Boyett-Compo, Charlotte - Wyndmaster 1 Read Free Page A

your age.”
    “My chest is getting bigger, too!” Celeste had complained.
    “As it should,” Madame replied. “Soon, there will be hair where hair has not been before. Do not be
    alarmed. That, too, is natural.”
    Forbidden to speak of certain topics—such as what made women different from men and how children
    came into being—Madame DeAnce could not answer many of the questions Celeste had. What she had
    done, though, was hint that there were things that were natural to the world that Celeste’s father thought
    inappropriate for his daughter to learn.
    “He would keep me a child forever!” Celeste had complained to the healer.
    “Aye,” Madame had agreed. “I believe that is so.”
    “Is it wrong for a man and woman to be together?”
    “No, child,” Madame stated. “It is a beautiful thing between the right man and the right woman. Love is
    a wondrous gift given to us by the gods.”
    And so Celeste stayed ignorant of many things her father did not deem decent for her to know. He kept
    her a virtual prisoner in a satin-lined tower and away from all that might corrupt her.
    Her suite of rooms—one floor up from her father’s—occupied the massive tower with its sweeping
    three hundred and sixty-degree view of the surrounding countryside. Restricted to that room, Celeste
    was only allowed down the stairs when accompanied by her father—which of late was infrequently the
    case for he was often away on Federation business since the war with Emaria had deescalated. Her
    meals were eaten in her luxurious suite but she dined alone, aching for company and something more she
    could not rightly define.
    On rare occasions, her father would take her riding in his buggy for a breath of the sweet country air and
    especially so when the leaves upon the trees on the mountains were changing color. Even then, she
    neither saw the groomsmen who had readied the buggy nor the guards at the gate who allowed them to
    pass over the drawbridge.
    “Where are the guards, Papa?” she’d once asked.
    “You have no need to see such coarse individuals, Anna Celeste,” her father answered. “Nor do they
    have the right to see you.”
    Not once in her eighteen years had she ever spoken to any man other than her father. Though from time
    to time she’d spied the male servants going about their business on the estate, she knew her father would
    not approve of her intently watching them and she had not, until today.
    She lifted her head and looked at the window beyond which temptation was drawing her. Her heart was
    hammering in her chest, her hands shaking as she slid down from the bed and made her way slowly,
    hesitantly, to the window. With her lower lip tucked between her teeth, she climbed up on the window
    set and cautiously looked down.
    Fascinating by what she was seeing—although she knew it was wrong and should she be caught,
    punishment was a certainty—Celeste knelt there on the window cushion and watched. Her heart was
    pounding so furiously in her chest, she was getting a headache from it but nothing could have torn her
    away from her spying. She knew in some untutored part of her mind that she was observing what men
    and women did with one another and the revelation was exciting. When the lad shuddered then collapsed
    upon the maid, Celeste held her breath, waiting for what might come next. She was unprepared when the
    lad rolled off his paramour, his lips pulling free of the maid’s bare breast.
    Gasping, Celeste nearly fell from the window seat as she scrambled away from that sinful sight. Had the
    lad been suckling at the maid’s breast? Surely not! Was that not an animal thing? Had she not observed
    one of the stray cats feeding her brood in that fashion?
    Her eyes moving back and forth as she thought about what she’d just seen, Celeste crept back to the
    window but did not climb up on the window seat. Her face was hot, her breath coming in ragged little
    gasps of nervousness. She hovered there with