Bewitched (Bantam Series No. 16) Read Online Free PDF

embroidered blouse, low at the neck, leaving the arms bare.
    He had always supposed that Gypsies were dirty, but the girl he held in his arms was exquisitely clean, and there was a faint fragrance of some Oriental perfume which seemed to come from her hair.
    The Marquis saw that round her neck she wore a necklace of gold coins linked together with what appeared to be small pieces of red glass.
    Gypsy women liked jewellery, he remembered hearing at some time or another.
    He had an idea that some of the coins the girl wore were of great antiquity. They were certainly old and all of them were foreign. Then he chided himself for being interested in anything except his victim who might in fact be badly injured.
    She was certainly not dead, which was one consolation. She was unconscious, but she was breathing evenly and her rather frightening pallor might well, he thought, be habitual.
    It did not take him long to traverse the drive and reach the courtyard which lay in front of a great flight of steps leading to the main entrance.
    As he drew nearer a number of men-servants came hurrying towards him.
    Bush, the Butler, reached him first.
    “We heard there’d been an accident, M’Lord. Is the lady badly hurt?”
    “I have no idea,” the Marquis answered curtly.
    Then as he moved on with the Butler beside him, the latter exclaimed:
    “It’s no lady, M’Lord! She’s one of them Gypsies!”
    “What Gypsies?”
    “There are always some of them in the woods at this time of the year, M’Lord.”
    The Marquis walked up the steps.
    There appeared to be quite a number of people in the Marble Hall when he entered, but he ignored them and climbed the carved staircase to where on the first landing he found Mrs. Meedham, the Housekeeper, agitatedly bobbing a curtsy at the sight of him.
    “Which bed-room is ready?” the Marquis enquired.
    “All of them, M’Lord.”
    Then she looked at the unconscious figure in the arms of the Marquis and exclaimed:
    “Why, it’s one of them Gypsies! A room in the servants’ wing will do for her, M’Lord.”
    The Marquis walked across the landing.
    “Open the door,” he said briefly.
    After a moment’s surprise Mrs. Meedham obeyed him, and he entered one of the large State-Rooms which opened off the first-floor landing.
    “But surely, M’Lord...” Mrs. Meedham protested, only to be silenced as the Marquis said:
    “There could be a risk, Mrs. Meedham, in carrying this young woman any further. Her life may be in danger.”
    He moved towards the big four-poster bed but Mrs. Meedham hurried after him.
    “Not on the cover, M’Lord! The sheets can be washed.”
    She pulled back the embroidered silk and opened the bed-clothes as she spoke.
    Very gently the Marquis set down the girl he carried on the white linen sheets embroidered with the Ruckley crest surmounted by a coronet.
    Her head fell back against the pillows, and her hair was jet black in contrast to the white linen.
    “Send for Hobley,” the Marquis ordered.
    “I’m here, M’Lord.”
    A middle-aged man came hurrying into the room.
    Hobley had been at Ruckley House ever since the Marquis could remember. Officially he was his Lordship’s Valet, but he was famous for his skill in being able to set bones.
    He had in fact set the Marquis’s own collar-bone on one occasion and, if anyone on the Estate broke a leg or an arm, it was always Hobley who attended them.
    He was far more efficient, far more knowledgeable than any local Physician, and in fact everyone asked for him whatever their injury.
    Hobley moved to the bed-side now, looked at the cut on the unconscious girl’s forehead and the bleeding wounds on her arm. He then noticed there was blood dripping from beneath her skirts and pulled them aside to show a deep cut on one ankle.
    As he did so, the Marquis saw the girl’s legs were bare although she wore red slippers cut low and ornamented with little buckles of silver.
    “Hot water and bandages, if you please,” Hobley