The Flight of Swallows Read Online Free Page B

with a pom-pom on top, her hands were encased in brown’ leather gloves and a long, woollen scarf was wrapped around her neck.
    Suddenly, some likeness, he didn’t know how, perhaps the colour of her hair or the thrust of her little chin, reminded him of someone in whose company he had recently been.
    ‘You’re Drummond’s girl,’ he gasped, amazed at the way he had reacted to her and also to whose daughter she was. She was only a child really, though she was well developed, eyeing her full, well-rounded breasts. Fifteen . . . sixteen perhaps but why should it make any difference to him? The way she had darted out from the woodland, heedless and unthinking, not even hearing the hoof beats of his horse, could have caused a nasty accident, to her, to him and to old Max. He didn’t know why he should be so furious, after all nothing had happened to any of them, but for some reason he was incensed.
    ‘Do you normally dash about like some wild thing, uncaring of whom you may hurt?’ he heard himself saying. ‘Max did well to avoid—’
    ‘I’m sorry,’ she gulped, all defiance leaking away. She bent her head to that of Ginger who was licking her face kindly as though she knew the girl was troubled. ‘I . . . I wasn’t thinking . . .’
    ‘Well,’ he said, his own anger ebbing, ‘perhaps you will be more careful next time.’ He felt a bit of a fool actually, for no harm had been done but she had given him a fright. Max was calmly nibbling the grass where the meadow edged the wood and for a minute or two nothing further was said. Charlotte buried her face into the dog’s silky fur, wrapping her arms about her and the animal wriggled in ecstasy; when eventually she rose to her feet all trace of the tears she had shed had vanished into the animal’s coat. She looked at the man in front of her, knowing who he was but since they had not met before and she was a well-brought-up young lady, she offered him her hand.
    ‘Charlotte Drummond,’ she told him abruptly.
    ‘Brooke Armstrong,’ he answered, taking her gloved hand.
    She saw a tall, lean man with well-muscled shoulders dressed for riding in a tweed jacket of similar colours to her own, buff-coloured breeches and knee-high well-polished riding boots. Under the jacket he wore a buff-coloured jumper, warm and hand-knitted, and he also had a woollen scarf wrapped about his neck. He was quite old, she decided, but not unattractive, dark-complexioned, his face slashed with dark eyebrows, his chin thrusting arrogantly and his mouth firm though it curled up at the corners as if laughter were not far away. He had a dark, vigorous head of hair which the breeze had whipped about his head and which was tumbling over his eyebrows. His eyes were compelling as though they had searched far horizons, with fine lines fanning out from the corners, and almost colourless, a pale, silvery grey with very black pupils, as startling in a way as were hers and they looked at her in a way she found quite disconcerting.
    ‘Well, I suppose I’d better get back,’ she murmured. ‘They will wonder where I am.’
    ‘They?’ He was intrigued, he didn’t know why.
    ‘My brothers.’
    ‘Ah, yes, your father told me he had sons though he didn’t mention you.’
    ‘He wouldn’t!’
    She had turned away, ready to walk back the way she had come but suddenly he wanted her to stay, again he didn’t know why.
    ‘Won’t you sit down for a moment and get your breath?’ indicating a fallen tree trunk on the edge of the woodland. He was startled when she began to laugh, in a manner that might have been described as hysterical though he could not think what he had said to evoke it.
    ‘Thank you,’ she said through the laughter, ‘I don’t think I can.’
    ‘Why not, Miss Drummond, are you . . .?’
    ‘Please, don’t ask. It would be too difficult to explain.’
    ‘Very well.’ His voice was cold. ‘I will detain you no longer.’ But somehow he found himself unable to