by Penny Jordan
And, knowing of the local rivalry between her father and Mr Benson, who was going to believe that a ten-year-old had been responsible for the dog’s theft, especially in the tough farming community of the Dales?
If the truth came out, it would damage the reputation for straight dealing of which her father was so proud, but they couldn’t keep the dog hidden away for ever…
‘What are you going to do?’ Cherry asked her mother tearfully.
In all honesty, it was a relief to tell her what she had done. The strain of the long walk to and from the uninhabited farm twice a day, the food she had to carry, the fear that something would happen to Meg when she wasn’t there had all weighed heavily on her, and she looked trustingly at Kate, waiting for her response.
‘Well, I think the first thing I have to do is to find some way of getting Meg back to Mr Benson without him knowing who took her. Then we’ll try and find a way to make sure that he takes proper care of her in future!’
She dared not promise any more, not even sure if she could accomplish even that much.
And as for returning the dog…How on earth was that to be achieved? The same way in which she had been removed in the first place, Kate suspected. And surely if a ten-year-old child could do it, then so could a twenty-nine-year-old woman.
‘Dry your eyes,’ she told Cherry. ‘And then I think you and I had better go for a walk. I think it might be as well if you introduced me to Meg before I try smuggling her back into Mr Benson’s yard.’
CHAPTER NINE
’A WALK, at this time of night?’ Kate’s father scowled at her. He had been in an irritable mood all evening, and for one dreadful moment Kate felt as though she were seventeen again, with her father having the power to veto her movements.
‘It’s going to rain,’ he added growlingly. ‘A walk!’
‘It helps me to sleep,’ Kate told him calmly, refusing to allow her inner agitation to show.
Somehow or other she had to get that dog back to its rightful home without anyone knowing what had happened. Guiltily, she tried not to remember the forlorn look in Cherry’s eyes when she had told her what she intended to do.
The sun which had warmed the Dales ever since their arrival had deserted them during the afternoon, and as she went outside Kate shivered in the cold wind that rushed across the yard.
Her London coat was no protection against its icy chill, and for a second she hesitated, debating whether or not to go back and get something warmer. She had a thick sweater upstairs. But if she went back, her father would probably delay her, and it was already late enough.
Hunching her shoulders against the wind, she set off along the track which cut across the fields in the direction of Jessop’s farm.
The clouds made the landscape cold and dark, and she wished she had had the foresight to bring a torch with her. As she neared the farm, the dog started to bark—a shrill, demanding noise that tensed her nerve-endings. She prayed that her father wasn’t outside to hear it. She knew quite well how sound carried around the Dales, and how one dog could pick up the bark of another miles away and repeat it.
Her father, with his Dalesman’s ear, would soon realise where the sound was coming from, and knowing that Jessop’s farm was empty might be tempted to come and investigate, and that was the last thing she wanted.
She crossed the empty yard quickly, cursing mildly as her foot caught against an ancient piece of machinery. Farmers were notorious for refusing to dispose of antiquated equipment.
Cherry had told her that she had shut the dog in the barn, and as she drew nearer to it the animal’s barking increased.
It took Kate several minutes to open the heavy, rain-warped door, but at least it yielded, swinging heavily against her body and bumping her hipbone. She yelped in pain and then dashed inside as the first heavy drops of rain began to fall.
Cherry, far better organised that she was herself, had left a torch on the bench just inside the door, and Kate switched it on in relief.
It was almost dark now, and the barn was dim. It smelled of musty hay—a familiar scent from her childhood.
As she switched on the light, the dog cowered nervously. It was a pretty-looking animal with what promised in adulthood to be a long coat. She had the dainty feet of her breed and a small, quivering, pointed nose.
She and Kate eyed one another for a few seconds. Cherry had been thoughtful in her care of her, Kate recognised: there were two large bowls of fresh-looking water, and another of biscuits. The chain which tethered the dog was attached to one of the special soft collars that her father always used.
As Kate approached, the dog crouched down, beating her tail grovellingly on the dusty floor.
She was timid, Kate recognised as she cringed back from her; she was thin as well, and as Kate reached out to let her sniff her hand and then to stroke her, she found the ridges of old scars beneath her coat.
At heart she was as vulnerable as her daughter, and she ached to be able to do something for the dog, but she knew the Dales and its inhabitants far better than Cherry. It was an unwritten rule that no one interfered between a man and his dog, or a man and his wife, for that matter.
Once she realised that Kate wasn’t going to hurt her, the dog stopped cringing and even tentatively licked her hand.
What on earth was she going to do? She had to take her back, Kate knew, and yet she hated the thought of returning the timid creature to her owner.
But if she didn’t…This was a country dog, used to space and freedom, who would never adapt to city life. She and Cherry couldn’t take her back to London with them.
Unhappily, she unfastened the chain and slipped on the lead that Cherry had left on the bench with the torch.
‘I’m sorry about this, Meg, but I’ve got to do it,’ she whispered sadly against the smooth head as the dog tried to snuggle up against her.
She was little more than half-grown, and her eyes beseeched Kate not to desert her.
She could feel her determination wavering, and then to her horror she heard a car coming up the road towards the farm. Quickly she doused the torch, hugging Meg to her. With a bit of luck it would just be someone going past, but it wasn’t. She heard the engine note change and then slow down, and she knew that the driver had turned off to come to the farm.
The thought struck her that the driver might actually be her father, alerted by his own dogs to the fact that there was someone here.
If it was, she was going to have a very difficult interview in front of her.
The car stopped. She heard a door open and then slam. Meg whined, but Kate had her hand over her muzzle and she bent her head to whisper. ‘Shush…’
As she did so, the barn door opened and someone shone a flashlight right into her eyes.
She gasped and lifted her hand instinctively to shield herself from the bright light.
‘Kate, what the hell are you doing here?’
Silas! Kate went weak with relief.
Probably as much to his astonishment as to her own, as he let the barn door close against the rain she dropped the dog’s lead and ran towards him, saying shakily, ‘Thank God it’s only you…’
‘Who did you think it was?’
His arms had opened automatically to catch hold of her, and now they had closed around her, holding her against the comforting, solid weight of his body. Her head seemed to incline naturally against his shoulder. It was odd how at home she felt here in Silas’s arms, Kate reflected dreamily.
‘Kate, what are you doing here?’ Silas persisted when he got no response.
It had been a shock to find her in his barn. Since he had bought the farm, he had had scant opportunity to spend much time on it. It was thoroughly run-down and needed a good deal of time and money investing in it. In three months’ time, when his existing contract ran out, he planned to come and live here, putting into practice his research work.
Now that their quarantine was over, most of the staff were taking the opportunity to have
some leave; the house without Kate in it, but somehow haunted by her, had not been somewhere he wanted to stay, so on impulse he had decided to drive up to the farm. His sister and her family would want to have a look at it when they arrived, and he had suspected from his memories of it at the time of the auction that it was in no fit state to show anyone.
To see the faint light glimmering in the barn had come as a shock, and at first he had thought perhaps some squatters had taken up residence. The last person he had expected to find had been Kate.
And now here she was in his arms, her face turned into his shoulder so that he was tormented by the feminine perfume of her.
‘Kate,’ he repeated roughly, dragging himself back to reality. ‘What’s going on?’
Hearing the sharpness in his voice, Meg barked shrilly, and before Kate could stop her she launched herself at Silas, worrying at his ankles.
‘What the…’
Astonished, he looked down at the dog.
‘She thinks you’re attacking me,’ Kate told him gravely.
‘She’s yours?’
He released Kate and bent down to reassure the dog, talking softly to her, and coaxing her gently to allow him to stroke her. ‘Nice animal, but she’s too thin.’ He started to frown as he found the old scar tissue, and looked at Kate grimly.
‘I wish she was ours,’ Kate sighed. ‘Unfortunately, she belongs to Sam Benson.’
‘Sam Benson! So she’s the dog that’s gone missing from Holme Farm. I heard all about it in the village when I stopped to buy some milk. What the devil are you doing with her?’
‘Cherry stole her,’ Kate told him baldly. ‘She went up there with Dad the other day and saw Meg being ill-treated. I knew the moment they came back that something was wrong. Cherry hasn’t been brought up here, she doesn’t understand that there’s a very strict code about what is and isn’t permissible. I’m afraid my father has rather fallen from his pedestal. When he refused to do anything about Meg, Cherry decided to take matters into her own hands. She stole out one night with a pair of Dad’s wire-cutters, if you please, and then brought Meg up here. That was a couple of days ago, and she’s been keeping her here ever since.’
‘And now?’ Silas asked her quietly. Watching her, he had seen the shadows of emotion play across her face: so sensitive and tender-hearted, so much the protective mother, and yet vulnerable herself at the same time. He felt a rush of anger against the man who should have been with her to help her carry the responsibility of their child.
‘I’ve explained to Cherry that Meg must go back.’ Betrayingly, her fingers tightened in the dog’s ruff as it went and sat beside her. ‘According to Sam Benson, she’s a very valuable animal. Dad did try to buy her, but of course he wouldn’t sell.’
‘Well, she’s certainly well-bred enough, but I shouldn’t think she’d be much good with sheep. She’s too timid. She’d make a good house dog, though.’
‘Even if I let Cherry keep her, which I can’t, we can’t take her back to London with us, she’d hate it. Cherry wanted Dad to report Sam to the RSPCA, but of course that isn’t the way things are done up here. I did wonder if I could have a word with the vet and get him to try and do something.’
Meg whined and put up a paw to get her attention, and Kate stroked her gently. Poor little thing! Already she felt like the very worst kind of traitor, taking her back.
‘Come on,’ Silas said abruptly. ‘Let’s get her in the Range Rover.’
Before Kate could say a word he scooped up Meg, lead and all, and shouldered open the barn door, leaving Kate with no alternative but to follow him.
‘There’s no need for you to get involved in this, Silas,’ she protested breathlessly as she caught up with him.
It was raining hard now, lashing needles of rain that stung her skin and soaked her hair and jacket.
‘Get in the car and stop arguing,’ Silas told her as he opened his own door and deposited Meg inside. ‘It’s too wet to stand outside.’
It was, and reluctantly Kate climbed in beside him.
The Range Rover felt warm after the musty coldness of the barn, and already their breath was misting up the windows.
Silas switched on the engine, the windscreen wipers having to work at double speed to clear the rain.
‘How exactly were you planning to return her?’ Silas asked Kate, turning to look at her. The engine was running, but he made no move to put the vehicle in motion.
‘The same way Cherry got her out,’ she told him ruefully. ‘I’m told it isn’t too difficult a task to unfasten one of the links on the chain Sam uses. I was hoping that when he discovered she’d been returned, he’d be too surprised to make further enquiries…’
She flushed under the glance Silas shot her. Twenty-nine years old, and in many ways as innocent of reality as her daughter, he mused.
‘But surely the moment you tried to get into the yard his other dogs would have started barking. He does have other dogs, doesn’t he?’
‘Yes,’ Kate agreed helplessly.
‘So how did Cherry manage to get this one without alerting them?’ he persisted.
Kate stared at him.
‘I don’t know,’ she admitted.
It might be as well if he were to have a word with Cherry, Silas reflected grimly, and then caught himself up, reminding himself that he had no right to interfere. Cherry was not his child, and Kate had told him herself that she was still in love with the man who was her father.
‘I’ve got a better idea,’ he told her quietly, at last putting the Range Rover into gear and releasing the brake. Although Kate protested, he refused to tell her exactly what it was, and to her trepidation he headed instead for Holme Farm.
Just before they got there, he stopped and turned his head to look frowningly at Meg, and then, before Kate could stop him, he removed her collar and lead and, opening the door of the Range Rover, dragged her out into the pouring rain, despite Kate’s furious protests.
’If this is your idea of solving the problem, then don’t bother,’ she told him hotly, following him out into the wet night, heedless of the fact that torrential rain was now soaking her hair and clothes.
Silas was still gripping Meg by her ruff. Dog and man were both as wet as she was herself, Kate realised, but she was too angry to care. If Silas thought by abandoning Meg that he was helping her, then he was way off course. She’d rather risk the wrath of a hundred Sam Bensons than turn the shivering little animal out into the night.
Mingling with her anger was a heavy sense of disillusionment; somehow she had expected better of Silas. She was not entirely unlike her daughter after all, she reflected wryly, although she was old enough to know the danger of putting fellow human beings up on pedestals.
‘What do you think I’m going to do?’ Silas asked her calmly, patently undisturbed by her flash of temper.
As he looked up at her from where he was scooping up mud and rubbing it into the wriggling dog’s coat, rain splashed down on to his face, clinging to his eyelashes, making them damp and spiky.
Kate had an irresistible urge to reach down and run her fingertip along those lashes.
Heavens, what was the matter with her? she groaned inwardly. Here they were, standing in a rainstorm, and she in the middle of a row as well, and she was melting inside with wanting him.
’Abandon her,’ she told him coldly.
‘Wrong,’ Silas responded with a small smile. ‘Come on, you,’ he said affectionately to Meg. ‘I think that will do the trick, and don’t you dare shake yourself all over me, either.’
‘Now,’ Silas said when they were all back in the Range Rover. ‘You and I were on our way out for a drink together. This…’ he turned to smile at Meg ‘…animal practically threw herself under our wheels. It’s obvious to me that she’s a stray. I think we should take her to the nearest RSPCA animal shelter, which I think is in Halston.’
‘But that’s nearly twenty miles away,’ Kate breathed.
‘So it is
,’ Silas agreed. ‘I shall tell whoever’s in charge that if the animal isn’t claimed in the requisite time, I’m prepared to keep her myself.’
Kate stared at him.
‘But where will you say we found her?’
‘Oh, somewhere between here and Halston. Somehow, I doubt that Benson will even think of contacting the RSPCA to look for his lost dog, do you?’
Kate was overwhelmed, and her look told him so.
‘But afterwards, when you bring her back…You are going to keep her, aren’t you?’ she demanded. ‘You weren’t just saying that…’
‘Of course I’m going to keep her.’ For the first time he sounded tense. ‘And if Benson should try to claim her I shall simply tell him that I found her roaming and took her to the RSPCA…Which reminds me, after we’ve delivered her to her temporary home, I’d better get back to the barn and remove the evidence.’
‘I’ll come with you,’ Kate told him, and then bit her lip. He had probably intended to drop her at home on his way to Halston, and now she had virtually invited herself to join him.
The smiling girl in charge of the shelter examined Meg carefully, and promised to get in touch with Silas if anyone came to claim her.
‘She’s a nice little thing, but so are they all. She looks like a farm dog. We don’t get many of them in here, but I’ll let you know if anyone claims her, and if they don’t…’
‘If they don’t, I’ve got a home for her,’ Silas told her firmly. ‘Here’s my card.’
Kate saw the girl’s eyes widen as she looked at it. Looking at it herself, Kate saw why: there was an extremely impressive list of letters after Silas’s name; confirmation that he had gone on to complete his PhD.
‘Now for the barn.’
Despite the heat inside the Range Rover, Kate felt chilled to the bone when they eventually got back to the farm.
It was Silas who opened the barn door and carefully disposed of all evidence of the dog’s occupation. She felt too drained to do anything more than stand helplessly and watch him.