"Damar - 01 - The Blue Sword" - читать интересную книгу автора (McKinley Robin)

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To Danny and Peachey,
who first led me to Damar.



CHAPTER ONE
^ ╗
She scowled at her glass of orange juice. To think that she had been delighted
when she first arrived hereЧwas it only three months ago?Чwith the prospect of
fresh orange juice every day. But she had been eager to be delighted; this was
to be her home, and she wanted badly to like it, to be grateful for itЧto behave
well, to make her brother proud of her and Sir Charles and Lady Amelia pleased
with their generosity.
Lady Amelia had explained that the orchards only a few days south and west of
here were the finest in the country, and many of the oranges she had seen at
Home, before she came out here, had probably come from those same orchards. It
was hard to believe in orange groves as she looked out the window, across the
flat deserty plain beyond the Residency, unbroken by anything more vigorous than
a few patches of harsh grass and stunted sand-colored bushes until it
disappeared at the feet of the black and copper-brown mountains.
But there was fresh orange juice every day.
She was the first down to the table every morning, and was gently teased by Lady
Amelia and Sir Charles about her healthy young appetite; but it wasnТt hunger
that drove her out of bed so early. Since her days were empty of purpose, she
could not sleep when night came, and by dawn each morning she was more than
ready for the maid to enter her room, push back the curtains from the tall
windows, and hand her a cup of tea. She was often out of bed when the woman
arrived, and dressed, sitting at her window, for her bedroom window faced the
same direction as the breakfast room, staring at the mountains. The servants
thought kindly of her, as she gave them little extra work; but a lady who rose
and dressed herself so early, and without assistance, was certainly a little
eccentric. They knew of her impoverished background; that explained a great
deal; but she was in a fine house now, and her host and hostess were only too
willing to give her anything she might want, as they had no children of their
own. She might try a little harder to adapt to so pleasant an existence.
She did try. She knew what the thoughts behind the looks the servants gave her
were; she had dealt with servants before. But she was adapting to her new life
as best as her energetic spirit could. She might have screamed, and hammered on
the walls with her fists, or jumped over the low windowsill in her room,
clambered to the ground by the ivy trellis (special ivy, bred to withstand the
desert heat, carefully watered by Sir CharlesТ gardener every day), and run off
toward the mountains; but she was trying her best to be good. So she was merely
first to the breakfast table.