Her Own Rules by Barbara Taylor Bradford Read Free Book Online Page B

handsome than pretty, almost as tall 58 / Barbara Taylor Bradford
    as Meredith and well built. Her hair was blonde, cut short, and it curled all over her head; her gray eyes were large and full of intelligence. But it was her flaw-less English complexion that everyone commented on.
    Pausing at the small Georgian desk, Patsy picked up a large envelope and walked back to the sofa, where she sat down next to Meredith.
    “Ian Grainger, the owner of Heronside, is rather proud of the pictures. He took them himself, last spring and summer.” So saying, she handed the envelope to Meredith, who pulled out the photographs eagerly.
    After a few seconds spent looking at them, she turned to Patsy and said, “I’m not surprised he’s proud of them. The pictures are beautiful. So is Heronside, if these are anything to go by.”
    “Very much so, Meredith. In a way, the photographs don’t really do the inn and the grounds justice. There’s such a sense of luxury in the rooms, you feel pampered just walking into one of them. The whole inn is very well done, lovely antiques and fabrics, and I know you’ll like the decorative schemes, the overall ambiance. As for the grounds, they’re breathtaking, don’t you think?”
    Meredith nodded, shuffled through the pictures again, and picked one of them out. It was a woodland setting. The ground was carpeted with irises and rafts of sunlight slanted down through the leafy green canopies of the trees. Just beyond were brilliant yellow daffodils growing on a slope, and, far Her Own Rules / 59
    beyond this, a stretch of the lake could be seen—vast, placid, silvery, glistening in the sun.
    “Look, Patsy,” Meredith said, and handed it to her partner. “Isn’t this gorgeous?”
    “Yes, and most especially the slope covered in daffodils. Doesn’t it remind you of Wordsworth’s poem?”
    Meredith stared at her.
    “The one about the daffodils. Don’t you know it?”
    Meredith shook her head.
    Patsy confided, “It’s one of my favorites.” Almost involuntarily, she began to recite it.
    I wandered lonely as a cloud
    That floats on high o’er vales and hills , When all at once I saw a crowd , A host, of golden daffodils ; Beside the lake, beneath the trees , Fluttering and dancing in the breeze .
    “It’s lovely,” Meredith said.
    “Didn’t you learn it at school?”
    “No,” Meredith murmured.
    Patsy went on. “I like the last verse best of all. Would you care to hear it?”
    “Please,” Meredith replied. “You recite poetry extremely well.”
    Once more Patsy launched into the poem: For oft, when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood , 60 / Barbara Taylor Bradford
    They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude ; And then my heart with pleasure fills , And dances with the daffodils .
    “It’s really beautiful,” Meredith said, smiling at her.
    “It’s very peaceful…serene.”
    “That’s how I feel about it.”
    “I think I’ve heard that last verse before. Somewhere .
    But I’m not sure where,” Meredith murmured. “Not at school, though.” For a moment or two she racked her brain, but try though she did, she could not remember.
    And yet the poem had struck a chord in her memory, but she was unable to isolate it. The fleeting memory remained elusive.
    Patsy remarked, “Unfortunately, I don’t have any pictures of the inn near Ripon. The Millers, who own it, did have a few photos, and they were very good, too. Yet somehow they didn’t quite capture the spirit of the place, its soul. So I decided not to take them.
    You’ll have to judge it cold when we get to the site.”
    “That’s no problem.” Meredith looked at her closely.
    “But you do like Skell Garth, don’t you?”
    “Oh yes, Meredith, very much, otherwise I wouldn’t be dragging you there,” Patsy quickly reassured her partner. “The setting is superb, the surrounding landscape awe-inspiring, picturesque actually. And from the inn there’s a most fabulous view of