One Touch of Magic Read Free Page A

chance to visit museums and libraries. The society of the nearby village of Upper Hawton was most congenial, but had nothing like that to offer.
    She looked over her cluttered desk, at the drawings and notes that represented her work. The work she owed John. He had been a good husband to her, had given her a good life. The work on the village was far from over; she could not abandon it for the frivolities of Town.
    But she could not bear to disappoint Phoebe, either, not when her friend was only trying to help, and looked at her so hopefully. “Perhaps,” she said. “We will see how things are going here later, after—after Lord Ransome arrives.”
    Phoebe smiled. “I will be content with that—for now. But we must find some merry things to do this week, some assemblies or card parties before I must leave, and you must face the new marquis.”
    Sarah laughed. “Indeed! But perhaps, if I am fortunate, I will never have to meet Lord Ransome after all.”
    “How so, Sally?”
    “Perhaps the curse of Thora’s Treasure will smite him down before then!”

    The breeze was soft and warm against her cheek, the sun hot where it beat down on her head. Sarah leaned back on her elbows in the sweet-scented grass, closing her eyes to let the summer day wash over her.
    She knew it was just a dream; it had the blurry edges of unreality, the perfection a real day would lack. She also wore something that looked suspiciously like a nightdress, loose and white and soft, with tight sleeves, bound at the waist with a thin silver chain. Her hair spilled over her shoulders onto the ground.
    Never in real life would she have gone about so disheveled! She intended to enjoy this dream while it lasted, though. It would vanish, as so many others before.
    She lay flat on the grass, and opened her eyes to stare up at the spreading branches of the ancient tree above her. Sunlight filtered through the leaves, casting shifting shadows around her.
    Suddenly, a face appeared between her and the sky, a figure leaned over her. A man, a beautiful, godlike man, with golden hair that fell to his shoulders, and eyes a color to rival the sky. And he was smiling at her, her , a smile full of secrets and a hot sweetness.
    He smiled as if he knew her—intimately.
    “So here you are,” he said, his voice rough and rich. It sent a shiver along her skin to hear it. “I have been looking for you. You are always running from me.”
    “I am not running now,” Sarah murmured. As if compelled by some overwhelming force beyond her control, she slid her hand behind his neck, drawing him down to her, closer and closer. His hair was satin soft to her touch, his skin hot.
    Sarah’s eyes drifted shut. Never had she felt like this before, never! A terrible longing seized her in her very heart. She wanted his lips on hers, needed them. . . .

    A sudden chill touched Sarah’s flesh, driving away the heat of a summer’s day’s passion. She tried desperately to hold on to the dream, reached out for it with a cry, but it slipped away. As all dreams do.
    She sat up to find herself in her own chamber in the hunting box. She had kicked aside the bedclothes, and the breeze from the half-open window was cold on her legs.
    She rubbed at her face, her head aching with unfulfilled longing and the remnants of sleep. “It was just a dream,” she whispered. “Just a foolish dream. Like all those others I have had.”
    Just a dream. But who was that dream man?

Chapter Two
    Miles Rutledge, the new Marquis of Ransome, sat on top of a tree-shaded hill, surveying his uncle’s land, spread out before him in a patchwork of green meadows and speckled farmland.
    Or rather, it was his land. He could not get used to that idea. He did not feel in the least like a landowner, or a marquis. He was just plain Major Rutledge, and all the bows and uncertain expressions on the faces of the tenants as he passed were most unsettling. It left him with the strange sense of being in some unreal