Prisoner (The Scarred Mage of Roseward #2) - Sylvia Mercedes Page 0,12

proud, at least as vain as the young Soran Silveri. He might also be cruel.

Nelle took a step back, feeling she’d had enough of being stared at by both young men. Turning her back on them, she hastened to the stair and fairly ran up to the first landing. Only there, when certain she was beyond the reach of those painted gazes, did she pause to consider her next step.

She glanced up the right-hand flight of steps that eventually led to the vast library where she’d spent several fruitless hours on her first day at Roseward. But today she needed to find the family members’ private chambers, so she turned left and hurried up to the next floor.

A thick green carpet rolled down the center of the wide hall before her. It smelled moldy, so Nelle walked on the cold marble floor along the edge instead. Something about this passage felt strangely familiar. She hadn’t come this way before, had she? No, both times she’d followed the right-hand flight of stairs and gone to the library.

Yet she couldn’t deny that sensation of familiarity. Nor the creeping sensation of thorny vines crawling on the edges of her awareness.

Shivering, she stopped. Perhaps this was a mistake. Daylight hours or no daylight hours, Dornrise was a haunted place. Haunted by its own emptiness. Haunted by the nightmares of all who once lived here.

Haunted by the Thorn Maiden, bound, yet present.

Nelle’s mouth went dry, and her heart thudded in her throat. How badly did she want a new gown anyway? She took a step back. But in that moment, her eye landed on a partially open door. It, too, was familiar. Something about it called to her, beckoned her to come and look inside. The call was strong, overwhelming even her prickling fears.

Quickly crossing the moldy carpet, Nelle peered through the door into the chamber beyond. At once that sensation of familiarity intensified. The beautiful canopied bed draped in rose-colored curtains, the soft gold-tasseled rug, the walnut vanity standing along one wall, set with a mirror of flawless glass—she had certainly seen all this before. A memory lingered in her mind, though where it came from she couldn’t say. A memory of this same chamber filled with a rose-hued glow, its atmosphere dense with the perfume of burning roses. And there, seated at that vanity . . .

Nelle blinked. For half an instant, while her eyelids were lowered, she thought she saw a young woman poring over her reflection in the glass. An exquisite creature, all dusky skin and silky black hair, wearing a revealing dressing gown that bared her shoulders and much of her ample bosom. A gold locket on a chain hung from her throat, the oval charm bright against her dark skin.

Nelle’s eyelashes fluttered open. The room was empty again, the image fled. A faint scent of roses lingered, so faint, she might almost have imagined it.

“Bullspit,” she whispered. She was letting her imagination get away with her. Mage Silveri would not have told her Dornrise was safe if it wasn’t. She was too jumpy by half. What would Mother think if she saw her now?

“Come on, girl,” she muttered as she entered the room. “If this ain’t a place to look for dresses, then I don’t know what is.”

Sure enough, when she opened the doors to a huge wardrobe, she found more gowns than any one woman could possibly need. Both waistlines and necklines were lower than the current mode among fashionable ladies of Wimborne, but the fabrics were glorious. Silks and satins and velvets, all trimmed and beaded and embroidered.

“Don’t need trimming and beading,” Nelle muttered, studying dress after dress with a critical eye. “And I sure as boggarts don’t need to be displaying everything I’ve got!” She held up one gown with a front so plunging, she wondered how the lady who’d worn it managed to keep herself contained. Her face heated at the thought of wearing it anywhere Mage Silveri might catch sight of her.

At last she pulled out a pale purple gown with a high, round neckline, a belted waist, and a simple cut. It was too flouncy to be wholly practical, but when compared to everything else in that wardrobe, it was positively demure. She could also get into and out of it with no assistance.

“This’ll do,” she said and, after a quick check to make certain no moths had nibbled at the fabric over the last fifteen years, spread the gown out on the