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

Lady Roxbury got to her feet, and the half-expected dizziness did not come. So
this much, at least, of Dame Alecto's promise was true. She wondered if all the rest
was. She glanced out the window and measured the progress of the sun.
If it is true, you will never know.
Lady Roxbury's lips curved in a reckless smile. To bring that other Sarah to
Mooncoign, she must reach the Sarcen Stones by sunset. If this was her fate, so be
it н and she wished Dame Alecto much joy of her successor.
,,Knoyle!" she shouted, jerking vigorously at the bellpull.
In an instant the abigail appeared, fear and astonishment vying for pride of place
upon her face.
,,I wish to go out," the Marchioness of Roxbury said to her maid. ,,Lay out my
driving dressy н and tell Risolm to harness the match bays to my phaeton and bring
it around. Well?" she added, as Knoyle stood there goggling.
The abigail dropped a stupefied curtsy and fled. Lady Roxbury shrugged off the
now-too-warm chamber robe and let it fall to the floor in a puddle of fur and velvet
She turned back to the fire, and for a moment she seemed to see that other Sarah's
face within the flames: plain and young, unadorned by paint and jewel....
,,Milk-toast-miss!" Lady Roxbury jeered, turning away.
 Chapter 2
Between the Salt Water and the Sea Sand



(The Frigate Lady Bright,
Bristol Channel, April 1805)


Miss Sarah Cunningham, late of Baltimore, Maryland, in the United States of
America, stood at the rail on the foredeck of the good ship Lady Bright, gazing
miserably out to sea. The dawn wind coming over the ocean was a biting coldness
on her face, its constant pressure threatening to unseat the demure dark grey
bombazine narrow-poke bonnet whose strings were knotted firmly beneath her chin.
Tomorrow or the next day, depending on the luck of wind and tide, the ship would
arrive at Bristol Harbor.
Mrs. Kennet had told her that Bristol was a great city, second only to London;
from there Sarah could surely find transport to the metropolis. What reception
awaited her in London н even assuming she could manage to gain an interview with
the Duke of Wessex н Sarah did not know. Why should such a grand man as he
listen to an American interloper with the wildest of tales and the flimsiest of proof? If
only Mrs. Kennet...
The tears dried on her cheeks as fast as they were shed, and her gloved hands
worried a fine cambric handkerchief into a crumpled ball. She looked around blindly,
hoping to distract herself from her bleak thoughts.
Behind and to her left lay the great green bulk of Ireland, and ahead, an indefinite
blur in the early morning light, lay what Captain Challoner assured her was the Welsh
headland: St. David's, and the Lady Brights first sight of home.
But if England was Captain Challoner's home, it was not Sarah Cunningham's. In
the short space of six months her fortunes had tumbled end over end so many times
that she had become quite philosophical about disaster, but this latest bereavement
left Sarah even more forsaken than had the deaths of her parents only a few months