The Sixth Labyrinth (The Child of the Erinyes Book 4) by Rebecca Lochlann Read Free Book Online

of comfort. Jingling the keys on her chatelaine, she went off to tidy one of the guestrooms, replaying Mr. Ramsay’s smooth manner of speech as she plumped the pillows on the creaky four-poster. Maybe he’d attended one of those grand old English universities, she thought with envy. Though his accent couldn’t compare with good Lowland Scots, it was inviting, like drowsing in a meadow on a sunny day. How strange, when she’d always been told Highland folk were coarse and ignorant. Beatrice often said she should count her blessings to have grown up in the Low Country.
    How would it feel, to be married to such a braw young gentleman? Would being a wife, in the end, be no more pleasant than being a daughter? She was expected to trade her father for a husband, to never strike out on her own or create her own destiny. Sometimes it made her want to punch a hole in the wall. There was no doubt a good reason for all the rules and expectations surrounding females, but what was it? Women possessed no means to threaten men. A woman’s entire existence, whether fine or not, depended solely on the goodwill of the males in her life.
    Such thoughts would probably never have occurred to her if it weren’t for school and the dominie, and the books he’d given her to read, and the hours they had spent talking about ancient civilizations. He’d suggested there may have been places, in long lost times, where women made the laws. And he’d laughed at the way her initial shock had transformed into captivated imaginings.
    Beatrice’s polish, made of beeswax and a drop of chamomile, leant the room a sweet apple scent. Morrigan arranged cut daisies in a glass vase and placed it on the commode. She checked the coal box, cleaned a dead spider out of the china basin, and filled the spill holder with splints, though the weather was grand and there would be no need of a fire.
    Mr. Ramsay doubtless had servants to tend such mundane duties. His wife would have no more to fill her days than deciding what to serve for dinner and which jewel to fasten about her pampered white throat.
    Part of Morrigan’s imagination urged a coward’s retreat until he’d gone, while another embellished a picture of herself freed of drudgery, dressed in silk, one languid hand resting on his capable arm, the other extended to welcome admiring guests.
    Without a dowry, title, or land, no woman could hope to achieve such a status, and certainly not a country wench with chapped hands and bitten fingernails. Though gentlemen seemed to enjoy flirting with Douglas Lawton’s daughter, they always left without any sign of regret.
    She had been a plain child. When she’d been sent into town, not even the bullies noticed her. She’d liked being invisible. It gave her freedom to observe folk without them knowing. She had overheard bitter arguments between husbands and wives who would have kept silent had they realized someone was listening. She’d watched couples in dim wynds , amazed and shocked at the nasty things they did. She’d seen the bullies take out after boys they wanted to persecute, and harass girls they thought pretty, or ugly, or different.
    Nowadays, she couldn’t take a step in town without drawing attention. She’d developed a habit of walking quickly with her head down, her shoulders drawn up, though the sense of having done something wrong, or of being wrong, merely because of the way she looked, made her inwardly blaze with indignation.
    It felt as though she was more appreciated yet less appreciated at the same time.
    The stares of men told her she was no longer a skinny lass with tangled plaits. It was unnerving, especially when low whistles accompanied the stares, or murmuring was followed by coarse laughter. Only the shameless inner Morrigan wanted to flaunt and flutter and use folk. Even now, as she descended the stairs, the sinful lass suggested that if she would turn the force of her beauty on Mr. Ramsay, she might win her longed-for