The Twelfth Enchantment: A Novel by David Liss Read Free Book Online Page B

that she ought to hope for happiness, and felt so gripped by love that it nearly broke her heart.
    “You cannot marry him,” Lucy had told her. “I know it is horrid to say, but he cannot make you happy.”
    “He can make you secure,” Martha said. “How can I be happy otherwise?”
    If Martha did not marry Mr. Buckles, she too would have nowhere to live, but Lucy believed this fact never occurred to her sister.
    Papa, for his part, had detested the idea of the marriage when Buckleshad first proposed it, for he detested Buckles as a simpering buffoon, but Papa died only a few months after the proposal, leaving the girls paupers. When Mr. Buckles renewed his offer, Martha accepted at once. In the end, the marriage did little to ease Lucy’s situation, for Mr. Buckles would not have his wife’s sister live in what was now his house. With no money, no prospects, and no parents, Lucy removed half a country away to Nottingham to live with an uncle, not even a blood relative, who did not much know her and had no wish to remedy that situation. Through no choice of her own, she rarely saw her sister, and now, her sister’s infant girl. They were the only family Lucy had in the world, but Mr. Buckles did not much care for travel, or for guests, both of which were a bother.

    Uncle Lowell’s breakfasts were not the best. He served no bacon with his eggs and no butter with his bread. He preferred for himself a weak porridge and fresh fruit when in season, dried when it was not. He instructed Ungston to prepare small quantities of eggs as a concession to his niece, but he often observed that he did not love being put to the expense of serving what he did not eat.
    Lucy, whose shape was not excessively slender, usually ate heartily, but today she only picked at her bread and pushed her eggs about with her fork while Uncle Lowell talked about the newspaper he read. Mrs. Quince sat near him. Having already eaten, her principal task was to refill Mr. Lowell’s cup with chocolate and agree with his observations.
    “More of your Luddites,” he said to Lucy, as though her vague sympathy with their grievances the day before implicated her in their crimes. “A band of these brigands broke open a mill not twenty miles from here and destroyed every stocking frame within. They fired upon the owner and his man. What say you to that, Miss Lucy? Do you yet stand with these pirates and rally to the banner of their General Ludd?”
    “I never said I stood with them,” Lucy said as she speared a piece of egg with her fork and then removed it by scraping it against her plate. She did not like that he accused her of sympathizing with the Luddites, but at least he did not speak of the stranger or Mr. Olson. It was onlytemporary, Lucy understood, but if the man in the guest room would wake up and exonerate her, perhaps the whole situation might turn into no more than a marvelous anecdote, leaving her unscathed.
    “If you no longer desire eggs,” said Uncle Lowell, “you need but inform me. You may say, ‘Uncle, I ask you not to beggar yourself with the expense of eggs, for I do not choose to eat them.’ I do not think myself unreasonable in that regard. What, have you nothing to say, Miss Lucy? Have you no response to my sensible request?”
    It is probable that Lucy would indeed have had no significant response under usual circumstances, but in this case she did not speak because she was staring at the stranger, who stood at the entrance to the dining room. He had shed his coat and wore only his trousers and his dingy white shirt, open to reveal his tanned skin and curls of dark hair along his broad and muscular chest. He wore no shoes, but his ruined foot was wrapped in a pillowcase.
    “I do beg your pardon,” said the man, his voice tinged, if not overwhelmed, with accents of the north, “but I wonder if you might inform me of where I am, what I am doing here, and why my clothing is tattered and my feet torn to shreds.”

    Lucy