Wayward Winds by Michael Phillips Read Free Book Online Page B

associated with newspapers, you know. Ah, wouldn’t dear old Mum be proud of me if I were a banker like you!”
    â€œSarcastic flattery will get you nowhere, Halifax.”
    â€œI don’t need to flatter you , Rutherford. I’ll never need money from your bank.—But aren’t you going to introduce me to this lovely young lady on your arm?” he added, turning toward Amanda.
    As he spoke, he tipped his hat and gave just the slightest bow, while locking his eyes onto Amanda’s. She answered his penetrating gaze with a smile of her own, her first of the day.
    The young reporter had learned from a tender age that things were not always what they appeared. This applied to relationships as well as events. He thus lost no opportunity to gain new acquaintances, no matter what prohibitions toward intimacy appearances might indicate. The fact that a lady was on the arm of another nowise deterred him from approach. One never knew what might come of it. Such assertiveness had made of him not yet a good journalist, butnevertheless one whose name was gradually coming to be known throughout London. He possessed a certain knack for discovery that lent itself well to his chosen profession, of which his wealthy dowager mother approved more than she was willing to let on.
    She had financed his Cambridge education, biding her time and keeping her own plans quiet for the present. These had, in fact, been well under way for years, which he suspected not in the least. So much the better if he could make the cause his own without knowing of her hand in some of the very associations he kept from her. His university affiliations could not have gone in directions more perfectly suited to her ends. He had fallen into circles full of liberal thinkers, several Marxists among them—the sort of company Amanda’s father had kept two decades earlier—and involved himself with two or three failed student publications. He left Cambridge after two years and was now working for the Daily Mail . Thus far he had been able to keep his leftist leanings from his editors. Both mother and son had secrets from one another, yet the same forces drove each toward common goals.
    The young lady who had caught the eye of young Halifax from across the lawn a few minutes earlier was certainly one he could not ignore for the rest of the afternoon. She was slightly above average in height, five feet six or thereabouts, with lovely brown hair, curled nicely and bouncing at the shoulder. She seemed altogether mismatched with the young banker whose acquaintance he had made two or three times. She was good-looking, though not so beautiful that her features would in themselves have drawn him. She was carefully dressed and knew how to comport herself. But she carried herself with a purpose and determination that he could detect even from a distance. It was her energetic and confident bearing that kept his eyes returning in her direction as the day progressed. He could tell she was a strong young woman—in what ways he would have to discover later. For that fact alone he must know her.
    On her part, in the few seconds she had to gather a first impression, Amanda judged Geoffrey’s acquaintance to be something over six feet, and probably twenty-two or twenty-three years of age. His lean frame fit his height, though he filled out the expensive tailored grey suit well enough to keep from looking ill fed. He possessed an ample supply of very black hair, parted down the middle, thick and dry rather than pasted down onto his scalp, as was the custom withso many young men—Geoffrey for one. He was handsome enough, though not what she would call dashing. He appeared comfortable with what she gathered had been an aristocratic upbringing. In his expression she detected a hint of what she could only call the unknown, which added to the intrigue about him, especially alongside her cousin. In this setting she would never have guessed him for a