Katerina's Secret Read Online Free PDF

perfectly. I cherish the aptitude of your tongue. Yes, she does have magnificent auburn hair, beautiful grey eyes and captivating grace.’
    â€˜M’sieur?’ said Celeste.
    â€˜I too have met her, only half an hour ago,’ said Edward, and told her of the incident.
    â€˜A running man who was fired at?’ Celeste was incredulous.
    â€˜The shot was aimed over his head, I think. To warn him off, I imagine.’
    â€˜And you saw her? She was outside the villa?’
    â€˜In the little pine wood that stands between the road and the walls around the villa. But she wasn’t carrying a rifle.’
    â€˜I simply can’t think why anyone would usea rifle so dangerously,’ said Celeste. ‘The village gendarme would be very annoyed, and it wouldn’t do the countess’s weak heart much good, would it?’
    â€˜No, it wouldn’t,’ said Edward, ‘and there speaks the uncluttered mind of the young. Adults dissemble. Young and innocent angels never do. But it’s mysterious, isn’t it?’
    â€˜I’m quite fraught with curiosity,’ said Celeste. ‘Do you think her beautiful, m’sieur?’
    â€˜I think her quite the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.’
    Celeste smiled. She was most anxious to find a wife for him. She was sure that the countess, for all her weak heart, would be a delight to Edward.
    â€˜I may tell her that?’ she said. ‘I’m visiting tomorrow. Mama allows me time off every fortnight to spend an afternoon with her. She has told me so many stories of the years she spent with the children of the high and illustrious family her father served.’
    â€˜You haven’t said which family this was. The Bulgarian royal family?’
    â€˜Oh, for the sake of discretion, she won’t say,’ said Celeste. ‘It might have been a royal family, yes, and one perhaps which is in exile now.’
    â€˜In return for the stories she tells you,’ said Edward, ‘you tell her stories about us?’
    â€˜Us, m’sieur?’
    â€˜Your guests,’ smiled Edward.
    Celeste blushed.
    â€˜Oh, never malicious, m’sieur, I assure you,’ she said. ‘But I must tell her about Madame Knight and Colonel Brecht.’
    â€˜I know that English lady. She’s been coming here for the last three or four years. But who is Colonel Brecht?’
    â€˜Oh, he’s a German officer, and it’s his first visit here. You’ll be able to see how proud and polite they are with each other, and yet he looks at her when he thinks she’s unaware, and she casts her eyes at him in the same way. It’s so intriguing, oh, yes.’
    â€˜I may not see them as you see them, terrible infant,’ said Edward.
    â€˜Alas, that’s because you’re a man,’ said Celeste. He laughed, and his thin face took on some reflection of the bright, vigorous handsomeness she was sure it had shown before he inhaled poison gas. And Celeste decided that if he had found no wife by the time she was eighteen, she herself must contrive to marry him. The decision induced warm pleasure. ‘M’sieur, I must return to my work.’
    â€˜You must, or I shall have your mother beating me over the head.’
    â€˜As if she’d do that. Sometimes, m’sieur, you are very amusing.’
    â€˜You’re always delicious,’ said Edward.
    â€˜I do my best,’ said Celeste. ‘M’sieur, we are friends, you and I?’
    â€˜I like to think we shall always be friends.’
    â€˜Then—’ For once Celeste was hesitant. ‘Then when we’re together, may I – do you think I might call you Edward? Not before guests, of course, only when we’re together.’
    â€˜Since I’ve always called you Celeste and never mademoiselle, and since we’re such good friends, why not?’
    â€˜I am so glad,’ said Celeste, and kissed his cheek with