The House at Bell Orchard by Sylvia Thorpe Read Free Book Online Page B

haunted him with a persistence of which he was a little ashamed, the memory of a girl’s white face in the torchlight. In vain he had tried to erase it from his mind, and he found himself constantly indulging in idle, profitless speculation concerning her. Had she found comfort in her hour of trouble? By what name was she known, and what did she look like when she smiled?
    Finding himself thus unprofitably engaged once more, he uttered an exclamation of impatience, and urged his horse briskly up the long, gentle slope of the hill which lay between him and the gates of his home. He reached its crest, and before him the road swept down in a long curve past the gates, to disappear a short distance beyond into the belt of woodland which lay between Wychwood Chase and the village half a mile away. Ahead of him, about half-way down the slope, a coach was travelling in the same direction, driven in a way which showed more regard for speed than for safety. It was an elegant vehicle of polished wood and gleaming paintwork, drawn by a team of powerful bays, and Sir Piers had no difficulty in recognizing it as the property of Colonel Fenshawe.
    He frowned, and slackened speed again, for he had no doubt that the coach contained Lavinia Fenshawe, whom he disliked intensely. He had heard, somewhat to his surprise, that she was staying at Bell Orchard. Her present haste, like his own, was probably due to a desire to reach home before the storm broke, and if he overtook her before she had passed his gates, common civility would compel him to offer her shelter at the Chase until it was over.
    So he checked his horse and waited in the shadow of an overhanging tree, and as he watched the swaying, lurching carriage ahead of him, that importunate memory returned again. He had only to close his eyes to see the girl as vividly as he had seen her that night outside Fenshawe’s house, with her shimmering gown and powdered hair and sweet, grief-stricken face. What the devil ailed him, that he could not put her out of his mind?
    The coach was level with the gates; it was past them; in a few moments it would be out of sight among the trees and he could ride on again. It was jolting wildly over the ill-kept surface of the road, and even as Piers prepared to move forward, the off hind wheel struck a large, protruding stone and was wrenched off, to go bounding away into the tall grass on the far side of the road. The coach lurched crazily on to its side and came to rest at a precarious angle in the ditch, only prevented from overturning completely by the hedge-crowned bank beyond. The horses plunged and reared in a panic which the coachman was unable to control, and the groom, flung from his place by the impact but apparently unhurt, scrambled shakily to his feet and stumbled towards them, showing a fine disregard for the occupants of the carriage.
    Piers set spur to his horse and plunged headlong down the hill towards the scene of the accident. Drawing rein beside the wrecked coach, he leaned from the saddle to wrench open the door, and then sprang to the ground as Mrs. Fenshawe appeared in the aperture. She was considerably dishevelled, her wide straw hat tilted at a ridiculous angle, and though her face was white, it soon became clear that this was due more to anger than to fright. She allowed Piers to help her down from her precarious perch, but once safely on the ground turned from him with scarcely a word of thanks to vent the full force of her fury on the unfortunate servants.
    A faint sound from within the coach caught Piers’ attention, and with a startled glance at the unheeding Mrs. Fenshawe he set a foot on the wheel and swung himself up to look into its interior, to find there the huddled, dark-clad figure of a second woman, who appeared to be trying to raise herself from the far corner, where the thorny branches of the hedge protruded through the shattered windows. Assuming this to be Mrs. Fenshawe’s maid, and reflecting that it was