"Anthony Piers - Incarnations 3 - With a Tangled Skien" - читать интересную книгу автора (Anthony Piers)

old moneybags and an ugly aristocrat! You call those
matches?"

"Wealth is not to be sneered at, and neither is aristoc-
racy. You could have had a very easy life, or a very noble
one. Such marriages are not easy to come by."

"Why can't I have a handsome, virile man of twenty-
five or so?" Niobe demanded. "Why burden me with a
child who probably doesn't know his nose from hisЧ"

Her father's glance stopped her before she went too
far. She could only balk him to a certain extent, however
softly he might speak. "Because the war has drawn away
such men, so that none remain here who are worthy of
you. I will not give you to a peasant! You will not marry
beneath your station. Cedric is qualified and financially
comfortable, thanks to an inheritance, andЧ"

"And he's growing," Niobe finished with disgust.
"And I'm growingЧsick of the very notion! I won't
marry such a child, and that's all there is to it."

Piers Anthony 3

But that wasn't all there was to it. This time Sean's foot
was firm. Niobe raged and pleaded and cried, to no avail.
She was very good at crying, for her name meant "tears,'1
but her father was impervious. He was determined that
this match be consummated.

And so it was. The banns were duly published, and the
wedding was held in early summer, when the groom got
out of school. Everything was accomplished according to
form, but Niobe hardly noticed; she was too chagrined at
being married to such a youth. She wouldn't even look
directly at him. As the ceremony concluded, he at least
had the wit not to try to kiss her.

Thus they found themselves alone in a cottage, which
was his inheritance. It was in a glade near a swampЧ
pleasant enough by day for those who liked that sort of
thing, but sinister by night. That was perhaps part of the
idea: a couple was supposed to be bolted inside during
darkness, huddled together for warmth and comfort.
There were great romantic possibilities; the locale was
conducive.

Niobe had no trouble resisting conduction. She
wrapped her lovely self up in a voluminous quiltЧa wed-