Courtney Milan Read Online Free PDF

claim she had to intimacy. “Mr. Mason,” she corrected herself. “Whatever are you doing here?”
    He was wearing a long coat and thick, dirt-stained gloves. “I’m walking parallel to the creek,” he said. “Seeing how the water drains off the hill.” He gave her a pointed glance from head to toe; his gaze lingered impolitely on the exposed expanse of her lower arms. It felt just as rude when he turned his head sharply the other way. “Unlike
some,
he said, with a disdainful emphasis on that latter word, “I’ve dressed for the terrain.”
    If she took her coat on a warm summer day, Sir Walter would wonder if she planned a longer journey, and he’d insist on relieving her of her burden. For her health, of course. Always for her health.
    She looked up at the clear, blue sky pointedly and then looked back at him. “Really. You’re seeing how water drains when there’s not a cloud in sight.”
    “There’s your mistake.” His eyes were dark and accusing. “You think I need to see rain to know the lay of the land? I don’t. I can see the shape of the hills. I can test the soil. As for the water itself… That patch of snake’s head likes the damp, so I can surmise that water collects there, then follows the trail laid by the pink of ragged robin down that slope, where it empties in the soft soil where the meadowsweet grows.” He looked at her, and she was quite sure in that moment that he wasn’t just talking about wildflowers. “I don’t need to stand in a rainstorm to know where to lay the blame. The system is all of one piece.”
    “I see.” She swallowed and looked away.
    “So I’ll skip the part where I lay out the evidence of your guilt. Where is the money, Mary? Guide me to that, and I’ll bother you no more.”
    She shook her head. “Everything I knew, I’ve sent on already to Mr. Lawson.”
    “I have little trust in your words. You swore to me once that you knew nothing—and yet, you had an account book in your possession when you left.”
    This was the stuff of her nightmares. The accusations. His face, storm-cloud angry. He took a step closer to her, looming large until he seemed to dominate her vision. The slope of the hill above and the hedgerow to the side shielded them from all watching eyes. He could do anything—hit her, touch her, kiss her—and she had no way to stop him. Her head spun dizzily and little sparks floated in front of her eyes.
    “Please, Mr. Mason.”
    “You should beg,” he said. “Why should I not fetch the magistrate right now?”
    She caught her breath. Mention of the magistrate actually calmed her. If his idea of a threat was to wait for a trial, he presented a fluffy daydream in comparison with the visions that woke her sometimes at night. In the grand scheme of things, gaol seemed only slightly worse than the workhouse, and better than a life of prostitution.
    “Perhaps I deserve to be in gaol,” she said quietly. “But it changes nothing. I can’t help you with the money. As for my father, he’s dead. I saw him put in the ground myself, and there can be no mistake.”
    He blinked twice and shook his head. “Of course you’d say as much,” he finally said. “But you have much to gain from the assertion.”
    “Much to gain!” she cried. She looked around at the only place she could find solitude—a barren, deserted slice of land, inhabited solely by weeds and nettles. Without thinking, she stepped forward and shoved his chest. “Much to gain,” she repeated. “Trust in my greed, if you don’t believe in my morals. If I had a few thousand pounds to my name, do you believe I’d be here, fetching and carrying for Lady Patsworth?”
    He frowned. “Perhaps you’re lying low.”
    “I could
lie low,
so to speak, with greater comfort and more likelihood of success in a hotel in Boston. Or a villa on the Italian coast.” She couldn’t stop the bitterness from invading her voice. “I could lie low with more than two gowns. With my own