purpose? Mages don’t expend their Power without a very good reason.
No, Garit, I believe we must accept that we may never know the
answers to many of our questions about your Chantal.” Roarke spoke
slowly because a scheme was beginning to unfold in his mind.
Perhaps Garit’s confusion over Jenia’s identity and the lady’s
professed memory loss wouldn’t matter. It was possible that the
resemblance alone would be sufficient. “Unless, of course, we can
devise a clever way to prove beyond any doubt exactly what happened
to Lady Chantal.”
    “ We have
been trying to discover the truth for half a year,” Garit said.
“Ever since Chantal disappeared and you were assigned to locate
her.”
    “ If you
will recall, I was given the mission only after you raised such a
clamor that King Henryk had to do something,” Roarke said, adding
with a faint smile, “As emissary for the king of Kantia, you, my
friend, are too important to ignore.”
    “ Much
good my so-called importance has been to Chantal,” Garit grumbled.
“I’ve had to steal a few