Miss Winbolt and the Fortune Hunter Read Online Free PDF Page A

going to get away with less than the truth.
    â€˜You see too much, Rosa. I should have known you’d guess. Very well. I climbed up the tree as I told you and saw that I couldn’t get down. That was true. But you’re quite right. I didn’t tell you everything.’
    â€˜Which was…?’
    â€˜It seemed like hours before I saw someone coming, and when I did I took it to be Will Darby. I knew he would pass by on his way home so I called out to him and he came over. But…but it wasn’t Will Darby, after all.’
    â€˜I knew it! It was this stranger,’ Rosa said.
    Emily nodded. ‘He agreed to catch me if I jumped, but the branch broke, and we fell and rolled down the slope. That was when I got the rest of the scratches.’
    â€˜Was he hurt?’
    â€˜I…I don’t think so. He didn’t seem to be. He…he’s very strong.’
    Rosa watched, fascinated, as Emily’s lips curved up in a small, reminiscent smile. ‘What…what happened then?’ she asked care fully.
    â€˜I was dazed, of course. He waited until I felt better, then…’ Emily glanced briefly at Rosa and said, ‘Then I left him and came home.’
    â€˜Alone? He didn’t offer to see you home safely? What a strange man he must be to leave you to find your own way after such a fall! He can’t have been much of a gentleman.’
    â€˜No! No, you mustn’t think… He…he wanted to bring me home. I wouldn’t let him.’
    â€˜Why ever not?’
    â€˜He…he…he kissed me.’
    â€˜Against your will? The heart less wretch!’
    â€˜No… It wasn’t like that. It wasn’t at all like that!’
    Emily got up and walked away. Her voice was muffled as she said, still not turning round, ‘I let him kiss me. Willingly.’
    This surprised Rosa so much that for a moment she couldn’t say anything. Then she stammered, ‘I can’t believe it!’
    â€˜Neither can I! Not now.’ Emily stood a moment with her back towards Rosa. When she turned round, she had a look of desperation on her face. ‘I don’t know what came over me, Rosa!’ she said in a stifled voice. ‘I’m not normally so…so idiotic. Perhaps it had all been too much for me—Mrs Gosworth, the bull, then falling from the tree…I don’t know! But, whatever the reason, I behaved like a…like a wanton. I must have been mad. How will I ever forget it?’
    â€˜Of course you can. You were dazed, in shock. Don’tget upset, Emily! It was probably more difficult than you think to refuse him.’
    â€˜But afterwards…I should have been angry, should have fought to get away from him as quickly as I could. But I didn’t.’ She fell silent and her face softened into a smile of remembrance. For a moment she looked…vulnerable. ‘I enjoyed it. He was so kind…so gentle… I felt so…so safe with him…so cherished… I didn’t push him away. I wanted him to kiss me again. And he did.’ She shook her head in a gesture of repudiation. ‘I’m still…so ashamed.’
    Rosa got up and said softly, ‘Dearest Emily, you mustn’t be. I think it quite likely that the shock of the fall affected your behaviour yesterday. You were grateful to him, as well as dazed. I shouldn’t worry about the state of your morals! But there’s more to it than that.’ She thought for a moment. ‘Let’s go for a walk.’
    As they walked through an avenue of trees planted by Philip’s great-grandfather nearly a hundred years before, Rosa said, ‘Mrs Gosworth can be very cruel indeed. I suffered at her hands quite badly. My first marriage, as you know, was an unhappy one. Stephen, my husband, was involved with some very disreputable people… Mrs Gosworth somehow or other heard about Stephen and when I visited her shortly after our