Daughter of Dark River Farm (15 page)

‘Is it a very big house?’ I prompted.

‘It is.’

‘How many rooms? And are they all beautifully decorated? Do you have stables?’

She laughed and held up a hand. ‘Stables, yes. I knew that would be one of your questions!’

‘Of course, you have a hunter, don’t you?’

‘I did. Orion. But he broke a leg just after the start of the war, and it wouldn’t heal properly. We had to have him put down.’ She sighed, but her smile returned as she began to describe the gardens, and the Cheshire countryside around her house. Particularly the quarry. I wondered what could have captured her attention in what must have been quite a dirty, noisy quarry, when she was otherwise surrounded by lush greenery. I supposed though, with her love of machinery it made sense.

‘Breckenhall’s a lovely town,’ she said. ‘It’s not very big, but it had a wonderful market. I don’t know if it still has, what with rationing and everything, but the town’s pretty anyway.’

‘I’d love to see it.’ I gave a wistful little sigh. ‘The manor sounds so grand, and the parties must have been wonderful. Lizzy told me how she sat on the back stairs and listened in at your birthday party, Evie.’

‘If all you want are parties and grand occasions, I can’t think why you’re here at all,’ Jessie said, out of the blue. I blinked at her, surprised, but she had lifted her book again and flicked a page.

‘It’s
not
all I want,’ I protested. ‘But you have to admit, it does sound an exciting place to be.’

‘Haven’t you had your share of excitement, Skittles?’ Evie smiled. ‘I would have thought this quiet life here was perfect for you, after being in the thick of things in Flanders.’

‘Oh, I do love the farm,’ I said. ‘It’s just that I’ve never been to any really big parties. I didn’t have a coming out ball, or anything.’

She grimaced. ‘You’ve not missed anything there; don’t worry.’

‘But I would love to hear all about yours.’

Evie also glanced at Jessie, then at Frances, and then turned back to me. ‘Another time, sweetheart.’ Her thoughts turned inward again, and I glared at Jessie’s bowed head.

‘I’d like to hear about it too, someday,’ Frances said gently, and it was only then that I realised what lay behind Evie’s reluctance to talk about her wealthy family. I felt awful, but didn’t know what to say without sounding patronising, so I said nothing and hoped Frances hadn’t heard my words the same way Jessie had. I didn’t think she would begrudge another family their wealth, but it couldn’t be nice to be reminded of it. Luckily Evie was a better person than I was.

I stood up. ‘Jessie, I didn’t get around to helping you with your bedding after lunch, like I promised. Would you like help now?’

She looked surprised, but nodded. ‘Thank you, yes.’

Upstairs I found some clean sheets, which I carried into my old room and opened out ready to lay them over the mattress. Jessie caught the other end, and I searched for a way to break the ice.

‘What’s your home like?’ I’d done it again; it was the wrong thing to ask. Her expression tightened and she jerked the sheet taut between us, nearly pulling it out of my hands.

I sighed. ‘Now what have I said?’

‘Don’t you ever talk about anything except what other people have, or don’t have?’

‘That’s not what I—’

‘I sort of like you, Kitty, but at the same time I wonder why on earth you’re here? Why are you accepting Frances’s home as your own when you already have a perfectly good one?’

‘Ah, there we have it.’ I flapped the sheet, harder than necessary, and we glared at each other while we smoothed it onto the bed.

‘There we have what?’

‘You’re jealous!’

‘Jealous?’

‘That Frances treats me like family instead of a land girl.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous!’

I turned away to take a pillow slip off the pile, and roughly stuffed the pillow into it. ‘I could ask you the same thing, about why you’re here. Is it to work, like the rest of us?’

‘Or what?’

‘Or to claim a place as a daughter of the farm.’

She stopped tucking in her corner, and straightened, fixing me with an incredulous stare. I met it, and went on, ‘After all,
you
have another home too.’

‘How dare you presume to know me!’

‘It’s only what you’ve said to me,’ I said, angered further by my own defensiveness. ‘You haven’t the slightest notion what I’ve been through, and yet you think you can march in here and try to drive a wedge between me and the woman who has cared for me through it all?’

‘What
wedge
?’

‘Oh, I heard you downstairs. All the things you didn’t say, wrapped up in a bland little comment about me wanting parties and grand occasions!’

‘What didn’t I say?’

‘That I’m ungrateful, that I shouldn’t go on about fancy things in front of Frances and hurt her feelings… I was just trying to take Evie’s mind off Will, if you must know.’

‘You were not
just
trying to do that at all,’ Jessie snapped back. ‘Frances has been through some terrible times too. You’re not the only one, and you have no idea what she’s suffered. She has taken you in, given you a roof and a job, and all you can do is sit there with a look of utter lust on your face, trying to get Evie to talk about bloody
chandeliers
and
silk!
’

I stared at her in dismay; part of me knew she was right, but the anger I felt at myself was too big, and I had to fire it back. ‘And you come in here,’ I shouted, ‘throw me out of my own room because you once slept in it ten years ago, and expect everyone to fall over themselves to be nice to you!’

‘I kept your silly secret about Belinda!’

‘You don’t
know
our “silly secret”!’

‘I know you have one.’

‘Well tell Frances, then. See how she feels about you having lied to her too.’

That stopped her, and she seized the quilt, without waiting to see if I’d help her. ‘I didn’t have to lie on your behalf,’ she muttered, but the spark had gone out of her. Still, she had sprung to our rescue, and I wanted to thank her again, hoping that perhaps it would ease things between us. But she carried on, ‘I just think it’d be better all round if you made up with your own mother and went home. Then you could have all the fun you want.’

That did it. I dropped the pillow on the floor and stalked out, and in the dorm I sat on my new bed, fighting tears of frustrated anger. The worst of it was, I really did want fun. I didn’t
want
to want it. I wanted to look around me here, to appreciate the pretty window with its view of the fields and the woods along the river. I wanted to need nothing more than this tranquil, hard-working life, and the woman who’d given it to me when I’d lost my own.

But the memory of laughter, and of dancing with Bel in the barn, and the giddy sense of displacement the wine had given me…and most of all the feeling of freedom and joy when I’d ridden Woody, had all served to remind me of what I was missing. My youth had been stolen before I’d had the chance to turn my nose up at parties, like Evie could, before I’d really learned anything about what young women enjoyed, and before I’d felt the sweet anticipation of the kiss of someone I loved; by the time Archie had kissed me I’d already lost him.

That reminded me of Nathan, of course, and when I thought of how close I had come to Frances finding out, I went cold. Thank God for Belinda. When she came in, a few minutes later, she looked at my reddened face and the way my hands were clutching my shirt into clumps, and sat down on her own bed.

‘Have you and Jessie had a row?’

‘How did you know?’

‘She just came downstairs in a proper funk, and left some of your things on the kitchen table. There had to be a reason she didn’t just pop them in here instead.’

I sighed. ‘She told me I should go home.’

‘Why on earth did she say that?’

‘Because she thinks I take advantage of Frances. That I’m ungrateful, and that I don’t deserve what I’ve been given here.’

Belinda sat up straight, outraged. ‘She said all that?’

‘No, but it’s what she was getting at. You heard her downstairs.’

‘Hmm.’ Belinda subsided again. ‘She doesn’t know you yet, that’s all. You just need to get used to each other, and to what you both mean to Frances. It’ll all be fine soon, you’ll see. Now, promise me you won’t be alone with Nathan Beresford again, and I’ll sleep more easily.’

I gave her a sheepish grin. ‘I promise. You can have him.’

‘I don’t want him!’ she huffed. ‘I just don’t want you getting involved. He’s an utter cad and will only break your heart. Archie’s the one for you, and the sooner you accept that, the better for everyone. Especially poor Arch.’

Poor Arch.
Sleep that night was fitful, and filled with snippets of bizarre dreams, in which Jessie and Archie sat at either end of a huge table, and they both kept almost disappearing. I was frantically trying to answer their demands for service before they faded away altogether, and when I woke in the morning I was exhausted before the day’s work had even begun.

Nathan was in the kitchen when I went down blearily rubbing my eyes and blinking against the bright light that streamed through the east-facing window. ‘Good morning, pretty Kitty.’

I felt anything but pretty at the best of times, but today I knew I looked my worst, and I blushed. ‘Just because it rhymes doesn’t make it true,’ I said.

He grinned, and struck a pose. ‘But, my dear, it
is
true,

That is how I see you,

With your red hair so curly… Forgive me; it’s early.’

I stared at him, mouth open, and then burst into laughter. I couldn’t help it. His smile widened, and he nodded at the teapot. ‘Can I interest you in a cup?’

I waited to see if he was going to follow it with another rhyme, but he didn’t. I felt a flicker of disappointment, but sat down, forgetting, for a moment, that I was supposed to be the one making breakfast today. ‘That was very clever.’

‘Ah, I’m quick of wit—always have been.’ He put a mug of tea in front of me, and sat down opposite, fixing me with his disturbingly lovely eyes, a smile still lurking at the corners of his mouth. I started to return it, then abruptly remembered last night.

‘Why didn’t you help Will, up in the loft? If you’d been there he wouldn’t have slipped and hurt himself.’

He frowned. ‘I know. I can’t tell you how dreadful I feel about that. I really didn’t think he’d do it all by himself. I just needed to take a moment to think about…things. That’s why I came to the barn. Seeing you there was a pleasant surprise though.’ He reached across the table and touched my hand where it clutched the mug. I jerked away, spilling a brown puddle onto the clean table, and jumped up to get a cloth, glad of an excuse to break away from his steady gaze. I thought back to his kiss… Had it really been so uninteresting? Surreptitiously I glanced at him as I mopped up the spill; he was so good-looking, how could it have been? Perhaps I had been too wrapped up in memories of Archie to really appreciate what had happened?

‘Kitty, tell me: what do you think of me?’

The question surprised me, and I took a moment to consider my reply. ‘I think you really do care about Will,’ I said thoughtfully, ‘and I also think you’re hiding something. But beyond that I really don’t know.’

‘Not what you think I
might be,
’ he insisted. ‘What do you think of what you see, who you’re talking to, right now?’

‘A charmer,’ I said drily, and he chuckled.

‘Well, that I can live with.’

‘I think you’re funny, and clever. I don’t think you’re at all trustworthy, but…I like talking to you.’

‘Good,’ he said softly. ‘Because I find your reticence fascinating.’ He touched my hand again, but this time I didn’t pull away. ‘I don’t know you any better than you know me. I suspect we both have secrets, things we’d rather forget.’ His expression clouded, but his hand tightened on mine. ‘But life’s for living right now. Don’t you agree?’

‘Wh-what do you mean?’

‘I mean, pretty Kitty, that I want to make those gorgeous green eyes flash, and laugh back at me again. I want that lovely mouth laughing too. I want your sweet, rough little hands touching me just for the devilment of it. Let’s not fool ourselves—’ he stood up, still holding my hand, and came around the table to crouch at my side ‘—we’re never going to be anything more to each other than we are right now, but let’s make right now worthwhile, eh?’

He rose, swiftly enough to bring me to my own feet without thinking, and before I knew what had happened, his arm had gone around my back and he had pushed me back against the table. My chest tightened with panic; he wasn’t tall, and he wasn’t even particularly well built, but he had me in a grip I couldn’t break. His lips took mine with eagerness, and no hint of violence, yet I couldn’t breathe…

My foot came down on his. Hard. Nathan yelped and stumbled away, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth. I slid out from between him and the table, trying to get my sickeningly racing heart under control again, and went to stand by the window, my arms folded, and my hands clenched into fists beneath them.

‘I’m never doing that again,’ I told Nathan without looking at him. ‘And you mustn’t try to make me.’ At least my voice wasn’t shaking the way my insides were.

‘Are you sure?’

I turned and saw a tiny, hopeful smile on his lips, but I didn’t need to reply. The smile faded, and he shook his head. ‘I just thought…’ he shrugged ‘…never mind. I was wrong. I’m sorry.’

‘I like you,’ I told him, feeling safer now we had a few feet between us, ‘but not in that way. Never in that way.’

He studied me for a moment, and he looked very serious for once. ‘Never is a long, long way away,’ he said. ‘And life is short. Remember that.’

Chapter Nine

Dear Katherine,

I have received a letter, from someone who has chosen not to give their name, telling me you are no longer in Dixmude at all, but at the address at which this letter now finds you. I cannot begin to tell you how disappointed we are to find you have been lying to us for so long, and we feel it was quite sly of you to go to all the trouble of having your letter posted to us from Belgium, just to maintain that deceit.