The Ravencliff Bride Read Online Free PDF

outbuildings and stables and stacked stone fences went up, until it come to be what it is now, and has been for the last two hundred years—Ravencliff Manor. Except for storm damage repairs, o’ course.”
    “It must have a fascinating history if it’s stood here since before the Norman Conquest,” Sara said, trying to imagine.
    “There’s books in the library that’ll tell ya a lot more than I ever could.”
    “I shall make it a point to avail myself,” Sara replied.
    “Yes, my lady. Now, there’s plenty o’ time before nuncheonfor a lie-down,” the housekeeper offered. “Ya won’t be disturbed. Nell will come ta fetch ya when ’tis time.”
    “Thank you, Mrs. Bromley. I think I shall,” Sara said—but she wasn’t planning on napping. Nicholas’s comment about the tapestries had intrigued her. His use of the word “consoling” in particular piqued her interest, and she dismissed the housekeeper and made her way back to her bedchamber.
    The storm was still flinging sheets of rain at the windows. Whipped by the wind, the cascading ripples obscured the view. It was just as well. All was dark and depressing. Somehow, Sara couldn’t imagine what the place would be like in bright sunlight. The shadow-steeped manor seemed at home in dirty weather.
    There was a fire in the hearth, throwing pulsating warmth at the drafts that seeped through the very walls where the tapestries hung. The tapestries shuddered, attracting her attention, and she took up a candle branch and began her inspection. The periods represented varied from medieval, to pastoral, to Renaissance. A common palette threaded through the lot—muted shades of green and cinnamon brown, sand, claret, burgundy, cream, and various shades of blue. The theme was the same:
the hunt
. Dogs and horses surrounded her, among them the works of Detti, Oudry, and Bernard Van Orley. Each was more magnificent than the rest, but the most magnificent of all hung beside the bed: a breathtaking rendering of Diana the Huntress with her noble hounds.
    The candle branch trembled in Sara’s hand. Was this strange man she’d married a saint or the Devil? He seemed so austere, and now this tender consolation. He had surrounded her with the animals she’d loved and lost. He’d assigned her that suite before she ever arrived. He’d
known
. What else did he know? Her eyes misted with tears; the tapestries blurred before them. She blinked her sorrow back and moved on to her sitting room, which was likewise deco-rated.An exquisite medieval piece depicting a unicorn hunt caught her eye, and she fingered the hounds worked at the bottom. All around the room unicorns and horses pranced, and dogs cavorted. The storm forgotten, Sara moved from wall to wall, and room to room of her spacious suite, drinking it all in to the last detail.

Three
    Sara couldn’t wait for Nell to come and collect her for the noon meal so she could thank Nicholas for his thoughtfulness, but the breakfast room was vacant when she reached it. Her husband didn’t come down to dinner that evening, either, and she faced his absence with mixed emotions. On the one hand, she was anxious to use the tapestries as a means of easing the tension—the awkward strain mounting between them from the very first. Something in his voice, in his furtive glances had put her on her guard, made her wish she possessed more experience with men. It was almost as if those eyes said one thing and his lips another. The man seemed full of contradiction. On the other hand, she was glad of his absence in that it gave her more time to marshal courage enough to address the issues that had nagged her since she entered Ravencliff Manor. She hadn’t fooled him. He knew she had questions. He was about as eager to answer them as she was to ask.
    Mrs. Bromley wasn’t able to tell her why Nicholas hadn’t made an appearance at nuncheon or dinner, only that he often skipped meals, and that she shouldn’t take it to heart.Whatever the