Moon Love Read Online Free PDF Page A

all right, Cook. I don’t mind. And you know once a young man took over he would want to keep the job.” There was no arguing with this.
    “Seems to me a young lady should be getting her excitement from beaux, not brandy.”
    For some reason, an image of Ravencroft’s harsh visage popped into Amy’s mind. She would have to tell him what she had overheard that night. Bransom was dead, murdered. A trap had been set for him. Therefore, someone had tumbled to it that he was a spy. In fact, the French smugglers had used the word “ espion. ” How did they know? Had he been followed? Had they searched his room at the Greenman and found some incriminating evidence?
    Someone had warned Alphonse, who had connived at Bransom’s death, and passed the word to the brandy smugglers to inquire about Thatchley. Common sense told her that “someone” was the man who was receiving Alphonses’s “paper” cargo. A moment’s consideration suggested this same man had murdered Bransom.
    Her instinct was to rush off to Easton to tell the Wolf that very instant. As that was ineligible, she must be in touch with him tomorrow morning. She doubted that he would answer a summons after the harangue he had read her yesterday. She must go to him. Her pride balked at the idea. He was the most toplofty, arrogant, overbearing man she had ever met. Also the most elegant. His toilette put even Felix in the shade.
    Once her decision was taken she went up to bed, where she lay awake a long time, trying to think of a plan to discover who was working with Alphonse.
    She awoke in the morning to clear white skies and watery sunlight, which was called a fine day on the coast, where a blue sky was a rarity. Her first duty every morning was to take her father’s breakfast tray up to him.
    “How is he, Tombey?” she asked, when he met her at the door.
    “He was a bad boy last night, Miss Bratty.”
    “Oh dear. He wet the bed again.”
    “And threw a glass of water at me. But there, he’s not hisself, Miss. I remember him well from the old days.”
    A wavering voice called to her from the bed. “They’re treating me like a dog, Nanny.” What an injustice to loyal Tombey! He shook his head in sorrow.
    She went to the bedside and comforted her father as much as she could. It was heartbreaking to see the dignified old gentleman sunk to this pitiable state. She remembered him from the old days, too, when the parish looked up to him, and rushed to him in their time of trouble. And to think Felix Bratty, that foolish fop, would be his replacement! It was the one thing that inclined her to marry Felix, to provide a steady hand at Bratty Hall.
    Amy never took much care of her appearance. With no one to appreciate a fancy toilette, she had fallen into the habit of wearing plain gowns and bonnets. She usually drew her hair into a chignon on the back of her head and called that a coiffure. As she donned her plain round bonnet, she remembered the dismissing way the Wolf had looked at her when she first spoke to him at the market. It was almostas if he couldn’t see her. Perhaps if she dressed in a more stylish fashion, he would not dismiss her so readily.
    She set the round bonnet aside and put on the feathered high poke she usually kept for church. With this bonnet, she always wore her better pelisse of navy serge with the frogged ornament down the front. Arrayed in this modest splendor, she went out to the carriage for the drive into Easton. She asked the groom to stable the carriage at the Rose and Thistle.
    “Where shall I meet you, and at what time, Miss Bratty?” he asked.
    “I have a few errands. Here, in an hour will be fine.”
    She had no idea how long her meeting with the Wolf would take, but she could always spend a half hour in the shops if she finished early. Her bronze evening gown could use new ribbons, and really her white shawl was becoming yellow from age. She could just imagine what the Wolf would think of it!
    She went to the desk and