Read Online The Countess by Claire Delacroix - Free Book Online

her mother was dismounting with that enviable ease and striding toward the fresh kill.
    Eglantine whistled, her peregrine so well trained that there was no need for the lure. With evident reluctance, the bird left the bloodied rabbit. It landed on Eglantine’s upraised fist, the weight of impact making her hand momentarily dip to her waist.
    Eglantine stroked the bird’s throat, Melusine ruffling its feathers in what might have been pleasure. “Perhaps you might hood her, Jacqueline.”
    â€œNay, not I!” Jacqueline eyed the dangerously sharp talons, the vicious beak, and backed away.
    Her mother’s level gaze seemed to see directly to her cowardice. “Then you would prefer to fetch the heart for her?”
    Jacqueline’s bile rose, and she dreaded either option. She retrieved the hood with shaking fingers, but hesitated before the peregrine’s cold gaze. “She will not let me do it.”
    â€œOf course she will. She is accustomed to it, after all.” Eglantine’s voice dropped and softened. “The secret is to not hesitate. She is a predator and alert to the scent of fear.”
    Still Jacqueline eyed the bird warily. It studied her coldly in return.
    â€œYou can do this if indeed you wish to lend aid,” her mother asserted softly, the confidence in her voice warming Jacqueline. “You have greater fortitude than you can begin to guess.”
    The warmth in her mother’s eyes compelled Jacqueline to lift the hood. She moved quickly, surprised by her expertise, and hooded the bird without incident.
    â€œWell done,” Eglantine declared, the pair sharing a triumphant smile that buoyed the younger woman. “Now, don this extra glove and take Melusine.”
    Jacqueline’s sense of victory was immediately dispelled. “Her talons will tear my flesh.”
    â€œNay, the glove is meant to deter that,” Eglantine insisted. “Her grip will be tight, but you have only to move your fingers if ’tis too much to bear. Melusine knows her place.”
    Despite her doubts, Jacqueline believed the words. Her mother, after all, was always right.
    A mere moment later, Jacqueline was holding the restless hunter on her own hand, her heart hammering in trepidation at the clench of those claws upon her fist. Eglantine moved quickly, taking her own dagger to gut the rabbit and remove the heart. She returned with the bloody souvenir in her gloved right hand and lifted her left fist for the bird.
    â€œEase her to my glove, just so,” she urged in an undertone. “Exactly. Remove her hood slowly so as not to frighten her. See, she smells the meat!”
    Jacqueline swallowed her gorge as the bird feasted greedily upon the treat, shaking it a little as though imagining a tussle. “You always feed Melusine from your hand.”
    â€œâ€™Tis an old trick. It persuades her to not ignore the lure or whistle because she could not survive without me.”
    â€œSurely that is a lie!”
    â€œSurely ’tis. I cannot imagine that Melusine is so fool as to believe it, but she returns all the same. The falconer oft said she should be given cooked meat so as to deepen her dependence.” Eglantine looked up quickly, a twinkle in her eye. “But I find it hard to believe that peregrines favor chicken stew with dumplings over their own fresh kill.”
    Jacqueline was startled that her mother did not abide by every rule she had been taught. “ You broke the falconer’s rule?”
    â€œOh, I have broken more than that!” Her mother’s next comment was even more surprising. “I have broken the law in bringing us here, Jacqueline, and that is no small matter.”
    Jacqueline blinked, but ’twas yet her mother standing before her. “But why?”
    â€œOne must constantly steer a course, Jacqueline, between choices good and bad. ’Tis often difficult to decide what is the greater good, no less how to