100. A Rose In Jeopardy Read Online Free PDF Page A

luncheon at the inn and he’ll be here for tea! How we shall get everything ready for him in time, I really don’t know.”
    Rosella’s heart seemed to turn right over.
    “Did you see him?” Mrs. Dawkins asked, her hand on Rosella’s arm. “What was he like?”
    “I just couldn’t say,” Rosella replied, picturing the man with the mutton-chop whiskers wolfing down his plate of food at the inn. “I think I saw him, and – he seemed a distinguished-looking man, but I did not speak to him.”
    “Distinguished-looking. Oh, my!” Mrs. Dawkins’ eyes were bright with excitement. “I must get back to the laundry and make sure that the maids have ironed enough sheets. The coachman says that his Lordship has brought a gentleman with him from London for company.”
    Rosella’s heart felt a sudden chill.
    Not only would there be a new Master at New Hall – and one who did not look like a kind and pleasant man, but the other gentleman, who had so rudely shouted at her in the bar of the inn, would be coming with him.
    Her despondency must have showed on her face, as Mrs. Dawkins apologised for asking so many questions.
    “Your Ladyship, I am being quite out of order,” she said, straightening her cap. “You must be hungry after your trip into town. I will order luncheon for you directly.”
    “Please don’t bother, Mrs. Dawkins. It’s such a hot day and I really am not hungry at all. I shall go up to my room and lie down for a little.”
    “And be sure to put on one of your prettiest gowns for tea,” the housekeeper added, as she hurried away to the laundry.
    There was no one but Pickle, who was sitting in his cage in the drawing room, to hear how unhappy Rosella was feeling and he was just settling down on his perch for his afternoon nap, tucking his head under his grey wing.
    She left him to doze in peace and ran up the stairs to her bedroom.
    She tossed her parasol onto the bed and was just about to take her shoes off to lie down, when one of the pictures on her bedroom wall caught her eye.
    It was a portrait of a young man, not much more than a boy, wearing a cloth wrapped around his head like a turban and a blue jacket and trousers sewn all over with little jewels.
    This portrait had been in Rosella’s family for many years. It had been given to her Papa by her grandfather.
    She had asked many times who the young man was, but no one could tell her. Aunt Beatrice had thought that Grandpapa might have brought the painting back from one of his travels in Italy, but that was all she knew about it.
    Rosella liked the portrait so much that she had been allowed to keep it in her bedroom.
    Even as a little child she had loved the way that the young man was smiling broadly and how he seemed to be beckoning with his hand, as if inviting her to step inside the picture and join him.
    But this time, as she looked at him, her heart was racing with excitement.
    For, just behind the young man’s head, she could see the painted outline of a huge chandelier – just like the one she had seen in her vision.
    And now, as she jumped up to look more closely, she realised that the young man in the turban was standing in the very same ballroom where she had seen the beautiful woman in the pink dress!
    “Oh, goodness! How strange all this is!” she cried, gazing at his face. “If only you could talk to me. Who are you? And where are you?”
    His smiling lips looked as if they were about to open and speak to her. But, of course, he was just a picture and, although she waited a while, he could tell her nothing.
    Rosella turned away and went to lie down.
    *
    The smells wafting from the slow-moving waters of the River Thames and drifting between the high walls of the nearby warehouses were strong and unpleasant on this very hot afternoon and Lord Lyndon Brockley entered the narrow doorway of the pawnshop with some relief.
    “Yes, sir?” the bent old man behind the counter looked up at him with interest.
    Lyndon gazed at the racks