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Authors: Andre Norton, Rosemary Edghill
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–
Smoked –
Ignited.
With a sizzling flare, the iron surface of the stove burst into bright hot light In their
scramble to evade the flames one of the Jacks was flung into the midst of the fire by
his companions, and another fell to a blow from Wessex’s cudgel. His Grace did
not remain to see the end of the play; he was out the door upon the instant, grabbing
deMorrissey by the shoulder as he passed and running fleet as any fox before the
hounds. Together the two men fled through the moonlight garden and into the street
of what until quite recendy had been a quiet respectable Paris neighborhood.
Wessex knew the city of Paris well; it was his business to know such things.
Soon he and his charge were several streets away, and had, temporarily at least, lost
their pursuers.
„What now?“ deMorrissey panted.
„A fast horse and the Calais road,“ Wessex replied. „It seems I have an
engagement at the Marchioness of Roxbury’s – and I should so hate to disappoint a
lady.“
Chapter 5
La Belle Dame Sans Merci
(April 20th, 1805)
It was April 20th – four days since the crash of the mail coach on its way to
London.
The young woman in the massive four-poster bed tossed fretfully, trying to throw
off the heavy embroidered velvet coverlet that insulated her from the April chill. But
each time she managed to do so, the quiet woman who sat in the chair by the fire
would get to her feet and replace the coverlet over the young woman’s restless
body. Her name was Gardner, and not so many years ago she had been the young
Marchioness of Roxbury’s nurse, just as she had nursed Roxbury’s mother, and her
mother before her.
Gardner’s skin had the frail porcelain color of extreme old age, but her spine was
still poker-straight and her mismatched eyes – one blue, one brown – were bright
and intelligent.
„How does she?“
Dame Alecto’s entry into the room had been as silent as that of any of Sarah
Cunninghams’s Cree companions. The Dowager Duchess of Wessex’s trusted
emissary glanced toward the bed where the woman the world knew as the
Marchioness of Roxbury – a Roxbury mysteriously restored to vibrant health – lay
in laudanum-induced dreams. In her hands, Dame Alecto – this world’s Alecto
Kennet – held a small carved wooden box inlaid with silver long since darkened to
soft black by the passage of uncounted years.
„Well as might any whose soul still wanders Between the Worlds,“ Gardner said,
the Scots burr of her girlhood still evident in her soft voice. „I pray me that the Luck
is with us, and we may lead her back to us again.“
„It wants more than luck,“ Dame Alecto said, as if to herself. Strong magic had.
opened the Veil Between the Worlds, allowing one Sarah to pass away through it
and another to arrive. The woman who had been bom in this house and this bed was
dead in a world now sealed to them, but her world-double was here, and in their
power.
Dame Alecto regarded the figure in the bed with a gaze more critical than any the
false Roxbury’s servants had employed. If one knew what one was looking for, it
was easy to tell this was not the trueborn Marchioness. The weathered skin, the
work-roughened hands, small scars from wounds that Sarah Conyngham, Lady
Roxbury, had never suffered… the differences were patent, if subtle. Even Dr.
Falconer, her ladyship’s personal physician, when called to her side in haste for the
second time in one day, had only taken Sarah for the Marchioness in the heat of the
moment – and in the heat of his fury at finding her breathing strong, the raging
consumption vanished. Falconer had ascribed the Marchioness’s improvement in
health to some other device than the one that Dame Alecto had employed….
„I might have expected this of you,“ he said in a jury to the baffled Sarah.
„Doesn’t Tour Ladyship know
Smoked –
Ignited.
With a sizzling flare, the iron surface of the stove burst into bright hot light In their
scramble to evade the flames one of the Jacks was flung into the midst of the fire by
his companions, and another fell to a blow from Wessex’s cudgel. His Grace did
not remain to see the end of the play; he was out the door upon the instant, grabbing
deMorrissey by the shoulder as he passed and running fleet as any fox before the
hounds. Together the two men fled through the moonlight garden and into the street
of what until quite recendy had been a quiet respectable Paris neighborhood.
Wessex knew the city of Paris well; it was his business to know such things.
Soon he and his charge were several streets away, and had, temporarily at least, lost
their pursuers.
„What now?“ deMorrissey panted.
„A fast horse and the Calais road,“ Wessex replied. „It seems I have an
engagement at the Marchioness of Roxbury’s – and I should so hate to disappoint a
lady.“
Chapter 5
La Belle Dame Sans Merci
(April 20th, 1805)
It was April 20th – four days since the crash of the mail coach on its way to
London.
The young woman in the massive four-poster bed tossed fretfully, trying to throw
off the heavy embroidered velvet coverlet that insulated her from the April chill. But
each time she managed to do so, the quiet woman who sat in the chair by the fire
would get to her feet and replace the coverlet over the young woman’s restless
body. Her name was Gardner, and not so many years ago she had been the young
Marchioness of Roxbury’s nurse, just as she had nursed Roxbury’s mother, and her
mother before her.
Gardner’s skin had the frail porcelain color of extreme old age, but her spine was
still poker-straight and her mismatched eyes – one blue, one brown – were bright
and intelligent.
„How does she?“
Dame Alecto’s entry into the room had been as silent as that of any of Sarah
Cunninghams’s Cree companions. The Dowager Duchess of Wessex’s trusted
emissary glanced toward the bed where the woman the world knew as the
Marchioness of Roxbury – a Roxbury mysteriously restored to vibrant health – lay
in laudanum-induced dreams. In her hands, Dame Alecto – this world’s Alecto
Kennet – held a small carved wooden box inlaid with silver long since darkened to
soft black by the passage of uncounted years.
„Well as might any whose soul still wanders Between the Worlds,“ Gardner said,
the Scots burr of her girlhood still evident in her soft voice. „I pray me that the Luck
is with us, and we may lead her back to us again.“
„It wants more than luck,“ Dame Alecto said, as if to herself. Strong magic had.
opened the Veil Between the Worlds, allowing one Sarah to pass away through it
and another to arrive. The woman who had been bom in this house and this bed was
dead in a world now sealed to them, but her world-double was here, and in their
power.
Dame Alecto regarded the figure in the bed with a gaze more critical than any the
false Roxbury’s servants had employed. If one knew what one was looking for, it
was easy to tell this was not the trueborn Marchioness. The weathered skin, the
work-roughened hands, small scars from wounds that Sarah Conyngham, Lady
Roxbury, had never suffered… the differences were patent, if subtle. Even Dr.
Falconer, her ladyship’s personal physician, when called to her side in haste for the
second time in one day, had only taken Sarah for the Marchioness in the heat of the
moment – and in the heat of his fury at finding her breathing strong, the raging
consumption vanished. Falconer had ascribed the Marchioness’s improvement in
health to some other device than the one that Dame Alecto had employed….
„I might have expected this of you,“ he said in a jury to the baffled Sarah.
„Doesn’t Tour Ladyship know
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