The Pillars Of The World

laughter, Ari pressed her lips together and nodded.
    “I’d rather face a snake. A big, venomous snake. Or a wolf.”
    “That’s quite sensible of you, Neall. It would even be sensible if there were such creatures in this part of Sylvalan. But it won’t help Mistress Dianna get mounted—and she has been trying for a while now. The mare’s a bit sulky about being saddled up again and apparently decided the chopping block Dianna was going to use as a mounting block was something to avoid.”
    “Why didn’t you offer to give her a leg up?”
    “I did, but she said I wasn’t strong enough to boost her into the saddle.”
    Neall snorted. The woman obviously didn’t know Ari. “And I should go back there because . . . ?”
    “You’re a man and, therefore, stronger and braver than I am,” Ari replied sweetly.
    Neall just stared at her. “You owe me for this.”
    “I’ll hold your horse.”
    “As if you’re going to convince him to move anytime soon,” he muttered, taking the longest way around the cottage that he possibly could. “If you petted me the way you pet him, I wouldn’t move either.” He hoped the day would come when she did exactly that. And come soon.
    As he rounded the corner of the cottage, he saw the mare sidle away from the chopping block at the same moment the woman tried to put her left foot in the stirrup. Since she was holding on to the saddle, the woman got pulled off the block instead of landing on her face.
    “You’re dog meat,” the woman snarled.
    Neal winced. He recognized the mare as one of Ahern’s, and knew well enough how the old man felt about anyone threatening an animal he had bred and trained. The mare wasn’t one of the special horses Ahern raised, but all of his animals were prime stock.
    The woman had her back to him so he couldn’t see her face, but he knew she wasn’t from one of the local families. And he hadn’t heard of a lady named Dianna staying with any of the gentry families in the neighborhood. If one of her acquaintances had a guest, Odella would have already paid a call in order to pass judgment on the stranger’s sense of fashion and family connections. So she probably wasn’t a gentry lady, regardless of what she had told Ari. But she had gotten a horse from Ahern, which meant the man approved of her—at least to some extent.
    “May I give you a leg up?” Neall asked.
    She whipped around to face him.
    Neall’s vision blurred. Not everything. Not everywhere. Just her face blurred, as if he were seeing two faces, one beneath the other, the same and yet slightly different.
    That used to happen to him all the time when he was a small child and his mother’s friend Ashk came to visit, but it rarely occurred after he’d come to live with Baron Felston. Well, it had happened that once, when a traveling minstrel stopped at Ridgeley and the baron had taken him and Royce to the tavern to hear the man play. And it still happened occasionally when he was at Ahern’s farm, but only when he was so tired he wasn’t thinking clearly. A crowded, smoky room or dusky light at the end of a hard day were easy explanations for a moment of blurred vision. But neither of those things explained why he was experiencing it now .
    “You’re staring at me,” the woman said. “Do you find this amusing?” Her voice held the cool arrogance any gentry lady’s would have when caught in an awkward situation, but there was a dangerous undercurrent that made him sure she would hurt him badly if she was seriously provoked.
    Shivering, Neall rubbed his eyes, then blinked a couple of times. When he focused on her again, he saw an attractive stranger. He didn’t know her, and he was equally certain he’d seen her before in a different place or under different circumstances that made her now seem unfamiliar. Like a lady’s maid dressing up in one of her mistress’s old gowns and trying to pass herself off as a lady to someone who didn’t know her. Was that all this was? A lady’s maid who could pretend well enough but still didn’t get it quite right?
    “Are you amused?” Her voice had gotten colder.
    Neall shook his head to clear it, then walked over to her—and tried to shake the uneasiness that increased with every step he took toward her. Get her out of here, away from Ari, and then think it through . “My apologies, Mistress. I was dizzy for a moment. Here. Let me give you a leg up.” He bent slightly and laced his fingers to receive her foot.
    When