Free All the dear faces by Audrey Howard Page B

perhaps accounted for his popularity with them .
    He was considerably taken aback by his own reaction to her as she turned to stare haughtily up at him. He might have been some common fellow who had insulted her, he had time to think, before his breath caught in his throat and he felt the need to swallow convulsively. She was, without doubt, one of the most extraordinarily lovely women he had ever seen. This was the first time he had actually seen her face, hidden as it had been by the deep brim of her bonnet. Some women are beautiful, as a jewel is beautiful so that a man feels the need to look and look again, to touch, to possess. Others are pretty, as children are pretty, innocent and empty of face since they have experienced nothing, but this woman was lovely, soft and eternally female and yet with an honesty, a humour, a warmth, a strength, a young vitality about her which was, contrarily, mature as though she had known and survived hardships not suffered by many. A woman, and yet still a girl for despite her self-sufficiency, her air of being complete, her hauteur, she could have been no more than eighteen or nineteen.
    “ Yes?" That was all, asking him to state his business and be off since what was he to do with them though he noticed she drew the child protectively closer to her skirts.
    “ I apologise if I startled you," he began, still somewhat taken aback. He frowned, amazed at his own callow need to stare for he had known many lovely women in his thirty years. None like this though, his male senses were whispering and it was true. She had turned away, continuing to stride on, the child trotting beside her as neat and fleet of foot as she, treating him as though he was a beggar who had asked her for a farthing which she was not prepared to give .
    He felt the first stirring of anger and his frown deepened. Damn the woman! Let her go her own way. Let her fall by the wayside, be buried in snowdrifts, blunder about in the rolling mists which could come down at a frightening pace; be attacked by tinkers, her skirt thrown over her head to muffle her cries. What was it to him? He had meant to do no more than guide her to the nearest hamlet, perhaps, or advise her to make haste before the storm which was surely coming, devoured her and her child but if she was to take this high-handed tone with him and she no more than a farm girl or maidservant by the look of her, then she could go to the devil and take the child with her .
    It was perhaps the child who restrained him and kept at bay the hot flow of temper which was very likely to take him over since from an early age he had felt no need to bridle it.
    “ Madam, I do not wish to impede you in any way but being familiar with these parts and accustomed to the menace of the changes in the weather, I cannot just ride on and leave you. The nearest village is over two miles away and the landscape is wild . . ."
    “ Thank you, but we'll be all right." She did not turn her head when she spoke to him and he felt the most foolish urge to make her do so. While there was still light enough in the sky he wanted to look at her again, to study her face, her mouth, the sweetly curving short upper lip, the full lower lip, the square little jaw, and were her eyes brown or hazel? And her hair which was completely covered by the rather ugly bonnet, was it the same bright copper as the child's? God's teeth, what was wrong with him ?
    He could feel his temper begin to flare even more and a slight wash of colour flowed beneath his smoothly shaved skin. He was not used to being spoken to as though he was some impertinent hobbledehoy she had come across and whom she was summarily dismissing for his audacity in addressing her. He was one of the wealthiest sheep farmers in the district with interests in coal and copper mining; in the newly expanding railways; in the manufacture of woollen goods and other lucrative business concerns in which he had become involved since his father had died. He