Winterset Read Online Free PDF Page A

Moreland’s return send her into a turmoil.
    She slapped the reins, urging the horse on, and firmly quelled the notion, deep inside her, that it felt as though she was running away.
     
    Anna kept herself busy for the next few days, doing her best not to think about Reed or his impending arrival. She did all the mending that had piled up in her sewing basket and finished the little embroidered baby gown she had made for her friend Miranda’s newest baby, as well as embroidering a white linen fichu she had bought a few months ago for the neckline of one of her dresses. She caught up on all her correspondence and visited one of their aging tenants. She also took a long walk every day, something she had found helped to ease her mind, whatever the situation.
    Three days after she had called at the vicarage, she left her house for another long tramp. She took the path that ran from their garden to the east. The path forked, one choice leading back into the woods that nestled at the base of Craydon Tor, one of her favorite places to walk, but today she continued on the walk that curved around the outer base of the tor. It then straightened out and ran in a more-or-less straight line until one reached the edge of Winterset lands. Anna had walked this path hundreds of times in her life, but in the last three years she had never walked as far as Winterset. She did not plan to today, either, intending to turn off at the meadow halfway along and climb over the stile and cut across the meadow to the tree-lined stream that lay beyond. She often went there to think, for it was a calming place, shaded by leafy green trees and dappled with the sunlight that stole through their gently moving leaves, with the burble of the brook as a soothing background.
    Rounding the tor, her head down and deep in thought, she did not look at the long stretch of path before her until gradually she became aware of the soft plip-plop of horses’ hooves. She sighed inwardly. She did not wish to have to speak to anyone right now, and she cast about in her mind for some way to avoid it, but, of course, there was none, for the rider was sure to have seen her, and a retreat now would be rude. Bracing herself to smile and say a few polite words, she lifted her head.
    The horse, a big, sleek black stallion, was trotting toward her, his rider moving with an effortless grace on his back. The man riding was tall and broad-shouldered, and his dark hair glinted with highlights of red in the sun. He was still too far away for her to make out the exact shape of his features or the color of his eyes, but Anna knew them well enough to supply the strong jaw and wide mouth, the straight slash of dark eyebrows above dark-lashed gray eyes.
    It was Reed Moreland riding toward her.
    Anna stood rooted to the spot, her mind a chaotic jumble. He had been in her thoughts often the last few days, but still, it was a shock to actually see him. Fate, she thought, had a firm sense of irony, to send him riding toward her as he had been the first time they met.
    Reed stopped a few feet away from her and dismounted. For a long moment they simply looked at each other. Anna’s heart was pounding in her chest until she felt as though it might explode. No matter how hard she had tried, she realized, nothing could have prepared her for seeing him again.
    “Miss Holcomb.” He came a step or two closer, holding the reins of his horse.
    “My lord.” Anna was a little surprised at how calmly her voice came out. It should, she thought, have shaken as she was shaking inside.
    Her eyes searched his face, looking for each tiny difference. Was his skin more tanned? Were there a few more little lines radiating out from the corner of his eyes? It was a little something of a shock, seeing his eyes again; memory could not render exactly the silver-gray color of them, shadowed by lashes so thick and long they seemed almost ridiculous on a man.
    She was aware of a strong desire to reach out and brush back