Read Online Miss Winbolt and the Fortune Hunter by Sylvia Andrew - Free Book Online

were already stirring,more because of his own astonishing reactions to her than anything she herself had said or done. He had been surprised at the strength of the desire he had felt for the girl in the hollow and had been quite unable to forget her. For a man who prided himself on his self-control, this was bad enough, but now, within a space of weeks, he had experienced the same degree of desire, this time in the highly civilised atmosphere of a ballroom. And not with a practised charmer like Maria Fenton, but with Miss Emily Winbolt, of all people! He had come damned close to kissing the girl in public! But on thinking it over later, he realised how very odd her reaction had been. Far from being angry with him for holding her longer and more closely than strictly necessary, she had apologised to him! Why? Why had she felt the need to apologise? Miss Winbolt was indeed the enigma he had thought her.
    He lay awake that night, still puzzling over her behaviour. The more he thought about it, the stranger it appeared—and not only after that dance either, but through out the evening. Coolness might have been expected—after all, there was no reason why she should look more kindly on him than on anyone else. But fear? That was the emotion he had seen in her eyes before she had looked away, and her hand had trembled when it rested on his arm. Why? And why had so much about her seemed familiar when he had held her in his arms—her touch, the scent of her hair, her eyes…silver-grey eyes… Those eyes were her out standing feature—clear silver grey, like the water in the stream which ran along the valley in Stoke Shearings.
    The girl in the hollow just above the stream had such eyes, too…silver-grey… A thought came into his head at that point which appeared to be so completely fantasticthat he began to wonder whether his obsession with the girl in the hollow was affecting his mind. It was impossible to believe that Emily Winbolt and that girl were one and the same… No, it was quite impossible!
    But as the night wore on the idea began to seem no longer quite so absurd. It would explain a lot—her alarm at meeting him tonight, her reluctance to talk to him, the strange sense of familiarity… Was it because he had met her before tonight? Had held her in his arms before? Shearings, where the Winbolts lived, was not far from the spot where he had rescued the girl from the tree, and she had run in that direction. Could it possibly be true? If it were…
    William started to smile. What a situation that would be! Emily Winbolt, born spinster, society’s model of rectitude, abandoning herself to making love with a stranger in the fields! What a hypocrite that would make her! He lay for some time thinking about the two women, and fell asleep at last still trying to reconcile what he knew of them.
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    William had an important appointment the next morning with his architect at Charlwood. But after his sleep less night he had decided to look first at the spot where he had met the girl who had haunted him. He rose early, and instead of setting off towards Charlwood he made for Stoke Shearings. He left his horse once again at the inn and followed the path along side the stream. The water was as clear as he remembered, the slope above it just as steep. The hedge and even the oak tree where he had first caught sight of her soon came into view. He climbed up the slope and stood beside the oak. Someone had cleared away the broken branch and tidied up the hedge, but it was unmistakeably the spot.
    â€˜You’re not thinking of climbing through that there hedge, are yer, sir?’ William looked down. A man was standing on the path below, shaking his head. He went on, ‘I don’t advise it. It’d be the last short cut yer’d take. There’s a vicious animal in the field on t’other side.’
    â€˜Really?’
    â€˜Black Samson, Farmer Pritchard’s bull. A