Beyond the Sunrise Read Free Page B

would have ridden with him and shared all the discomforts and dangers of the military life with him.”
    â€œYou would not have been able to do it,” he said. “You are a woman.”
    â€œBecause it would not have been allowed?” she said. “Or because I would not be able to stand the hardships? I would too. I would not care about having to sleep on the hard ground and all that. And as to not being allowed, I should cut off my hair and ride out as my knight’s squire. No one would even know that I was a woman. I would not complain, you see.”
    He laughed and she discovered that white teeth and merry blue eyes made him even more handsome in the daylight than he had been in the moonlight the evening before.
    She invited him to kiss her again when they reached the bottom. Indeed, she had found coming down to be a far greater ordeal than going up had been. She was glad of an excuse to lean back against a solid wall and to rest her arms along his reassuringly sturdy shoulders. He felt strong despite his leanness.
    His arms slid about her waist as his lips rested against hers and her arms wrapped themselves about his neck. She tried pouting her lips against his and felt their pressure increase. She was being kissed by a man, she told herself, by a tall and handsome young man. And she was in love with him. It felt wonderful to be in love.
    â€œI will have to go back,” she said, “or they will be sending up to my room to see why I am sleeping so long.”
    â€œYes,” he said making no attempt to delay her. “I will take you back as far as the stables.”
    For the three afternoons following, they walked—across fields, among the woods, beside the lake a mile distant from the house in the opposite direction from the old castle. The weather was their friend. The sun shone each day from a blue sky, and if there were any clouds, they were small and white and fluffy and merely brought brief moments of welcome shade. They walked with fingers entwined and they talked to each other, sharing thoughts and dreams they had confided to no one before.
    His father wanted to buy him a commission in the army when he was eighteen, he told her. But it was not a life he looked forward to. For as long as he had lived with his mother he had assumed that he would always live quietly in the country. It was the kind of life he loved. But he must do something. He realized that. He could not continue to live at Haddington Hall indefinitely, and he was not, of course, his father’s heir.
    â€œBut I have no wish to be an officer,” he told her. “I don’t think I could stomach killing anyone.”
    She told him that her mother had been English, that her grandparents, the Viscount and Viscountess Kingsley, still lived in Yorkshire. But her papa had allowed her to visit them only twice in all the years they had been in England. Her father wanted her to be French and to live in France. But she wanted to be English and to live in England, she told Robert with a sigh. She wished she did not belong to two countries. It made life complicated.
    She told him again of her dream of being old enough to attendballs and theater parties, of meeting and mingling with other young people. Except that the dream did not seem quite so important during those days. She was living a dream more wonderful than any she had ever imagined.
    They lay side by side on a shaded bank of the lake during the fourth afternoon, their arms about each other, kissing, smiling at each other, gazing into each other’s eyes. He touched her small breasts lightly and she felt her cheeks flaming, though she did not withdraw her eyes from his or make any protest. His hand felt good there, and right. And then he rested his hand against her waist. It felt warm through the cotton of her chess.
    â€œRobert,” she said, “I love you.”
    And she loved the way he had of smiling with his eyes before the smile touched his