Cherrybrook Rose Read Online Free Page B

the vision of his anguished face was haunting her.
    Some bemused compulsion drove her to glance swiftly over her left shoulder towards the dark and menacing silhouette of the prison buildings outlined against the blinding light as the sun sank in the autumn sky. She wondered what the convict would be doing now, locked in his cramped, damp and lonely cell for the night. But then her attention was snapped back to the road as they crossed the bridge over the Blackabrook by the quaint farmhouse known as the Ockery. It was rumoured to have once been the billet of two French prisoner-of-war officers out on parole, as had been the custom. Gospel had decided to take exception to the tumbling waters and was sidestepping restlessly. But Rose was determined to keep to a walk, her mind locked in a brown study. What was his crime? she wondered. New. A model prisoner, Mr Cartwright had said. He would have at least five years to serve, then, for that was the minimum sentence for Dartmoor. Five years . . .
    They gained the brow of the hill and all at once the panorama of the isolated hamlet of Two Bridges lay beneath them, the picturesque West Dart river valley bathed in the apricot evening sunlight. The breath caught in Rose’s throat, the beauty of the dell with its old arched bridge once again enchanting her, though she had seen it a thousand times before. The water twinkled merrily as it rushed over the shallow, rock-strewn riverbed in its hurry to be across the moor and down to the sea, lengthening shadows playing mysteriously on the clear, deeper pools. Just one facet of the moor’s deceptive landscape, a gentle oasis in the savage wilderness that surrounded it.
    Gospel shook his head and snorted impatiently. He knew he was nearing home and the handful of tasty oats the stable lad would feed him. But why was his mistress holding him back? They joined the steep road that dropped into the valley, then sharply up the far side, and the horse took the incline as easily as swishing away a fly with its tail. And then, as they turned on to the road towards Postbridge and the north-east corner of the moor, the familiar surroundings finally soothed Rose’s soul, and with a resolute clamping of her jaw, she gave the animal its head.
    Gospel’s muscles exploded like coiled springs. Rose could feel the strength of his body beneath her as he powered up the hill, stretching every sinew of his vigorous limbs. She kept her hands together now at the base of his thick mane, gripping with her knees as she sank into the one, two,
three
, one, two,
three
rhythm of his pounding hooves, gathering speed until the glorious moment when the canter broke into a gallop and they surged forward as if of one being. She leaned out along his arched neck, her own body rippling to his flowing motion. Her hair streaked out behind her like the tail of some meteor, the wind whipping through her head and driving out all memory of the convict who, for one incomprehensible moment, had touched her heart, but who she would never see again.
    On and on, until the extensive site of the gunpowder mills came into view, its sturdy buildings spread out, for safety reasons, on either side of the Cherrybrook valley. She sat back in the saddle, easing gently but firmly on the reins until Gospel was persuaded to slow his breakneck pace, and by the time they reached the first cluster of powder-mill cottages by the roadside, Rose was rising to the gelding’s lively trot. The lengthy gallop had hardly made him sweat, and Rose herself would have been happy to continue out over the moor for another hour to expend some of his energy, but the evening was drawing in with that autumnal sting in the air despite the sunny day, and she knew better than to trust the treacherously changeable Dartmoor weather at night.
    They left the main road and continued along the powder-mills track to what, if anything, could be called the centre of the isolated community, a large building that