by Penny Jordan
v1.5
March 14, 2008
Valentine's Night
Penny Jordan
'What does your fiancé think of your independence?"
Sorrel glowered at Val. "Andrew respects my need to be my own person," she told him frigidly. "Respect is very important in a marriage."
"I agree, but surely not to the exclusion of everything else? Do you love him, Sorrel?" he asked her gently.
His question caught her off guard. "Yes, yes, of course l do," she said in a high uncertain voice.
"And when he kisses you, does he make you tingle all the way from the top of your head to your toes?" Val pressed in a voice that suddenly seemed to be melting her bones, turning them into warm treacle.
She stared at him in utter confusion, It must be the wine. She had never in her life before experienced such thoroughly shocking desires.
* * *
contents
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
* * *
Harlequin Presents #1243
Harlequin Presents first edition February 1990
ISBN 0-373-11243-2
Original hardcover edition published in 1989 by Mills & Boon Limited
Copyright © 1989 by Penny Jordan. All rights reserved.
Cover illustration copyright © 1990 by Norm Eastman.
Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
Printed in U.S.A.
* * *
CHAPTER ONE
^ »
'What on earth are we going to do? We simply can't ask her not to come—not when she's been to such trouble to find us. She'd be hurt. But she can't stay here… not at the moment. The house is full to bursting point as it is.'
Sympathetically Sorrel watched the anxiety darken her mother's eyes. It was true that the unscheduled visit could not have come at a worse time. With the twins home from university, and her newly married elder brother and his wife taking up temporary accommodation with her parents, and Uncle Giles more or less a permanent house guest, the farm was already bursting at the seams.
Add to that the fact that her father's prize ewes were lambing ahead of time and he was consequently a little short-tempered with concern, and it was obvious that now was not precisely an ideal time for the family to receive into its bosom an unknown second cousin, heaven only knew how many times removed, from Australia. A cousin, moreover, whom none of them knew anything about, other than that her typed letter was written with such a breezy, not to say slightly overpowering, bonhomie, that made it very difficult for her mother to write back, and say no, they could not accommodate her as a guest.
'Normally I'd have loved to have her staying here,' her mother continued unhappily. 'But…'
'Why don't you write and explain the situation?' Sorrel suggested practically. They were sitting in the farmhouse kitchen, their conversation interrupted by the increasingly noisy protests of the orphaned lambs her mother was hand-rearing. 'Suggest that she delays her visit until later in the year.'
'I can't,' came the worried response. 'The letter went to the old farm, instead of coming here. Val obviously doesn't realise that we've moved and that the old farmhouse has been empty since Uncle Giles moved out. The letter would be lying up there yet if Simon hadn't driven over to show Fiona the house.'
'Oh, he's shown it to her, then,' Sorrel asked interestedly. 'What did she think? It's very remote, I know, and not exactly equipped with all mod cons…'
'Oh, she came back bubbling over with enthusiasm, and I can understand why. It's very hard to start off your married life living with your in-laws.'
'Mum, you've bent over backwards to make her feel at home,' Sorrel protested loyally.
'Oh, she isn't complaining—far from it, but I remember how I felt when I had to move in with Gran and Gramps. Of course, it was different for me. Unlike Fiona, I didn't come from farming stock. She's adapted marvellously well. She goes out in all weathers helping Simon and your dad with the stock, and she didn't seem a bit put off by the old farm's remoteness. I warned her that there are times when the snow closes off the road, and of course there's no gas or electricity up there at the moment, but your dad was saying it would be worth while having them installed, because if Simon and Fiona did move up there it would mean they could make far more use of the high pastures than he's been able to do.'
Sorrel was familiar enough with the complex family relationship which had led to her father inheriting not just his parents' farm, but his maternal uncle's as well. Since this latter farm was situated in the richer pastures of Shropshire, as opposed to his parents' farm in the Welsh mountains, he had moved his family down into Shropshire when Sorrel was a little girl, leaving his uncle Giles to take over the running of the Welsh land. Two years ago, following a bad bout of pneumonia, Giles had finally admitted that the rugged life of a hill farmer was getting too much for him, and since then the farmhouse had remained untenanted other than during the summer months when Simon lived up there, watching over their sheep flocks.
They were an odd mixture, her parents: her father came from a long, long line of men who had been Welsh farmers; her mother had been a city girl who had fallen madly and illogically in love with the young countryman while he was visiting the Royal Show at Smithfield one year looking for a new pedigree ram; and their four children mirrored the quixotic blend of their parents. Simon, the eldest, whose feel for the land he had inherited fully from his father and who had never wanted to do anything other than follow in his footsteps. The twins: James the would-be scientist, who had always been irked by the constraining enclosure of the life his father and elder brother lived, who made no bones about his own desire to travel, to experience a wider knowledge of the world. Mark, the younger twin's expertise with anything mechanical had led to him training for a career in the computer industry, and yet he had retained that same deep love of the land that was so strong in their father and Simon.
And as for herself—well, she loved the land as well, but her mother claimed that the artistic talent which had led to her starting her own small, successful business designing and selling exclusive knitwear came from her side of the family. Like the colouring which had given Sorrel her name—her mane of russet hair was considered a little flamboyant by her father's family, as was her height and elegance of limb. Sorrel was not a Welsh Llewellyn, and yet—and yet she had a deep awareness of the richness of her heritage, of how lucky she had been to be born the child of two people each in their own way dedicated to bringing up their family in the kind of emotionally secure background that few of her peers had been privileged to experience.
Did the strength of her parents' marriage mean that she was more or less well-equipped to deal with the problems that seemed to destroy modern relationships? she wondered—more so since she had become engaged to Andrew.
Andrew did not come from farming stock. His father had been a solicitor in Ludlow. He was now dead, and Andrew's mother lived alone in their old family home. Andrew had an increasingly successful business in Ludlow buying and selling old books.
They had known one another since their schooldays, and if their relationship lacked a certain sparkle—
a certain intensity—Sorrel knew she didn't mind, and that it wasn't possible to have everything in life. And besides, she had her own reasons for welcoming Andrew's calm courtship.
She knew that her family weren't entirely happy about her engagement to Andrew, but she was twenty-four, after all, and old enough to make up her own mind. If he sometimes niggled her with his pedantic, slightly old-fashioned ways—well, she reminded herself that she was far from perfect. But increasingly recently she had known that there was something vital lacking in their relationship… that their engagement was meandering towards no very certain conclusion, that Andrew's reserve and surely too old-fashioned decision that they should not be lovers until they were married was not romantic as she had first assumed, but indicative of some very problematic areas within their relationship. As was her own reluctance to pressure him into making love to her.
Surely she ought to feel differently? Surely she ought to want him more on a physical level? Was there something wrong with her that made her different from other young women her age? Did she have a much lower sexual drive than her peers?
She didn't have enough close female friends to know the answer. Those she had made at art college did not live locally, and the girls she had been at school with were now in the main married with families.
She knew the cause of her present dissatisfaction lay with her brother and his wife. No one seeing them together could doubt how they felt. Those looks they exchanged, those sneaked little touches… that flush that sometimes darkened Fiona's skin when she looked at Simon. No one could observe them together and not know how they felt. It was not like that with her and Andrew.
She really ought not to be sitting here in the kitchen with her mother, but working in the outbuilding her father had converted for her when she'd first set up in business on her own. However, her mother was still frowning over the problem of this unknown Australian female, who had written to them announcing that she had traced a relationship with their family and that, since she had business in the UK, she was coming over early so that she could spend a few days getting to know her relatives.
'So what are you going to do about her visit?' Sorrel asked her mother, who was expertly finishing feeding one lamb and starting on another.
'Well, it's too late to put her off. She's arriving the day after tomorrow. She says in her letter that she's hiring a car and that she'll drive straight here. Well, not here, of course, but to the old farmhouse.'
'We'll have to arrange to leave a message for her at the airport… explaining the position,' Sorrel suggested practically, but for some reason her mother didn't seem to find her suggestion acceptable.
'Oh, we can't do that!' she exclaimed. 'It would be so—so inhospitable. Think, darling, how you'd feel if you'd travelled all that way—'
'Uninvited,' Sorrel interrupted her drily, but her mother made no comment, saying instead, 'And we can't let her just arrive at the farm, driving all that way to find the place completely deserted. As you know, it's barely even furnished. Just that one bedroom that Simon uses, and the kitchen. I wish there was some way we could put her up here, but it's impossible—what with the twins at home and Uncle Giles and now Simon and Fiona, and it isn't even as though we could get a spare bed in your room, and I won't have the poor thing sleeping on a settee. What would she think of us? Of course, your uncle Giles is going to visit cousin Martha in Cardiff next week, and the twins are due back at university in three days, so it won't be for very long.'
' What won't?' Sorrel asked suspiciously, suddenly alerted to potential danger by the way her mother was deliberately avoiding looking at her.
'Well, your father and I talked it over, and there's really no reason why the two of you… Valerie and you… shouldn't stay up at the hill farm for a few days. Simon could drive up there with plenty of supplies. The house is dry enough. The Aga still works, and there are the oil lamps.'
'Mother, it's impossible! There's only one bed up there…'
'Yes, but it's a double bed, not like that tiny thing in your room. And besides, Valerie specifically said how much she was looking forward to seeing the farm. Did you know that her ancestor was born there? Imagine that—and then to travel all the way out to Australia.'
'Mm. Willingly? Or was he one of the family's black sheep?' Sorrel asked wryly. 'Mother, think, what if we don't get on? We'll be stuck up there for three whole days.'
'Well, you could always come here for your meals.'
'Mum, it's a one-and-a-half-hour drive,' Sorrel pointed out firmly. 'I understand how you feel, but surely we could arrange for her to stay at one of the hotels in Ludlow for a few days?'
'Impossible. I've already tried that. They're booked up already with people getting ready for the festival.'
'But that's months away,' Sorrel protested, and then, as she saw the tiredness and anxiety in her mother's eyes, she suddenly relented. 'Well, I suppose there's no reason why I shouldn't spend a few days up there.'
'You used to love staying up there with Gran and Gramps,' her mother reminded her eagerly.
'Yes, during the summer, not in the middle of March, and in those days I think the main attraction was that I was madly in love with the history of the place, and spent most of my time daydreaming of border skirmishes and valiant Welshmen pitting their meagre forces against the might of their English overlords.'
'And that's another thing,' her mother said brightly. 'Your cousin says in her letter how much she's looking forward to learning more about the area. She'll love hearing all about its history, and you've always taken far more of an interest in that than the others. Not that I could send one of the twins up there to stay with her…'
'Why not?' Sorrel questioned mock-innocently. 'She's as much their cousin as she is mine.'
'Sorrel, you know exactly what I mean. She's a girl. It wouldn't… it wouldn't be proper. Not with only that one double bed up there,' she said severely, breaking off as she heard Sorrel laughing. 'Oh, you knew exactly what I meant all along! I…'
She stopped talking as her eldest son walked into the kitchen; Simon paused to remove his filthy Wellington boots before turning round and saying to Fiona, who was standing behind him, 'Give me the lambs and I'll take them over to the Aga.'
'Oh, not more,' Sorrel complained, her heart stirred to pity, nevertheless, by the sight of the two tiny, immobile creatures.
'Twins,' Simon told her grimly. 'We've lost the ewe, and by the looks of it we might lose these two as well. Dad's going berserk. None of them should have lambed so early, and he can't get hold of the vet.'
Expertly ministering to the two small creatures, Sorrel was relieved to see that they were still alive. Fiona came into the kitchen on the heels of her husband.
'Simon, you're going to have to drive up to the old farm when you can. Sorrel's agreed to stay there a few days with Valerie, just until the boys are back at university and we can find room for her down here.'
'Ma conned you into it, then, did she?' Simon muttered sotto voce to his sister, and then, turning to his wife, said calmly, 'Come on, cough up, that's fifty pence you owe me.'
'What? Oh, I might have known!' Sorrel grimaced. Her mother was a great strategist, a compulsive plotter and planner.
'Now, Simon, that's enough,' she told her eldest son firmly, but when he winked at Sorrel behind his mother's bent back Sorrel had no doubts at all that she had well and truly been caught. And it was too late to back out now. Too late to protest as she ought to have done, that she was far too busy to spend three days with a completely unknown female with whom she most probably had nothing whatsoever in common, apart from their family name.
'It won't be so bad,' her mother consoled her over supper later on that day. 'You'll be able to show her the diaries. I'm sure she'll love those.'
'Are they still up there?' Sorrel asked her.
'Mmm… packed away in the attic. I'll ask Simon to bring them down for you when he goes up there.'
'It's a lovely old house,' Fiona chip
ped in.
'But very remote,' Sorrel reminded her, adding with a grin, 'but you won't mind that, will you?'
And the whole family laughed at the look Simon and his new wife exchanged, although it was Simon's turn to laugh when he told them smugly, 'We may not be on our own for very long.'
'Oh, Simon, it's too soon yet to be sure,' Fiona protested. Watching them, Sorrel felt an unfamiliar and unwanted sensation of envy clamp her heart.
What would it be like to love someone the way Fiona loved Simon? To want nothing other than to be a part of his life, to conceive his children…
Her relationship with Andrew wasn't like that. She loved him, of course she did. He would make her an excellent husband, but when she didn't see him for a few days, for instance, she had no yearning to do so. No sense of loss when he went away to one of his frequent conferences or sales. He was away at the moment; she hadn't seen him for over a week, and yet she was quite content. She didn't go to bed at night hungering for his unexciting kisses, wishing time would speed past so that they could be married, so that she could lie in his arms at night as Fiona undoubtedly lay in Simon's. She felt none of the things so very evident in her sister-in-law's rosy face, and until recently it hadn't bothered her; but now for some reason it did, and illogically she decided that the root cause of all this dissatisfaction was the unplanned and unwanted visit of this Australian relative who was thrusting herself into their lives, claiming a kinship with them which might or might not exist. And now she had agreed to spend three days with her. How on earth was she going to keep her entertained?
Plas Gwynd was ten miles from the nearest farm and over fifteen from the nearest village. It clung to the hillside, gaunt and grey, weathered by over five hundred years of storms, a long, rambling collection of outbuildings and farmhouse which had housed her family for generation upon generation.