Read Online The Girl with the Red Ribbon by Linda Finlay - Free Book Online Page B

‘However, I must agree that we have always respected each other’s privacy, Fanny. Not that you were to understand that,’ Edward added quickly, when he saw Fanny’s lips purse.
    ‘It is for the girl’s own good, Edward. However, when I went to go in there this morning to check on things, the door wouldn’t budge, no matter how hard I pushed it. You’ll need to take a look at it.’
    ‘Blessings and thank you, oh mirror,’ Rowan muttered under her breath.
    ‘Now,
my child, I will not have you …’ Fanny began, but Rowan had had enough.
    ‘I am not a child and certainly not yours,’ she retorted. ‘I’m going outside to help Sab. Please note I am putting on my boots, but only because I shall be working on the vegetable plot,’ she tossed over her shoulder as she fled from the room.

CHAPTER 7
    Rowan found Sab by the kitchen garden, furiously forking the seaweed down from the cart.
    ‘I’ll dig it in and pretend it’s her,’ Rowan raged, stressing the word ‘her’. Working together, anger fuelling their energy, they tackled the pile with a vengeance. The bright moon was shining from a clear sky, making it easier for them to see what they were doing.
    ‘Who does that woman think she is, coming here and throwing her weight around?’ Rowan asked, some moments later. ‘I am not going to listen to a word she says.’
    ‘I know how you feel, Rowan,’ Sab agreed, his stutter completely gone now he’d calmed down. ‘But I’ve been thinking. Uncle Ted’s really smitten with this Fanny and in his eyes she can do no wrong, so it might be easier to go along with what she suggests for the moment. I’ve just got this feeling it’ll be us who come off worse if we don’t.’
    Rowan considered this in silence. The more she deliberated, the harder she dug. Hadn’t her uncle said virtually the same thing earlier? A movement caught her eye and she saw an owl take flight from its perch through a hole in the barn. It hovered over the adjacent field and then swooped. As the pitiful squeaks of its prey broke the silence of the night, Rowan and Sab watched the bird, dinner in its talons, fly off towards the big oak. Fanny was
just like that, she thought. A hunter, only it was Rowan she had set her sights on. She shivered. Thick clouds were now gathering, and she didn’t know whether it was those or the dawning comprehension about Fanny that had cooled her blood. She resumed her shovelling with renewed vigour, but moments later, Sab stopped what he was doing and turned to her.
    ‘Remember what your mother used to say about the oak standing proud against the wind only to break in the end, while the sapling that sways along with the storm weathers it?’ he asked, his breath rising like mist in the plummeting temperature. ‘Happen we should be like the saplings here.’
    Of course, the storm! That’s what her mother had been trying to tell her.
    ‘I think you’re right, Sab,’ she agreed eventually. ‘It’s not going to be easy, though, is it?’
    ‘No, but I guess for Uncle’s sake we’ll have to try to go along with what Fanny suggests,’ he sighed, returning to his work.
    Well, she might go along with some of Fanny’s suggestions but that woman was never going to enter her room again. Her mirror would see to that, she thought, digging furiously.
    It was another hour before the job was finished. Stretching to ease her back, Rowan saw the clouds had completely covered the moon. She sniffed the air. Snow was on the way. Sab had noticed too.
    ‘Come along, Rowan, I reckon we can call it a night now. Thanks for helping. I’d never have got this lot dug in on my own before the weather breaks. If it hadn’t been
done tonight we’d have missed the opportunity of the nutrients being taken down into the soil with the falling water table. This ground will be white and frozen come morning,’ he said.
    ‘It’s unlike Father to leave it all to you, Sab. I’m going to speak to him. It’s all right saying