Waterfall Read Online Free Page B

six-no, seven hundred years.
    My captor grabbed my arm again, wrenching me forward.
    “What are you going to do with her, Marcello?” asked a man behind me, to my left.

    “I do not know.”
    “How will you explain her to your father?”
    “I do not know.” The guy named Marcello glanced at me again. “You are from Normandy, yes?”
    Again, with the Normandy business. The people of the north, sometimes allies, sometimes enemies. It might be dangerous to answer this. But how else to explain my curious arrival? “You have guessed well,” I said, pulling back my shoulders, lifting my chin. There was only one way to play this. The superior, don’t-mess-withme route. “I am Lady Gabriella Betarrini. I am in search of my mother, and now, my sister, too.”
    “Lady Betarrini,” Marcello said, his face softening a bit at my false title. “How is it that you have become separated from your kin?”
    I paused, my mind fumbling through several believable explanations. “My sister and I came here searching for our mother. She had traveled here on business, but has not responded to our correspondence”-never mind that she couldn’t if she tried-“and we feared something terrible had befallen her.”
    Befallen? When did I ever say befallen? Maybe I had some sort of illness that messed with the language part of my brain as well.
    He helped me over a fallen tree, and I silently congratulated myself for my fast thinking. This way, if Lia or my mom showed up, we’d have a story. And he might even help me find them. Across a clearing, I spotted eight horses.
    “She traveled alone?”
    I hesitated. I could tell by his tone that that wouldn’t have been very likely in his time. “With an escort, of course.”
    He frowned. “Her men were trustworthy?”

    “Very much so.”
    The lighter-haired knight, apparently Marcello’s right-hand man, gestured for the others to go ahead to their mounts, leaving the three of us alone. I heard Marcello call him Luca.
    “And your own men?” Marcello pressed. “What became of them?”
    I thought fast. “Disappeared in the night, with all our possessions.”
    “Your horses, too?” Luca asked.
    “Gone,” I said. Like they’d never existed.
    “Blackguards,” Marcello said. “If we come across them in Toscana, rest assured they will pay for their crimes.”
    I nodded, holding back a smile. But he was still on a roll. “What is your mother’s name? Perhaps my father and I can assist you in finding her. And you said you’ve now become separated from your sister?”
    I frowned. Where was Lia? She had been there in the tomb with me; had she made it through this time warp too? And if so, why hadn’t she been there in the tomb? “We…we became separated. Lost in the woods, I found shelter last night in the tomb. I must’ve fallen asleep… the sounds of your battle woke me.”
    “A tomb of the ancients is an odd place to shelter,” Luca said, eyes filled with confusion.
    “It was dark,” I returned. “I didn’t know it to be a tomb.”
    “Good thing you didn’t,” said Luca, with a mischievous look in his eye. “Or you might not have slept a wink. The ghosts might have kept you company all night.” He lifted his eyebrow and grinned.
    I wasn’t quite sure what to make of the guy. Was he trying to scare me? Or be my friend?

    “In any case, these woods are hardly the place for a gentlewoman to be roaming about,” Marcello said. “Had you fallen into the hands of our enemies…” He inhaled and looked at me sharply. “The Paratores are hardly kind to strangers.”
    His voice dropped, and he glanced away as if remembering some other, tragic soul. A shiver ran down my back. He returned his warm, chocolate eyes to me, and, somehow, I gained comfort.
    “Forgive me, m’lady. I’ve forgotten proper introductions. I am Sir Marcello Forelli,” he said with a slight bow and gesture of hand.
    “Future lord of Castello Forelli,” said his friend, gesturing with his chin at