Border Storm Read Online Free PDF Page A

myself tidy? There was a raid, you see, and—”
    “Aye, we ken well about the raid, mistress. Were ye… That is—”
    “I barely saw them,” Laurie said, cutting in to allay his embarrassment. “One of the shepherd lads brought warning, and we hid. That’s why I look such a fright.”
    “Well, he did say ye should come to him straightaway, but I wager he’ll no mind if ye brush your hair and… and mayhap change your gown first.”
    “Where is he?”
    “In the hall, I expect. That’s where he said to send ye.”
    “Then I shall go in through the kitchen,” Laurie said.
    Hurrying across the forecourt, away from the main entrance in the tall, square tower that housed the great hall and two floors of bedchambers, she approached the newer section, housing the kitchens and a ladies’ parlor above them.
    The door into the kitchen and bakehouse stood ajar, but she slipped silently along the stone passageway between them to the narrow, circular service stair that led to the upper floors.
    Her bedchamber and the one that her two younger sisters shared were two floors above the great hall, but to reach them, she had to pass by the southeast corner of the ladies’ parlor. Although she knew that she could rely on the servants not to tell her father she had returned unless he asked them, she hurried, her bare feet nearly silent on the stone steps.
    As she approached the servants’ entrance to the ladies’ parlor, she slowed, straining her ears to hear the slightest sound from within.
    She could not see directly into the parlor, for an angled wall blocked her view. That wall separated the parlor from the ladies’ closet and the servants’ stair.
    On tiptoe now, holding up her skirts with one hand, she used the thick, oiled-rope banister with the other as she went up. She had taken but three steps beyond the parlor entry, however, when an all-too-familiar voice stopped her in her tracks.
    “So, you come sneaking in like a thief in the night, do you? You’ve been up to mischief again, I’ll warrant. Turn around and show yourself properly, girl.”
    Obeying reluctantly, Laurie faced her stepmother.
    Blanche, Lady Halliot, stood with her hands primly folded at her waist, looking, as always, precise to a pin. Taller than Laurie by a head, she bore herself with natural elegance.
    She wore a simple, crescent-shaped French hood tilted away from her face, with a semicircular white veil sewn at the back. Her dove-gray, pearl-trimmed bodice fit her trim figure flatly and smoothly without bulge or wrinkle, and her corset was laced so tightly above her wide farthingale that when she moved, she seemed to do so only from the waist down.
    Like most Border women of rank, Lady Halliot wore a great deal of jewelry—several gold chains and bracelets, a long string of pearls, two brooches, rings on every finger, earrings, and gold tips to her lace points.
    From gold chains attached to the girdle at her waist hung a jeweled black pomander ball, a black feather fan, and her gilded hand mirror, scissors, and needle case. Thanks to the pomander, a veritable cloud of ambergris and cloves accompanied her everywhere she went.
    Laurie had often wondered how Blanche moved under so much weight, but Blanche seemed supremely oblivious of it.
    Certainly, Blanche was not thinking of baubles now.
    “Just look at you,” she said scornfully. “You should be ashamed of yourself, Laura. Up to your pranks again, and on such a day as this one! Here,” she added, stepping back, “come into the light where I can see you properly.”
    Laurie obeyed, dismally conscious of her unkempt hair, filthy skirts, and an odor that even Blanche’s pomander would not hide. To her relief, except for themselves, the ladies’ parlor was empty.
    Since her stepmother clearly meant to berate her, she took some small comfort in the fact that her sisters would not be present to hear what she said.
    “Disgusting,” Blanche said. Raising her chin sharply and wrinkling her