Virgin Star Read Online Free PDF Page B

satin quilt.
    Where was she?
    Her dream came back to her, and with it, the panic. Someone was trying to kill her!
    Her gaze flew to the night table at her side. A glass of warm milk and cheese, a fruit tray, and a candle. A man's shirt covered her naked form.
    Where was she?
    She tried to make sense of the unfamiliar splendor of the room. A tingling alarm raced through her in a dizzying wave of pure sensation.
    Something was terribly wrong.
    For a minute or an hour, she never knew, she searched for a clue or for understanding, not in the room but in her memory. She drew deep even breaths, willing her heart to ease its frantic pace and forcing the tension from her body. She closed her eyes to the external reality of strange surroundings. She waited for the cloak of memory that guides one's consciousness.
    She stared into a black velvet night, as she hoped for the illuminating light of recollection; she waited first with a deeply ingrained patience, then with increasing alarm as the darkness neither changed nor altered. Her mind's eye saw nothing but a void.
    She opened her eyes. Nothing changed. She raised a hand slowly to her head, where she felt a large bump. This too was a void of sensation. No pain defined the apparent accident, arid her ribs ... .She felt a slight soreness there, but it was slight indeed.
    An instinctive brake pushed her panic back. She slipped from the bed, crossed the room with quiet steps and opened the smaller of two doors to discover the wonder of an inside privy, which she used.
    Where was she?-
    She emerged soundlessly, her every movement cloaked in an unnatural stillness as she crossed the room to the other door. The girl's silence and grace spoke of a miracle, a miracle so complete, not even the air seemed displaced by her movement. Her pale hand gently pushed open the door leading from the room.
    She stared into the grandeur and magnificence of a house she had never before seen. She stood in the middle of a long hall ending in a richly carpeted, curved staircase that led down to the foyer at the end of an entrance hall. Another hall, a row of rooms, and a staircase were directly opposite, like a mirror image. Nothing and no one stirred.
    A palm went to her forehead, rubbing hard, as if to stir her thoughts or memory. Where was this grand place? What was going on here? Why was she here, and what was she doing?
    Someone was after her—
    She looked down the long hall. She had to flee, to run far away! Every instinct urged it, and quickly.
    She needed clothes and money.
    She retreated back into the room. A thorough search failed to produce any clothes. Where were her clothes? What were her clothes?
    She did not panic, but stood poised, ready for fight or flight. First, get clothes, a pair of trousers and a shirt, this large shirt if she could find no other. Then escape. She had to escape, before it was too late.
    Quietly she stepped into the hall again.
    Voices floated up from below. She slipped back in the doorway, listening and waiting.
    "So what did Jenkinson and Clives want?"
    "'T’wasn't the prime minister or Clives, but Ram. Ram sent a letter with Clives, if ye kin believe that. Seanessy be explainin' it. There be trouble in Malica.”
    "What kind of trouble?"
    The voices drifted off. The prime minister? Clives, she knew that name. Could he be referring to the English Prime Minister? And Clives—Robert Clives of the East India Company? Was this London? And if so, what in merciful heaven was she doing here?
    Her heart began pounding as panic threatened to overwhelm her again.
    She had to get out of here.
    She slowly made her way down to the next door. It was unlocked. She slipped through and found herself in a drawing room. She surveyed the surroundings, looking for something familiar, but she found nothing in the spacious room. Not quite true, she realized, coming to stand before a Jean Auguste Ingres masterpiece, Odalisque. She knew that artist.
    Where? Who had been with her? When?
    She