Kingdom's Dream Read Online Free PDF Page B

it!’ He hurried towards her and took her by the shoulders. ‘Katie, what are you doing here? Don’t you know this is a dangerous area? We’re blasting rock any minute now, girl!’
    â€˜I’m sorry,’ she said, her face white. ‘This is a short-cut home. I have to collect the last of my things before the landlord lets the house to someone else. Am I really in danger?’
    Bull was conscious of her sweet scent. ‘Of course you are. Come on, now, let me take you back to the road. You’ll have to call to the house later.’
    He smiled, realizing that Katie was very aware of his hands on her shoulders: a rich colour had come into her face and she was looking at her boots.
    â€˜How often do you get a day off?’ he asked abruptly.
    â€˜I don’t know. I’ll have to ask Cook. What if I let you know when I get time off to fetch the rest of my things from Greenhill?’ She grinned. ‘Mind, I know what she’ll say – I’ve only just started work and I want days off already!’
    â€˜I’d better arrange to meet you then, if only to stop you killing yourself on the workings here.’
    â€˜I don’t want to give you any trouble. Look, I’d better go, I’ll see you again, I’m sure.’
    Bull was disconcerted by her precipitous departure but as he watched her hurry away from him into the narrow streets of the east of the town, he knew that one day Katie Cullen would play an important part in his life.

CHAPTER THREE
    Dafydd Buchan strode through the pottery yard, pushing back his unruly hair impatiently as he tried to imagine life as a married man. He paused in the vestibule of the offices and stared through the small glass window. He could see Shanni Morgan, head bent over a ledger, brow furrowed as she studied the figures on the page. Shanni had come a long way from her childhood, spent in the slums of Swansea.
    Marriage suited her, he reflected. She had a bloom about her now that the rough edges had been knocked off the rebel child she once was, and the aura of a confident young woman had settled round her like a cloak. The change in the girl had been wrought by Llinos Mainwaring, who had educated Shanni and, more importantly, had told her always to hold her head high.
    Llinos . . . His mind drifted to the days when he had lain in her arms, delighting in the passion he shared with her. She had been his darling then, and would always be his love. He would be with her now if he’d had the choice, but she had made her decision to return to her family and he had had to let her go.
    He liked to think that she had left him and returned to her husband and child for duty rather than love. He knew that something magical was still between them, the attraction so heady, so irresistible, too strong a bond to break. The pain of her going had not left him and even now Dafydd yearned for her. Would he ever get her out of his mind, his heart?
    He saw her in his dreams, smiling at him, sated and flushed with love. The thought of her brought the familiar heat to his loins, an urge to taste her sweetness, if only one more time, before he tied himself to Jayne Morton-Edwards in holy matrimony.
    His eyes focused again on Shanni: tendrils of red-gold hair fell across her alabaster cheeks. As if attracted by his gaze she looked up at him and her face was illuminated with happiness. She was in love with him, had been from the time they first met. Even marriage to Pedr Morgan had not altered her feelings. She was a lovely girl with a fiery nature, but he would take Llinos Mainwaring before Shanni any day of the week.
    He raised his hand in greeting and stood there for a moment, listening to the sounds of the pottery, which had brought him such satisfaction, more even than the farmlands he owned but had never worked – he had tenant farmers to do that for him.
    Shanni made to rise from her chair but Dafydd was not in the mood for dalliance