Free The Puzzle Ring by Kate Forsyth

it?’
    â€˜That doesn’t mean I have to spend my whole life being treated like a little kid,’ Hannah flashed back. ‘It’s not fair!’
    Roz took a deep breath. ‘Just don’t go wandering off with any more strange boys. Please!’
    â€˜Not up the fairy hill,’ Linnet murmured from the shadows. ‘It’s a wicked place now, that green hill.’
    Hannah rolled her eyes as her mother stalked away.
    â€˜Come, my chick,’ Linnet said. ‘I’ve given you your father’s old room, the tower room. It’s only tiny, but I think you’ll like it. There’s not a child alive who would not like to sleep in that tower room. I’ve made up the bed for you, and put a hot-water bottle in it, ’cause you’ll not be used to the cold. It was your father’s hot-water bottle and you’ll smile when you see it, for I knitted him a puppy dog cover for it because he so badly wanted a dog when he was a boy . . .’
    Talking softly, the old woman led Hannah through a bewildering sequence of oak-panelled staircases, echoing corridors, and empty halls with faded tapestries and vast stone fireplaces, through which the icy wind whistled in a most mournful way. Hannah thought that she would never be able to find her way back down to the warm comfort of her great-grandmother’s drawing room, with its gold velvet drapes and gilded mirror.
    â€˜Don’t you worry,’ Linnet said. ‘Give you a week and you’ll know the place better than I do.’
    They came to a long hallway, hung with massive portraits. The faces were all grim and stern and sad. ‘Are these all my ancestors? They look utterly miserable.’
    â€˜A lot of sorrowing at Wintersloe,’ Linnet said. ‘It’s the curse, you know.’
    â€˜So there really is a curse? It’s not just an old tale?’
    â€˜I wish it were,’ Linnet said. ‘But the curse is all too real. It was all due to him, the first of the Black Roses.’ She nodded her curly white head at the portrait of a tall, dark man with a pointed beard, a curled moustache and a sardonic expression.
    â€˜Who’s he? And what’s a Black Rose?’
    â€˜That’s Lord Montgomery Rose, the first Earl of Wintersloe. Up till then, the Roses all had red hair, like you do yourself. But his mother was a Spanish lady. Lord Montgomery inherited her black looks and her black temper, and since then, it’s said there’s a Black Rose every few generations, all with a devilish temper.’
    â€˜I always thought it was redheads who had bad tempers,’ Hannah said ruefully, tugging at her wild copper-coloured curls.
    â€˜Oh, yes, but with the Red Roses it’s quickly lost and quickly regained. The Black Roses, though, they can brood over something for years.’
    Hannah stared up at the portrait. The young man was dressed in a doublet and ruff, with a wild rose in one hand. In the background was a castle with a hill behind it crowned with a flowering thorn.
    â€˜What did he do?’
    â€˜He lost his temper,’ Linnet said. ‘Then when he got it back again, he was too proud to admit he was in the wrong. It’s a bad combination, temper and pride. He caused a lot of harm.’
    â€˜I mean, what did he do to get himself cursed?’
    Linnet sighed. ‘He married a lady from under the hill, one of the Fair Folk, but he didn’t trust her. His jealousy drove him half mad, and he cast her out of the castle. The local folk burnt her as a witch.’
    Hannah felt a chill. She rubbed her arms. ‘So she cursed him?’
    Linnet nodded.
    â€˜What happened to him?’
    â€˜Lord Montgomery had fought for Mary, Queen of Scots, and she made him an earl in thanks. But then when she fled to England—a few months after Lord Montgomery’s wife was burnt as a witch—those who had supported the queen were all punished by the rebel lords.