Читать книгу The Bride of the Unicorn - Kasey Michaels, Кейси Майклс, Kasey Michaels - Страница 13

With how much ease believe we what we wish!

Whatever is, is in its causes just.

John Dryden

CAROLINE LOOKED DOWN at her fingertips and the skin that was still soft and puckered from her bath, the first she had ever taken in a tub. She lifted her wrists to her nose, sniffing at the delicate scent of rose hip soap, a smile coming to her face as she raised her shoulders and rubbed her cheek against the collar of the soft pink terry wrapper the maid, Betts, had provided her with after helping her dry herself with huge white towels that had been warmed beside the fireplace.

Beneath the wrapper was a miles-too-long white cotton nightgown, old and mended, but with touches of lace at the hem, high collar, and cuffs. It had been one of Lord Clayton’s mother’s nightgowns, Betts had told Caroline, long since passed on to the servants’ quarters and well worn. Caroline thought it to be the most beautiful nightgown in creation.

She had told Betts, smiling at the girl, who was no more than a few years older than she—and who appeared to be shocked speechless at the admission—that she had slept in her shift in the summer and in the same clothes she worked in during the colder months. Betts’s possible disapproval had kept Caroline silent about the fact that, during the hottest nights, tucked up under the eaves in her narrow cot, she had dared to sleep with no clothing covering her at all.

Clucking her tongue over the sad state of Caroline’s bitten nails, Betts had nevertheless taken care to rub a perfumed ointment of crushed strawberries and cream into her new mistress’s hands, vowing that it would soon heal the dry, chapped skin, then solemnly repeated these ministrations on Caroline’s roughened feet and heels, an embarrassing and somewhat ticklish process that had made Caroline giggle nervously.

Betts had also helped her to wash her hair, then exclaimed that it was three shades lighter than it had been before the determined scrubbing that brought tears to Caroline’s eyes. Now, hanging halfway down her back, each strand free of tangles, Caroline’s hair was only faintly damp, for Betts had brushed it dry as the two of them sat on the hearthrug, warmed by the fire.

Now, lying back against the pillows as she sat cross-legged in the middle of the large tester bed, Caroline placed a hand on her stomach, enjoying the unfamiliar feeling of fullness that lingered a full two hours after her meal, which had been served on a silver platter—nothing like the wooden trencher she had used at Woodwere or the chipped bowl that was dipped into the common gruel pot at the orphanage. She was so full, in fact, that she didn’t believe she could eat above two of the half-dozen soft, crusty rolls she had stuffed into her bodice while Betts’s back was turned and later hidden behind one of the cushions on the chair in the corner.

Betts, before she left, had put forth the hope that “Lady Caroline” would have a restful night, and she had watched proprietarily as a footman slipped a warming pan between the sheets. Once the door closed behind the maid, Caroline had investigated every drawer and cabinet in the room, lifted each exquisitely formed figurine, inspected every small decoratively carved wooden chest and dainty porcelain box, sniffed at the contents of the crystal bottles on the dressing table, then whirled around in a circle in the middle of the room, arms outflung, laughing aloud at her good fortune.

All in all, Caroline decided happily now, looking around the candlelit room, she truly must have died—and this was heaven.

She had just stifled an unexpected yawn and was about to slip her toes beneath the coverlet, reluctantly giving in to sleep, when the door to the hallway opened once more and Miss Twittingdon—dressed in her ridiculous blue and purple plaid woolen wrapper and pink knitted slippers—entered, to stand beaming at Caroline.

“I’ve just come to check on my charge, my lady Dulcinea,” she said, approaching the bed. “I do hope you’ve been treated in accordance with your exalted rank. Otherwise there is nothing else for it but to sack the servants. Every last lazy one of them. Although I must say they have been extremely cooperative thus far, even going to the trouble to cut my meat for me when I found the chore beyond my strength.”

Caroline giggled and threw her entire upper body forward, pressing her forehead against the mattress, then rolled onto her back, her arms and legs spread wide as her sleek curtain of hair splayed out on the coverlet. She began sliding her limbs back and forth across the coverlet, in much the same way she could remember making angels in the snow at the orphanage when she was a child.

Then, looking up at Miss Twittingdon, her green eyes twinkling with mischief, she exclaimed, “Aunt Leticia! Can you believe this? Can you honestly believe any of this? Look at me! I’m reaching as far as I can in every direction, and still I’m miles and miles from the edge. We could fit six other people in this bed. Maybe eight!”

“My lady! To think such a thing! You are virginal,” Miss Twittingdon pointed out.

“Oh, pooh!” Caroline exclaimed, deliberately teasing the old woman with her own saying. She scrambled from the bed, not even noticing that her bare feet might be chilled by the cold floor, and began racing around the room. A generous amount of the material of her overlong nightdress bunched in one hand so that she wouldn’t trip, she pointed out one treasure after another to Miss Twittingdon until she happened to catch sight of herself in the tall freestanding mirror placed in front of one of the curtained windows. She released her grip on the material and stood rigidly still, looking at the stranger who grinned back at her. “Oh, my!”

Her smile slowly faded as she approached the mirror, one hand to her cheek as the other pressed against the cool glass, to confirm the evidence of her eyes. “Is this me, Aunt Leticia? Is this really me?”

“Of course it is you, my lady,” Miss Twittingdon stated firmly, if only slightly deferentially. “Surely you have seen yourself before this. You look as you have always looked every day of our acquaintance. Beautiful. Sweetly, heartbreakingly beautiful. However, you are barefoot, which I cannot approve, any more than I can like the notion of you remaining under this bachelor roof. I would be shirking my responsibility as your chaperon if I did not admit that. Have you had any of the apricot soufflé I was served earlier, my dear? It was supremely satisfying.”

Caroline began to gnaw on one side of the tip of her little finger, then abruptly dropped her hand, whirling to face the old lady she had cared for, the dear woman who had shared her comfits and her clean water and her faintly scrambled knowledge with her. “Aunt Leticia, you—you’ve always seen me as looking like this?”

Miss Twittingdon smiled, looking almost motherly. “Always, my dear. My beautiful Lady Dulcinea.”

“Lady Caroline,” Caroline corrected apologetically, turning back to the mirror. She took her disheveled hair in her hands, twisting it around and around itself, and pulled up the long blond coil against the back of her head so that it looked vaguely like one of the styles she had seen depicted on Miss Twittingdon’s fashion plates, then tilted her small chin and looked down her nose at her own reflection. “You must remember to call me Lady Caroline, Aunt Leticia. It is very important to the marquis’s plans.”

And then she crossed her eyes and grinned.

“Sons and fathers, fathers and sons;

Do you e’er wonder which are the ones

Who, siring, or born through transient lust,

First turn family love and honor to dust?

Father and son, son and father;

Living and lying are such a bother.

The days keep turning, the hate burns bright,

And the only peace is in endless night.”

MORGAN CAREFULLY PLACED his wineglass on the table beside him and looked at Ferdie Haswit, who was perched elflike on the center cushion of the overstuffed couch. “Maudlin little beast, aren’t you?” he inquired casually while idly wondering why he had thought to pour himself a glass of wine when it had only gone eleven—he, who never drank before three.

Ferdie grinned, showing even but widely spaced small teeth that reminded Morgan of a monkey he had seen once at a local fair. “Not really, my lord. I encountered your father this morning at breakfast. You had just finished and gone, although I noticed that you had left your plate all but untouched. The duke promised to say a prayer for me. Do you think he believes he can ask the good Lord to make me grow?”

“Now, why do I find it difficult to believe you expect me to answer that particular question?” Morgan put forth, feeling vaguely embarrassed for his father.

Ferdie waved one short arm as if in dismissal of Morgan’s words, his pudgy fingers spread wide. “You’re right. Never mind that last bit. His grace was most solicitous, offering to have one of the servants fetch me a pillow so that I might be more comfortable at table. A very agreeable man, your father. So tell me, if a confirmed although recently liberated lunatic might be allowed to inquire—why do you two dislike each other?”

“I have always considered it a mistake in judgment to overeducate infants,” Morgan said, staring piercingly at Ferdie. “They ask such impertinent questions.”

“Sorry,” the dwarf apologized quickly, holding up his hands as if the marquis had just produced a pistol from behind his back and leveled it at him. “At least your father acknowledges you. I imagine I’m just jealous, when I should be grateful that you allowed Caro to convince you that she couldn’t bear to leave her dear friends behind if she tossed in her lot with you. You aren’t going to hurt her, are you? I’d have to kill you if you did, and I rather like you.”

“Maudlin, impertinent, and bloodthirsty. You have quite a lot of vices stuffed into that small body, don’t you, Ferdie?”

“See? I told you I liked you!” Ferdie maneuvered his body forward and hopped down off the couch. “You couldn’t care less whether or not you insult me, when most people either stare at me like they’re seeing something that just climbed out from beneath a rock or look at me with pity in their eyes—like your father. And yet you treat me like I have a mind—as if I can think! You can’t imagine what it is like to have people talk above you, as if you can’t understand plain English, or yell at you, as if you’re deaf as well as stunted, or hate you—call you names or throw stones at you—because you scare them, because your very existence reminds them that God still makes mistakes. But you—you don’t hate me or pity me or look down on me.” He shook his large head, tears standing in his eyes. “You treat me like I was just anybody.”

“Which is not the same as saying I like you,” Morgan pointed out, beginning to smile. “You can be as obnoxious as all hell, you know.”

Ferdie clambered back up onto the sofa cushions, then turned to wink at Morgan. “Yes, my lord. I know. I’ve had considerable practice at it. But I’m not short of a sheet. I’m just short.”