Free Named of the Dragon by Susanna Kearsley Page A

steeply down the cliffside to the Haven. It had been years since I had walked a coastal path, and I'd forgotten how incredible it felt to be so high above everything, to look down and see gulls wheeling under me while on the blue sunlit water the tankers and small boats moved leisurely round one another, completely unaware of my existence. Absorbed in watching them, I barely glanced at the lifeboat station when we passed above it. The little dog sniffed round the top of the steps leading down to the lifeboat, but finding nothing to his interest, led me on.
    Some braver souls—or sheep, perhaps—had trampled little paths that sprouted off from time to time and disappeared into the thickening gorse, winding down towards the water, but as I'd always had a healthy respect for the dangers of cliffs I kept my own feet firmly on the main path, only stepping to the grass to round the places where the soft red clay grew muddy, so I wouldn't slip.
    Ahead of me a screen of leafless trees, pale sycamores, rose up to take the place of gorse and bramble, plunging boldly to meet the water swirling white against the rocks, and an old shed, rather run-down and abandoned, stood in silence by the path. I hesitated, looking from the trees to the shed with its gaping smashed windows and rusted tin roof, feeling that twinge of misgiving that I always felt when entering a lonely place. But the dog had already squeezed under the next stile and, unaffected by the change of atmosphere, stood wagging on the other side. I shook my hesitation off and followed him. After all, I reminded myself, as the trees closed around us on both sides and the air grew heavy with the smells of the damp ground, littered thick with campion and foxglove and brown ferns withering between green clumps of wild garlic—after all, this was a public path, and even this late in the year, there must be ramblers trekking up and down it all the time, especially on a Saturday. If something happened to me here, I cheered myself, at least my body wouldn't languish undiscovered.
    The dog perked up his ears and stopped. Sniffed the air.
    "What's the matter, Morgan?" But I had heard the footsteps, too. The squelching steps of someone coming down the muddy path. Tucking my hands in my pockets, I turned my gaze deliberately away to watch the glinting water of the Haven flash between the sycamores, trying hard to look carefree as I walked on. I only caught a glimpse of the man as he came through the trees—a dark man, not tall, wearing denims and boots. The dog, head bent low, started forwards to investigate, and I whistled for him sharply. "Morgan! Come here, boy!"
    The man stopped short, and blocked the narrow path. He watched the little dog approach.
    "It's all right," I told him, "he's perfectly friendly." Snapping my fingers, I made my tone firmer. "Come on, Morgan, do as you're told."
    Folding his arms, the man lifted his eyebrows and shot me a withering glance. "His name's Chance," he informed me, in a rough-edged Welsh-accented voice that held no trace of humour. "And just for the record, I don't often come when I'm called."
    I recognized him, then. Not his face, so much, as his voice and his movements, the way he was holding his head. And the name on the dog's collar, of course. "Sorry," I said. "I read the tag, you see, and just assumed ..."
    Gareth Gwyn Morgan said shortly, "Well, now you know differently."
    It was the patronizing tone, I think, that set my teeth on edge. I never had liked being spoken to as if I'd only half a brain. Clenching my fists in my pockets, I lifted my chin. "Most people, Mr. Morgan, put the dog's name on the collar, not their own, so you needn't act so damned offended."
    His dark glance flicked me, unimpressed, and without a word he whistled for the dog and started walking round me. I felt my eyebrows rising and irrationally I looked towards the trees, seeking a witness to his rude behaviour.
    I couldn't hold my tongue. "And a bloody good day to you,