The Indiscretion Read Online Free PDF Page A

and hedgerow boundaries peopled with villages and farmhouses, even
castles.
    Today, the bare horizon was broken only once by anything that
looked related to a human being, a tall silhouette, as if a man walked the moor
on foot. A priest, perhaps, in a cassock, his arms folded into his sleeves. As
they drew closer, though, he turned out to be a stack of flat-looking rocks,
its precarious balance defying the millennia of its existence. A tor. The moor
was covered with them. Most just looked like haphazard piles of rocks on a
hilltop, rubble. But some formed a kind of natural statuary, like the fantastical
display on the horizon they jostled past. People used to think druids had built
them, that they were altars. Science, though, said otherwise, that they were
only the remains of the moor's ancient mountain range, weathered and worn to
hillocks crested with heaps and towers.
    Whatever the origins, Lydia enjoyed the
sights out her open window, even as her view pitched and shook. If the driver
careened them too fast for the vehicle's age and suspension, still God knew
they were making good time. At least his recklessness, she told herself, didn't
have to share the road with other traffic of any sort – they passed nary a
soul. Half an hour ago Lydia had slipped her wrist into the hand strap, where
she could get a good grip, and now held on for dear life while looking forward
to a shorter trip, if a more topsy-turvy one.
    Out the corner of her eye, she occasionally glimpsed the American.
Long angles of sunlight and deep shadows cut across him, an irritatingly
dramatic result of the sun lowering for the most part behind them. Less
remarkable, his arms lay folded across his chest, his boots braced across the
floor to the far seat base, his head down, his body rocking to the rhythm of
the coach. Apparently, he could prop himself into stability, then fall asleep
anywhere.
    She stared at his black hat tipped down over most of his face. If
ever he should play in a Wild West show, he'd be a stagecoach robber, she
decided. Or a gunfighter with a "quick temper and a quicker trigger
finger," which was a line out of one of her brother Clive's Buffalo Bill
novels. She entertained this fantasy for a few minutes, smiling over it. Yes,
something about him, a leanness, "a build as hard and dependable as a good
rifle" (she, in fact, had pilfered one of Clive's contraband American novels
just to see what they were about), not to mention something in his brooding
attitude, spoke of a possibly harsh, very physical existence.
    Her imagination put him in a big, tooled-leather saddle on a horse
caparisoned in silver stars down its breast. Along with his black hat with
silver beads, she added silver guns in holsters at his hips and American spurs
that jingled as he walked. She remember what such spurs looked like and, more
memorable, what they sounded like: a lot of metal to them, a silver band low on
each heel, silver chains underneath, with jagged, spinning wheels at the back.
Nothing like an English riding spur with its single, neat point affixed to a
gentleman's boot.
    As with the Wild West show, Lydia found the
jangling, clomping difference shamefully thrilling. It brought to mind Indian
battles, buffalo hunts, coach robberies, life and death. Lurid, provocative,
yet safe of course, like all fantasies, since here she sat. She should be in
Bleycott by late evening. He wasn't wearing spurs or guns or anything
dangerous. She laughed. He was probably a traveling salesman.
    Something about his posture, his attentiveness, made her call over
the road noise, "Are you awake?"
    After a second, with a finger he pushed his hat brim up enough
that his eyes were visible, if shadowed. "Yes, ma'am."
    He had a nice voice when polite, like a bow groaning slowly over
the deepest strings of a bass. He took his time saying things, slow-talking his
way over sliding consonants and drawn-out vowels. His speech was full of ma'ams and you're welcomes. A politeness that turned