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electric lightbulb would have illuminated it. The burning oil smelled foul! Probably the grease of some deceased animal she didn't even want to think about. |
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She blew out the candle to conserve it. Then she sat on the edge of the bed. It made a crunching sound, and there was no give to it, as though the mattress was packed with unyielding straw. She hadn't noticed much about it before, when she'd collapsed in exhaustion upon it. |
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Now, she placed one elbow on her knee and rested her chin in her hand. She felt stiff and uncomfortable in her clothing, hardly able to breathe. She wished she had something fresh to change into for bed. Instead, she'd have to strip down to her underwearor whatever you called it in this time. The light in the outhouse had been too dim for her to tell for sure what she wore beneath her dress. |
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This time. She'd all but given up imagining she was lying somewhere in a coma, dreaming all this. Her headache had at last disappeared, for one thing. More telling was the fact that there was simply too much detail, and not even the smallest incongruity. |
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She was in eighteenth-century Pennsylvania, just like Matilda in the screenplay. |
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"With Thorn," she said aloud, then stopped, listening. Had anyone heard her? |
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She had learned that René's room was across the hall, but she'd left him still talking to Thorn and their guest. As far as she knew, she was the only one in the stable. Except for the horses, of course. "Didn't mean to slight you guys," she called out. But she didn't even hear them stamping in return. |
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She thought again of Thorn. Matilda's Thorn had been a brave, romantic hero who had leapt from the forest to save her from the scoundrels who'd kidnapped her. Scoundrels who had looked like the ruffians they were, even when Matilda had been foolish enough to hire them. |
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Mariah's scoundrels, though, had resembled gentlemen. They claimed to have been hired by Pierce, curse his nasty heart, and probably had been. How else had they known his name and hers? |
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Pierce had put her here. She wasn't certain how, but she |
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