The Ghosts of Kerfol Read Online Free Page B

the bed sagged. I remembered my leggy sisters all in a tangle and Grand-mère perched at the edge, gruffly singing. I remembered Papa blowing out the candle, the crinkling of his tired eyes as he smiled good night.
    Good night, Perrette.
    I whispered it into the dark like a prayer.
    Stingy of heart and nature, Master still returned with costly gifts from Morlaix or Rennes or Quimper whenever he went away. No silk, gem, or linen was too fine, and though he showered her with favors like the diamond-and-sapphire necklace, none moved her.
    Until the little dog.
    When Master returned early that winter from a lengthy trip to Bordeaux, he brought from behind his back a velvet box. Never had I seen him so animated, even playful. His harsh features looked almost handsome in the firelight, or at least a shade more youthful — a hint of his nature before it was steeped and thickened in arrogance. He set the box on the hearth, opened the lid, and out sprang a little golden dog.
    Milady gasped with pleasure as the creature bounded toward her. “Oh, how beautiful!” She lifted the dog, which propped his front paws on her shoulders to regard his new mistress with round, begging eyes.
    After that, she never let him out of her sight, but petted and talked to him as if he were her child — and indeed, the little dog was the nearest thing she had to a child. Or would ever have.
    Yves de Cornault was well pleased. A sailor had procured the animal from an East India merchantman, and the breed was much in demand at the French court at the time, so the baron had paid a steep price for it. But the dog made his wife so happy, he boasted, that he would have parted with twice the sum. He let her keep the creature with her always, even adorn it with the sapphire-and-diamond necklace — also, of course, a recent gift from her husband, one she had never much showcased till now — wound twice and tenderly round its throat.
    One day as I was tidying her dressing table, Master came to her chamber door. She had fallen asleep in a chair with her bare feet resting on the little dog’s back. I stood as still as I could, feigning invisibility. As if sensing him in the room, Milady woke with a start to find him there, smiling strangely.
    “You look like my great-grandmother, Juliane de Cornault,” he said, “who now lies in the chapel with her feet on a little dog.”
    This seemed to chill Milady, who pulled her shawl close round her shoulders, but she laughed. “Well, when I am dead you must put me beside her, carved in marble, with my own dog at my feet.”
    “Oh, we’ll see.” He laughed, but his black brows furrowed. “The dog is a symbol of loyalty.”
    “And do you doubt my right to lie with mine at my feet?”
    “When in doubt, I make inquiry. I’m not a young man,” he added, “and people say you lead a lonely life. But you will have your monument if you earn it.”
    “And I will be faithful,” she replied, looking down at her hands, “if only to earn the prize of having my little dog at my feet.”
    He noticed me then, and I saw fury in his eyes. “Stop your staring, slut, and get about your work.” He raised a hand to strike me, but I ducked and fled to the kitchen, to Maria, who fed me broth and smirked at my childish terror and trembling. “Did your papa never beat you?”
    I sobbed, shaking my head, and swiped at a tear.
    “Do you not see now . . . he has the right to do much worse? And exercises it. You’ll learn how to walk and where to stand. Where not to stand. The best of us, the wisest, are hidden in plain sight.”
    “Like Youen, you mean?”
    “I meant no such thing.” Maria eyed me suspiciously. “But I see what’s on your pea brain —”
    I laughed through my tears.
    “He’ll mock you till the cows come home, Youen, before he’ll spare you a smile.”
    “He’s spared them.” I hoped I did not sound proud. “Once or twice. But Maria, he said he comes from a family of poachers. That Sire knows