Free Come to Castlemoor by Jennifer Wilde

Duchess. She’s afraid of strangers and doesn’t let any one touch her. I don’t understand it—”
    â€œNeither do I,” I retorted, “but I’m relieved.”
    â€œThey must have frightened you to death,” the girl said.
    â€œNot really,” I replied glibly, “though I wouldn’t be surprised if my hair has turned white. It hasn’t, by any chance?”
    The girl shook her head, still solemn. I shrugged my shoulders. She seemed to relax a little and watched with great interest as I examined the tear in my skirt.
    â€œYou’re Katherine Hunt,” she said.
    â€œAs a matter of fact, I am.”
    â€œI knew that. You couldn’t very well be anyone else.”
    â€œNot in this life. Perhaps in the next.”
    â€œYou’re—you’re teasing me,” she said.
    â€œJust mildly, Nicola.”
    â€œYou know my name?”
    â€œYou couldn’t very well be anyone else, now, could you?”
    The girl smiled. All traces of the tragic heroine vanished, and she became an incredibly beautiful young girl. Her skin was dark, her jet-black curls fell in a rich cascade to her shoulders, and her features were exquisitely molded. The pink mouth looked vulnerable, the nose was classic, and the enormous black eyes were surrounded by sootblack lashes that swept her cheek. She reminded me of a gypsy, and I sensed a gypsylike abandon in her nature that had been carefully repressed by years of enforced decorum. She was probably not even aware of this streak in her makeup, yet it was clearly there. I thought of a wild colt captured and trained, forced to go through thoroughbred paces while longing instinctively to leap the fence and return to the wildlands.
    The beauty was natural, yet the girl did not seem to be aware of it. She had none of the vanity, none of the little affectations that so often mar such beauty. She wore a white dress with clusters-of vivid yellow daisies printed on the full, billowing skirt. It fit tightly at the waist and bosom, emphasizing a figure both beautiful and startlingly mature. She was like some earthy, Mediterranean flower mistakenly transplanted on English soil. Her childlike charm, her girlish gestures, and her obvious innocence only made this other quality all the more disturbing. In her native Italy, Nicola would have already been married, with a home, children, and a fund of worldly wisdom. Instead she had the charming naïveté of a proper young English girl carefully schooled and sheltered from all but the most inane aspects of life.
    â€œI so wanted to meet you,” Nicola said enthusiastically. “I knew you had come.”
    â€œDid you?”
    â€œYes. Your trunks arrived a few days ago, and everyone was surprised at that. They thought you’d probably sell the house. Then Buck saw you in town yesterday, and he told us about it.”
    â€œBuck?”
    She nodded. “He works for Burton. He was walking down the street, and you and your maid passed him.” She smiled. “I made him describe you, but he couldn’t remember what you were wearing. I wanted to know everything—” She sighed, looking at her feet. “Not too much happens around here. When someone new comes, it’s an event.”
    I sat down on the low rock. Duke came and put his head in my lap, but Duchess cavorted around her mistress, leaping up and down, wanting to play.
    Nicola stroked the dog’s head. Her eyes were sad. “I hoped maybe I’d have a friend,” she said with disarming simplicity. “I—I haven’t had many.”
    â€œI could use a friend myself,” I said lightly. “I don’t know anyone here.”
    Nicola came and perched on a rock slightly higher than the one I sat on. She spread her skirts out and folded her hands primly in her lap. The rocks protected us from the wind, but there was still enough to ruffle her curls and blow wisps of hair about her