Songs of Love & Death by George R. R. Martin, Gardner Dozois Read Free Book Online Page B

follow post chaise and catch them in days.
    As he walked toward his rooms, he wondered how Oberon had hidden Martha Darby for so many years? He visited York quite often.
    That didn’t matter. Titania had prevailed. The heir to Five Oaks had found his marrying maid with time enough to woo and win her. It was always so. The dark Lord of Faery had never won this fight, not in five hundred years.
2
    M ARTHA SLEPT BADLY and spent the first hours on the crowded York coach braced for pursuit. What—did she think Mr. Peacock Loxsleigh was racing after on horseback, intent on dragging her from the coach for ravishment?
    Such scenes, alas, had featured in her dreams. How could a lady’s mind produce such things? She had never even flirted, for a canon’s daughter should not. She’d had a few suitors over the years, all clergymen, but her mother and sick father had needed her, and truth to tell, none had truly appealed.
    Now she was free, and returning to York to live a full life. She was emerging from a chrysalis, but too old, dull, and dry to become the simplest sort of butterfly.
    Except that…
    No! She would not allow that man in her mind.
    She did have a suitor. A perfectly eligible suitor.
    Dean Stallingford had been a good friend to her family in recent years and had expressed his interest just before this journey, saying that he wished to make his intentions known before she was exposed to London’s temptations. Martha knew she should have committed herself then, but for some reason the words had stuck in her throat. He was fifteen years her senior, and a widower with three young children, but that was not to his discredit.
    Very well. She would accept him when they returned and become a married woman with house and family to manage and a place in York society, but she was aware that he sparked no excitement within her. Robert Loxsleigh had created sparkles in a moment.
    Such madness must be why women succumbed to seduction, racing fecklessly to their ruin. She was in no danger of that, but she wished the coach had wings. She wished they weren’t to stay for days at Aunt Clarissa’s. Once in York, she would become Mistress Stallingford as quickly as was decent, and be safe.
    She repeated that like a litany over two long days of travel, and as they climbed out of the coach in Newark. They were soon in Aunt Clarissa’s modern brick house, awash with her chatter. Clarissa Heygood was a childless widow, having lost her soldier husband early to war, and enjoyed visitors very much. That evening they took a stroll around the town, eventually taking a path by the river. Martha enjoyed the exercise after so much sitting, but she dropped behind for relief from her aunt’s endless flow of gossip.
    Her own company, however, gave space for dismal thoughts. Marrying Dean Stallingford would mean remaining part of the chapter of York Minster,and that felt… cloistered. Even York itself held no savor. She had few friends there because her time had been so taken up with her father’s care.
    She was frowning at some innocent ducks when a man said, “Heaven is before me. ’Tis the lady of the forget-me-nots.”
    Martha turned, heart pounding, and indeed it was the peacock. Except now he was a much more ordinary bird—if such a man could ever be ordinary. He wore riding breeches and boots with a brown jacket and his hair was unpowdered. Hair of burnished gold.
    Stop that. It was a russet shade catching the setting sun.
    “Alas,” he said, those green eyes laughing at her, “she has betrayed her handkerchief and forgotten me.”
    “I certainly have not!” Regretting that, Martha walked on to catch up with her mother and aunt, alarmed by how far they were ahead.
    He kept up without effort. “You remember my gallantry, Miss Darby?”
    “I remember your impudence.” Heavens, when had she ever been so rude? Cheeks burning, she walked ever faster.
    He stayed by her side. “For returning your handkerchief? A harsh judgment,