Emily Greenwood Read Free Page A

looked very smart with his claret coat buttoned neatly, the sunlight gleaming off his tall black boots.
    “Ah.” He hesitated. “I did want to see you again, though I’m surprised to find you here.”
    She tipped her head quizzically. “But whom did you expect to find?”
    “I didn’t think I could be so fortunate,” he said with a merry twinkle in his eyes, “that coincidence would send you my way twice.”
    “Coincidence?”
    “Here I am, looking for a key, and I find you again, my enchanting young lady of the stream.”
    Unease pricked at her. “A key? To what?”
    “To Tethering Hall, of course. You must have guessed by now who I am.”
    A sick feeling stole over her. “No,” she whispered.
    He bowed. “Mr. James Collington. My lawyer sent a letter about the change in ownership of the estate.”
    “You’re Mr. Collington,” she said in a voice dead of emotion.
    He gave a rueful shake of his head, unaware of her reaction. “We have started off on something of a wrong foot, but not in a bad way, of course.”
    No. It couldn’t be. Her head felt as if it were being squeezed. “Very much in a bad way,” she said.
    Her words and tone made his friendly expression disappear.
    “Believe me, sir,” she continued, “that I had no idea you were the gambler who has taken my home.”
    His face darkened at her words. If he had been dangerously handsome before, now he looked plain dangerous. “You must be greatly deluded, miss, if you consider that you are to be consulted as to the ownership of the manor. But as my being here does concern your work situation, you may want to have a care in how you speak to me.”
    “Work! What on earth are you talking about?”
    His black eyebrows now drew down over eyes heavy-lidded with displeasure. “If you cannot keep a civil tongue in your head, you may soon find yourself without a place to stay.”
    “I certainly shall not! This house belongs to my family.”
    “Come, come,” he said with haughty impatience. “The dower house belongs to the estate and therefore now to me.”
    “You are wrong.” She met his eyes with her chin up. “Tethering belonged to my uncle Jonathan, but the dower house is the property of the family of Caroline Wilcox, who was my mother.”
    His brows shot together. “What the devil? Beresford said there were only two old family retainers in residence. No family.”
    She stilled. “So you didn’t know about us. There’s been a mistake.”
    “Unfortunately,” he agreed, his expression growing grim.
    “More than unfortunate,” she corrected in milder tones. He hadn’t known about the Wilcoxes! Hope stirred. She’d been living on hope ever since that dark day when they’d closed the door to Tethering behind them and walked down the hill to Blossom Cottage.
    “Tethering rightly belongs to my family,” she explained. “I’ve—my father and I have run the estate in recent years. We’ve taken care of everything while my uncle has lived in London, and there has always been an understanding among us that the estate would be ours on my uncle’s death. He simply had not yet made the necessary arrangements with his lawyer.” She paused. “So you see, now, that we have moral claim to the estate.”
    Mr. Collington sucked his teeth. “Miss…?” he began.
    “Wilcox,” she supplied, finding it bizarre to be properly introducing herself to the man with whom she had spent such carefree moments on the stream bank. She could feel a grin spreading over her face, and probably she looked extremely silly, but she didn’t care because the wrong that had been done them was going to be righted. “I know that as a gentleman, you’ll act with honor and revoke your claim to the estate.”
    He inhaled abruptly and said nothing for several moments.
    Why wasn’t he agreeing with her? He was a man of honor—she was sure of it from their meeting on the stream bank. She reminded herself then that this was all coming as a surprise to him, and