The Last Debutante Read Online Free PDF Page B

her uncharacteristically haphazard bun.
    She heard Mamie open the door, heard her say, “There now, just a bit of this will aid you.”
    “No,” the man said in English, his voice deep and as rough as tree bark.
    “I am only trying to help you.”
    Daria stood up. She moved hesitantly down the hall, but as she reached the door, Mamie appeared. “Daria, I asked you to stay seated,” she said coolly as she pulled thedoor shut behind her. “You must leave him be. He will not heal if he does not rest.” She moved past Daria.
    Daria stared at the closed door for a long moment, debating. She would get to the truth of what had happened here. She only had to determine how to do it.
    She turned around and walked back into the main living area. Mamie was up on her toes, putting the brown vial away.
    “Do you not think that man requires medical attention?”
    Mamie whirled around to face Daria, her mouth in a grim line. “Daria, my love, as I said, when he is recovered, we might learn more from him. In the meantime, I need to make a poultice to draw the infection out of his wounds, and I will need you to help me gather some devil’s bit.” She picked up a basket and thrust it at Daria.
    Daria stared at the basket. “I don’t know what that is!”
    “You will learn,” Mamie said firmly. She marched to the door and flung it open, almost tripping over the dog that had followed Daria here. “You wretched dog!” she said sternly. “Off with you! Come along, Daria! Don’t mind the dog—he roams the hills rather freely. Now, tell me all your news,” she said, reaching for Daria’s hand. “I want to hear everything. About my daughter, about Hadley Green, and of course I want to know which handsome young gentlemen have caught your eye.”
    She would speak of suitors now ? Before Mamie could shut the door, Daria glanced back at the end of the corridor. Foreboding sank into her bones.

Four
    I N WHAT WAS optimistically called the throne room at Dundavie, there was a chair in which the Campbell lairds had sat for hundreds of years to receive members of the clan. The seat’s leather was cracked now, and the paint peeling from the arms. Duff had long wanted to replace the leather and paint the wood, but Jamie wouldn’t allow it. That chair was as familiar to him as the back of his hand. He knew every sag, every lump, every crack.
    He was tracing a tear in the leather next to his knee with his thumb while Gwain Campbell expounded vociferously upon his latest complaint. Gwain had thatches of unruly red hair on his chin, which were almost indistinguishable from his ruddy cheeks. He was a man who was rarely satisfied, and when he was, it was not without qualification. He’d had a prosperous year, for example, but not without working himself to the bloody bone. His infant son, born one month before he should have been, had survived andwas now thriving with a great personal sacrifice of sleep on Gwain’s part.
    His complaint this day was something about sheep, but his gravelly voice was only a distant noise to Jamie, whose attention had wandered to the tapestry behind Gwain’s head. It had hung there forever, but until now he hadn’t really noticed the pale white unicorn with the flowing mane. Or that it romped in a field of yellow spring flowers. Today, the flowers were moving. They were swaying left and right on a slight breeze that he could feel slip down his body. He could hear the trees rustling overhead, could smell the sweet scent of the flowers.
    Something about those flowers stirred Jamie deep within—they were too close, the color of their petals too deep. He turned his head from the tapestry and a sharp pain shot through him. The crack in the leather seemed to have deepened, growing rough as stone on one side. His head was foggy and it seemed as if everything around him was just beneath the surface of water, shadowy figures. He saw something move above him. A unicorn . No, not a unicorn. A woman . A woman with a