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Page 73
was a muted defiance in her tone, as though she chafed at being a Servant.
René did not think, either, that she was a suitable servant. She was too skinny, though her strength had not yet faltered. Worse, she seemed not to know the first thing about . . . well, anything.
René had peered into the doorway earlier to see the woman's strange inability to light a fire. Later, although she did not seem surprised that water had to be drawn from the nearby stream, she had stared at René when he'd bade her fetch some as though he should have been the one to go. She had fumbled with the cooking utensils about the fire and acted as though she had never set foot in a kitchen before. An upper-class Anglaise, René thought with distaste. One he would never have thought Thorn would wish to have around except to take money from as a paying guest.
On the other hand, perhaps this was a form of Thorn's revengeallowing one like those who had ill used him to become his servant.
René had yet to hear the story of her hiring from Thorn.
He knew he might never hear it, at least not from his employer.
But there was a look in Thorn's eye when he glanced at this woman that René had never seen before. He was not certain yet whether this was good or bad.
But he would not let this woman hurt his friend Thorn. Thorn had been hurt enough.

Carrying a candle, Mariah dragged herself back to her room in the stable that night, weariness causing her steps to falter.
Despite the darkness illuminated only by the tiny flame she nurtured, she found the betty lamp where René had said it would be, on the edge of the small table that also held an earthenware pitcher and a washbasin. Careful not to spill any oil, she hooked the lamp by its strap to a nail protruding from the wall. Then, with her candle, she lit the edge of the rag wick that hung over the side of the lamp's irregular-shaped metal pan, the way René had shown her. The room brightened immediatelythough far from the way a single

 
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