All the dear faces

by Audrey Howard

  Annie hesitated for no longer than ten seconds. She looked about her, first up the path from where she had come, and then down to the wood through which she must go to reach Browhead, but there was no sign of another living human being. Kicking off her old clogs, she unbuttoned her shirt and tossed it on to a nearby clump of fern, stepped out of her trousers and the short drawers she wore beneath them and moved, trance-like, to the water's edge. Her body gleamed, white in the sunshine, clean-limbed, straight and slender, her breasts high and pink-tipped, her waist fine as gossamer, her hips curving slimly away from it. The triangle of darkness at her thighs' division had a glint of russet in it as did the fluff in her armpits and all about her flew her vibrant hair. She was glorious, glowing, polished as a russet apple and the man who watched her, drew in his breath in rapt wonder.

  “Shall I jump?" he heard her say to herself, and his heart moved in him smilingly, but caution prevailed as she warily put a toe in the water.

  “Dear heaven," she gasped out loud, "it's cold," and again the man felt his mouth curve in a smile. She stepped down the shallow bank, gasping with the shock of it, but at the same time her mouth widened in a delighted grin. The dark inviting depth of the water which had never known the sun's touch drew her on and beneath her white feet as she stepped on them, was the tinkle of sliding pebbles. The sound of the waters splashing and gurgling among the boulders, the roaring of the falls further on masked the sound of the approach of the man and when he reached the pool he stood between a tall clump of fern for several bewitched minutes to watch her.

  “Ye gods, but it's cold," she gasped again and he could see the skin of her back prickle into a milliongoose-pimples. Suddenly, taking a deep breath, she plunged under the water and there was nothing to see but the ripples she left behind her.

  Annie dived down and down and down between the dank walls, getting nowhere near the bottomless depths, and above her as she turned, she could see the sunlight, the green of the trees as they rushed to meet her and the tall wavering figure of a man. She broke the surface, gasping, her heart plunging in sudden terror. It was Reed, Reed Macauley. He was standing quietly by the edge of the water, his legs apart, his hands resting low on his hips. Their eyes met and clung, and could not look away, a clinging which was strong and vibrant with their suppressed emotions, suppressed these five years, but unwilling, they seemed to say, to accept it any longer. It had a sweetness about it, that exchange, a sweetness which was mixed with a sensual need so great, it was like an explosion and this time she knew she could not escape him, and did she want to? He was unsmiling, he did not speak and neither did she, though the shock of seeing him there had been severe. They had no need to speak, not now, for they had become fast in the drifting dream world of the moment, the moment towards which they had been moving ever since they had met again, as adults on the road from Penrith. He had known how it was, how it would be even then, though she had not, for she was, despite her experiences, no more than a girl, and ever since they had felt their desire grow, a desire in him which was not romantic, but was the fierce need of a man to put the mark of love on the woman who belonged to him; in her, the female need of submission to that mark.

  She continued to look at him, understanding in those last few seconds what he had in his mind, and knowing that at last the time had come. Almost, but not quite, it had happened before, but now, out here where it was wild and free, uninhabited by anyone but Annabelle Abbott and Reed Macauley, was the place, the time, the appropriate place and time for them.

  Her body gleamed white beneath the clear waters. She moved her legs slowly to keep herself afloat and just below the surface of the water her breasts lifted gently to reveal the rock-hard peaks of her nipples. Her face was white and calm but in her eyes was the narrowed glow of sensuality. For a moment, the tick of a clock, no more, as his hands went to the belt of his breeches, her lips parted in denial and a cool clear voice inside her told her how insane this was, but when at last he stood before her, his beautiful male body, brown and hard, stripped of the packaging of civilisation, the words died within her.

  “I love you, Annie, " he said, almost idly, knowing full well that there would be no going back this time, but wanting her to realise all the same that this was no idle thing. He lifted his arms and dived into the water. He was gone for five seconds, no more, then he rose until they were face to face. He did not gasp with the cold as she had done, but pulled her at once against his body, his arms tight about her, his mouth on hers, her breasts against his chest, his penis questing between her thighs. There was no gentleness in him, nor in her. They almost fought one another in their hunger, and when she wrapped her legs about his waist, he penetrated her at once, the water surging and threshing about them as he moved ferociously, deeply inside her, immersed in her, loving her, the strokes of him, long, hard, insistent. She threw back her head, her arms clinging about his neck, her legs about his body and when the white-hot, ice-cold joy raced through her, she cried out loud, the sound rising and echoing about the ravine.

  “Dear God . . . aah . . . my dearest, dearest love ..." " His own full-throated roar was triumphant, magnificent, silencing the sounds of the small creatures in the undergrowth, even the thunderous cascade of the waterfall dying into insignificance beside it.

  For a full five minutes they remained fast together, not speaking, her face buried in his neck and shoulder, his against her wet hair. It floated about them like a rippling curtain of tawny seaweed and beneath them his legs moved keeping them both afloat.

  He sighed, replete for the moment, five years of longing satisfied.

  “We had best get to the bank my darling, or we shall both sink without a trace." He smiled down at her, murmuring into her dazed face, kissing it tenderly, then lifted a hand to brush back a wet, shining strand of copper hair which had wrapped itself about them both. Gently he towed her back to the bank, then lifting her into his arms, carried her to a sun-warmed patch of tufty grass and laid her down on it.

  She sighed and stretched, lifting her arms above her head, deliberately displaying her proud breasts for his hands to cup, bending one knee so that the most secret part of her body was revealed to him. Her eyes were narrowed and hazy, the eyelashes tangled with drops of water, but when she smiled, the sun put a hot golden glow in their depths. He stood over her, male triumphant, his manhood a proud and flaunting thing, then, kneeling across her once again, he plunged into her until she wept with the rapture and glory of what he did to her.

  The sun was setting across Bassenthwaite Lake when they kissed a lingering farewell. He had examined her body, with his hands, with his lips, his tongue exploring every inch of her, gently probing, his teeth nipping, his hands smooth and caressing, light as a butterfly until her skin shivered in delight, then hard, cruel even, making her arch her back in an ecstasy which could easily have been mistaken for pain. He devoured her, took her again and again, groaning as though he himself was in agony, and when he lay back she covered him with her own slippery wet body, moving her mouth gently on his then sliding down and down, brushing her lips across his flesh until he was roused again.

  They had played in the water, two children again, young and carefree again, the years of pain tumbling joyously away, jumping and splashing one another, swimming hand in hand beneath the surface of the clear water, their bodies in lovely unison, diving down into the icy grey depths then up, moving through grey to clearest amber to a pale golden glow as the sunlight shone through the water. They were oblivious of time, of those who might wonder where they were, of everything but this great and shining happiness which had at last become theirs. They did not talk much. The word 'love' was scarcely needed to be spoken. It was everywhere, bathing their smooth skins, singing through their veins, beating in their hearts and illuminating their eyes to the glory which had come to them. They kissed and touched and marvelled, but of course, it had to end.

  “You are mine now, you know that, don't you, Annie?" His voice was very serious. "There
is no going back. I don't know what is to happen. That is for you to decide. You know that too. I have no intention of forcing you —that's if I was able to — my darling, none at all. I've loved you for so long now, with all my heart, feeling it grow stronger inside me all these years. Have you the least idea how much pain you have caused me . . . ?"

  “Yes . . . and me."

  “I know, I've wanted you for so long . . . taken other women . . . oh yes . . . I'm a man with a man's needs and my wife . . . well . . . I will not speak of her since she is no more than a child and cannot be blamed . . . but you . . . you are my companion, Annie, in the true sense of the word, and I need you beside me . . . with me .. . you understand what I'm saying . . ."

  “Yes, my love."

  “A lover to delight me, a friend to support me . . . that is what I want in my woman . . . laughter, love . . . what we have shared this day . . . I cannot let it go . . . nor you, for you are that woman."

  “I love you, Reed, I always have."

  “And you will come to me ... ?"

  “There is so much to consider."

  “I know, and we will consider it, at your pace, but we will consider it, Annie. I'm getting nowhere . . . with the divorce. She has done nothing to . . . given me no cause . . . she, or her father, says she will come back whenever I I. . . wish it but that I must . . . well, you must no longer be part of my life . . ." He swallowed painfully, his faceanguished for he wanted her to be the woman, he wanted himself to be the man, who would be the two halves of the Macauleys of Long Beck. It was a gift he needed to give her, and amongst all those he meant to give her, this would not be amongst them.

  “May I come down to visit you at Browhead?" The shock of the words took her breath away. So quiet, so . . . so reasonable, the aggression, the arrogance, the overbearing challenge with which he dealt with anything which stood in his way, gone with the strength and steadiness of his love for Annie Abbott. For several moments she could not answer. He spoke for her.

  “It's him, isn't it?"

  “Yes." Her head bowed in pain, for how was she to tell Charlie? Tell him what? her clear mind asked and her dazed and drugged heart answered the question. Tell him that you love Reed and are to . . . to . . . live with him somewhere? Is that it? Has it been decided then? Have you decided, her mind asked her heart? and she supposed, somehow, that she had. That she had finally come to the realisation that she could fight it no longer. That what she had jibbed at time and time again, the submission of her will to Reed Macauley's, the acceptance of that stylish villa in Penrith or Ambleside or Carlisle, must be undertaken. She could not exist apart from him, not now, not after this enchanted afternoon but . . . there was Charlie. -

  “There is . . . something." He lifted her chin, forcing her to meet his gaze, smiling a little, for Charlie Lucas no longer frightened him.

  “Yes?"

  “The farm at Upfell."

  “Yes?" Her voice rose questioningly.

  “I am giving it to you. It is my first gift to you as my . . . love.”

  Her mouth opened and then shut again. He put a hand to her chin, beginning to laugh, ready to swing her round in a great circle of joy for at last, at last he could do something for her, satisfy that need in him to shower her with all the things he thought she should have, all the many and expensive things he thought she needed to have. "You own Upfell?" Her voice did not warn him as it should and he continued to grin down at her.

  “I do. Do you think I would let anyone have it when I knew you had set your heart on it? Oh yes, I heard of your efforts to raise a loan."

  “Is there anything in this parish that you don't know about, Reed?"

  “If there is, it's not worth knowing." His wide smile was like that of a child who has just been given a glimpse of fairyland, "and if I hadn't been away when you approached that fool of a bank manager in Keswick, I would have had a quiet word in his ear. Fortunately, I returned in time to get my hands on the property and now I am giving it to you. I was just waiting for the right moment and this seems to me to be exactly the right moment. You have enriched me with the greatest gift a woman can give today and in return . . ."

  “I don't need paying for my . . . favours, Reed.”

  He recoiled as though she had struck him, then acting instinctively, he dragged her into his arms and held her by brute force.

  “No! . . . no! . . . I will not let you do it again. Damn your bloody pride, your stubborn obsessive pride. Yes, that's what it is, obsessive. I love you, dammit, I love you and I wanted to . . . give . . . but, God's teeth, if it means that much, buy the bloody place from me . . ."

  “Reed . . ." She was overwhelmed by the intensity of his anguish, and her own outraged pride and resentment drained away from her. She relaxed against him and he sighed thankfully.

  “Annie, it's hard for me. I am a man who has, for all of my adult life, done, and been exactly what I wanted to do and be. If I had been denied in the past I have simply ridden roughshod over that denial because quite simply I did not care enough about what the other man was feeling. I've taken what I wanted and it has not been easy for me to . . . accept that with you . . . oh, Jesus . . . help me. . .”

  She looked up into his face and it was haggard with the truth of what he said. His mouth was hard and tense, his shoulders slumped and weary, telling her he really could not stand it if he was to lose her again. The fatigue, the pain in him stirred her compassion and she put a gentle hand on his cheek.

  “Annie . . ." he could not hide his eagerness, ". . could we not try, start afresh, give ourselves another chance? I would dearly like to attempt it. One step at a time. The farm, the farms, for I'm sure you and I can come to some amicable agreement over Upfell." He grinned his weary grin. "They will need to be put in good hands . . . so many things . . . arrangements . . . but with care . . ."

  “You mean me to live in some fine house you will build me, is that it?" Her voice was sad but resigned.

  He looked astonished, then lifting his head he began to laugh, the sound again alarming the denizens of the undergrowth. He pulled her fiercely to him, tucking her head into his shoulder, his hand in her hair.

  “Oh no, my darling, I am to do nothing of the sort. You are to come and live at Long Beck. You will be my wife, not legally at the moment but when Esmé, or her damned father agrees to it and I have my divorce, then we will be married. Browhead and Upfell will be yours to run as you like with no interference from me and if the folk of Bassenthwaite don't care for it, then they can go to the devil.”

  Chapter35

  Day after day went by and still she had not told Charlie, nor Phoebe. Reed would be patient for a while, but not for ever, she was well aware of that, for no matter what he had said to her in the rapture of that afternoon by the pool, he was still Reed Macauley whose temper was short, whose forbearance was the same, whose patience was infinitesimal, whose need of her was enormous. He had told her 'at your pace' but she knew that meant at her pace as long as it went at a speed he thought suitable.

  She had diverted him from his intention of calling on her at Browhead as he had wished to do, somewhat in the manner of a suitor paying court to his intended betrothed, for the result of that would not only have been disastrous but would have been a cruelty to Charlie she could not bear to make him suffer. Instead she saw him almost every day on the fell, slipping out of the farmhouse when Phoebe was in the dairy and Charlie up in the coppice wood, telling neither of them where she was going, or even that she was to go. The weather was warm and the days golden with sunshine and for an hour or two they would be together in the secluded gorge in which they had first made love, not speaking much, for as far as Reed was concerned everything was settled and needed no discussion. Their future together at Long Beck was a fact now, known only to themselves at the moment, and though he found it hard, he was doing his best to bend to her wishes, to let her settle her concerns and the question of how to run her two farms in her own time. Not with the best of humour since h
e wanted her in his bed and at his dining table this very night, he said, but allowing it just the same.

  There was so much she wanted to do and one day, towards the end of July, when they had made love to Reed's exact requirements, which meant unhurriedly, imaginatively, erotically, until every one of his five senses was completely satisfied, and her own cries of joy had erupted from her again and again, as they drowsed in one another's arms in the aftermath of it, she began, hesitatingly, to tell him of it. She was uncertain of his reaction, knowing his need to dominate, to be the innovator, the giver, the protector, but this was a test, a gamble she must take for on this their whole life together, if they were to have one, might rely.

  “Did you mean what you said about running my own farms . . . and business, Reed?"

  “I did." He was satiated, replete, drained, empty and yet full of her and his voice was no more than a languorous murmur.

  “No matter what I decide?"

  “Mmmm."

  “I will have complete control and the right to make any decision I care to, even if it does not agree with what you think it should?"

  “What have you in mind?" and beneath her cheek which rested on his chest, she felt the faint tension in him. She sat up and her breasts fell forward, soft and heavy in his hand. He cupped them, smiling, his fingers smoothing her peaked nipples, his mind which had been about to become guarded, distracted from the matter of farms and 'business concerns', whatever they may be, as his male body prepared itself for another delightful onslaught on Annie's.

  “You will not try to . . . take over?"

  “My darling, even if I wanted to I couldn't 'take over' as you put it. Until you are my wife everything you own belongs to you. Even though we are to live at Long Beck as husband and wife . . . Dear God, Annie . . . when? . . . when? . . . it's four weeks since we decided and still you're under the same roof as . . . well, you know who I mean and I can't say I like it. Why don't you come over to Long Beck and take a look round? Perhaps you would like to . . . well, I don't know . . . move things around, re-decorate the bedroom where . . . or even choose another and make it as you want it? Anything you want to do, I don't care my darling, just as long as you are there. You must be introduced to the servants and they must accept you as their mistress and if they don't then they can find other employment. There is so much to be arranged . . . your clothes and . . . listen, why don't you and I take a trip up to Carlisle? There is a woman there, a dress maker, who is a marvel, a skilled seamstress and embroideress, a genius of design and if I pay her well she could design and make you a complete wardrobe within the week . . ."