The Tutor's Daughter Read Online Free PDF Page A

said, “No. Now, do ’ee want a pint or don’t ’ee?”
    â€œNo, my good man, I am simply inquiring.”
    The man stared at John Smallwood a moment longer, then went back to wiping the tankard in his hand.
    Giving up, her father turned and led her back outside.
    Emma looked up one side of the cobbled lane and down the other. The small village curved in a crescent around the harbor. On either side of the inlet, cliffs rose.
    Her father asked, “You wrote and told Sir Giles when to expect us, did you not?”
    â€œYes. Perhaps he forgot. Or something more important came up.”
    He shook his head in frustration. “Sir Giles is too considerate to knowingly neglect us. More likely the letter was misdirected, or the coachman he sent for us has been delayed.”
    Emma hoped her father was right.
    After waiting another quarter hour, they gave up and hired ayouth with a donkey cart to transport them and their trunks to Ebbington Manor.
    â€œGoin’ to the big ’ouse are thee?” the young man asked, his accent deliciously different.
    â€œYes,” Emma replied. “Do you know where it is?”
    â€œâ€™Course I do. Ever’soul in the parish knaws Ebb-ton.” He pointed to the cliff top on the other side of the harbor. There, a red-gold manor house loomed in the twilight.
    The brawny youth helped her into the cart. Her father clambered up beside her, and the young man urged his donkey into motion. They left the village, crossed a river bridge, and began slogging up a steep road, ascending the cliff. The wind increased as they climbed, and the temperature dropped. Emma pulled her pelisse more tightly around herself. The path turned at a sharp switchback and continued to climb.
    Below, the village and moored boats in the harbor appeared smaller and smaller. The donkey strained and the young man urged until finally they crested the rise and the path leveled out onto a grassy headland.
    Again the sprawling stone manor came into view, its rooflines of varying heights, crowned by fortress-like chimney stacks built, no doubt, to withstand the ravages of the westerly gales.
    The path before the manor widened into a drive that forked into two.
    â€œThe front er the back of the ’ouse?” their driver asked.
    â€œOh . . .” Emma hesitated, recalling her earlier supposition that their status at Ebbington Manor would be little higher than servants. But how much higher?
    â€œThe front, of course,” her father replied, chin lifted high. “I am an old friend of Sir Giles and the Weston family.”
    The young man shrugged, unimpressed, but directed the donkey toward the front of the house.
    Emma winced at the picture they must have made. Presuming to come to the front door, not in a fine carriage but in a donkey cart. She wondered what snide comment Henry Weston might have to say about that.
    â€œPerhaps we ought to have gone to the back, Papa,” she whispered. “With our trunks and all.”
    â€œNonsense.”
    Closer now, Emma could see more detail of the house. The stone exterior shone a mellow, pinkish gray by twilight, with newer Georgian sash windows in one section, and older mullioned windows in another. The front door was massive and medieval—dark oak with black iron scrollwork and fittings.
    No servant hurried out to meet them, so while the young man helped her down, her father alighted, strode up to the door, and gave three raps with his walking stick.
    A minute later, the door was opened a few inches by a manservant in his late fifties.
    â€œYes?” he asked, squinting from her father to the donkey cart and trunks behind him.
    â€œI am Mr. Smallwood, and this is my daughter, Miss Smallwood.”
    The servant blinked. “Are you expected?”
    â€œYes. I am here to tutor the younger Weston sons.”
    Face puckered, the man regarded her father, chewing his lip in worry.
    â€œWho is it, Davies?” a