Read And Be Thy Love for Free Online

her, in a slightly melancholy fashion, “it is not one of my weaknesses to criticise. Wasn’t it one of your own protestant martyrs who said: ‘But for the grace of God there goes John Bradford’... ?
    I cannot claim to be as worthy as John Bradford, but------------”
    Then, for the second time that day, he caught her as she swayed slightly and put out a groping hand towards him. He lifted her off the settee and swung her up into his arms, and as he carried her out into the hall and up the stairs she thought drowsily that in spite of his slender build he must be very strong, and very fit, for he bore her with ease, moving swiftly along the ill-lighted corridors and not even breathing quickly when he finally set her down on her bed.
    It was a huge four-poster, with cherubic faces peering at her from the mahogany columns that supported the tester; and he tugged back the faded brocade curtains so that she should have plenty of air. Then he went to the window and opened that wide for her, and returned to the bed and switched on the bedside light. He looked down at her a little anxiously.
    “Can you manage?” he asked. “Or ought I to fetch someone to look after you?”
    She sent him a sleepy, grateful smile.
    “No, I’ll be perfectly all right. But I’m simply dropping with sleep.”
    “You’re sure? You’re not afraid to be left here alone?” The violet-blue eyes rewarded him with an even softer smile, and she barely shook her head.
    “You wouldn’t like me to curl up like a dog on the mat? Outside your room, of course!”
    She shook her head more vigorously.
    But once he had left her alone she found herself thinking: Those eyes of his, so brown and velvety, were a little dog-like when he wasn’t actually provoking her with a slightly teasing smile. They were slightly audacious eyes at times, whimsical at others, calm and confident at others. They never looked away; she had noticed that they always sought to hold her glance.
    It would be comforting to have him on the mat, but he had to be on his way to his cottage.
    And then, feeling more than ever confused by her thoughts, and by the languor that had clamped down on her like a leaden weight, she struggled out of her clothes and into bed.
    CHAPTER IV
    THE following morning, when she awakened, the sun was streaming into her room. When she looked from her window all the promise of the night before seemed to have materialised and paraded itself before her eyes, and she uttered a little gasp of sheer pleasure.
    There was the overgrown tangle of garden, shut in and enclosed by high yew hedges. There were the secret walks, the little arbours, the fish-pond that was probably nowadays empty of fish, the garden statuary. Leaning a little from her window Caroline made out and admired a graceful Pan-like figure poised on the brink of a rectangular pool that was a thicket of spreading water-lily leaves and opening buds; and at the foot of a flight of time-worn steps leading down to a sunken rose-garden, a nymph stood complacently amongst the roses.
    The moat with its reflected towers was not visible on this side of the house, but when Caroline made her way outside at last her breath caught again as something like a pang of admiration actually shook her a little. For she had stepped out on to the terrace that created an illusion of being a platform poised high in space, and she could look down into the limpid water that slapped murmurously against the lower arches of the bridge that crossed it. Beneath the bridge a flotilla of moorhens was passing, and amongst the reeds on the farther bank a procession of tame ducks kept pace with it. Caroline, who had slept well and was feeling wonderfully refreshed, felt laughter bubble up in her at the way the ducks waddled, and they were plainly attempting to supplement the breakfast which they might, or might not, have received, Marthe being no longer on hand to feed them.
    Caroline had been horrified when she looked at her watch on