'She's beautiful,' she breathed, gazing down at the soft bundle.
Just then there was the sound of footsteps on the gravel, and as she looked up she heard them come to an abrupt halt. Then her blood froze. Only yards away, Lucas himself was staring down at her, a look of horrified amazement on his features. He moved forward with two or three dogs arching at his feet, then came to a sudden halt again.
'Come to admire my granddaughter, Lucas?' called Hetty, looking up.
'Yours?' He seemed to pull himself together. Bringing a smile to his lips, he came towards the two women, but when he got close enough Goldie could see that his eyes, unlike his lips, were unsmiling. They swept over her, touching her face, her hair, her slim form, with calculated indifference. She was glad she was wearing what she wanted to wear, and not some concoction designed to please the farmer in him, as Ravella had suggested. Her tan cotton dress was sleeveless, and her wheat-coloured hair just brushed its white lace collar. She felt cool and sophisticated and in control. She crossed her feet in their tiny white court shoes, and hugged the baby to her.
'When did you arrive?' he asked coolly.
'A few minutes ago,' she admitted.
'On holiday again?'
She nodded.
'Life's one long holiday for some,' he observed.
'You'll stay for a cup of tea, Lucas?' Hetty was already on her feet, and Goldie suspected it was tact that made her disappear so swiftly indoors.
'How long are you staying?' he asked when she'd gone.
'It depends,' she replied carefully. All her plans seemed to be in ruins now he had turned up before she could work out the lie of the land from Hetty.
'Depends on what turns up for you, I suppose,' his lip curled, 'in your usual laissez-faire style.' He still stood on the path, hands in pockets, looking down at her from a distance.
Taking her courage in both hands, she said, 'It depends on you, really, Lucas. I came to see you.'
'From California?'
She stroked the top of the baby's head, a knot of anguish rising so rapidly into her throat, she found it impossible to answer. He was still standing on the gravel, as if to come near her was something to be avoided.
She felt her limbs begin to tremble. In a minute he would tell her he was married, or engaged, or simply wish her good day and walk off back into his own life without another glance. Her stricken eyes lifted to his, and for a moment she met his dark ones in a silent exchange, as if time had started to go backwards.
'I thought the baby was yours,' he said abruptly, pushing one of the dogs down as it jumped up at him and tried to lick his face.
She gave a wry smile. 'Hardly,' she remarked, tearing her glance away and pretending to straighten the baby's pink blanket.
'I'll just see to these dogs, then I'll be back.' He whistled twice and the dogs loped after him round the side of the house.
He returned a few seconds later. 'I've told Hetty I haven't time for tea. I'm busy right now. Come over and see me if you feel like it.' He gave her a curt nod and she watched him walk away with just his own gun dog at his heels, until he reached the gate and turned off behind the trees.
When Hetty returned with a tray she helped Goldie put the baby back in its pram, then sat down beside her on the seat. As Hetty poured the tea from its silver pot, Goldie took a deep breath and remarked as casually as she could, 'There was talk of Lucas and Charlotte being together last time I was here . . .'
'Still is. Talk, that is. You know what small villages are like,' Hetty smiled pleasantly.
'So they're not engaged or anything?' She had to know.
Hetty gave a light laugh. 'Lucas isn't the hapless victim these women like to think . . . He's a de Maine through and through,' she added, as if that explained everything.
Goldie didn't know whether to laugh or cry. 'It was a shock seeing him,' she muttered.
'Shock or no, you get yourself over there as soon as you've had a nice cup of tea.' Hetty patted her on the arm. 'You're looking lovely, Goldie. Your mother must be really proud of you.'
Fortified by Hetty's words, Goldie delayed as long as she dared, then, plucking up courage, walked over the road to the millhouse. Lucas was in the garden, sitting at a wooden table, a pile of ledgers spread out in front of him and a bottle of rose and two glasses, one of them half-empty, on the table as well. He poured her a glass without speaking, refilled his own, raised it, then drank as if in a silent toast.
'Well?' he said carefully, replacing the glass beside him and taking up his pen as if he was about to continue work.
'Make it easy for me, Lucas.' She stood uncertainly beside the table, as he hadn't invited her to sit down, trailing the ribbons of her straw sun-hat over and over between her fingers.
'Easy?' He looked at her as if he didn't know what she meant.
She stood unhappily in front of him while he fiddled with his pen, glancing down at the ledger as if he'd rather she left right away, and she had chance to note how much thinner he seemed, his hair longer, his eyes more hooded, the cheekbones more pronounced, and the hollows beneath them correspondingly darker. He was wearing the old fawn sweater with the patches on the elbows, and a pair of quite decent jeans, with black jodhpur boots, as if he'd just been riding or was just about to go out. Already the summer sun had burned his face to a deep, even bronze.
Abruptly he flung down his pen and got up. 'This is damned useless!' He didn't say what, but moved round the side of the table towards her and stood looking down at her with a hard mouth.
'I don't make the same mistake twice over. It's not my way.' Then, before she could say anything, he started to stroll off down the garden. She decided she'd better follow, and when they reached the gate at the bottom she saw him lean on it, looking out across a buttercup-filled meadow to the hills beyond.
'I was thinking about Ravella the other day,' he told her after a long pause. 'She was treated so badly by the gossipmongers—not because of anything she did while she was here, breaking the odd heart or two,' he smiled bitterly, 'but for the grave sin of actually daring to leave. It was regarded as a judgement on them. And people don't like that.'
Before Goldie could say anything, he went on, 'There's something to be said for having no roots. At least you're free.' He gave a twisted smile. 'You're the ones that got away.' He looked away again, and Goldie followed his glance across the meadow to the copse and further to the blue haze of the summer hills beyond.
'It can't be any burden to you being heir to all this, Lucas.' She turned her head to where she could see the rolling parkland of the estate, with its line of ancient beeches marking the drive to Burgh Hall. This was her own idea of paradise. If it were hers she would never dream of leaving.
'We're fastened in here as tight as cattle in a pen,' he said bitterly. 'I've done my share of globe-trotting, and maybe that's my problem—I can't settle anywhere now. But I have to, don't I? I have a duty. Every time I see that damned family tree in the church I know I'm rooted in for life.' He smiled ironically. 'The burden of kingship.'
He turned to look down at her. 'I guess I should count my blessings. But when it means losing the one person I know I could be happy with—well, what should I feel?'
'Lucas?' Goldie couldn't bear to see him look like this. She felt an overwhelming desire to take his dark head between her hands and kiss all the sorrow away, but she was held back by the fear that he was telling her all this for some other reason, and could only say, 'It's not so brilliant having no roots, you know. Belonging nowhere. Being an outcast for life. My mother thrives on it. I'm different, I like to belong. I like a simple life.'
'You?' He turned, something stirring deep in the dark eyes.
'I've spent most of the last six months, since --' she bit her lip '—since leaving, living by myself in the mountains. I told you I was going to do it. I wanted to find out what I really wanted.'
'And did you?' he cut in sharply.
She nodded. 'I think so. It was obvious, really. But
it took a lot of soul-searching to pluck up the courage to come back and put my head on the block.' She tried to laugh, but it came out like a sob, and then suddenly Lucas had his arms around her and she felt their two bodies seek and find each other. Then his lips, the lips she had longed for, came down sweetly to cover her own, trembling with long-pent desire.
'Oh, Lucas, I hated leaving you. But we seemed like total opposites. I dared not admit I loved you. They all said you needed someone like Charlotte. And you asked me in that horrible tone of voice whether I could see myself running Burgh Hall, and I couldn't, and—oh, it all seemed so hopeless. I thought the only loving thing I could do was leave and let you get on with your life as it was meant to be, but, Lucas, I've been so unhappy without you. Can it work? Do you care? Please, Lucas, tell me, even if it's to say no. Put me out of my misery, please, Lucas—oh, Lucas . . .' Her voice changed as his body told her in a way more eloquent than words that all her fears were fantasy.
'I loved and wanted you from the minute I saw you in that auction-room with your clothes falling off all the time. I knew you were the little butterfly I needed to make this place bearable. To hell with what the village think. Only I know what I need. And it's you, Goldie. Always and only you.'
He rocked her back and forth in his arms, plying her with sweet kisses till she felt she would faint with rapture.
'Goldie, I prayed you would become a moth instead of a butterfly. Someone who preferred muddy country lanes to city streets, the simple life to the glamorous life, Land Rovers,' he smiled, 'to fast sports cars, and wellington boots instead of high-heeled silver ones. And then I thought, if you were like that I wouldn't love you half as much.'
'But, Lucas,' she murmured as he slid his hand down the back of her dress, 'I like all of those things and more. But, most important of all, L like you. And whatever you're doing and wherever you are, I want to be there beside you.' She looked up at him from beneath long lashes and asked, 'Don't male butterflies live in the country, too? I mean ones that wear a kind of country camouflage that makes them look like moths, when at heart they're really butterflies in disguise?'
'Do you know anything about the countryside, my darling?'
'Probably more than you realise, dear Lucas. But I'm willing to learn whatever you want to teach me.'
'Then, Goldie, let me teach you first what it's like to make love in an English meadow full of flowers.' With masterful ease he lifted her over the gate, and as she leaned against him he slithered the cotton dress over her head before she could protest. Pulling her golden body down into the long grass, he then began to love her as she had always dreamed he would, and, her senses swooning under the lyrical onslaught of his touch, she became his creature of the hills and dales, his butterfly of the wild wood.
* * *
Later he told her what she would have to expect as his wife. 'A white wedding in the village church. An infant or two as soon as possible. Church fetes and bazaars to be opened. The refurbishment of Burgh Hall --'
'You mean we'll be living there?'
'Martin insists. In fact, he told me so the day after he met you. "Don't let her get away like Ravella did." But I couldn't come after you to tell you, because I thought it was the last thing you wanted.'
'I don't object to Burgh Hall as long as you're in it.'
'There's another thing.' He frowned. 'I don't like country wives with nothing on their minds but gossip and the making of jam. You'll have to keep up this career of yours. And, besides, I like the idea of a famous wife.'
'I've been thinking about that,' she told him seriously, 'I'd like to make just one good film a year. I don't need to do the rubbish because we don't need the money. And I've got to the stage where I'm able to pick and choose. It'll fit in with children, too. I'm not going off without them all the time.'
'Where you go, they go, and where they go, I go --'
'And vice versa,' she said, not caring if it didn't make strict sense.
He kissed her. 'That's settled, then. Next time we get dressed, we'd better show our faces in the village. The sooner everybody has chance to get used to you, the better.'
Later he took her up to be presented formally to Martin de Maine. The engagement ring was, he apologised, a tradition for de Maine brides. Martin would hand it over to her himself.
One of the first things she noticed when she entered the sitting-room at Burgh Hall was a painting over the mantelpiece. It was of a woman in blue with long fair hair and a baby on her lap. 'Your client was Martin?' she asked in surprise.
'The sentimental old fool. He gave me orders to buy it at any price. It must mean he's got some sort of heart underneath that hard-as-nails exterior. I think he was secretly in love with Ravella from the very beginning.'
Just then Martin himself came in, looking fitter than ever and obviously feeling on top of the world. 'You may as well move in now, because I intend to be around to see the next generation on its way, and you don't want to be bringing up de Maines in a hovel.' He looked accusingly at Lucas. 'She's a real beauty, but what's the matter with you? Nearly lost her, didn't you?' He patted Goldie on the shoulder. 'If he ever lets you down, come to me. I'll sort the young devil out for you.' Part of the sorting out was to give Lucas a proper income from the estate.
Later, Lucas took Goldie in his arms, a frown on his face. 'It's true. I very nearly did lose you,' he reproached himself. 'I intended to propose after Martin gave his tacit approval that first evening you met him, but I wasn't sure you'd say yes just then. It would have looked as if I was rushing you. But I wish to heaven I'd risked it. We might have saved ourselves the hell of the last six months.'
'It doesn't matter now, Lucas, the past is finished with. We have the future to look forward to.'
'The past is never finished,' he corrected, 'but the future belongs to us, and the present, too.' With a sigh of pleasure she felt his lips take her own, and she knew she was home at last.
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