Читать онлайн «Under The Vale And Other Tales Of Valdemar»
Автор Мерседес Лэки
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 - The Simple Gifts - Mercedes Lackey
Chapter 2 - Catch Fire, Draw Flame - Rosemary Edghill and Denise McCune
Chapter 3 - In an Instant - Elizabeth A. Vaughan
Chapter 4 - A Healer’s Work - Daniel Shull
Chapter 5 - A Leash of Greyhounds - Elisabeth Waters
Chapter 6 - Warp and Weft - Kristin Schwengel
Chapter 7 - Discordance - Jennifer Brozek
Chapter 8 - Slow and Steady - Brenda Cooper
Chapter 9 - Sight and Sound - Stephanie D. Shaver
Chapter 10 - The Bride’s Task - Michael Z. Williamson and Gail L. Sanders
Chapter 11 - Fog of War - Ben Ohlander
Chapter 12 - Heart’s Peril - Kate Paulk
Chapter 13 - Heart’s Place - Sarah A. Hoyt
Chapter 14 - Family Matters - Tanya Huff
Chapter 15 - The Watchman’s Ball - Fiona Patton
Chapter 16 - Judgment Day - Nancy Asire
Chapter 17 - Under the Vale - Larry Dixon
The last thing I expected when I woke up that morning was to find myself running for my life with my clothing in one hand and the other hand holding a sheet rather insecurely about my impressive torso.
Wait, let me back that up a bit.
First, please understand that I have no illusions about myself. I know what my talents are: charm, rugged good looks, wit, a great voice, and an instinct for how to make a lady very happy. I know what my flaws are: the desire to do as little actual work as possible, coupled with a taste for all the finer things in life, and a tendency to stretch the truth paper-thin. These two things make me the ideal candidate for no actual job, but they make me very good at being company for females (face it ladies, you really do not want to know that your butt looks like the rear end of a brood mare in “this dress”).
Yes. Alas, I am a man-whore.
Now that we have the technicalities out of the way, let me add that I specialize in ladies of a certain .
. . age. Those who (so they tell me, and so I will fervently believe as long as I am with them) are underappreciated by the husbands. Because, oh yes, I only specialize in married ladies. That way if anything happens, they have a husband to deal with the consequences. And most of them actually are underappreciated. In the class I deal with exclusively, those husbands will have gone out and gotten themselves one or more pretty, young mistresses, so why, I ask you, is the sauce for the gander not just as appropriate for the goose?I had somewhat worn out my welcome in the western part of Hardorn, so I had crossed into the eastern part of Valdemar, a country with which I was just marginally familiar. Hardorn was rather more to my liking: lots of rich merchant wives, lots of rich minor nobility, lots of husbands who were always somewhere else. However, I’d temporarily run out of the former, and since I was ill-equipped to fend for myself for very long, I took the very nice farewell present from my last “friend” and got a ride with her cousin’s trade caravan west. Her cousin was a widow, and I made an exception to my rule of wives only, and we passed the time pleasantly enough in her plush little wagon.
