Angel of Hever Castle, The Read Online Free PDF

will,” Anne said.  “You can strike me morning and night if you wish, and yet it will not change the truth.  That you brought me here on a sea of false promises, that you are a man who cannot hold his drink, who crashes about in a stupor and barks orders at people too afraid to challenge him.  And it will not change the fact that the woman in that portrait, your own Angel of Hever, is not Anne Arborton.  It is Dorinda Spencer.”

Chapter Four
     
    After breakfast, such as it was, had been finished , and the dishes, such as they were, had been washed, Rayley followed Dorinda up to the high garret, lodged in one of the castle turrets, where she mixed her paints.  In some ways, it was a logical location for the task, since the room had windows on both sides and thus suitable ventilation.  But in other ways it was wretchedly impractical, for each morning the supplies had to be carried up the circular staircase that wound to the top of the turret, a treacherous ascent involving any number of worn and crumbling steps.  Since there was no handrail, it would be impossibly dangerous to climb with one’s arms full, but Dorinda showed him, with significant pride, a rope and pulley system she had devised to raise the buckets of water needed for mixing.
    “It is ingenious,” he admitted, even while noting that half the water sloshed from the bucket to the stone floor below during the process. 
    “My father was an engineer,” Dorinda said a bit breathlessly, struggling with one of the ropes.  “He had no sons and taught me and my sister how to contrive any number of such machines.”
    “It doesn’t look very steady,” Rayley said.  He didn’t wish to criticize the girl’s invention , and in fact he was filled with admiration for both her ingenuity and her pluck.  It was hard to believe she had managed to transport the water by herself for so many days.  But he also felt the need to point out that the pulley was screeching in protest as Dorinda pulled up the last bucket.  It seemed a miracle the whole apparatus hadn’t come crashing down upon some unsuspecting colonist walking through the stairwell below.
    “It bears weight well enough,” she said with a shrug, and then motioned that he should follow her into the garret.
    What was even more surprising than the pulley was the fact that once they had climbed the circular staircase and entered the small room, Dorinda immediately set about mixing paints for LaRusse Chapman.  Her own and then an entire second set, which were placed rather reverently aside for him to come and fetch later, at his leisure.   When she noted Rayley’s disapproving frown, Dorinda merely laughed.
    “You find it odd that I would perform yet another task for LaRusse?”
    Rayley shrugged, making a concerted effort to look nonchalant.  It would be a useful skill as a detective, this ability to appear relaxed when one was truly agitated, but he feared he had never fully gotten the knack.  “LaRusse,” he finally said cautiously, “seems to inspire a great deal of loyalty among the members of the colony.”  Particularly the women, he added in his own mind, but he refrained from speaking this last bit aloud.
    “But why shouldn’t this be the case?” Dorinda asked and her own nonchalance seemed utterly unfeigned.  “He is the king of our kingless kingdom, the god of our godless universe.”  She paused to place a jar of red-orange huge on the simple wooden shelf before adding “And he is my protector.  A girl needs one.”
    “Even here?” Rayley said.  “In utopia?”
    “A liberal man is just as eager to fuck as a conservative one.”
    Rayley was shocked.  More than shocked.  He was stunned, and for a moment he felt as if he’d had the wind knocked out of him.  He paused in his own task of stirring some nondescript shade of blue and looked out the window at the fields far below.   He had never heard that particular word spoken by a woman, not even a prostitute –