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

time to be lost.
     

CHAPTER THREE
    “ Hello, hello! What shall we have for tea? ” Pickle was squawking, sounding uncannily like Aunt Beatrice.
    Rosella smiled and pushed her finger through the bars of his cage so that he could nibble on it with his beak.
    The parrot was usually allowed out of his cage at teatime to fly around the drawing room and play hide-and-seek amongst the curtains.
    But that did not seem such a good idea today with Lord Brockley and his companion about to arrive. Pickle was nervous with strangers until he became used to them.
    It would not be a good introduction to his new Master if he flew up onto the top of the pelmet and would not come down.
    “They are very late,” Mrs. Dawkins said, standing by the cake stand that she had set down on a small table. “Something must have happened to delay his Lordship.”
    Next to the cake stand stood a large plate of thin cucumber sandwiches, from which Mrs. Dawkins herself had carefully cut the crusts and they were beginning to curl up in the heat of the afternoon.
    Rosella looked at the gold clock on the mantelpiece and saw that it was almost half-past five.
    The housekeeper twisted her hands nervously.
    “What do you suppose has happened to them?” she moaned. “I do hope that nothing is wrong.”
    “I am sure his Lordship will be here very soon,” Rosella replied encouragingly.
    What had happened, she was quite sure, was that someone at the inn had bought another round of beer for everybody and then someone else had done the same thing and this had detained Lord Brockley.
    Pickle suddenly shook himself and sneezed loudly,
    “ Bless you, my dear !” he called out.
    Rosella laughed at him, then she noticed that he had his head on one side as if he was listening to something.
    His hearing was particularly good, often very much sharper than Rosella’s and after a moment, she realised that he had now picked up the clatter of hooves in the distance.
    “They are coming!” she said and her heart fluttered nervously.
    “I shall call the servants out onto the terrace,” the housekeeper said, looking pale. “We must all be there to greet his Lordship and you as well, Lady Rosella.”
    It was very hot out on the terrace in front of The Hall and the maids’ white aprons fluttered in the breeze as they stood beside the footmen, the gardeners, the grooms and all the other servants, forming a wide avenue to greet their new Master.
    At the very top of the steps, Mrs. Dawkins and Hodgkiss, the ancient butler, took their places by the stone pillars that flanked the front door.
    Rosella felt very awkward.
    She was not sure where she should stand out there on the hot terrace and was thinking that perhaps she should wait inside in the cool of the hall, when a large coach with the Brockley family coat-of-arms emblazoned on the door careered up the drive at breakneck speed and came to a sudden halt, scattering pellets of gravel everywhere.
    Sitting up on the box, clinging tightly to the reins, was the fair-haired man who had winked at Rosella earlier.
    “Whoa, there!” he shouted, even though the horses had already come to a standstill. “Mettlesome brutes, hey? But then I’ve got the measure of them all. That was a fine run, wasn’t it, coachman?”
    The coachman touched his hat politely.
    “Yes, indeed, sir,” he murmured.
    He was very red in the face and seemed relieved, Rosella thought, when the fair-haired gentleman let him take the reins back into his own hands.
    “Is that him?” Mrs. Dawkins whispered to Rosella, staring at the fair-haired gentleman.
    But the footman who rode on the back of the coach had jumped down and was opening the door.
    The angry man with the mutton-chop whiskers then emerged from the coach, his face like a thundercloud.
    “Merriman, you clown!” he growled. “You damn near got us all killed.”
    Rosella touched Mrs. Dawkins’s arm.
    “That’s Lord Brockley!” she whispered.
    His Lordship walked slowly towards the steps