Her Own Rules/Dangerous to Know by Barbara Taylor Bradford Read Free Book Online Page B

car seat, she closed her eyes, thinking of the packing she still had to do, trying to decide what clothes to take. Unexpectedly, she thought of Reed Jamison and the dinner date she had made with him. The mere idea of seeing him filled her with dismay, but she knew she must keep the appointment if she were to break off with him.
    It was never on, she thought, sitting up, glancing out of the window. Their relationship had never really lifted off the ground, although lately he seemed to believe otherwise. In an effort to make herself feel better, she adopted a positive attitude, assured herself that it was going to be easy. He would understand. After all, he was a grown man.
    Deep down Meredith knew she was wrong in this assessment of him. Instinctively, she felt he was going to be difficult. Her dismay turned into apprehension.

C HAPTER F OUR
    â€œI know you thought I was being stubborn the other day” Patsy Canton said, “when I wouldn’t discuss the inns with you, but—”
    â€œMore like evasive,” Meredith interrupted.
    â€œNot evasive, not stubborn either. Just cautious. I didn’t want you to get any preconceived ideas, especially from me, before you saw the inns. But now I can give you a sort of— preview, shall we say. The owner of the inn near Lake Windermere in the Lakes sent us a batch of photographs. They arrived yesterday. Let me get them for you.”
    Patsy pushed herself out of the chair, walked across the small red sitting room of her house in London’s Belgravia, where she and Meredith were having a drink before lunch on Sunday.
    In her late thirties, she was an attractive woman, in a way more handsome than pretty, almost as tall 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 flawless 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.
    â€œIan 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.”
    â€œVery 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 beyond this, a stretch of the lake could be seen—vast, placid, silvery, glistening in the sun.
    â€œLook, Patsy,” Meredith said, and handed it to her partner. “Isn’t this gorgeous?”
    â€œYes, and most especially the slope covered in daffodils. Doesn’t it remind you of Wordsworth’s poem?”
    Meredith stared at her.
    â€œThe 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.
    Â 
    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