Emily and the Dark Angel Read Online Free PDF

times when she had to visit this cluttered, stale room.
    “Griswold’s sheep?” he shouted, making her jump. He glared at her. “Who buys sheep with winter coming on? And where do you think to put them, you silly ninny?”
    “Helstead’s underused. And Ratherby,” Emily stammered, wishing she’d thought up a better answer to this inevitable question.
    “Only just,” he snapped. “A harsh summer and you’ll have a lot of cheap mutton. And who’ll pay? Me. Damn it all, you’re letting everything go to wrack and ruin!” Pettishly, he hurled the book to the floor. Emily moved quietly to pick it up.
    “Perhaps it’s time to give up,” Sir Henry muttered, draining his glass. “Accept that Marcus is dead. Let Felix come and look after things.”
    Emily counted to ten.
    Her cousin Felix was a lightweight wastrel. He had no interest in coming to Grantwich Hall and working the land. He merely looked forward to the day when he would own it and could milk it dry to pay his gambling debts. Apart from that, its chief appeal to him was that it would be a pied à terre in hunting country that could buy him some friends.
    Her father seemed to forget the time Felix had invited himself to stay for the hunting season three years back. He and Sir Henry had almost come to blows.
    “You know the War Office still holds out hope, Father,” said Emily. “Everyone says Napoleon must surrender any day and then we will know for sure.”
    “If you haven’t ruined the place by then,” he snarled. His nose twitched. “What’s got you stinking like a tart? Silly tottie. Think to catch a man, do you, at your age?” He drained his glass. “I’m not paying for those sheep,” he said, and set his mouth like a rebellious three-year-old.
    Emily caught her breath. Sometimes he did this, became totally unreasonable. “I’ve bought them, Father,” she said.
    “Then you can pay for them,” he said with a sneer.
    Emily’s hands tightened on her record book and she was tempted to hurl it at him. “I don’t have that much money at my command,” she said, wondering for a moment whether telling him she intended to pasture the flock on High Burton would help. No, it would give him apoplexy.
    “Well then,” he retorted, “you’re in a pretty pickle, aren’t you, my girl?”
    “Father, everyone has accepted me as your agent. It was you who refused to hire someone to do the job. They trust my word as yours.”
    “I didn’t tell you to buy those sheep.”
    “It was a chance not to be missed. Griswold’s ill and wants to go live with his daughter. He’s sold the farm to a Meltonian who wants it for a hunting box and doesn’t want the stock. He was willing to sell cheap for a quick sale, and someone else would soon have grabbed the bargain if I’d delayed. The shepherd comes with them.”
    She began to relax as she saw the petulance leave him. Oh, it wasn’t fair to any of them that it had come to this. He’d been a good landowner and a good father. A rough, bluff old-fashioned squire, he’d dealt fairly with all, but now he was all twisted by his misfortune. Another reason to wish Marcus home was that Sir Henry would deal better with another man. He’d let Marcus help him and not resent it.
    Her father picked fretfully at his coverlet. “Too many sheep, too many horses . . . all eating their heads off . . . You’ll have to take the hunters to market soon.”
    Emily looked at him with compassion. The start of the hunting season must be eating at him like quicklime. Soon they’d all be out after the hounds for glorious twenty-mile runs, and all he would have would be the distant sound of the hunting horn. If he was finally talking of selling his pride and joy—his hunters—then he was coming to accept that no one in this family would hunt again: that he was an invalid and Marcus was dead. Though she had believed herself resigned to the truth, it brought tears pricking at her eyes.
    She swallowed. “We’ll get nothing