Stranger At The Wedding Read Online Free PDF Page A

cabin—though it isn't really fair to add to your burdens with all those upholsterers and carpenters… Do you know, Esmin, he's having the master's suite redecorated in their house on Prandhauer Street? With the most enchanting painted wallpapers, a sort of shell-pink, hand-painted silk… Not to mention all the things that have to be done for the wedding and getting his trading fleet ready to sail…”
    “Oh, Master Spenson…” Esmin moved a little closer to him and raised black shoe-button eyes to his. “You aren't leaving us again so soon for the high seas? I thought Father said you had done with journeying.” Her hand stole to his lapel, and Master Spenson turned a color that went most unbecomingly with his satin suit.
    Kyra strode forward from the foot of the stairs, her hand extended. “Master Spenson,” she said in her deep voice, “I'm Kyra Peldyrin.”
    He looked quickly away from Esmin as if Kyra's words had broken some kind of spell, and his eyes widened at the sight of her. Probably, she thought, it's the dress. Merrivale, the housekeeper, had brought one of Alix's gowns up to the yellow guest room, a soft powder-blue silk that would have enchantingly set off the girl's radiant fairness and would have made Kyra look like a week-old corpse. Instead of putting it on, she had gone up to the attic and found hanging in an armoire all her old gowns, gowns that had been the talk of her own set for their flamboyant disregard of current fashion. Centuries out of date in pattern and cut, some of them, they had been made to her instructions in colors darker and bolder than anything that had been worn for seventy-five years. Against the frail rose and ivory of Esmin's costume and the lettuce greens of Alix's, Kyra's black and yellow stripes and face-framing collar of point lace stood out like an orchid among daisies.
    Nevertheless, Spenson reached out to grasp her hand, and at that moment Kyra, who had not worn a formal gown or anything resembling one for six years, stepped on the hem of one of her petticoats and went sprawling into his arms.
    His reflexes were quick. She found herself caught with a surprisingly light strength and set back on her feet, and for a moment she stood looking at very close range into a pair of twinkling blue eyes on a level with her own.
    “I'm so sorry,” she said, stepping back a little and shaking straight her voluminous skirts. “I'm always doing that… You're taller than I thought you'd be. And that color doesn't suit you.”
    “I thought Father's tailor carried on a little too much about how well it did.” Master Spenson ruefully considered one satin sleeve. “And I'm taller than I thought I'd be, once upon a time.”
    “Master Spenson…” Gordam Peldyrin appeared, almost impossibly, in the small space between them, caught the arm of his prospective son-in-law, and steered him hastily away. “Lord Earthwygg wanted to ask you about the cargoes you're shipping this week.”
    Esmin looked up at Kyra, who was standing now beside her. “Is it true you're a witch?” she asked, her black eyes greedy.
    “Witch?” Lord Mayor Spenson grumbled, glancing around from the crystal glass of muscat the liveried footman was handing him on a tray. He squinted at her belligerently. Kyra met his gaze calmly, knowing what he was going to say and knowing there was no way of stopping him or anyone else. “Aye… You were that old hoodoo's pupil, weren't you? The one they burned…”
    “His Grace Dromus Woolmat,” Briory intoned from the door, “Bishop of Angelshand.”
     
     
    “My dear, I'm so glad you returned for your sister's wedding, and I'm so glad to see you again,” Binnie Peldyrin murmured into her elder daughter's ear as they turned the corner from the ascending stair and passed along the wide gallery toward the formal dining hall. “But I hope you don't mind being crowded. Your turning up just now threw my table completely off. If we'd had even a day's notice, we could