The Last Debutante by Julia London Read Free Book Online Page A

“Darling, please don’t argue—I really must change his bandages.”
    The bandage argument was one Daria could not win. She sighed and picked up a roughly woven basket from the floor, stalked to the door and yanked it open, and nearly stumbled over the dog. He was lying across the stones, alarge bone between his paws. He sprang to his feet and stuck his snout in the space between the door and the frame, his tail wagging madly.
    Daria stepped over him and pulled the door shut. She frowned down at him and his bone. It was a ham bone, and given its size and the distance she guessed he could have carried it, she presumed that he’d procured it from someone nearby. Unless Mamie had slaughtered a pig, which, after two days in this cottage with this madwoman, would not surprise Daria in the least.
    The dog bounded into the garden before her, leaping over weedy plants. Daria grimaced as her shoe sank into the dark soil. By the time she reached the line where the linens were lifting lazily on the morning breeze, the dog had disappeared onto the path she had walked from the main road, leaving his bone behind.
    She dropped the basket, put her hands on her hips, and surveyed the linens Mamie had washed. Her grandmother was, if nothing else, rather industrious. Daria pulled a sheet down, folded it carelessly, and tossed it in the basket. She happened to glance up and saw Mamie in the window of the man’s room. Mamie was looking at Daria, watching her, too. Mamie smiled thinly and cranked the window shut.
    Daria sighed irritably. She tried to picture this Mamie in Hadley Green. She tried to picture her in their family home.
    Daria’s family home wasn’t the largest house by any means, but it was very lovely. It had two stories and an attic, where Mr. Griswold had a pair of rooms on one end and old Mrs. Bromley, who did the cooking and housekeeping, had a pair on the other.
    The house had six bedrooms, as well as a drawing room, dining and sitting rooms, and a small library where her parents kept their notes and books. They fancied themselves botanists, and in recent years they had taken on the complex task of grafting a new strain of orchid. Daria didn’t know all the details, and it wouldn’t matter if she did—she was not invited to their private orchid party.
    They spent their time in the hothouse, their forms barely distinguishable from one another. Daria spent her time in the main house, with its ivy-covered walls that had ten large-paned windows facing the lane. Daria couldn’t picture her grandmother in that house any longer—at least not like this.
    She pulled the bandages from the drying line and tossed them in the basket. Removing the largest of the bed linens next, she tucked it under her chin and was attempting to fold it when she heard a horse coming down the path.
    Daria looked up to see a horse and rider ambling down from the hills to the west. Not just any rider, mind you, but a bear of a man who seemed almost as tall as his horse. His feet scarcely cleared the ground. His hair was pulled back in an old-fashioned queue. He was wearing a dark coat and buckskins.
    The dog suddenly appeared, barking furiously at the intrusion, racing through the woods to the path. He stopped in the middle of the path, and with his legs braced wide apart, he barked.
    “Uist!” the man shouted. “Suidh!” The dog instantly sat, his tail brushing the ground behind him in a happy wag. A moment later, he suddenly hopped up and trotted forward to sniff the horse.
    The man’s gaze had locked on Daria, his expression cold and stern. A flutter of fear swept up her spine. She glanced nervously at the cottage, debating whether she should call Mamie. In the moment that took, he’d reined up beside the fence. And the dog, the worthless dog, had trotted back into the field.
    “Madainn mhath .” The man’s voice was low and soft, belying the dark look in his black eyes. He didn’t move, but he seemed coiled, ready to strike.
    Daria