LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

I stood over her, my sister fought for one last breath. The following rattle was loud, and then all sounds vanished from the room as Helena went still. Looking down, I didn’t know what to feel. We had not been close, but she was still my sister.

      As if summoned, my father walked in, dressed in a blue silk tunic and black pants. He was of medium height with broad shoulders and a thick head of light brown hair. He shaved his face twice a day.

      “Well?” he asked.

      “She’s gone,” my mother answered. “Just now.”

      Father frowned, but that was all. His initial panic at the prospect of losing a valuable tool like Helena had passed yesterday—for he was ever a realist.

      Walking over to the bed, he didn’t even look at his eldest daughter. Instead, he looked at me, and I couldn’t help noting the disappointment in his eyes. “Megan,” he said. “The Volodanes arrive this afternoon. You’ll have to take Helena’s place.”

      I blinked several times, not certain I’d heard him correctly.

      “Take her place? What does that . . .?”

      “You know what it means,” he said coldly. Then he turned to my mother. “Make sure she’s presentable.”

      I took a step backward as the awful truth set in.

      The Volodanes were arriving afternoon.

      And I was to take Helena’s place.

      * * * *

      Less than hour later, I found myself seated at the dressing table in my own room, wearing a muslin dress of sunflower yellow—that had been hanging in my closet for over a year—and staring at my own reflection as my maid, Miriam, tried to do something with my hair.

      Her mouth was tightly set, and she was not any happier about the situation. Miriam was pretty with dark hair, and only five years older than myself. She’d been hired by my mother when I was fifteen and Mother had deemed it necessary that I should have a “lady’s maid.” I’d resisted at first but not for long. Miriam had soon become devoted to me, and I welcomed her friendship.

      The turn of events today had taken her by surprise.

      “Your father was very clear,” she said, holding handfuls of thick hair. While the color might not be enticing, at least it was abundant. “I may have to cut a few pieces in the front.”

      “Do what you must,” I answered quietly.

      Normally, I had Miriam weave my hair into a single thick braid, as no one cared too much about my appearance. All my life, I’d been told that I would never marry, that I’d remain here in my family’s manor serving as a shadow advisor to my father, for I possessed a unique . . . skill that was of use to him.

      He was the head of our great family, the house of Chaumont, and he held a seat on the Council of Nobles that met four times a year in the capital city of Partheney.

      The power and prestige of our name reached back over eight hundred years, and every family for five hundred leagues envied us our name, our bloodlines, and our political power. Unfortunately, noble bloodlines don’t always correlate into wise financial management, and my grandfather had nearly run our reserves of wealth into the ground. He drank. He gambled. To pay debts, he’d sold off our more lucrative investments such as the family’s silver mines, which decreased our income.

      Though my father possessed greater wisdom, upon inheriting the family title, he’d fought to make a good show of things, to try and prove we were not paupers. This had meant quietly borrowing large sums of money, and now several of those debts were being called in.

      To his great relief, Helena had proven herself everything he’d hoped for, and in recent months, he’d made an arrangement to solve all his immediate financial woes.

      Another family, the Volodanes—of noble birth so low they were scorned by the better families—had made my father an unprecedented offer.

      When a young woman married, a part of her worth was determined by the size of her dowry. Lord Jarrod, the head of the house of Volodane, had offered a small fortune in exchange for Helena marrying one of his three sons. For while the Volodanes might suffer snubs for their painfully low birth, in recent years, they’d become one of the wealthiest families in the nation. They had money in silver, in cattle, in wheat, and in wine. They also ruled their own territories in the north without mercy and taxed their peasants nearly dry. Now, they wanted to use this wealth to link their name to the name of a great family.

      Jarrod offered to forgo a cash dowry and pay my father a great deal of money for Helena. She in turn would bring certain furnishings from Chaumont Manor to make it appear as a dowry. In this way, the secret could be kept.

      My father had jumped at the bargain.

      At first, my mother and Helena had not. They’d both been appalled at the thought of regal Helena tied forever to some brute who most likely had no idea how to dine at a proper table. But instead of ordering Helena to obey, our father had cajoled her, and then he’d promised that of the three brothers, she would be allowed to meet them and choose one for herself. Then he’d appealed to her sense of family honor and obligation.

      In the end, he got his way . . . and this afternoon, the Volodanes would arrive so that Helena might spend time in conversation with the young men, allowing her to make her choice.

      But my sister was dead.

      Staring at myself in the small mirror of my dressing table, I wondered what a slap in the eye I was going to be.

      Miriam continued twisting my thick hair and piled it on top my head. She left several strands in the front loose, and before I could follow what she was doing, she took up a pair of scissors and snipped those strands at about the length of my jaw. The strands instantly curled up to frame my face. The result was astonishing. I did look a bit more like a lady than I had a few moments before.

      She put small silver earrings in my earlobes and then drew something from her pocket. I blanched. It was a diamond pendant.

      “That’s Helena’s,” I said.

      She glanced away. “You mother wants you to wear it.”

      Without another word, I let her fasten it around my neck. This was only the beginning. Miriam wasn’t even dressing me for dinner yet—but rather to help greet the Volodanes when they rode into the courtyard.

      I rose from the dressing table.

      “You look lovely, miss,” she said. “You should go down.”

      I didn’t feel lovely. I felt a knot growing in my stomach, and I wanted to reach out and grip her hand. In the entire manor, Miriam was the only one who cared for me, and she had no power.

      So, I left my room and made my way down the stairs, past the great dining hall, and down the passage to the main front doors. The guard there opened the doors for me, and I stepped outside into the open courtyard.

      My father, my mother, and six other manor guards stood waiting.

      Turning, my father looked me up and down. Instead of looking at me, my mother looked at him. His eyes focused on my sunflower-yellow gown and my hair. Then he nodded once at my mother in approval. She returned to her vigil of waiting for the Volodanes.

      I held back, near the doors. We didn’t wait long.

      I heard several of our guards down at the front gates calling to each other before I saw anything. Then I heard the grinding of the gates being opened . . . followed by the sounds of hoof beats.

      Within moments, an entire retinue pounded into our courtyard, led by four men—one out front and three riding behind. This quartet was followed by at least thirty guards. I wondered where we were going to house them all.

      Then my attention focused entirely on the four men at the front.

      Although I had never met any of them myself, and neither had Helena, she’d been provided with a good deal

Скачать книгу