somehow gone ragged.
“I — I’m no one, my lord.” That was true enough. I was a woman without parents, without wealth, without a name.
For a long moment, he said nothing, but only stood there, clenching and unclenching the hand I had touched. I could see the way his breast rose and fell as he pulled in a breath. Was he angry with me? What I had done?
“Go,” he said then. “Get out of my sight.”
I couldn’t move. It was if some strange force held me rooted in place, standing only a pace away from him.
Then I did see a flash of true anger in his eyes, shining gold and orange and red. But no, that had to be a reflection from the fire.
“Go!” he roared, and suddenly I had the strength to move away from him, to run down the corridor of his suite and out into the larger hallway. The air there was much colder, chilling me to my very core. I began to shiver as I hurried back to my chamber.
And yet I knew my trembling had very little to do with the unheated corridors of Harrow Hall.
Chapter 4
I thought I knew the way. After all, it had seemed so simple when Master Merryk brought me to Lord Greymount’s chambers. I only had to descend three flights of stairs, and then go down a long hallway until I came to the fourth door on the left, which was the entrance to my borrowed room.
Only when I tried to open that door, I found it locked. I rattled the handle, but it would not budge. Tears of anger and frustration stung my eyes, but I would not let them fall. Bad enough that Phelan Greymount would dismiss me in such a way. But to be found sobbing outside the door to my room? It wasn’t to be borne.
Not there seemed to be much chance of discovery. The hall around me was empty. In truth, I hadn’t heard a whisper of anyone else in the castle besides Master Merryk and Lord Greymount himself. Was it only the two of them in this great grey pile? No, that couldn’t be right. The steward had told me that there were no women servants, but he’d intimated that there was some sort of household staff. At any rate, I knew the lord of Harrow Hall employed men-at-arms, for I myself had seen them riding through the forest from time to time.
I couldn’t stand in this corridor forever. It appeared I must go in search of Master Merryk so that he might guide me back to my rooms. Yes, by doing so, I could get myself even more lost. On the other hand, I didn’t really see how much more lost I could be than I already was. At any rate, going in search of the steward would offer me some much-needed distraction. I couldn’t forget the strange heat which had flooded up my arm when I touched Phelan Greymount’s hand. Never in my life had I ever experienced such a thing.
And that strange flash of hot color in his eyes?
No, that must have been my imagination, brought on by the shock of what I had felt.
Who are you? he had demanded, as if I hid some terrible secret from him. But I was hiding nothing, although much had been hidden from me throughout my life.
My hands shook, and I buried them in the folds of my borrowed skirt, glad that I had been offered that much hospitality. The gowns in the wardrobe were not only grand, but warm as well.
Still clenching my skirts, I turned away from the door where I’d stood and went to the landing, then looked down the hallway in the opposite direction. It did not look familiar at all, with a runner of muddy-colored weave covering the center of the floor. I would not waste my time going that way.
It seemed that down was the best direction to go. Perhaps I had miscounted the number of flights we had actually climbed, and I still had to descend one more to reach my borrowed chamber. But when I went to the door I thought might be mine, again it was locked — as were all the others in that corridor.
Abandoning any caution I might have possessed, I tried every door in that hallway, only to find them all shut against me. No one came out to demand what I was doing, and so I truly began to think my
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