Shield's Lady Read Online Free PDF Page B

ground, but she usually managed to prevail. It was amazing how effective persistence and rational determination could be against the flamboyant, emotional and melodramatic ways of the locals.
        The expansive Avylyn household consisted of three long wings of chambers, gardens and halls that radiated out from a central core structure in the manner of spokes on a wheel. Sariana's suite of apartments was situated in the spoke farthest away from the Avylyns' private chambers and Sariana liked it that way.
        The location of her rooms gave her a sense of privacy and some necessary distance from the ceaseless uproar that seemed to be the normal mode of communication for the Avylyns and everyone else in Serendipity. Nobody did things in a quiet, reflective, composed manner. Everyone looked for and found the most dramatic and extreme reactions to any given situation. Tears flowed, anger exploded and laughter sang out, all with just the slightest provocation. No one worried much about self-restraint.
        It seemed to Sariana that normal day-to-day life provided plenty of opportunity for westerners to indulge their tastes for the extreme, but she had quickly learned that when a real excuse came around - weddings, funerals, or births, for example - all the stops were pulled and the moon was the limit.
        The walk to her office, which was in the middle spoke on the floor above the jewelry design rooms, normally took Sariana through a long, glass hall full of exotic plants and flowers and into the luxurious central hub building with its spacious showrooms, ballrooms and reception areas. This morning Sariana took a short cut outside through the gardens.
        It was another brilliant morning, of course. All the mornings were brilliant during the summer. Afternoon rainstorms were also typical of the season. Such storms were filled with lightning, thunder and torrents of water. Fall, winter and spring would bring their own kinds of brilliance and spectacle. Leaves of unbelievable hues in the fall; dazzling snows that made the ground look as if it were covered in prisma arrived in the middle of winter; a riot of new color and rich greenery would herald the Spring. Nature was as vivid and cheerfully temperamental in the western provinces as the people themselves. It was all so radically different from the moderate climate and serene tones of her homeland. Sariana sighed softly, thinking about it.
        She would sometimes awaken in the middle of the night with a familiar nightmare. The dream was a strange one, appearing in a variety of guises, but it always had its roots in the same underlying fear. It was a fear that she would somehow become so entangled in the chaos and color of the western continent that she would never be able to return to Rendezvous. Lying in her bed after one of those disturbing dreams, Sariana would stare into the darkness and do battle with a homesickness that was so strong and so deep that she
        sometimes gave into tears.
        The Avylyns would have been shocked to know the depths of her loneliness. They had done their exuberant best to make her welcome. But if they had known about the tears, they would undoubtedly have been relieved by the knowledge that their calm, practical and restrained business manager was, indeed, capable of some strong emotion.
        At least she hadn't awakened with an attack of homesickness last night, Sariana thought wryly as she hurried through the gardens and into a wide hall. She'd had too much else on her mind to allow herself the indulgence of self-pity.
        Disaster had come within a footstep of her and the Avylyns last night. She knew that now. She had known it when the Shield bad grabbed her wrist and looked down at her with eyes that held the lethal allure of a bottomless sea. The memory made her shiver even now in the bright light of day.
        Perhaps she should have paid more attention to her clients' nervous fears about using a