Marigold's Marriages by Sandra Heath

Author:Sandra Heath [Heath, Sandra]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Regency Romance Paranormal
Publisher: Belgrave House
Published: 2016-01-26T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nineteen

The escarpment air was sweet with the scent of wild thyme, and blue butterflies danced above sward that was lavishly sprinkled with wildflowers. Sandstone boulders were dotted around, and did indeed look like sheep, Marigold thought, conceding that to call them graywethers was actually very appropriate. A few windblown hawthorns and the occasional rowan tree had found root in the thin layer of soil that covered the white chalk, and clumps of yellow gorse bloomed here and there. Skylarks tumbled high above, their wonderful bubbling song rippling across the warm mid-June sky. Oh, how criminal to name someone as disagreeable as Alauda after such a glorious songbird, Marigold thought as she continued to follow Robin and Jenny.

It wasn’t long before she realized the birds were leading her toward the eastern end of the escarpment, where Rowan had told her there were ancient fortifications believed to have been a Roman camp. The closer she rode to the edge of the summit, the more oddly undulating the land became, and at last she saw that the dips and rises in the land were linear earthworks created countless centuries before. Whoever occupied this site would not only have found it easy to defend, but also a superb lookout point.

Robin and Jenny dipped down into a hawthorn bush that grew out of a tumble of graywethers right at the edge of the descent, and when she reined in next to the bush and looked down, she saw she was directly above the house and former hunting tower called Romans. The grounds were flanked by curtains of trees that stretched right down to the foot of the escarpment, but the house enjoyed a fine uninterrupted view.

It was a three-bayed stone building, with a fine wrought-iron veranda extending all around the ground floor. A matching balcony surrounded the floor above, and the original square, ivy-covered hunting tower still rose sturdily from one end. The incline from here on the summit down to the house was very steep indeed, but the quarter of a mile or so from the house to the valley was much more gentle, with open grounds and a long drive that curved down to the road along which she and Rowan had driven the evening before.

Just visible beyond one of the curtains of trees, was the eastern extremity of the lake, and a jetty like the one at Avenbury Park. To the rear of the house, just before the steepness of the incline became too great, there was a small walled apple orchard, with a white summerhouse where someone was seated. It was a gentleman, but all she could see were his gleaming top boots and the newspaper he was reading.

Hoofbeats carried on the air, and she looked down the drive to see a horseman riding slowly up the drive. She immediately recognized Rowan. As he disappeared from her view at the front of the house, Robin and Jenny hopped urgently from branch to branch of the hawthorn bush.

“Follow us! Follow us!” the wren urged in her odd tic-tic tones, then she and the robin flew down the hill toward Romans.

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