The Dark Unwinding by Sharon Cameron & Sharon Cameron

Author:Sharon Cameron & Sharon Cameron
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2012-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

That night in Marianna’s room, Mary was working the tangles back out of my hair when she said, “Do you speak French, Miss?”

“French? Only a very little, Mary.” A very little.

“Enough to be writing letters in it, Miss?”

I winced as she pulled the brush through a tangle. “Goodness, no. I’ve never written a word in French in my life. Why do you ask?”

“Oh, somebody was sending letters in French, and I told them it wasn’t you, and I was right, don’t you see?”

I did see, indeed. Ben had mentioned before that the letters were being watched closely. I would have watched them, too, if I lived in the village. “Mr. Moreau speaks French, Mary. Maybe it was him.”

“Fancy you knowing that, Miss.” I caught her face looking smug in the mirror, and she leaned close to my shoulder. “You know I think you’re right canny, Miss, to keep him guessing like that.”

I turned to look at her, and her eyes widened innocently.

“You know what I’m meaning! To not be telling him right out that you won’t be saying nothing to your relations about Stranwyne! To keep him wondering, like. ’Tis a lesson to me, on how to string your young man along….”

“Mary.” I turned fully around on the little bench, and she stopped brushing, waiting for me to go on. Obviously she had not been napping on the stairs. “Listen carefully to me. Mr. Moreau only wants —”

“I know, Miss, he —”

I held up a hand, and Mary clamped her mouth closed.

“I don’t need you spreading such talk about the village. He merely wants something from me, that’s why —”

“To lie for us, I know, he —”

I looked at her again, and she put a hand over her mouth.

“He wants something from me, that is why he took me to the ballroom today, no other reason.” Lane had told me once that he would do anything for Uncle Tully, and I was certain that was true. He was trying to manipulate me, most likely. Would hate me, probably, before all this was done, but for now I would taste the sugar, if for no other reason than I could not resist it. But when I looked into Mary’s freckled face, her hand clamped over her chin to ensure her own silence, my conscience pricked. It was one thing to pretend because one wanted to; it was another to serve lies to someone who had no idea what they were getting. “Mary, you do understand that I told Mr. Moreau nothing but the truth?”

Mary’s words were muffled by her hand. “No, you didn’t.”

I waited long before answering her, the shortness of her sentence catching me off guard. “Didn’t what?”

She dropped her hand. “You didn’t tell him the truth. You never told him once you’d be lying to your aunt.”

“Oh, Mary,” I breathed. Her faith was a blow I hadn’t seen coming. “When I go back to my aunt’s, I will have to tell her the truth.”

“No, you won’t.”

I waited again for her to go on before discovering my mistake.

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