Free Had We Never Loved by Patricia Veryan

lovely that he was dazzled. He said weakly, “So your name … really isn’t Alice…”
    The soft lips parted. “I said it wasn’t. I’m Amy Consett, and this is me Uncle Absalom Consett. And what’s your name, mate?”
    â€œYou know … who I am.”
    â€œI forget. Remind me.”
    â€œI will if you … won’t let him … kill me.”
    â€œAll right. Then tell me.”
    He thought about it, but he was so weary that he fell asleep.
    When he awoke, the mists were gone. The little bell was no longer chiming, but he heard another sound, a sort of faint and sporadic rattling. He began, gradually, to take stock of things. He lay on a rough but fairly comfortable bed. The mattress appeared to consist of straw and bracken piled on a wooden frame and contained by a sheet. Two coarsely woven blankets covered him, and, incongruously, his head was supported by a satin pillow. At first, he’d supposed he was in a cave, but he saw now that the room was built of stone blocks, and that sunlight was slanting through an opening high up in one wall.
    He looked about curiously. Rough wooden packing cases were piled under the window, and beside them a large upended crate held a chipped water pitcher and bowl, a cracked mirror, and a hairbrush and comb. His wandering gaze was held by a picture that hung nearby. It depicted a goosegirl driving her flock across a field at sunset, with dark clouds building on the horizon, and it was another incongruity, because the artistry was superb, and the frame richly carven. ‘Stolen, past doubting,’ he thought.
    He moved his head carefully, and was not punished by the immediate and savage stab of pain that had plagued him in earlier awakenings. He discovered a crude table, where the gypsy girl, Amy, sat on a three-legged stool. Her head was bent low over a curved strip of polished wood at which she worked with intense concentration. As he watched, she turned to a small open box on the table and began to poke about at the contents, this causing the rattling sounds he’d heard. She evidently found what she was seeking, because she selected a very small object, then bent to her work once more.
    She had a charming way of tossing her hair back when it fell forward. Glendenning noticed how obediently most of the dark mass hung behind her, but one silken strand, as though unable to bear being pushed away, would slip stealthily across her snowy shoulder until it swung triumphant before her, only to be shaken back once more. He was waiting for it to start sliding again when she glanced at him.
    Her face lit up. She exclaimed, “What, are you awake at last? And does you know who ye is, this time?”
    â€œYes, but—”
    â€œAha!” Standing, she approached the bed. “That sounds more like a man’s voice, ’stead o’ some poor ghost. Say it, then. All of it, mind!”
    Vaguely irked, he said, “Horatio Clement Laindon. Viscount Glendenning. And I apologize if I’ve been a nuisance because I broke my head when you stole my mare.”
    â€œBroke it before, ain’tcha melord? Going to have a scar on both sides o’ yer red nob.”
    He reached up instinctively and touched a bandage. They’d removed his wig, of course. He said ruefully, “I must look a proper sight.”
    She chuckled. “Well, yer hair’s not so red as I’d thought ’twould be. Auburn, I ’spect they’d call it.” She wandered closer, and touched his hair gently. “Starting to curl already, but I ’spect you’ll whack it all off again, which is daft. Yer Irish-jig’s not so nice as yer own hair.”
    He noticed, as he had before, that she had an odd way of sometimes pronouncing words correctly, and sometimes lapsing to a coarser version. “‘Irish jig’—meaning wig?” he asked, smiling. And when she nodded, he went on, “Why do you