Free Seacliff by Felicia Andrews Page B

along Oliver was making her miserable, and if that was the case why didn’t Caitlin lie herself back into Griff Radnor’s arms?
    Caitlin smiled and leaned against the pine bole, encircling the tree with one arm as she lowered the parasol to the ground.
    Dear, wonderful Gwen, she thought. Sometimes she was so marvelously predictable. And so maddeningly stubborn. As if Caitlin really wanted Griff anymore, as if there were anything to go back to even if she did. She suspected that Gwen’s eagerness was partly due to her father’s urgings, in spite of his disapproval of Griffin, and partly due to Gwen’s own growing feeling for Davy Daniels. Caitlin’s smile grew. No silly dreams of princes and kings for level-headed Gwen Thomas. No, she would content herself with a solid young man whose future was ensured and who loved her in turn. That much was obvious. Davy, whenever he was able, followed Gwen around like a puppy—as Caitlin herself had done when first smitten by Griff.
    “Damn Griffin!” she said suddenly, an exorcism to drive the man from her mind. Lord, Gwen managed to have her thinking about him even when she wasn’t around.
    She moved to the other side of the tree and watched as a pair of blinding white geese swept out of the pale blue sky and landed with barely a ripple on the water. They swam about for several minutes, tested the bottom with their beaks, and were gone in a diamond shower of sunlight and droplets. And in watching them depart— fading from white to black as they shrank to motes against the blue sky—she thought of her father. For a reason she’d never been able to fathom, geese were his favorite birds; probably, she thought wryly, because they were so cantankerous, like him.
    Like him, she reminded herself, when he was younger and in good health.
    She sighed, and gnawed absently at her lower lip. It had been several weeks since his last letter, and she was beginning to worry. When they’d left in early April he was still abed, coughing and aching, and insisting at the top of his baritone voice that he was perfectly all right, thank you very much, and would she please stop fussing over him as if he were a child? But he was a child now, or almost so. The coughing produced blood, though he hadn’t wanted her to know that; and his sleeplessness was extending further and further into the night. She made no attempt to deceive herself; she knew he was dying—by slow stages that sapped his strength and taxed his will. He was slipping away from her, and only his temper and Oliver’s importuning had persuaded her to leave Wales for another stay at Eton.
    The lack of word from him bothered her.
    Flint had left Eton before she’d arisen the day after their assignation—a messageless departure that was only now beginning to rankle. On top of that, she was concerned about her father, and slowly she grew determined to ask Oliver for permission to return to Seacliff soon, just to see for herself how her Welsh father was doing.
    She closed the parasol and turned abruptly into the grove. As long as she was thinking about it, she might as well do it. Oliver had stayed close to home these past seven days, pacing through the house like a caged lion. It was possible he, too, was growing restless, and she might not have a better opportunity to talk him into leaving Eton, if only for a month. His activities seemed to have ground to a temporary halt, and better they—or she—be on the road before he started to wreak his ill humor on her.
    She walked slowly, reluctant to leave the shadows, and so was able to see the rider before she stepped out into the open.
    He was astride a large black horse whose sides she could tell even at this distance were lathered. Its head drooped, and its mouth kept opening as if gulping for air. An old mount, she thought, not used to hard traveling.
    The horseman himself was of great height, she could tell, and even in the midday warmth was wearing a long brown cloak that nearly