Lord of Legends. Susan Krinard

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      There was only one place in Donbridge where she might find them. It wouldn’t be difficult to enter Donnington’s rooms; they were directly next door to her own, with a small dressing room between them. And there was no time to waste.

      Donnington hadn’t locked his door. Mariah stepped into his room, briefly arrested by the faint smell of the man she’d married. He was prone to using a certain cologne, one she had liked when he was courting her.

      She had never been in his suite before. It was his domain, like his study and the billiard room. The furniture was unmistakably masculine, and Donnington had managed to find space on the walls to mount a few more of the smaller animal heads.

      Shaking off an uncomfortable blend of disgust and regret, Mariah went directly to his wardrobe. She opened one of the drawers, selected appropriate undergarments—which might have made her blush, had she not seen far worse at the asylum—chose two of the shirts he’d left behind, then moved quickly to the trousers. Stockings were next, along with a pair of walking shoes that had seen hard use. She filched the towels from his washstand, along with a spare shaving kit, a comb and a bar of soap.

      She paused, quite in spite of herself, to glance in his mirror, wondering what Donnington had seen in her.

      Black, slightly waving hair, now loose around her shoulders. An oval face with rather common blue eyes, straight brows, and a well-shaped nose and mouth. Not pretty, perhaps, but perfectly acceptable.

       Was it really my fault that he left? Did he find out about Mama, despite all Papa’s efforts to buy off anyone who might tattle?

      Mariah turned away from the mirror and glanced once more about the room. A waistcoat? No, that was hardly necessary now. A jacket. The prisoner would need its warmth in that cold chamber, though it might be pleasant enough outside. She returned to the wardrobe and removed one of Donnington’s hunting jackets, the one he preferred to wear on the estate. Searching for something in which to wrap the clothing and supplies, she found a rucksack tucked in a corner of the room, along with several empty crates and a pair of lens-less binoculars.

      Stuffing the clothing into the bag, she returned to her own room. On impulse, she went straight to her small bookcase, where she kept the books she’d loved as a child. Most were volumes of fairy tales, which for months after Mama’s death Mariah hadn’t dared to open.

      Now she had some use for them. If the prisoner was capable of regaining his speech—presuming he’d ever had it to begin with—reading to him would surely assist in the process.

      I can’t keep calling him the prisoner, she thought. But no appropriate name came to her.

      She set down the bag, thumbed through a book of Perrault’s fairy tales and found the story of Cendrillon, Cinderella. When Mariah was very young, Mrs. Marron had liked to collect stories from every country.

      Cinderella in the German language was Aschenbrödel. Mariah vaguely remembered a variation on the tale where the main character had been a boy, not a girl.

      Aschen. Ash. Ashton was a proper name, especially in England.

      “Ash.” She spoke the name aloud, nodded to herself and placed three of the books in the bag. Then she hid the bag under her bed. She would go out again tonight, when the dowager was asleep.

       Caution. Discretion …

      A knock at the door broke into her thoughts. It was Barbara, the parlor maid, who bobbed a curtsey as Mariah let her in.

      “The dowager Lady Donnington requests your presence in the morning room, your ladyship,” she said, never meeting Mariah’s eyes.

      Mariah wondered if Vivian had already heard about her conversation with Nola. “What does she want, Barbara?” she asked warily.

      Barbara was clearly dismayed by Mariah’s directness. “Mr. Ware has come, your ladyship,” she said.

      “Sinjin!” Mariah instantly forgot her worry and smoothed her skirts. Not that he would care about her appearance; he had excellent taste in ladies’ fashions and an extraordinary eye, but he was, after all, her brother-in-law. He and Mariah had been friends from their first meeting.

      “Please inform the dowager that I’ll be down directly,” Mariah told the maid, who was off in a flash. Mariah glanced at the mirror over her washstand to make certain her pins were still in place, and then descended to the morning room.

      St. John Ware rose to his feet as soon as she entered. He smiled at her … that sly, enigmatic smile that suggested he and she shared a secret no one else would ever know. Mariah nodded to the dowager and greeted Sinjin with an extended hand.

      “Mr. Ware,” she said. “How delightful to see you again.”

      He rolled his eyes at her unaccustomed formality and turned to Vivian. “The dowager was kind enough to let me in despite the early hour.”

      Vivian looked askance at him. “And why should I not welcome my own son at any hour?” she asked crisply.

      “Your scapegrace son,” he said. “Or ought that title now go to Donnington?”

      The very room froze as Vivian understood his jest. She stiffened, her spine as rigid as one of Donnington’s elephant guns.

      “You will not speak so of your elder brother,” she said.

      Sinjin managed to seem chastened. “You’re quite right, Mother,” he said. “Please forgive me.”

      Forgiveness was not in Vivian’s nature, but she nodded with the graciousness of a queen. “You may ring for tea.”

      He moved swiftly to the bellpull and summoned Parish, the butler. Barbara arrived with the tray a short while later. The dowager poured without acknowledging Mariah’s right to do so.

      She is still angry about the question I asked her, Mariah thought. But why? Is it merely because it might have implied …

      “What brings you to Donbridge, Sinjin?” Vivian asked briskly.

      Sinjin examined his fine china teacup. “Why shouldn’t I pay my respects to my own mother?”

      “You have never shown much respect for anything, let alone your mother,” Vivian said.

      “You quite wound me,” Sinjin said, too lightly to be reproachful. “I have the utmost respect for you, my dear.”

      Vivian was incapable of being less than dignified, but she came very close to a snort. “What do you require, Sinjin? A loan for the repayment of your debts?”

      Sinjin’s expression grew pained. “I am not so mercenary as you think, Mother.”

      She sipped her tea delicately. “If you had gone into the army as your father intended, you would not be in such straits.”

      For all the relative brevity of their acquaintance, Mariah knew how much Sinjin despised this topic. “Lady Donnington,” he said pointedly, “must find such a subject tedious, Mother.”

      Mariah knew it would have been politic to absent СКАЧАТЬ