The Elsingham Portrait - By Elizabeth Chater Page 0,4

blue material. She attempted to move, and a sharp agony went through her arm. She gasped. Through a fog of pain she heard the man’s voice.

“You have hurt your arm, ma’am. It will be best if you lie quiet. I’ll have you to your abigail in a moment.”

‘Abigail’? Kathryn raised her eyes to the man’s face. Yes, it was the same golden-haired man who had entered the door just before she fainted. He was glancing down at her. Beneath a wide forehead, clear gray eyes watched her steadily. His face was handsome in a strong, masculine way: firm-lipped, firm-jawed. A newly-healed scar crossed his left cheek. Kathryn became aware that his features were set in an expression of controlled dislike. Dislike? But Kathryn had never seen him before. Why should he dislike her? And then the full terror of the situation swept over her, and she shut her eyes with an involuntary moan of shock.

The big man’s arms tensed. “Have I hurt you? I am sorry for it,” he muttered.

“No, it isn’t that! You’re very gentle!” Kathryn protested. “It’s just that I’m so frightened—I can’t understand any of this—” Her voice faded. The man turned into a doorway which was being held open by a flustered serving maid.

“You missed your footing at the landing, ma’am, and fell down the stairway,” the big man said quietly. “You have hurt your arm. I have sent for the doctor. I’ll leave you with your woman now.” He deposited Kathryn on a bed whose feather-softness enveloped her with a treacherous lack of support. Then he stood back, looking down at her. “I trust you will be more comfortable soon.” His voice seemed to Kathryn to hold wariness, a purely formal sympathy. As though we were enemies, she thought, with a flash of insight.

“When the doctor has seen you, I shall talk to him about your fitness to attend the reception tonight. I’ll leave you now—”

“Oh, please, don’t go!” In spite of his obvious dislike of her, Kathryn felt that his strength was the only reality she could cling to in this nightmare. “Please—just for a few minutes . . .”

The pain swept over her again, a sickening wave, and she sank back defeated into the musty-smelling feather bed. But her appeal had not been useless. The big man, frowning slightly, returned to stand beside her. He said quietly to the hovering servant girl, “Bring her ladyship’s dresser here at once. And light more candles.”

As the girl ran from the room, the man’s golden head bent over Kathryn. “Is the pain very great? What can I do for you?”

Kathryn drew a deep, shuddering breath, caught desperately at her reeling senses. “It isn’t the pain so much,” she began, holding her voice steady with a real effort of will. “It’s this house—the portrait, this body—” She shuddered, looking down at the full swell of bare breast from which rose to her nostrils a gagging odor of musky perfume. She stretched the uninjured arm out to him in involuntary appeal.

And then she really saw the arm. The hand was covered with too many ornate rings, and the nails and knuckles were grimy. “It’s dirty! This hand is dirty!” she wailed, made childish by shock and pain and terrible confusion.

The man continued to frown, but his voice was controlled and soothing. “The shock of falling, ma’am, and the pain of your arm, have disoriented your senses for the moment,” he said. “Rest quietly until Dr. Anders comes. He’ll give you something to make you feel better.” It was the tone a conscientious adult would use to a sick child.

Kathryn shook her head wearily against the pillows.

“You don’t understand,” she said. “How could you? I can’t accept any of this myself. Where am I? Is this some kind of nightmare . . . hallucination? I don’t know what’s happened to me!”

With the enforced patience of one humoring a fretful child, the man asked, “Just what is it you don’t understand, Nadine?”

Kathryn’s eyes flew wide open. “ ‘Nadine’? That’s not my name! I’m Kathryn!”

“What new trick is this?” The man drew back from the bedside, the expression of dislike clear on his face. “I warn you, Nadine: I meant what I said this morning. I have had more than I can stomach of your shifts and wiles. I can hardly believe that you would risk serious injury to try to change my mind—but in any case, it is useless. You leave for Brionny Keep in three days. Taking whomever you