The Summer of You Read Online Free PDF Page A

to say we.”

    Three
    “THE Cottage? Minnie, are you sure?” Victoria Wilton paused at the bank of the Broadmill River, one hand hiking up her skirts from getting wet, the other looped around the base of a particularly stubborn sprig of mint. It grew wild on the riverbank that cut through the small park of the Wiltons’ residence, and she needed the whole thing for the mint jelly she and Mother were intent on setting up for preserves this afternoon. But suddenly all her attention was given to the Wiltons’ stout housekeeper, Minnie.
    “Yes, miss,” the housekeeper replied, her hands fluttering over her thick muslin apron in excitement. “The butcher had it directly from the Cottage’s housekeeper—she said she was roused in the middle of last night by a rider with the missive. The rider told her he had been paid at double his normal rate to get here quick.” Minnie raised her eyebrows at this lavish display of coin.
    But it was not the money spent that made Victoria’s heart move as a hummingbird’s wing. “Goodness, that must mean they intend to be here soon.” Victoria dropped her skirts and ran her hand over her blonde locks. She had just started to wear her hair up last year, and in the warmth of the sun found no small comfort in having it off her neck—but somehow she found herself yearning to twist her curls around her fingers like she did as a child when nervous.
    Instead, she concentrated on her next inquiry, and keeping very, very still.
    “Perhaps the Duke has decided to rent the Cottage out for the summer?”
    But Minnie shook her head. “Nay, Miss Victoria. The housekeeper said the missive came straight from Lady Jane’s hand! It is the family that comes for the summer at last!”
    Lady Jane! Oh, Victoria had not seen Lady Jane in ages—not since she was almost thirteen and Lady Jane fifteen. She had been utterly refined then, but surely Lady Jane was the most elegant creature now, what with her impeccable schooling and fine Town fashions and London soirees—goodness, Victoria herself had never even been as far away as Manchester, and . . . oh, what would she think of Victoria’s hair? Surely its simple country style was not at all the thing . . .
    “The Duke and his daughter, come to rusticate at the Cottage,” Victoria breathed. Finally, something worth talking about in Reston!
    “Nay, miss,” Minnie began, causing Victoria’s mouth to fall open in confusion.
    “But you just said—”
    “Yes, miss, but I meant to say—the family is coming. The whole family.”
    But . . . but that meant . . .
    Jason.
    The mint was forgotten—thrown ruthlessly to the ground as Victoria picked up her now-soaking skirts—far above the ankle, terribly unladylike, Minnie thought—and began to run toward the house.
    “Michael, Joshua!” Victoria cried out to her two younger brothers, playing cups and bowls beneath the large apple tree by the house, “Go and fetch Mother back from the rector’s! Now!”
    The boys (used to being scolded by their elder sister but rarely with such panic) were shocked out of their game and into action. They sprinted toward the gate to the road, but Michael’s dirty hand had barely touched the latch before the gate was swung open from the outside.
    “Good afternoon, Dr. Berridge,” the boys said, clambering to a halt and giving the most cursory of bows before scrambling past him and through the gate toward the village.
    “What on earth . . .” Dr. Andrew Berridge said to the retreating forms of the boys and turned back to the Wiltons’ garden, only to see Miss Victoria Wilton sprinting toward him as if her skirts were on fire.
    “Oh, Dr. Berridge!” Victoria came to a halt, curtsied with the same ingrained good manners that her brothers displayed, and then smiled up at him. Dr. Berridge—Andrew, as he had told her once to call him but she never had the nerve to do so—had only come to Reston within the past year to join Dr. Lawford’s practice, but in that