by Penny Jordan
The rest of the farm was still asleep, it being just gone half past five in the morning, and Connie found herself smiling as she opened the window. ‘What are you doing here?’ she chided softly. ‘It’s still dark. You should be tucked up with your head under your wing, like all the other birds. I suppose you noticed I’d lit the lamp? Is that it? You’re one on your own, you are. Still, if you’ve decided it’s breakfast time I’d better get you something. Wait there.’
She turned, and Luke was directly behind her. But for his hands shooting out to steady her she would have fallen as she jerked backwards in shock and slipped on a patch of dampness on the stone flags—the result of the snow on her boots melting.
He continued to hold her, his eyes narrowing slightly as she gasped, ‘What—what are you doing up? It—it’s early.’
‘I could ask you the same thing,’ he said, very softly, his eyes on her mouth. ‘I wanted a cup of tea. And you?’
‘I forgot to put the oats in soak for the porridge. I only remembered in bed last night.’ She drew back a little, and he immediately let go of her, but she could still feel his fingers burning her flesh through the wool of her dress.
He nodded slowly. ‘It wouldn’t have mattered. We could have had something else before the bacon and eggs.’
‘But you like porridge,’ she said weakly.
They stared at each other, just a breath apart, and then he ran a hand through his hair in a gesture of what looked like bemusement. He hadn’t shaved that morning, and Connie suddenly noticed he had lost some weight. The chiselled cheekbones were more sharply defined. It made him look even more handsome, harder, tougher…
‘I’ve been wanting to talk to you,’ he said abruptly. ‘But—’
Her mouth had gone dry, and she moistened her bottom lip with her tongue. His eyes followed the action. She swallowed hard before saying, ‘But what? What’s the matter?’
‘I didn’t know how to begin, what to say to put this—’ he waved a hand ‘—this matter right. But it’s gone on too long.’
Again their eyes held, and now the moment stretched and lengthened, and she felt her heart pounding so hard against her ribcage it actually hurt. It was a small clicking noise that drew her attention to the open window and the robin, who was clearly getting impatient, dancing from one tiny foot to the other.
Luke had followed her gaze, and now he said, a touch of amusement colouring his voice, ‘I wondered who you were talking to. I take it he’s not a stranger? He seems quite at home.’
‘I feed him,’ she admitted shakily, before drawing in a steadying breath. Why did he have to look so good?
‘The original early bird that catches the worm? Or in this case I suspect perhaps other titbits?’ And then, his voice turning huskier, he said, ‘He clearly trusts you.’
‘Yes.’ She smiled at the robin. ‘Yes, he trusts me.’
‘Sensible bird.’
She didn’t know what to say, but the look in his eyes was flustering her. Nervously she turned and reached for the cake tin, opening the lid and crumbling a little of the fruit cake in her hand before walking across and offering it to the robin. As usual he immediately took a beakful, darting to the windowsill and gobbling it up before flying to her hand and repeating the process. In a minute or two the cake was gone, and then, with a quick tilt of his head and a little chirrup of thanks, so was the robin. And now she was alone with Luke.
Connie shut the window after drawing in a deep breath of the sharp icy air, then turned and faced Luke as she exhaled silently. He had seated himself on the edge of the kitchen table as she had been feeding the robin, the dark brown loose shirt accentuating his broad muscled shoulders, his charcoal trousers tucked into knee-high brown leather boots. The powerful masculine aura that was such a part of him was stronger than ever, and it dried her mouth and made her all fingers and thumbs as she walked to the range and began to stir the porridge.
‘Would you like that cup of tea you mentioned now?’ she said awkwardly when he remained silent. ‘The water’s just boiled.’
‘Thank you.’ He inclined his head without taking his eyes off her.
She was vitally aware of him watching her as she brewed a pot of tea from the big black kettle she had put on the hob on first entering the kitchen, and after she had poured two cups, adding milk and sugar—which had been such a luxury when she had arrived at the farm but which now she was used to—she handed him his, being careful not to touch him.
‘I haven’t been fair to you,’ he said suddenly, pinning her with the dark, unrevealing stare she was used to.
She sat down at the kitchen table at the far end from Luke, knowing her trembly legs wouldn’t support her much longer. ‘I don’t understand,’ she murmured.
‘That I’ve been guilty of being unjust and blinkered and opinionated? What’s not to understand?’ he said gently. ‘Of course you want to be with people of your own age, and be free from responsibility for a few hours sometimes. It is only natural. You are young. You have the rest of your life before you. It was crass of me to cause such a fuss about it.’
Connie stared at him. She didn’t really want to be with anyone else but him, but she couldn’t say that. Neither could she say she didn’t feel young in the way he meant. She didn’t think she ever had. She had been so used to looking after the younger ones and keeping the house running from as far back as she could remember, due to her mother’s frailty. It was second nature to her. She found people of her own age a mite silly on the whole.
‘This young man, Reuben, from Stone Farm. Farmer Griffiths tells me he is a good worker and a young man of principle.’
Connie’s eyes opened wider for a moment. He knew about Reuben? And he had asked Reuben’s master about him?
In answer to the expression on her face, Luke said quietly, ‘Flora talks to my mother when they sit together. I just wanted to make sure the man was of good character, that’s all. Young men can be…knavish, even deceptive, and you have no experience of the world. I was worried you could find yourself in a situation you were unable to handle. Farmer Griffiths tells me this would not be the case with this particular young man.’
He thought she and Reuben…Connie blushed hotly. And he was talking as though he himself was ancient, when she knew for a fact he had turned twenty-nine this year. That wasn’t old. Quickly, she said, ‘I think there has been some misunderstanding. Reuben and I are merely friends.’
For a second the mask lifted, and she saw something glitter in his eyes. It revealed how deliberate his air of control was. But almost immediately the thick lashes hid the expression, and when he next looked up his gaze was cool and steady. ‘But he thinks very highly of you. I’m sure it won’t be long before he makes his feelings plain.’
‘He has. Made his feelings plain, I mean. And I told him I couldn’t see him in any light other than that of a friend,’ Connie said firmly. ‘Reuben is in no doubt of my feelings, none at all, and I certainly haven’t trifled with his affections,’ she added, in case he thought so. ‘Right from the beginning of our friendship I told him—’ She stopped abruptly, aware she had been about to let her tongue run away with itself. ‘I told him he could only be a friend,’ she finished flatly.
He stared at her. Again there was something she couldn’t put a name to in his eyes, but it was enough to send the blood rushing through her veins and cause her heart to beat faster. He liked her. Suddenly lots of little things over the past year came together in one blinding flash. Of course she was just his housekeeper, and he was the master of this big farm, but if things had been different, if she had been of his class…
Whether he was aware he had given himself away Connie wasn’t sure, but she saw a muscle jerk in the hard square jaw a few times, and despite his apparent relaxed stance she sensed he was as tense as she was. She took a few sips of her tea, utterly at a loss to know what to say or do to ease the situation. Never had she wished so hard she knew more about men—what made them think and act as they di
d.
No, not men, she corrected in the next heartbeat. This man. She wanted to say she loved him, and that she knew there would never be anyone else who would measure up to him. To assure him she expected nothing from him and would be content to remain his housekeeper and be part of his life in that way. But then that last wouldn’t be true, perhaps, in the future. Loving him as she did, she knew she would have to leave Hawthorn Farm if he began to court someone of his own class, if he married again. She wouldn’t be able to face watching him love someone else. So perhaps her love wasn’t as unselfish as she would like it to be, in spite of all he had done for her and Flora and the lads.
‘Connie, I need to tell you something.’
When she looked up, he’d moved to stand in front of her. He drew her gently to her feet, cupping her small jaw and forcing her to look at him when she would have drooped her head.
She sensed immediately that he had guessed how she felt about him. The knowledge was there in the darkness of the smoky grey eyes. For a second she wanted to blurt out that it was all right, that she would never presume to expect he would become entangled with a woman other than from his own class, but another thought had taken hold, and the shock of it stilled her tongue. Was he going to suggest she become his mistress? She wasn’t so naïve she didn’t know some wealthy men thought nothing of such things.
But, no, no. Luke was not like that. How could she have thought so for one second? ‘What is it?’ she whispered. Something in the twist to his mouth was telling her she wasn’t going to like what she heard, and the blue of her eyes was almost black with apprehension.
‘I’m sure you have been acquainted with the circumstances of my marriage and my wife’s death,’ he said quietly, his tone indicating he was well aware of the gossip of his workers. ‘I was placed in the position of a grieving young husband and father, but this was only partly true. My wife and I…’ He hesitated. ‘The marriage was far from being a happy one. Christabel never should have become a wife. She would have been far happier continuing to be the pampered darling of her parents for the rest of her days. Marriage…disgusted her. I disgusted her. Within days we both realised we’d made a terrible mistake, but it was done. She had a husband whose demands she found odious, and I had a wife who had been a figment of my imagination. But then our son was born.’
He drew a steadying breath and Connie remained absolutely still, horrified by the pain she read in his face. ‘You know the rest of the story,’ he said, releasing her and stretching out his arms as he clasped the edge of the table, his head bent. ‘Would that it could be undone. But it cannot. It happened. My son died, and he took with him something of me that day. I cannot explain it except to say that it wasn’t exactly hope or trust or joy or peace, but an element of all those things. I do not like the man I have become, but I cannot change. I will not change. I am not good company, Connie.’
He raised his head and looked at her. ‘Do you understand what I am saying to you?’
‘If…if you met someone else, someone you could love, you might feel differently,’ she said helplessly.
‘I have met someone I could love.’ He straightened. ‘I think you know that. And I have had a battle going on inside me since the day I met you.’ In spite of his words, there was no softening effect upon his face. ‘But you deserve, you need someone of your own age—someone with no past, no demons. Someone who will make life joyful for you, and you for him. I should have been big enough to rise above the jealousy I’ve felt long before this and wish you well. I am sorry. Forgive me.’
Connie forgot the rigid rules of society that declared nice girls were never forward. She forgot everything but that he had told her he loved her in one breath and that she must find someone else in the next. And for no reason other than that he wouldn’t let his love for her have free rein. It wasn’t that he considered her beneath him, or that he was worried what his contemporaries would think of their liaison—that would have held her tongue. But this…
‘There is no need to be sorry.’ She stepped close to him but did not touch him. ‘I love you. I know I will never love anyone else—’
‘No.’ He moved his head impatiently. ‘You are young. You will meet someone. You are on the threshold of life, whereas I feel I’m as old as the hills at times.’
‘Don’t assume my affections are so fickle.’ For the first time that morning a thread of anger made itself felt. ‘And don’t keep on about my being so young. You are not exactly ancient yourself, besides which you’re not the only one to feel old inside. Physical age has little bearing on the soul and spirit.’
He stared at her, his eyes moving over the creamy softness of her skin, the deep blue of her eyes and her impassioned mouth. He took a step backwards, away from temptation, but Connie followed him, her voice soft as she said, ‘I love you. I do. I don’t care what you’re like sometimes; it makes no difference. I can make you hope again, and trust, and all those things you said. I know I can. Love can conquer everything.’
‘You’re talking like a child.’
‘That’s better than how you are talking.’
‘Possibly.’ When she opened her mouth to say more he silenced her with an upraised hand. ‘But your feelings could change. You haven’t allowed for that. Feelings do, Connie. All the time. There could come a time when you look at me with dread in your eyes, when the bedroom door closing is enough to make you half hysterical. Marriage is a very physical union, not a romantic, airy-fairy thing. And I am a physical man.’
‘I understand that,’ she said steadily. ‘And I’m not Christabel.’
‘You have no idea what marriage involves,’ he said, anger darkening his voice. ‘You don’t, do you? And till death us do part can be a hell of a long time for some folk.’
‘You don’t think I love you?’
‘I think you imagine you do, but girlish fancies are very different to harsh reality. Love has to be sustained—’
‘You don’t trust me.’ She stared at him, deep hurt in her eyes and voice. ‘You don’t believe my love would be constant.’
He paused, and then, as though it was torn out of him, he muttered, ‘I don’t trust in love. That’s different.’
No, it wasn’t. She didn’t know how to reach him, how to find the words to convey how she felt about him, so instead, guided purely by instinct, she reached up on tiptoe, placing her hands on his shoulders and put her lips to his.
For a second she thought he wasn’t going to respond, and then he crushed her to him, his mouth telling of his frustration and desire as it ravished hers.
It was her first kiss, and it wasn’t the tender, gentle caress portrayed in The People’s Friend or The Lady—two magazines one of their old neighbours had passed on to her mother each week. For the merest fraction of a moment she felt frightened and all at sea, and then everything within her rose up to meet his need. She leant against him, her arms going round his neck, and her head tilted back as she responded with a touchingly inexpert hunger of her own.
They swayed together in the dim light from the flickering oil lamp, and it was some moments before his head jerked up. He drew a ragged breath, putting her from him as he ground out, ‘This is madness—madness.’
‘I don’t care.’ She stared at him, dazed and trembling.
‘Then I must.’ He raked his hair back from his forehead with a shaking hand. ‘I must,’ he repeated grimly, before turning away and striding out of the kitchen.
She stood quite still for a minute or more, unable to believe that he had gone, that he had left her. She looked round at the familiar objects in the room and they seemed strange, remote, and it wasn’t until the smell hit her senses that she was galvanised into movement.
The porridge was burning.
CHAPTER NINE
THE tin clock on the kitchen mantelpiece over the range showed twelve o’clock, and Flora and the others had just returned to the farm after the morning service at the parish church. Connie had remained at the farmhouse, due
to the fact that when she had taken Luke’s mother her breakfast tray she had discovered Luke had gone for an early-morning ride—ostensibly to visit friends who lived some miles away. She did not believe this. She had noticed that when he was troubled in any way he would often ride Ebony for long periods, but she didn’t say anything to the older woman, merely informing Maggie she would be in the kitchen if needed. Since Luke’s mother’s heart problems Connie didn’t like to leave her alone unless Luke was around and within earshot.
She heard Luke return and join his mother, who was now in the sitting room, as she and Flora set the table in the dining room. But once all the dishes were on the table she sent Flora to inform them Sunday lunch was ready. She couldn’t face Luke. Now she had had time to think, she was mortified at her actions. She had thrown herself at his head. There was no other name for it. It had been she who had kissed him, and she couldn’t believe she had so far forgotten herself as to instigate their embrace. Even Alice Todd, brazen as she could be, wouldn’t have done such a thing. What must he think of her?
Having dished up their own dinner at the kitchen table, Connie merely picked at the food on her plate, and once she had sent Flora to retrieve the dirty dishes from the dining room she rushed through the washing up, anxious to be away. She would have to face Luke some time, she knew that, but not now. Not today. Tomorrow she would manage—somehow, she assured her aching heart. For now all she wanted was to hide herself away and cry and cry.
As she and Flora and the lads left the farmhouse, however, they met Reuben and the group from Stone Farm. They were standing and talking to Alice Todd and her brothers, and the other youngsters in the yard.
‘There’s a big lake frozen over by the old quarry, and it’s a perfect day for skating,’ Reuben’s brother assured them all excitedly. ‘They’re going to have a bonfire, and old Joseph from High Ford is bringing his brazier to roast potatoes and chestnuts. You’ve got to come. It’ll be canny.’