Lady Oracle Read Online Free PDF Page B

Charlotte paused in amazement. At the foot of the stairs, blocking her way, stood a tall woman in a sable traveling cloak. The hood was thrown back, revealing flame-red hair; the bodice of her scarlet dress was cut low, displaying the swell of her white breasts. It was evident that the skill of Bond Street’s most fashionable and expensive dressmakers had been lavished on her costume; yet beneath this veneer of civilized sophistication, her body moved with the sensuousness of a predatory animal. She was ravishingly beautiful
.
    She glared at Charlotte, her green eyes gleaming in the light from the silver candelabrum, decorated with cupids and festoons of grapes, which she was holding in her left hand. “Who are you and what are you doing in this house?” she demanded in an imperious voice. Before Charlotte could answer, the woman’s glance fell upon the casket she was carrying.“My jewels!” she cried. She struck Charlotte across the face with her gloved hand
.
    “Softly, Felicia,” said Redmond’s voice. He emerged from the shadows. “I had intended the restoration of your jewels as a surprise, to welcome you home. But it is I who am surprised, as you have come before expected.” He laughed, a dry, mocking laugh
.
    The woman called Felicia turned to him, her smoldering eyes possessive, her provocative smile revealing small white teeth of a perfect uniformity. Redmond lifted her gloved hand gallantly to his lips
.
    Eight pages were missing, the first eight pages. For a moment I thought I’d left them behind, in the apartment, where Arthur would be sure to find them. But I couldn’t have done that, I couldn’t have been that sloppy. Fraser Buchanan must’ve taken them, slipped them up his jacket sleeve, folded them and stuffed them into a pocket when he was in the bedroom, before I could get to him. I had his black notebook though, and my hostage was better.
    It wouldn’t be too difficult to reconstruct the opening pages. Charlotte would round the curve of the spacious lime-tree-bordered driveway in the Redmond carriage, the second-best one, which had been sent to the station to fetch her. She’d be clutching her inadequate shawl around her, worrying about the shabbiness of her clothes and her battered trunk in the boot: would the servants sneer? Then she would glimpse the Grange itself, with its feminine bulk and its masculine turrets and its air of pervasive evil. She’d be ushered by a contemptuous butler into the Library, where, after keeping her waiting in an inconsiderate manner, the master of the house would interview her. He would express surprise that the jewel restorers had sent a woman, and would imply that she wasn’t up to the job. She would answer him firmly, even a little defiantly. He would notice the challenge in her lustrous blue eyes, and remark that she was perhaps a little too independent for her own good.
    “In my position, Sir,” she would reply with a tinge of bitterness, “one is forced to be independent.” Charlotte of course was an orphan. Her father had been the younger son of a noble house, disowned by his family for marrying her mother, a sweet-natured woman who danced in an Opera-house. Charlotte’s parents had died in a smallpox epidemic. She herself had escaped with only a few pockmarks, which lent piquancy to her expression. She was brought up by her uncle, her mother’s brother, who was rich but a miser, and who’d forced her to learn her present trade before he’d perished of yellow fever. He’d left her nothing, he’d always hated her, and her father’s noble family would have nothing to do with her. She wished Redmond to know that she was not in his house, in his power, by choice but from necessity. Everyone had to eat.
    I’d need a working title.
The Lord of Redmond Grange
, I thought, or, better still,
Terror at Redmond Grange
. Terror was one of my specialties; that and historical detail. Or perhaps something with the word
Love
in it: love was a big seller.