Leopard in Exile by Andre Norton, Rosemary Edghill Page A

least, of
    someone's ancestors. The portrait of the last Marchioness—of Sarah —hung at the end of the line, a
    splendid study by Romney. Sarah had ordered it removed from the Hall and hung in this out-of-the-way
    place as soon as she had recovered her true memories. The painted stranger in the gilded frame was not
    her, but the likeness of a woman who had sacrificed her name and her life so that Sarah could take her
    place in this half-like world.
    Why? That was a riddle to which she had no answer.
    Sarah sighed heavily, wrapping her cashmire shawl more warmly about her shoulders. It might be the end
    of June, but it was still chill in the Long Gallery when the sun moved around to the west.
    She'd come here to tease herself with old riddles in the hope of taking her mind off the other matter, for a
    week had passed, and there was no word at all of—or from—her husband.
    When Wessex had not appeared by the morning after the ball, Sarah had decided it was best to continue
    on with the plans the two of them had made together. She would remove to the country, even though it
    was the height of the Season, and do her best to make it seem that Wessex was with her. He would
    know to seek her at Mooncoign as soon as he could.
    If he could. Did he lie dead even now, an unrecognized corpse in some back alleyway of London? Had
    what Wessex called "The Shadow Game" come to him?
    Oh don't be a goose, Sarah Cunningham! He took Hirondel with him, and I wager the beast has
    the sense to come home if there is trouble — even if Rupert does not! I shall write again to London
    to see if he has arrived there yet .
    Rather than going home to Mooncoign, Sarah ought more properly to have removed to Dyer Court, for
    that, not Mooncoign, was the Duke's principal seat. But the two estates marched together—one of the
    reasons Wessex and Roxbury's parents had betrothed them so many years ago—and Sarah privately
    thought Dyer Court to be chilly and over-formal. She preferred Mooncoign, with its long rambling wings
    refaced in Italian limestone a century ago, and its fantastical rooftop Sphynxes.
    And this was the house in which that other Sarah grew up. If I am to know her at all, I must find
    her here .
    Sarah gazed on the unliving face of the woman who might be her twin—who was , in some sense, her
    twin, though their kinship lay across dimensions, rather than space or time. After a long moment, her
    shoulders drooped. The painting kept its secrets, as it always did, and after several hours spent here in
    solitude Sarah was no closer either to an explanation of her husband's absence, or to the serenity to
    accept it.
    With a last look back at the portrait, Sarah walked resolutely to the stairs.
    The gardens of Mooncoign, in the time of the last Marchioness, had been redesigned by no less an artist
    than "Capability" Brown. They did not now reflect the stiff formalism of previous ages, but what passed
    on these civilized shores for a Romantic and tumbled naturalism.
    Sarah crossed the terrace and passed down the long slope of lawn. There was an apron of white gravel
    at the foot of the swale, and beyond that a low boxwood maze. Reaching the other side, she circled left
    to strike the Ride, a long straight stretch bordered by double plantings of tall yews that led down to the
    shore of the ornamental water, making a pleasant gallop that had ended in soggy disaster for more than
    one horseman. From hints Knoyle had let drop, Sarah suspected that her other self had found her death
    in Moonmere, for the abigail still spoke of how sick Sarah had been two Aprils gone following a mock
    sea-battle staged on the lake.
    Beyond the ornamental water the tame garden ended. Plantings had been arranged to suggest a dense
    woodland, but they gave way quickly to such true wilderness as England could fairly boast. Sarah had
    often gone into the spinney to think, but today she had not stopped to change her day-dress for a walking
    dress, and neither her shoes