Cottage by the Sea Read Online Free Page A

with formidable, curving horns. The large, shaggy carrot-colored beasts seemed somehow miscast in the quilted landscape of gentle, rolling hills and fields crosshatched by tall flower-encrusted stone and grass hedges.
       Minutes later Blythe arrived at the three-thousand-acre seat of her supposed ancestors, the Barton-Trevelyans, only to be informed that her landlord, Lucas Teague, whose antecedents had been both Bartons and Trevelyans, had already departed for dinner with friends in nearby Mevagissey. A glance at her watch told Blythe that she was more than three hours past the time of her estimated arrival. Even so she felt unaccountably deflated by the news that the lord of the manor had not remained at home
    to greet her.
       An elderly housekeeper in a navy-blue pleated skirt, white blouse, and gray cardigan who introduced herself as Mrs. Quiller had appeared at the front door the instant their car crunched to a stop at the gravel entrance. Lucas Teague's retainer—a small, neat woman with an exceedingly pleasant manner—promptly handed the visitor a large old-fashioned iron key and directed Blythe's chauffeur to proceed back up the drive, and down another twisting single-track road toward the sea, where they would find a wooden gate with a carved sign announcing Painter's Cottage.
       "Just mind to clo-ose the gate for the goin' in or comin' out," she cautioned in the soft, elongated manner of Cornish speech. "Us don't want to lose the few sheep that're still on the place," she added, exchanging her pronouns in the fashion typical of the locals. "I've left a pasty near the hob, if ya be of a mind for something fillin'. There's a fire laid, that'll give ya some extra heat if it's needin'."
       By the time they bumped down a dirt track and reached a broad field flanking the sea, the swirling fog had turned into a driving rain. With lichen clinging to its slate roof, a small stone dwelling looked forlornly out across the English Channel. The cottage was illuminated by a solitary lamp glowing in one of its deep-set windows. Facing north was a distinctive twelve-foot-by-eight-foot square-paned artist's window.
       Blythe noted with some satisfaction that, as per the inviting prose in Lucas Teague's brochure, which had accompanied the booking form and outlined the lodging's amenities, Painter's Cottage was, indeed, located thirty feet from a cliff near Dodman Point, a half mile from Barton Hall itself. However, at the moment, thanks to a steady downpour, she
    couldn't see five feet in front of the car.
       It was close to eight by the time she found herself standing alone in the middle of the frigid cottage overlooking Veryan Bay—now completely shrouded in fog. As the hired car and uncommunicative driver disappeared into the deepening gloom, Blythe paused at the threshold, watching the taillights vanish into the mist.
       Then suddenly she was overcome by a wave of loneliness so devastating that her breath caught, as if she'd been assaulted. Like a DVD endlessly replaying itself, her mind began to focus once again on the terrible sequence of events that had led up to the moment when she'd walked inside her husband's luxurious director's trailer.
        Don't think about it … just don't think about it!
       As she ventured farther into the deserted cottage, Blythe's eyes were drawn to the shadowy corners of the small chamber.
       Try as she might, she couldn't seem to switch off the flood of memories regarding a scandal taking place half a world away.
       Prior to her own shocking discovery of her husband's unorthodox infidelity, apparently everyone but she had been privy to all manner of gossip and innuendo. Those in the know whispered that Christopher Stowe, the brilliant filmmaker, had spent many a sultry afternoon at Ellie's artist's loft in Santa Monica, where she illustrated children's books, no less. Her sister had been occupying real estate she, Blythe, had paid for, hoping her