Read Online A Flight To Heaven by Barbara Cartland - Free Book Online Page A

you don’t come from around here. You don’t sound like a Norfolk man.”
    He laughed.
    “You are quite right. I am a visitor. And you, I presume, live up in the sky?”
    “No! Of course not – I have just come – to ride,” Chiara replied with difficulty, as her teeth were beginning to chatter with the cold.
    “In a silk dress? With your hair flying loose like an angel in a painting? And all alone? I think you are fooling with me. You are a Heavenly being just fallen to earth.”
    And then he shook his head.
    “But no, you must be mortal after all – for you are shivering. Here!”
    He pulled off his ragged coat and held it out to her and she was astonished to see that he wore an elegant grey morning coat and beautifully cut trousers underneath it.
    “Please, I insist!” he said and tossed the coat up to her so that it fell around her shoulders.
    “But – who are you?” she asked. “I cannot take your coat if I don’t know who to return it to and you will be cold without it.”
    “It’s not my coat,” he replied, “and, just for today, I am nobody, lost in a strange land.”
    He threw back his head and laughed again.
    “Go, quickly!” he shouted. “Back to your home in the sky!”
    He clapped his hands so that Erebus was startled and shied away from him.
    Chiara clutched the ragged coat around her with one hand and clung to the reins with the other.
    Erebus was turning for home now and the stranger was leaving, running with long loping strides as he headed for the dunes at the top of the beach.
    “Thank you!” she called, but he did not turn back.

CHAPTER FIVE
    Chiara’s heart now leapt with excitement as Erebus cantered swiftly back over the beach.
    She could not get the dark-haired stranger’s face out of her mind.
    His high cheekbones and the fierce glow of his dark eyes seemed strangely familiar and yet she was certain that she had never met him before.
    And the sound of his voice!
    When she remembered his curious accent and the odd things he had said to her, her whole body rang with a sensation she had never felt before, as if she was a silver bell giving out a sweet high note.
    The sun had fallen below the horizon and the sky was turning purple as they left the beach.
    Chiara knew they might not get back to Rensham Hall before dark, but Erebus would have no trouble finding the way even though there was no moon.
    The little pony kept a steady trot along the narrow country roads and Chiara slackened the reins and let him make his own pace.
    She was very glad of the stranger’s dusty old coat, as, now that the sun had set, the air was turning very cold.
    Suddenly, Erebus’s ears flicked back, as if he had heard something and he jumped forward, quickening his pace.
    Chiara strained to catch the sound that had startled him and her heart quickened because she could hear men’s voices shouting and a distant clatter of hooves on the road.
    Riders were galloping along the road behind her.
    “Go on, go on, as fast as you can,” she whispered, leaning low over Erebus’s white mane. “I don’t want them to see me out riding in the dusk in my silk dress and this funny old coat.”
    But the little pony was tired from his long gallop on the beach and, although he tried valiantly to keep ahead, the noise of the shouting grew steadily nearer.
    “Hello there! Lady Chiara? Where are you?”
    A chill ran through Chiara’s limbs, as she heard her name being called out. It was Mervyn Hunter’s voice and it was he who was on her trail.
    “We must take a short cut!” she cried.
    She pulled the reins, turning Erebus’s head so that he had to leap up the steep bank that bordered the road.
    Now they were in the fields and ahead of them in the gloomy twilight, a bright light winked and Chiara knew that this must be coming from a window at Rensham Hall.
    “We’re almost there!” she called and dug her heels into the pony’s sides.
    He stumbled forward across the deep furrows of the ploughed field,