The Wild Child Read Online Free PDF Page A

the year. All nature was in bloom and wild beasts ecstatically sought their mates. Meriel had discarded her slippers in favor of living earth beneath her toes. Since early morning she’d been working in the herb garden, pruning and dividing to keep the plants healthy.
    Some of the herbs were ancient, planted by long-forgotten ancestors. The marjoram had surely been placed in this spot by a woman who tended her herbs just as Meriel did now, raising potent plants for healing and cooking. When Meriel was small, Kamal had studied an old herbal in the library, then described the plants and their uses to her when they worked here. He’d been a wonderful teacher, his deep, slow voice making all subjects interesting as he spoke. His manner had been casual, as if he were talking to himself. Did he know how much she had learned that way? Impossible to say. She finished in the herb garden by midafternoon. The day being ripe with scent and sun, she snapped her fingers for her dog, Roxana, who lay dozing by the rosemary. Together they strolled through the park toward Warfield’s main entrance. She loved the diamond-shaped gatehouse towers, and the arch that leaped between them above the road. The gateway was built of the same warm gray stone as the wall that circled the park, enclosing her world in a circle of safety.
    Within sight of the gateway, she found a favorite hidden spot between two rhododendron bushes on the verge of coming into bloom. She settled down on crossed legs, Roxana flopping beside her, and lazily studied the elaborately whorled wrought iron gates that filled the arch. The iron was painted a glossy black, except for several spikes at the top that glittered with gold leaf. Sometimes she wondered about the land of Others that lay beyond the gates, though not with any desire to visit. Too much of what she remembered was horror. Pain and glare and fire in the night.
    Dreamily her mind drifted, absorbing the essence of the day. Light wind trembled the ivy that twined up the towers and along the wall, while thrushes sang in the nearby trees. How would it feel to be a rhododendron, sinking roots into the rich, dark soil, drawing life from the sun and the rain? Or a thrush, darting through the air… ? She slid into the golden place at the center of her being where all nature was one.
    Shadows were lengthening when her attention was brought back by a horseman cantering up to the gates. Neatly he pulled his horse around and tugged at the bell rope. Intrigued, she waited without impatience to see what would happen.
    More restless, horse and rider paced in rough circles until old Walter, the gatekeeper, emerged from his sitting room in the right-hand gate tower. As soon as he saw the visitor, he bobbed his head, then opened the gates.
    Meriel felt a sudden chill when she saw the man more clearly. He had come once before, not long ago. His gaze had been sharp as cut glass, but he’d left quickly. A man of no importance. Now he had returned, and there was something different about him. He no longer seemed like someone who could be easily ignored.
    Roxana whimpered. Meriel stilled the dog with one hand, eyes narrowed as she studied the newcomer. Hatless, windblown hair waving across a sweaty brow, a suggestion of cleft in his chin. What would be considered a handsome face. His bay horse was equally splendid, a brown dark almost to black. A shade very like the rider’s hair, in fact. Both were magnificent beasts. He exchanged a few words with the gatekeeper, then turned his mount and scanned his surroundings. Instinctively she shrank back as his gaze went over her hiding place. His eyes were intensely blue, like cornflowers, visible even at this distance. She held her breath until he started up the drive. Man and horse moved in perfect harmony, smooth muscles working under glossy hide, the rider effortlessly controlling the powerful animal between his legs.
    She drew up her knees and locked her arms around them, rocking back and