He nodded in understanding, and they stood quietly side by side, not looking at each other, not touching. The wind lifted the curls she’d left loose about her neck and slapped them against her face.
‘I could tell you that it wasn’t entirely my fault, that your husband had a hand in my decision to leave, but you’d only say I was making excuses.’
She half glanced at him then bit down on her lip, feeling a hard knot growing in her throat. ‘Not necessarily. Philip has a way of manipulating things to suit him.
‘If I’d come back sooner, would you have forgiven me?’ There was a plea in his voice that cut deep to the heart of her. She could almost feel the blood running from it. ‘Don’t - don’t ask. Who knows? It’s over, done with.’ She turned from him, back to the van but he caught her arm, held her by him.
‘It isn’t. ‘You know it isn’t.’ She could feel the heat of his fingers the length of her arm, his gaze warming her face. As their eyes met and held it was as if her soul was drawn from her body, leaving it weak and shaking with need.
‘It has to be,’ she managed, on half a breath. ‘I’m married now, a wife and mother.’
His eyes were soft, compelling and powerful, telling her things she didn’t want to know, reminding her of feelings she’d much rather not remember.
‘It never will be over. Not for me. I’ve learned that much about myself at least.’
She must have made a small sound for he told her not to cry, even so the tears were raining down her cheeks. ‘I never cry,’ she sobbed. ‘Never.’
‘I know,’ stroking the tears away with the gentle tips of his fingers. ‘Crying is dangerous. It makes you weak and vulnerable.’ Then his arms were around her, his mouth on hers, and he was kissing her as never before. Lissa was holding him, opening her mouth to receive his tongue, his love, as if he could give her life. He was holding her so tightly she could hardly breathe. She didn’t want to breathe, not if it meant living without him. His hand was cupping her cheek, her throat, her breast.
Dear God, what was she doing? Dangerous emotions. Dangerous actions. She broke from him and ran to the van. Then she drove away and left him standing there, alone on the empty fells.
She could have blamed Renee for seeing him again. Acting as intermediary she’d handed Lissa a note, a knowing grin on her face.
‘I won’t see him,’ Lissa had told her.
‘Suit yourself.’ Renee shrugged. ‘No skin off my nose. He only wants a cup of coffee at The Cobweb, not a necking session behind the bike sheds.’
Oh, but she could no more prevent herself from seeing him again than she could stop the rain falling on the fells or the tarn freezing over in winter. Just one more time, she told herself. She owed him that. Settle the matter properly between them, without emotion this time. So despite all the promises to herself, despite the risk she ran were Philip to discover her deceit, she was going.
‘Why are you sad, Mummy? Are you cross with us?’
‘Of course not, my darlings. You are my world, my life, my little treasures.’ Lissa, cuddling both children on her lap, warm and fragrant after their bath, kissed them each in turn and explained how they must be very good for Nanny Sue this evening.
‘Where are you going, Mummy?’ Beth wanted to know, pillowing her head against her mother’s warm breast.
‘Why can’t we come?’ put in Sarah, outrage on her small heart-shaped face, and Lissa laughed, kissing them both again, brushing their soft curls with a pink baby brush. Beth with hair the colour of pale chestnut leaves and eyes grown more grey than blue as the baby years had passed. Sarah’s hair black as her own, the eyes as deep a blue except for flecks of pale grey which altered the light in them, almost to suit her mood. Unusual, bewitching. She smoothed their perfect limbs with a gentle hand, tucked frilled cotton nighties over dimpled knees.
‘I do love you both. Do you love Mummy?’
‘Yes, yes, yes.’ Soft warm kisses, tight hugs, joyful giggles and laughter. With her children Lissa felt completely relaxed and happy. She must do nothing to risk that happiness, or their future, no matter what the cost to her own life. How would they ever forgive her when they grew older if they realised she had put her needs before theirs? As her own mother, Kath had done. However much Lissa might long to leave Philip, she could never risk that. Never.
‘Now, my darlings, here is Nanny Sue. Will you put them to bed for me, please? I must go out to - to a meeting.’ Lissa felt sure the woman would guess she was lying.
‘As you wish, Madam,’ said Nanny in frosty tones. Though for all her unfriendliness with adults, Lissa could not fault the woman’s care of the twins. She adored them to a point of fierce possessiveness. An emotion Lissa was familiar with in this household.
‘Is Mr Brandon aware you are going out?’ she asked, meaning, ‘Has he given his permission?’
Lissa smiled, lifting Beth into Nanny’s arms. ‘He is out at a meeting himself. If he rings, I’m sure you will tell him. I promised my friends that I would go but I know the children will be quite safe with you.’
‘What time shall I say you will be back?’
Lissa stifled an irritated response with a sigh, and smiled sunnily. ‘You know, if you should ever lose your job here, apply for one as a prison warden. You’d be perfect. Bye, my darlings. Be good. I’ll come in to kiss you good night when I get home.’
Chapter Twenty-Three
They sat at a table in a corner of The Cobweb Coffee Bar and sipped their coffee without tasting it, without speaking, without even looking at each other. It was Lissa, in the end, who broke the silence.
‘I don’t know why I came,’ she said, in a pitifully small voice. ‘If Philip were to find out, I really don’t know how he’d react. What was it you wanted, I thought we’d said all there was to be said.’
His eyes held an appeal she dare not read and could not ignore. `I can’t begin to say all I feel,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry if I went too far the other night. I lost control. It won’t happen again.’
‘I’m sorry I abandoned you on the fells. It was childish of me.’ Then suddenly he was on his feet, tossing coins on the table as he’d probably learned to do in America and taking her by the arm. ‘Come on, I need air. Let’s get out of this place.’
Walking by the lake, the breeze in her hair, Lissa felt herself tremble at his touch. ‘Someone might see us,’ she said, glancing back over her shoulder.
‘Meaning your husband?’
‘Meaning anyone. It’s a small town. People love to gossip.’
Derry dug his hands in trouser pockets, shoulders hunched. ‘Leave him, Lissa. I know you don’t love him. You still love me, I can tell. Come back to the States with me.’
Lissa stifled a gasp. ‘I-I can’t. You know I can’t.’
‘Bring the kids, I don’t mind.’
‘Philip is their father. He wouldn’t let them go.’
They’d reached the dark clump of oak and beech that crowded the shoreline and Lissa halted, shaking her head in distress. ‘If this is all you wanted to say then it’d better stop here. I must get back.’ She half turned from him but he caught her hand, a whole aching world of emotion in his touch, and in his voice when he said her name. Then she was in his arms, willingly surrendering to his kisses, pressing her body hard against his, begging him never to let her go.’
He cradled her head against his breast, kissing her brow, stroking back the riot of ebony curls.
‘I won’t ask you for more than you can give. It’s enough to have you here, to hold you and kiss you.’ But as he stared over her head, out to the moon - silvered water, Derry knew it wouldn’t always be that way.
He said as much to Lissa when they met in the same place the following week, falling into each other’s arms with a hunger that could no longer be assuaged by kisses. Streaks of early-evening sunlight shafted through the branches of the tall oaks, highlighting her beauty so that his stomach went weak as water inside.
For a long time they clu
ng together, not speaking, hardly daring to breathe.
A cheeky robin hopped upon a twig and cocked his head to one side, considering them, making them both laugh while a family of moorhens, disturbed by their presence, swam away in a huff.
‘Do you really still love me?’ she asked, shyly, not daring to hear his answer.
He lifted her chin with one finger and grinned at her, kissing her forehead, her nose, then finding her lips. ‘Shall I prove it?’ he murmured.
Laughing, she shook her head. ‘I have to go.’
‘Not yet.’ His eyes were burning with his need.
She remembered as a girl at school the biology mistress urging them to keep control of their emotions by thinking of other things. Letters to write, errands that needed running. That way they wouldn’t be tempted into indiscretion. As her lips throbbed from Derry’s kisses and her body burned with desire, she tried, very hard to do it now. The biology mistress, she decided, had got it all wrong.
If this was love it was wonderful, perfect. Why hadn’t she trusted in it before? Derry made her feel so wanted, so loveable.
It was as if they were young lovers again, slipping back in time, trying to brush aside the years of exile. After a while she had to make him stop before she quite lost control.
‘Let’s sit under the trees.’
‘The grass will be wet.’
If it was they didn’t notice.
He pulled her into his arms again, gently kissing and caressing her. ‘I won’t hurt you, or go too far.’ Nor did he, but there was no doubt in Lissa’s mind that she wanted him to. His hands slipped beneath her blouse and the feel of them on her bare breasts made her whimper with pleasure, her heart soar with joy at this proof that she had banished one demon at least. She wasn’t frigid at all. Philip was wrong. There was nothing she wouldn’t agree to do for Derry. She loved him so much.
Rosemary Ellis finally succumbed one day at the end of May. It was a cold, brisk spring day for the funeral. The snows still lingered on the tops but lambs were bleating, cherry blossom and daffodils bloomed. Maytime had come belatedly to Broombank. Along the track by the little church the leaves of the whitebeam flashed with silver as they turned their undersides to the wind, and there were tiny clusters of white flowers on each stem. But the golden broom, which gave the farm its name, was waiting for any sign of frost to be gone before it deigned to bloom.
The family stood about, dressed in sober colours, Joe fidgeting in his best setting-off suit, cap pulled well down, and Sally Ann unusually smart in a black hat with a tiny veil she probably hadn’t worn since the war. Nick stood alone as Jan had stayed home with the children. Lissa wished she could do the same but braced herself against the wind, and the resolution to do the proper thing by her grandmother, whether she deserved it or not.
Philip came, of course, declaring it was his duty to pay his last respects, taking Lissa’s arm as if they were the best of friends. But it was a poor, miserable affair since there was no one but themselves and Mrs Stanton, the housekeeper, to mourn.
‘Poor old soul,’ Tam said, and Meg rolled her eyes, giving a sad smile.
‘She can keep the holy angels in their place now.’
‘You’d have thought Kath would’ve come to her own mother’s funeral, wouldn’t you?’ Lissa remarked, as they stood in the small churchyard, the helm wind whipping the cold into their cheeks, and bringing the predicted shower of rain.
Meg made no reply and the painful subject was pursued no further.
Derry was there too, and Lissa’s heart skipped a beat the moment she saw him. Every time she saw him it was like the twist of a knife in her heart, making her think of what might have been, if only they hadn’t both been so young and foolish, so quick to make decisions about the rest of their lives.
Philip resolutely ignored him, barely speaking or acknowledging his presence.
‘You could at least try to be civil. He’s Jan’s brother, and since she is married to Nick you could almost call him family.’
‘Not my family. Nor yours,’ he coldly reminded her. She didn’t ask again. Life was difficult enough without deliberately picking a fight with her husband.
Without even looking up she knew the instant Derry walked into a room; the hairs at the back of her neck would prickle with keen awareness as if they had a perception all their own.
Lissa could feel Philip’s eyes upon her as Meg served up the meal. And despite her best efforts, Derry only had to brush past, or accidentally touch her hand for her heart to scud into rapid beats. If he needed something passing at lunch she instinctively handed it to him before he even asked for it. If he spoke, she had to bite her tongue not to finish his sentence for him. And she avoided his gaze with such studied attention she felt sure everyone in the house must guess how she felt. Including Philip.
But she could feel no guilt.
She loved Derry. Lissa knew she had done her best with her marriage but that it was a failure. She could do her duty by Philip, but never love him, if indeed she ever had.
Philip went up to Larkrigg Hall later, to issue instructions to the housekeeper who had agreed to stay on until he could find someone to replace her. Mrs Stanton meant to retire to the West Country on a small legacy left by Rosemary Ellis.
Lissa spent a relaxed hour with the twins and Jan. When Meg went off to investigate a lame ewe, Jan took the opportunity to divulge something of her own troubles.
‘Do you remember Nick once telling you about our worries with the mortgage?’
Lissa showed her surprise. ‘That was ages ago, when Alice was born. He told me money was tight but that you’d catch up.’
‘Well, we haven’t.’
‘I’m sure you will, Jan, but don’t worry about it. It’s not important.’
Jan hesitated, tucking her hair behind the ear. ‘It’s just that we’ve had a letter. From your husband in his official capacity as solicitor.’
Lissa grew still. ‘What kind of letter?’
‘It listed what we owe. Nick hit the roof. He didn’t agree with the reckoning. Said we didn’t owe half as much. Never seen him in such a fury.’
‘There must be some mistake. I’ll talk to Philip. Put it right. You can have as much time as you need.’
Lissa loved the feel of the wind in her hair. She ignored Philip’s instructions these days and always let it fly free instead of screwing it up into a neat little French pleat. She loved the wind scouring her cheeks to a polished brightness, wishing she could cleanse her life as thoroughly.
She sat by the humped bridge and called to mind a picture of a laughing girl in her best frock waiting to meet her mother and grandmother for the first time. Now that grandmother was buried and the dream with her. The regrets Lissa felt in this moment were not entirely selfish. Surely Rosemary Ellis had suffered more than anyone from her self-imposed bitterness? How sad that she’d denied herself the opportunity to know her own granddaughter.
Over a matter of principle and family honour, Rosemary Ellis had banished love from her life. Was that what would happen to her? Was it really for the sake of her children that she stayed with Philip, or because she wasn’t quite brave enough to risk the scandal of leaving him? Could she start a new life, even without the benefit of divorce? Could she earn enough from her new business to keep them? Could she face the gossip and the snide remarks if she took Derry for a lover and lived with him unwed?
And would Derry even want her under such conditions?
If she lacked the courage to do any of these things, would she then end up as a bitter and lonely old woman, as Rosemary Ellis had been? The prospect made her shudder.
She met Philip on his way back from Larkrigg.
‘Are you still thinking of moving us in there?’ she asked, eyes troubled.
‘That depends.’
‘On what?’
‘On you. Don’t think I haven’t seen the way you look at Derry Colwith. I won’t let you go, Lissa. Not now, not ever.’ He sounded so reasonable
.
‘What if I say I’ve had enough of this marriage. That I would prefer any man but you?’
He took hold of the front of her jacket and pulled her gently towards him, pushing his face close in to hers. Yet still he smiled. ‘If you leave me, or take a lover, you can kiss goodbye to your beloved dale. And your precious shop.’
She tried to laugh, sound amused and incredulous, anxious to disguise the sudden spurt of fear. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Let me make it quite plain that Broomdale is only safe so long as I permit it to remain so.’
‘You don’t have that kind of power.’
‘Oh, but I do. One word from me and Winster would be forgotten. It would be Broomdale you’d be fighting to save then. All that lovely fresh water would be washing over your old home, swamping Broombank and Ashlea, your precious home.’
Lissa gasped.’ Is this why you’re hounding Nick about the mortgage on Ashlea? I’d rather you didn’t. He’ll catch up with any late payments, given time.’
‘You’d rather?’
‘Yes, me. Ashlea does belong to me, if you recall.’
He stared at her, then laughed. ‘Soft-hearted as ever, I see, and you think you can make yourself into a businesswoman? Close your silly little shop, dear wife. I can get much more money by letting them flood the whole valley. We’d get compensation for Ashlea, and I have a buyer already lined up for Larkrigg who would dearly like to turn it into an on-site hotel, high on the ridge there. Water sports are the coming thing.’
She desperately tried not to show her fear. ‘You wouldn’t dare!’
‘Don’t test me.’ He smoothed down the collar of her jacket with a caressing hand, enjoying the satisfaction of seeing her face grow pale, the awful realisation of his power dawn in her beautiful eyes. But then he had always loved power. Over Felicity, over his own mother because his father had been so useless, and now over Lissa. It had to be this way. She must learn that.
Lissa tossed her head. ‘You can’t do it. Larkrigg belongs to the twins.’
‘Rosemary left me in charge, as their guardian. If I decide it would be a good investment to sell, then I’ll sell.’
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