Read Online Hester Waring's Marriage by Paula Marshall - Free Book Online Page A

fluffy yellow balls and placed it gently in the little girl’s hands. She then rose, took the child in her arms and sat on the low brick wall at the end of the yard. She kissed the child’s soft cheek as she did so.
    Tom moved forward and Hester became suddenly aware of his presence. She grew quite still, like a frightened animal, ready to fly, and her grasp of the child tightened involuntarily. The liveliness of a moment ago which had transformed her face, had disappeared, as it had done when he had caught her by chance in the schoolroom.
    â€˜Mr Dilhorne?’ she said, her voice quite composed, whatever her inward fears.
    Tom walked carefully towards her, being careful not to tread on the little balls of fluff while he did so. Hester could not suppress a smile at the sight of the big man in his finery treading so daintily.
    â€˜You may laugh, Miss Waring, but I have no desire to slaughter any of Mrs Cooke’s flock.’
    â€˜I was not laughing, Mr Dilhorne,’ Hester informed him primly.
    â€˜Pray do not tell me that, Miss Waring. You were distinctly about to laugh. You are smiling now.’
    Hester put on her most serious face. ‘I am not smiling now, Mr Dilhorne. I advise you to stand where you are. The chickens will be safer.’
    â€˜Excellent advice, Miss Waring. I can see that your appointment was a wise one. You are able to instruct the older among us, as well as the children.’
    â€˜You have a reason to speak to me, Mr Dilhorne?’
    â€˜Even better, Miss Waring. You remind me that I am being remiss, and also inform me that my presence in Mrs Cooke’s yard can only be because I wish to speak to you, and not herd newly hatched chicks.’
    Hester could not prevent herself from laughing aloud at his bland impudence, which served to exorcise her fear of him and silence her inward Mentor who saw him as a ruffian and a monster.
    â€˜I fear that we never seem to engage in a proper conversation, Mr Dilhorne.’
    â€˜I see nothing improper about this one, Miss Waring. I have merely called to bring you the reading primers which Jardine told me that you needed.’
    Hester wondered briefly why it had not been left to Jardine to give them to her, and why it was necessary for the great Mr Tom Dilhorne to act as an errand boy. She decided that this was not a profitable line to follow with him, given his ability to turn conversation on its head.
    Their meeting followed a more normal pattern thereafter. Tom asked to sit by her on the wall. He petted the little girl while he questioned Hester idly about her work with the children. Except that somehow, in the middle of this, she absent-mindedly handed him Kate and the chicken to hold without so much as asking him if she might.
    Or was it he who relieved her of Kate, saying mildly, ‘I fear the child is a little heavy for you, Miss Waring.’
    Odd things seemed to happen to her perception of reality whenever Mr Tom Dilhorne walked over her horizon. Oddest of all was that she spoke to him so freely and boldly—she who had blanched and stuttered whenever the officers of the garrison had tried to talk to her.
    Tom declined Mrs Cooke’s offer of a cup of freshly brewed tea, pleading another engagement, and took himself and his magnificence away. Hester really could not accommodate herself to the sight of his splendid clothes.
    â€˜Well!’ exclaimed Mrs Cooke, when he had gone and Hester was examining the books which he had brought. ‘What was all that about, Miss Waring?’
    But Miss Waring could not tell her.
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    Tom walked home with the memory of Hester kneeling among the chickens—home, because despite what he had said to her, he had no other engagement, deviousness being as natural to him as breathing. A monstrous idea was beginning to take shape in his brain. It was an idea born of his loss of Mary Mahoney and the news that very day that his housekeeper was giving him notice.
    He saw Hester