"Andre Norton & Rosemary Edghill - Carolus Rex 1 - The Shadow of Albion" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norton Andre)

said she would accompany her when me Lady Bright sailed from Baltimore to
England, and nothing Sarah might say afterward would be allowed to alter that
impulsive decision in the slightest. Borne upon the spring tide of Mrs. KennetтАЩs
formidable will, Sarah had never looked back; Cousin Masham was read such a
jeremiad as must have caused her ears to ring for weeks afterward, and at the end of
that confrontation Sarah and the single trunk containing all her worldly possessions
reposed within Mrs. KennetтАЩs well-sprung traveling coach and were wheeling smartly
along the road to the harbor.
But what had begun as seeming indigestion had in the end been death for SarahтАЩs
fiery mentor only a few weeks later, and now Sarah was more alone than ever before.
She was not so certain as she had been in Baltimore that the words written in the
missive Mrs. Kennet had given her constituted a legitimate claim upon the Duke or
Duchess of Wessex тАУ and even less certain, now that Mrs. Kennet was gone, that
the form of payment would be anything that plain Sarah Cunningham of Baltimore,
Maryland, and the United States of America could like.
It is your own fault. You made this choice; you must make the best of it, Sarah
told herself firmly, and began to determine, with utmost practicality, what she might
best do in Bristol to engage transport to London so that she might do what Mrs.
Kennet had so wished her to do.




Chapter 3
Ten Leagues Beyond the Wide WorldтАЩs End


(April 1805)


It was good to be out in the open again, even if her life could now be measured
only in scant hours. The sharp April air cut at her lungs and the whipping wind
brought roses not of fever, but of frost, to her cheeks, but Lady Roxbury did not
care. Her sleek brown hair was covered by an ermine shako tied with wide grosgrain
ribbons dyed to match the coquelicot velvet of her erminelined driving pelisse.
Wrapped in the garmentтАЩs elaborately frogged and gold-laced folds, Lady Roxbury
did not feel the bite of the evening chill as the gentle Wiltshire countryside unreeled
behind her.
The high-perch phaeton shivered and trembled beneath her as she urged the four
match bays to speed and more speed, racing against the Sun itself. It slid inexorably
westward as Lady Roxbury flicked her whipstring out over the ears of her leader,
being rewarded with a marginal increase in speed. She must reach the Stones in time,
or all this would be for naught.
In the distance, the broken outline of the GiantтАЩs Dance appeared on the horizon
of the rolling Wiltshire downs. At the same moment, Lady Roxbury became aware
of her own heartbeat as a thundering in her blood. Suddenly the westering sun flared
dazzlingly bright, burning like the jewel in the skull of the salamander, creature of fire.
 Arid then the world changed, and the sun that Lady Roxbury raced toward was
rising, riot setting. The air was chill and damp with morning and blue mist hung upon
the ground. In the distance the Sarcen Stones were still veiled in night as the rising