Quiet Meg Read Online Free PDF

entire estate, Chas knew well where Selbourne’s
boundaries lay. This intruder was a good quarter mile
within the estate’s northern border. There was no reason
for a tenant or neighbor to be visiting the property at this
hour, or by this route.
    He thought of a poacher-but a poacher would have
fled at his approach. A poacher could not have afforded
such a horse. And a poacher would not have been studying
him, as though seeking to identify him. Chas set the bay to
run at him.
    Instantly the rider wheeled his mount, urging the animal
to a dangerous gallop through the undergrowth. Chas
chased him far enough to know that he had left Selbourne
land and headed to the main road and the local town of
Buxley. There were any number of places for him to hide
on that route. And he had already vanished into the trees in
the gathering dusk.
    Chas drew his horse to a walk and turned back. The
furtive rider’s presence had to be linked to the arrival of
Meg Lawrence. And that led him to think of Sutcliffe.
    Chas had thought at first to excuse the earl. After his
own extraordinary reaction to the girl, Chas had been inclined to forgive the man’s enchantment. But now he suppressed all sympathy. Sutcliffe had stolen her once; he might
be contemplating a second attempt. He had pursued her
here on the very day of her return.
    Chas’s immediate desire to protect her was intense. It served as a reminder of his sole image of her, standing by
the coach in the sunlight, more dazzling than the sunlight.
And though he had never proposed building an impassable
moat on a property, he wondered if he should devise one
for Selbourne.

    Meg watched him return in the half-light of dusk. He
had superb form-he was an excellent rider. Better than
excellent, for he was riding Arcturus, her father’s former
favorite.
    She wondered where he had learned to ride. Taller men
sometimes looked awkward in the saddle; Charles Cabot
was not one of them. Her father must have seen him
astride. She knew her father would term him a natural.
    And Arcturus! Never had the spirited bay looked so
docile.
    Meg moved away from the window. Her room had always provided refuge-after her mother’s death, after the
disastrous weeks in town for her comeout, after Douglas’s
duel. Now that Charles Cabot was working in the suite below, Meg found it less of a haven.
    She carelessly pulled some items from a satchel. One
look on the drive, when she could scarcely distinguish his
face, when she had never heard his voice, when she knew
little of him-one look could mean nothing. She had been
tired from her journey, that was all, and disturbed by the
unexpected presence of Sutcliffe’s agent. She promised
herself that when she went down to dinner she would find
Mr. Charles Cabot did not appeal in the least.
    She felt brave until she met an excited Lucy on the
stairs.

    “Oh Meg, you must promise me. Promise me, please, that
you will not … that you won’t … encourage him to … Oh,
you know what I wish to say! It is so important just now that
he..”
    “Lucy, dearest. I have no interest in attaching your Mr.
Cabot. I only hope that he deserves your regard. After all,
sweet, a gardener..
    “But Meg, he is so much more! Just wait, you will see.
Father and Bertie like him. He was with Bertie at university.
And he has traveled everywhere! You must not judge him so
Meg, for he might be, that is, I think he might be …”
    “I shall not harm him, Lucy,” Meg assured her with
some amusement. “I am in no doubt of your esteem for
him. I only hope that he returns your sentiments. Father
and Bertie have counseled you to leave him be”
    “They do not know what it is to … to care. But Meg,
you do, so I am glad you understand.”
    Even as she kissed Lucy on the cheek, Meg knew her
sister was mistaken. She did not know what it was to care.
She had never had that experience. She had only begun to
live her life when others had been