From Across the Ancient Waters Read Online Free Page B

way she had come earlier she ran as if her life depended on it.
    Reaching the plateau above the sea, she scarcely slowed. With what remaining speed her feet possessed, she set out across several fields and then over the wide moor toward the stone cottage at the edge of the hills where she and her father made their home.

F IVE
    Lord and Laborer
    F rom a high vantage point overlooking plateau, town, harbor, and the coastline of the sea for miles, two watchful eyes beheld the curiously speedy retreat of the girl away from Mochras Head inland across the flat moorland below.
    It was not his custom to walk alone on the rolling hills and solitary high meadows of his estate. He was not a great walker. He preferred the back of a horse for transport to his own feet. But afternoon tea had precipitated a disagreeable dispute with his wife. Roderick Westbrooke, the Viscount Snowdon, had therefore sought the out-of-doors, not for whatever solace it offered but merely to get away from the house. His annoyance required movement to quiet itself.
    Though his stables were well stocked with suitable mounts for any occasion, he was in no mood for a ride. It was too late in the day for that. He had wandered out with no particular destination in mind. He ambled aimlessly up from the house, kept on longer than planned, and now a mile from the manor still had none.
    Lord Snowdon paused at the sight below him. He stood observing the flight, now across the road that connected the village of Llanfryniog to the main north-south thoroughfare. At length the blond-headed figure disappeared from his view.
    Gradually he now made his way down the slope he had climbed. Descending a dense thicket of pine and fir toward a stream where it passed through a corner of his estate, he eventually completed a wide arc back toward the front of the house.
    If only it
was
his estate, he mused sardonically … in
all
ways. That his name appeared on the title was such a mockery when he possessed no means by which to rule and enjoy life as a lord and viscount ought to be capable of.
    The ridiculous inheritance laws could be so confounded unjust. They gave a man property and title but no means to use them if those means had been squandered before his time!
    He had known all that, of course, when he married the earl’s daughter.
Her
wealth and
his
property seemed made for each other.
    He had not paused long enough at the time to consider the consequences if she ever proved stubborn. Now he found himself on the horns of that very dilemma.
    Technically, of course, it
was
his estate. The ground itself, the land, the house were entirely his possession. But what good did property by itself do a man? He couldn’t
spend
dirt or trees or grass or the stone blocks of which the manor was made.
    He had to find a way to win her over to his point of view … or else find some other means to raise the cash he needed. The opportunity before him was one he mustn’t let slip by. True, it was only a yacht. But he had his heart set on the purchase. Yet without his wife’s funds, the thing would be dashed difficult, if not downright impossible.

    Meanwhile, the child Roderick Westbrooke had seen reached the stone cottage of her home and burst inside. Her father had only moments before returned from the slate mine north of the village. He spun around at the sound of the door nearly crashing off its hinge.
    “P–P–P–Papa, Papa,” stuttered his daughter. “Th–th–th—”
    “What is it, Gwyneth, my child?” asked Barrie as he calmly approached with open arms. He had long ago learned that to soothe his daughter’s agitation was the quickest remedy for the difficulty of her tongue.
    “It’s a … a h–h–h–h—”
    Her father sat down and took her lovingly into his lap as if she were as young as the villagers thought her. He smiled with reassuring patience.
    “Th–th–th–there’s a head, P–P–Papa,” she finally blurted out. “It’s b–b–b–buried in the