Fallen Angels Read Online Free PDF Page B

mad.'
    'You're not.'
    He shrugged as if he did not care to argue the point. 'I just made my farewells to your father. Everyone says you did a remarkably fine thing with his leg.'
    'I just sewed it up, uncle.'
    'Just sewed it up, indeed! I couldn't have done it. I would have fainted.'
    She laughed. She made him walk with her towards the ornamental lake. He complained that it would rain, that he had neither hat, umbrella, cloak or gloves, but consented to accompany her.
    'I do hope Lucille can take to your English ways,' he said dubiously. 'Horses and walking. It's most uncivilized.'
    'She'll be too busy having babies,' Campion said. Her brother would be coming with his bride within the week. 'Lots of babies.'
    'How utterly dreadful. I do hate babies.'
    She laughed, refusing to believe him. Achilles d'Auxigny watched her as they walked. She was, he thought, the most beautiful creature he had ever seen. His sister had been beautiful, but in marrying the fifth Earl of Lazen, his sister had created this extraordinary girl, hair as gold as pale wheat, eyes the colour of the Virgin's dress, a face of strong lines, softened by the mouth and by an indefinable air of goodness that she carried quite unconsciously. She had, her uncle thought, the clearest skin he had ever seen, eyes that shone with happiness; she was a girl of delicate, wonderful beauty. He squeezed her arm. 'When are you going to marry, Campion?'
    She smiled at the question. 'You don't give up, uncle, do you?'
    'There are a hundred young men who would lay their souls at your feet! A thousand!'
    'Nonsense.' She looked away from him. 'That coppice needs trimming. I told Wirrell last week.'
    'And don't change the subject,' Achilles said. 'You should marry someone, my dear Campion. It is time you were worshipped. That is what women are for! To be worshipped, to be stroked, to be adored.'
    'To be loved?'
    'You talk of illusions.'
    'To be decorative, then?' she asked him teasingly.
    'Of course,' he replied seriously.
    They had reached the strip of grass between the Castle's lake and the great, wrought-iron fence that fronted the Shaftesbury road. Achilles stopped and looked over the water. 'Magnificent.'
    They were looking at the celebrated view of Lazen, the one that had been drawn and painted so often that Campion claimed the artists' easels had permanently marked the lawn at this spot.
    From this lake bank LazenCastle spread across their view in all its magnificence. The Castle had taken two centuries to build, yet it was marvellously coherent. It was really three houses. To the right was the Old House with its Long Gallery and its great windows that reflected the day's grey light. The Old House was joined by a bridge of rooms to the Great House, and the bridge also formed the portico beneath which carriages drew up to deliver guests to the Castle.
    The Great House was the tallest building, topped by the huge banner of Lazen, and fronted by the fluted columns that reared so arrogantly from the great spread of gravel. It was there, in the Great House, that Campion's father had lain for fifteen years, ever since his best-loved hunter had fallen on him, rolled on him, and bequeathed him paralysis and pain.
    To the left was the lowest part of the building, the Garden House that was joined to the Great House by a curving, pillared arcade. It had been built for Campion's mother, a gift from her husband, but now it was used as a guest wing. It was in the Garden House that Uncle Achilles had been staying on this visit that ended today.
    Campion stared at LazenCastle, seeing it reflected in the wide lake. It was home to more than two hundred people; grooms, maids, cooks, footmen, postilions, cellarmen, seamstresses, servants by the score, and all fed and paid by Lazen, their babies born in the town and raised in the Castle's shadow, their beer brewed in the Castle's brewhouse, their linen pounded in the Castle's fullery, their corn ground in the Castle's mill.
    Her uncle stared at