Read Maggie MacKeever for Free Online Page A

calmly. “However, we had much better not tell Isolda of our agreement on this head.”
    “She’d be furious with the both of us.” Dillian passed a moment in deep concentration. “I’ll tell you what we’ll do! I’ll conduct myself becomingly in her presence, and she’ll believe that you’ve worked a proper miracle. What a lark!”
    “A proper take-in,” Loveday agreed.
    Dillian tugged at her arm. “There’s more to see.”
    Loveday glanced one last glance at the tower.  She was a brief flash of movement. Startled, she looked again.
    “You saw her, didn’t you? I thought you would.”
    “I saw something,” Loveday admitted somberly, as she allowed Dillian to lead her to a portion of the castle where the gray stones had crumbled into jagged teeth. Loveday was saddened by the thought of all the people who had once dwelt within those ruined walls, people who were long dead and unremembered, their very names forgotten. Slightly amused by her unusually morbid thoughts, she moved closer to the ruins, and touched the crumbling stone. To her surprise, it was warm, as if the ancient structure still had life.
    “Look out!” Dillian cried, her horror-stricken gaze fixed upon the shattered battlements. Loveday glanced upwards, just in time to see the massive, dislodged rock that plummeted down toward her.
     

Chapter 3
     
    Averil read Isolda’s letter and swore. The othertwo occupants of the room watched him with some trepidation: the Duke of Chesshire was suffering from an overindulgence of the night before. This time, however, it appeared that his lordship was not going to resort to violence, and Samson sighed with relief. He’d not been anxious to ride to London with Isolda’s missive; his ears still rang from the trimming Averil had administered the last time he’d dared to interrupt his lord’s revels.
    “Tell my esteemed grandmother that I’ll return as soon as my business here is done,” Averil said, and Samson quickly departed, happy to have escaped so easily.
    “He’ll make his way to the nearest tavern, I have no doubt,” Averil commented. His glance fell upon the other inhabitant of the room. “Why so glum, Huffington? Don’t deny that you’ll be glad to return home.”
    Huffington gave his master a reproachful look, but didn’t deign to reply. True, he was the envy of all the valets of his acquaintance, for no other had the dressing of so fine a gentleman, or one who wore his clothes with such an easy grace, but he could wish that his master had less wicked a sense of humor. Huffington didn’t want to return to Ballerfast at all, for his days there were made miserable by the doglike devotion of Isolda’s dresser. Unlike his master, Huffington derived no amusement from the situation. He allowed himself a meaningful sniff.
    “Spare me your sulks.” Averil pressed one hand to his aching head. “I suppose you’d better see to packing.”
    Huffington was wooden. “Very good, sir. What will your lordship wear today?” He turned to the wardrobe and began to sort through its contents. “The blue? Or perhaps the green?” He stroked the clothes lovingly.
    “The green, I think,” Averil replied absently. He wondered what fresh calamity had prompted his grandmother’s cryptic note. How like her not to explain.
    A stranger entering the room would have been immediately stricken by the Duke of Chesshire’s saturnine appearance. Clad in a dressing gown of deep wine velvet, which only enhanced his swarthy skin and highlighted the sabre scar that ran from left temple to jaw, he looked more like a bloodthirsty pirate than an aristocratic gentleman. His dark hair was worn somewhat longer than was fashionable, and his lean face with its high cheekbones, aquiline nose, and square, arrogant chin, was adorned by side-whiskers. Eyes of the same midnight blue as Isolda’s surveyed his contemporaries, and himself, cynically. Averil was an enigma, even to those who knew him best.  He gambled, and