by Penny Jordan
Of course he's not doing it to protect you, she derided herself inwardly. He's doing it for his own protection. He doesn't want the whole family coming down on him—with questions, and then her stomach muscles tensed as the farm came in view. Simon was busy pointing out to Val the boundaries to their land, and explaining how they farmed. They turned into the yard and her mother came bustling out, her face pink with excitement.
'Ma, have I got a surprise for you,' Simon called out to her as he stopped the Land Rover. 'Come and meet Cousin Val.'
Sorrel watched the shock register on her mother's face and saw the searching, worried look she gave him as Val stepped out of the Land Rover and shook hands with her.
'It seems I've caused everyone around here a lot of problems,' Sorrel heard him apologising easily. 'It never occurred to me that you'd think I was a girl. Sorrel's been magnificent about coping with the situation, although I suspect her fiancé might have one or two searching questions to ask me. Unfortunately I'm going to have to admit that I was out of luck and she seems to have the bad taste to prefer him to me,' he added with mock sadness, and then he turned to the Land Rover and held his hand out to her and said, 'Come on down here, Sorrel, and show your mother that you're still all in one piece.'
He had struck just the right touch; the apprehension had lifted from her mother's face and now she was exclaiming that in view of the weather it was probably just as well that Sorrel had had a man with her to take charge.
Her mother would never gain the approval of the feminist lobby, Sorrel recognised wryly, getting out of the Land Rover.
She hadn't anticipated the warm clasp of Val's hand on her own as he drew her towards him, tucking her against his side, and keeping her in a manner so fraternally affectionate that he might indeed have been her brother. That this piece of skilled sideplay was for her mother's benefit, Sorrel was quite sure, a suspicion that was confirmed when he told her jocularly, 'I've warned Sorrel that while I'm over here she's going to have to step into my sisters' shoes and become my sister elect, so to speak.'
'You have sisters?' her mother enquired, diverted.
'Yup. Three of them, to be exact. They boss the life out of me. I've brought photographs with me, but they're in my car.'
There had been no sign of his abandoned car by the side of the road, and Simon had told him that it had most probably been towed away to the nearest garage. He had offered to check with the police as to its whereabouts once they were home, and all this was explained to the family as Val was hustled inside.
Only Sorrel hung back, feeling oddly as though she had just lost something. Val was still holding her hand, and he tugged on it.
'What's wrong, Sorrel? Aren't you coming inside?' her mother questioned.
'I expect she wants to be on her own to telephone that fiancé of hers. I'm sure he's been burning the telephone lines between here and his home, worrying about how she's been getting on,' Val added with gentle malice. 'I sure wouldn't like to think of any fiancée of mine being snowed in, at some remote farm.'
He was pushing her, prompting her, and there was nothing she could do but swallow down her ire and say brightly, 'He's probably been away at one of his book fairs most of the time. Andrew buys and sells old books,' she added for Val's benefit. 'He spends a lot of time away.'
'Does he?' Val murmured, looking suitably surprised. He turned to her mother. 'Well, now, if I had a fiancée as beautiful as Sorrel, I don't think I'd be too happy with that kind of situation.
Sorrel gritted her teeth as her mother rewarded him with an approving smile.
'That's just what I keep telling Sorrel,' she beamed at him. 'I keep saying to her, "Sorrel dear, he's such a laggard lover, are you sure that…?'
'Mother,' Sorrel interrupted grimly. 'I'm sure Val doesn't want to hear all about that.'
'Oh, I do,' Val corrected her innocently. 'I'm interested in everything about my new family. Do you know,' he added thoughtfully to Sorrel's mother as she led him inside, 'we have a photograph of one of my great-aunts at home, and I could swear there is a likeness between her and Sorrel.'
Behind him, Sorrel grinned to herself, and then murmured softly to him, 'If that's true, it's a miracle. I take after my mother's side of the family, not my father's.'
The look he gave her was completely unrepentant, and she ought to be grateful to him, Sorrel acknowledged fair-mindedly, because he had certainly won her mother over and very skilfully averted any crises about the propriety of them spending the last three days together. Her mother was as relaxed and comfortable with him as though she had known him all his life, whereas with Andrew, whom she had in fact known since he was a schoolboy, she was frequently ill at ease.
Andrew did not fit in with her family. He allowed them to see how contemptuous he was of what he termed their 'bucolic pursuits'. He had no interest in farming, nor pretended to have any. He hated the dirt and the mud, and he visited the farm as infrequently as he could, always finding some excuse to avoid the invitations her mother gave him to join in their family celebrations.
Lunch during the week was normally a snatched affair, work on the farm not allowing for more than a brief break during the day, and in the mêlée of people coming and going, lambs bleating for their food, dogs barking and her father complaining that he was damned if he was going to fill in any more Ministry forms, Sorrel managed somehow to answer the family's questions without betraying too much of what had actually happened.
'Yes,' she admitted, 'it was a shock to find that Cousin Val was a man and not a woman…'
'But it must have been a relief to you as well, dear,' her mother put in solicitously, 'especially as Val arrived in the middle of the snowstorm. You must have been worried about being snowed in up there on your own. V—'
'Relieved doesn't cover it, does it, Sorrel?' Simon teased her wickedly, having heard all about her initial reaction to him from Val.
Giving her brother an indignant look, Sorrel reflected that Simon and Val seemed to have become firm friends already, and now Fiona, looking prettily flushed and blooming with the knowledge of her pregnancy, was plying him with questions, and receiving from him the kind of teasingly flirtatious answers that made her laugh and shake a warning finger at him, telling him that she was not fooled by his demeanour.
While their mother's back was turned, Simon whispered just loudly enough for Sorrel to hear, to his wife, 'It seems that we've got a treat in store when we do move in up there. Gran and Gramps' old bed is so comfortable that…'
Sorrel went bright red and hissed furiously at him, 'Simon, you dare…' And when their mother turned round he was eyeing her with mock virtuous bewilderment, asking her exactly what she meant.
'Nothing,' she muttered bitterly.
Amy Llewellyn, who was by no means as naive as her family sometimes liked to think, looked thoughtfully at her daughter's flushed face, but wisely said nothing.
When lunch was finished, she suggested kindly to Sorrel, 'Darling, you must be worn out, but I'm afraid there were several business calls for you while you were away. I've made a list of them and left it in your workroom.'
'I'll go and check through them,' Sorrel announced, thankful to have a legitimate opportunity of escaping.
'I'd like to see where you work,' Val announced, standing up and saying to her mother, 'I was fascinated, watching Sorrel work on her tapestry, and I was hoping I might be able to persuade her to design one of her rugs for me to take home with me.'
'I'm sure she will,' Amy agreed, adding firmly, 'I'll take you up to your room, Val. You'll want to ring the police and track down your car. If they've taken it to the local garage, Dai Jones who runs it knows us well, and we'll be able to make some arrangement to get it here for you.' Val, far shrewder and more aware than Sorrel, knew when he had been out-manoeuvred and gave way with a good grace.
'So, tell me a little more about your family,' Amy Llewellyn commanded as she led Val away to his room.
He obliged her.
; As she opened the door to his room, Amy added, 'And you and Sorrel managed all right at the farmhouse?'
'Managed very well,' he agreed blandly, and then closed the bedroom door and walked over to the window which looked down on to the stableyard. Amy followed him, wondering what had caught his attention. Sorrel was standing there, bareheaded, the wind teasing her bright hair, her head thrown back in a familiar gesture of defiance as she argued with her brother.
'She's a very special person,' Val murmured, and then, looking directly at Amy, added quietly, 'Far too special to throw herself away on this idiot she's got herself engaged to.'
It was a good fifteen minutes before Amy emerged from Val's room, her face slightly pink with excitement and pleasure. She had liked him from the start, she told herself as she went downstairs.
The phone call came right in the middle of the evening meal, a time sacrosanct to the serious business of eating, and Sorrel saw her father frown as he pushed his chair back and got up to answer the phone.
His frown deepened abruptly, and then he held the receiver out to Sorrel. 'It's for you.'
Sorrel picked up the receiver reluctantly. She could tell from her father's expression that it was Andrew who was on the phone, and she had no real wish to speak to him with the rest of her family listening. They appeared to have taken Val to their collective bosom in a way that they had never welcomed Andrew.
'Darling, I just thought I'd give you a ring to let you know I'm back. Mother has invited us over for dinner on Sunday and I've accepted. I'm afraid I can't pick you up because she's asked me if I'll drive over and get Jane—'
'Jane?' Sorrel questioned, even though she knew who he meant.
'Yes, darling. Jane Usher… mother's goddaughter. You have met her.'
'Oh, yes,' Sorrel agreed grimly. Jane Usher was a great favourite of Andrew's mother. She made no bones about the fact that in her estimation Jane would have been the perfect daughter-in-law, and Sorrel had to suppress her irritation with Andrew, who seemed blind to his mother's very obvious machinations to bring the two of them together.
She thought of how little she was likely to enjoy Sunday lunch spent in the company of her mother-in-law-to-be and Jane, and ground her teeth silently, a sudden spurt of rebellion making her say tentatively, 'Andrew, I'm not sure if I can make it on Sunday. We have a visitor. Look, can we discuss it tomorrow evening?' she asked him, suddenly conscious of the silence from the dinner-table. She didn't want to have to start making awkward explanations as to how Valerie had turned out to be Valentine with her entire family listening in.
She and Andrew always had a drink and then a meal together on Friday evenings at the Stag, a local pub-cum-restaurant, but to her chagrin Andrew announced casually, ' 'Fraid I'm going to have to cancel tomorrow, darling. Jane was telling me about the father of a friend of hers. It appears that he has the most fabulous library, and she's arranged for us to go and meet him tomorrow evening. I'm picking her up after I close the shop. Look, I'm sure your cousin won't mind about Sunday. Can you be at mother's for one o'clock sharp? You know how she feels about punctuality.' A reference to the one occasion on which she had been five minutes late because of a bad traffic jam outside Ludlow.
Sorrel fought back the many acid comments souring her tongue, and held her peace. She was not going to be able to say what she wanted to say to Andrew with an audience. She was furious that he had so thoughtlessly ignored the fact that they normally went out on Fridays simply because he wanted to go and look at someone's library. A visit artfully arranged by "dear, sweet Jane" to coincide with the one night of the week when they always went out together. Chance? Somehow Sorrel did not think so.
'Is Andrew all right, dear?' her mother enquired solicitously when she went back to the table. Her food had gone cold and she had been hungry, but now her appetite had vanished and she pushed her plate aside.
'Yes,' she said tersely.
'He must have been concerned when he realised you were snowed in,' Val commented watching her.
'Oh, he doesn't know yet, does he, Sorrel?' Fiona interrupted innocently. 'He didn't ring at all while you were up at the farm.'.
Sorrel flushed angrily. She knew that Fiona had spoken in genuine innocence, but the look in Val's eyes made her miserably aware of Andrew's shortcomings as a concerned lover. He was more emotionally attached to his books than he was to her, she decided wrathfully, and then got angry with herself because she had known that their emotional attachment was tepid all along, and that had been what she wanted.
'Well, never mind, you'll be seeing him tomorrow evening as usual,' her mother put in soothingly.
Sorrel, conscious of everyone's eyes on her, had to admit grimly, 'We're not going out tomorrow. Andrew is going to look at someone's books.'
There was a small silence, and then unexpectedly it was Val who came to her rescue, saying reasonably, 'That's one of the problems of running one's own business, I'm afraid. It does tend to interfere with your private life. Actually, I was hoping to take you all out for a meal while I'm here. Perhaps tomorrow evening would be a good time. The police had organised for my hire car to be taken to the local garage, and they've arranged for someone to bring it over here tomorrow, so how about us all going out together?'
'Sounds lovely,' Fiona enthused. 'There's that fabulous new place that's opened. They have a dinner dance on Fridays and—' She broke off and laughed. 'I'm sorry, I…'
'Don't apologise,' Val told her with a warm smile. 'I was just going to ask if there was anywhere locally someone could recommend. That sounds ideal.'
'So you won't be seeing Andrew until next week, then?' Simon commented casually, reintroducing him into the conversation when the arrangements for the following evening had been sorted out to everyone's satisfaction.
'What?' Sorrel frowned. 'Oh, no… I'm having lunch with him and his mother on Sunday.'
Simon pulled a face. He knew Andrew's mother, since he and Andrew had been at school together.
'Simon, that's enough,' Amy reproved. 'Will Andrew be picking you up, dear?'
'No,' Sorrel told her shortly, and out of the corner of her eyes she saw Val lift his eyebrows. Why on earth were they plaguing her with these embarrassing questions? Normally her family weren't in the least bit interested in her relationship with Andrew, preferring to forget that he existed.
'No? Transport problems?' Val asked sympathetically.
Recklessly, Sorrel looked squarely at him and said coldly, 'No. He's picking up his mother's goddaughter.' She flung down her napkin and pushed back her chair. 'And now, if you've all finished questioning me, I've got some work to do.'
She heard her mother calling her name as she hurried put of the room. It was true she did have work to do, but that wasn't the reason why she had suddenly needed to get away from them. She had just caught the glance of mingled pity and concern that Fiona and Simon had exchanged, and had known with cruel clarity that, in her family's eyes, her relationship with Andrew was being revealed as the poor thing they considered it was. They pitied her, she recognised unhappily. They didn't think that Andrew loved her, that he cared enough about her to put her first. And they were right. But she had always known that, known it and accepted it with the comfortable knowledge that their relationship would hold no dangers for her, that she would never have to fear losing all control and restraint in his arms the way she had seen that woman do.
And yet, now that she had actually had a taste of what it would be like to abandon herself to desire, she found she was regretting that she would never know that tingling excitement, that anticipation, that deluge of sensation, and because of that she was finding fault with Andrew in a way she had never done before.
She walked into her workroom and stood there, clenching her hands, unwilling to admit the truth. She heard the door open behind her and knew without turning round who had followed her.
She looked at him and said bitterly, 'It's all your fault. You're making everything go wrong.' And then to her own acu
te horror she actually stamped her foot as petulantly as a small child, and completed the débâcle by bursting into tears.
She was still berating him when Val took her into his arms and held her there, rocking her gently, murmuring soothing words of nonsense, telling her that he understood everything and that it would do her good to let go and have a thoroughly good cry.
As she listened to him, the independent, mature side of her nature wanted to protest that his remarks were shockingly sexist and that she ought to pull herself out of his arms and behave like the adult that she was. But the only effect the mangled protest that finally emerged from her lips had was to make Val gather her even more closely against his body, his hand stroking her hair, his lips only a breath away from her ear as he cuddled her and comforted her and told her that since she was, so to speak, "standing in" for his sisters, it was his brotherly duty to do so, and that not even the most zealous fiancé could find any objections to his behaviour.
The mention of the word 'fiancé' set Sorrel off into another flood of tears, for some reason she wasn't able to define, but it seemed that Val could, because he made some soothing comment about the shocking behaviour of men who put their mother's wishes above those of their fiancée's and who, moreover, were too stupid to see when those same mothers were deliberately manoeuvring them.
'I've had the same trouble myself,' he assured her, making her gulp and stop crying.
'Have you?'
'Mmm…'
Somehow or other Sorrel discovered that Val had led her over to the shabby settee, and that he was now sitting on it with her on his knee.
'Mothers get like that when their sons get past thirty without producing a wife. Mine's been trying to get me married off for years, and she's got more friends with daughters than any woman has a right to have,' he added darkly.
'Is that why you came over here?' Sorrel asked him drily. To run away from your mother's machinations?'