A Curious Beginning Read Online Free PDF Page A

to choke me. I could not speak for a moment, and when I did, my usually low voice was quick and high. “You knew my mother! How very extraordinary. I must confess, I know nothing of her.”
    He hesitated. “She was the most beautiful creature I have ever seen,” he said simply.
    I gave him an arch smile. “I suspect I look nothing like her, then.”
    The baron protested, as I had expected he would.
    â€œNo woman can be so lovely and not know it,” he told me firmly. He put a finger under my chin and tipped my head this way and that, studying me carefully. “You might be her twin. It is uncanny, as if I were looking into her face once more. The same lips, the same cheekbones. I told her once I could cut glass upon those cheekbones. And of course, the eyes. I have never seen eyes that color before or since.”
    â€œAunt Nell used to say it was not decent to have violet eyes, that they were the telltale sign of a bad nature, like ginger hair or a hunchback. And village children used to tease me about being a bad fairy—a changeling child.”
    â€œChildren can be very stupid,” the baron said gravely.
    â€œAnd dull, which is why I have no interest in becoming a mother of six,” I told him. He lifted his brows.
    â€œSix is a curiously specific number.”
    â€œI had a curiously specific offer today, but let us speak no more of that. Of course, I do not wish to be a paid companion or a daughter-in-law either. I have had quite enough of attending to elderly ladies,” I finished absently.
    â€œThey were good to you, though?” he asked, his tone shaded with anxiety. “The Harbottle ladies? They treated you with kindness?”
    â€œOh yes. I was fed and clothed and I don’t suppose I ever wanted for anything, not really. I had a new dress every season and new books to read. Of course, that was due to the lending library. We moved so often I could never keep books of my own. Aunt Lucy always bought a subscription to the library as soon as we settled in a new village. As I grew older, I pursued my own interests. I have traveled far and seen much of the world, and when the aunts had need of me, I returned to care for them. It was a pleasant enough life.”
    â€œDid you mind, all of this moving to and fro?”
    I grinned. “If I am honest, I loathed it as a child. It always seemed that we moved just as I had amassed a good collection—eggs, frogs, beetles. I was forever leaving behind something I loved. The aunts were driven by their whims. One year we might live the whole twelvemonth in Lyme. The next they would have us move from town to town, four within the span of a year. I learned to accept it, as children do. And it taught me to travel lightly.” I narrowed my gaze. “You said you knew them. I do not remember meeting friends of theirs. They kept so much to themselves. And I never knew my mother, not even her name. What can you tell me?”
    The baron opened his mouth, his lips pursed. Then he closed it sharply and shook his head. “Nothing at this moment, child. The truth is not mine to speak. I must seek permission before I reveal to you what I know, but I promise you, I will seek it, and when the moment is right, I will tell you all.”
    I sighed. I was, truth be told, quite frustrated at the baron’s obstinacy, but there was something steely in his manner that told me he would not be moved upon the point. “I suppose I will have to be satisfied with that.”
    The baron relaxed visibly then, but almost as soon as his expression eased, a shadow passed over his features again. “For now, the most important thing is to make certain that you are safe.”
    â€œYou keep talking of my safety, but I cannot imagine why! I am the least interesting person in England, I assure you. No one could possibly want to harm me.” That was not entirely true, I reflected. The last paper I had written for
The British