All the dear faces (65 page)

“
Did you mean what you said about running my own farms . . . and business, Reed?"

“
I did." He was satiated, replete, drained, empty and yet full of her and his voice was no more than a languorous murmur.

“
No matter what I decide?"

“
Mmmm."

“
I will have complete control and the right to make any decision I care to, even if it does not agree with what you think it should?"

“
What have you in mind?" and beneath her cheek which rested on his chest, she felt the faint tension in him. She sat up and her breasts fell forward, soft and heavy in his hand. He cupped them, smiling, his fingers smoothing her peaked nipples, his mind which had been about to become guarded, distracted from the matter of farms and 'business concerns', whatever they may be, as his male body prepared itself for another delightful onslaught on Annie's.

“
You will not try to . . . take over?"

“
My darling, even if I wanted to I couldn't 'take over' as you put it. Until you are my wife everything you own belongs to you. Even though we are to live at Long Beck as husband and wife . . . Dear God, Annie . . . when? . . . when? . . . it's four weeks since we decided and still you're under the same roof as . . . well, you know who I mean and I can't say I like it. Why don't you come over
to Long Beck and take a look round? Perhaps you would like to . . . well, I don't know . . . move things around, re-decorate the bedroom where . . . or even choose another and make it as you want it? Anything you want to do, I don't care my darling, just as long as you are there. You must be introduced to the servants and they must accept you as their mistress and if they don't then they can find other employment. There is so much to be arranged . . . your clothes and . . . listen, why don't you and I take a trip up to Carlisle? There is a woman there, a dress maker, who is a marvel, a skilled seamstress and embroideress, a genius of design and if I pay her well she could design and make you a complete wardrobe within the week . . ."

“
Reed . . ."

“
. .. her velvets and brocades are .. .
”

Restraining her instant jealous need to know how Reed Macauley was so well acquainted with velvets and brocades and the marvellous dress maker in Carlisle, she put an imperious hand across his mouth.

“
Stop it, Reed. You are doing it already, arranging me and what I should wear in the way you think I should be. . .

“
Confound it! Annie, you don't mean to wear those bloody trousers forever, do you?"

“
No, but I mean to change them when Annie Abbott is ready, not Reed Macauley. In the meanwhile I want to . . . to talk to you, ask your advice . . ."

“
Of course, my darling." He was at once gratified, she could see, by her female, or so he thought, dependence on him.

“
I mean to . . . put in a man to run Upfell, under my supervision, naturally. No one knows it's mine yet, and of course it isn't until I have paid you what I owe. Two hundred guineas will take a lot of finding . . ."

“
Annie, I don't want it."

“
Reed . . . !" Her voice was forbidding.

“
I'm sorry, Annie."

“
. . . but I should make a fair profit out of the combinedflocks of Upfell and Browhead which brings me to the question of my swills . . ."

“
Swills?" Sitting up, he pressed his lips to her shoulder, his hands still at her breasts, tweaking her nipples between his thumb and forefinger. He hitched himself behind her, his legs splayed one on either side of her body and she could feel the thrust of him between her buttocks. His hands ran down her belly as his mouth moved on her shoulders and at the nape of her neck. His fingers found the sweet, moist parting of her and involuntarily she opened herself wider to allow them to slip inside. The hot fire ran from them, down the inside of her thighs, up into her belly and thrusting breasts and she arched her back ..
.

With a cry of rage she dragged herself away from him, turning on her haunches like a wild cat, her eyes flaring, her teeth bared, her nails ready to claw him and he fell back.

“
Jesus Christ, what have I done now?" he gasped, his face still slack with his desire, his body at the full peak of his arousal.

“
Nothing, except what all men do with women."

“
And you did not want it?" His eyes had become dangerous. He did not like to have his love flung in his face, nor did he care for the crass foolishness of his own male rejected body, which she had caused.

“
Of course I did, but would you deal with a man in the same contemptuous way as you have . . ."

“
Don't be so bloody ridiculous! It is not the same at all." He began to laugh at the very idea, ready to take her in his arms, to smooth the outrage from her naked, female body, but she would not have it. Instead she reached for her clothes and with stiff and trembling fingers, fumbled her way into them.

“
Annie . . ." He was still ready to be amused, to laugh, to forgive, to continue, but she turned on him again, her wild temper beautiful and unrestrained.

“
Treat me seriously, Reed," she spat at him.

“
I do! By God, I do. Am I not demonstrating it by begging you to come and live with me at . . ."

“
Not that." Her voice was scornful "Not that, not us, but me, me, Annie Abbott. I am to be . . . in business as a man is in business and I want respect for it. A serious consideration of how I am to go about it and I am asking you to help me. As a man who has many business connections I wish you to advise another on how to go about . . . well, all the things that will need to be done . . ."

“
Could we not wait until a more appropriate time . . ."

“
You mean when I am sitting prettily in your drawing room, the certainty of my life with you firmly established and the chains you have put on me, locked and secured so that I may be more easily kept at your side with nothing of my own, no one but you, dependent on . . ."

“
Chains, chains! Christ Almighty, would that I could. If you'd let me keep you, comfortably, of course, in a room where no one, no man, could lay eyes on you and where . . . Annie . . . don't do this . . . don't let me do this to you . . . I'm sorry . . . sorry . . ." He groaned, bending his head and she was made terribly aware of how much this strong man loved her.

“
Christ . . . oh, sweet Jesus . . ." and she could hear plainly in his voice the cry that meant 'I can't bear it' and she winced, for despite his strength he was very frail, weakened by his love for her
.

She knelt down and took him in her arms, rocking him as a mother would a hurting child.

“
Tell me," he mumbled into her shoulder, "but first let me get dressed.
”

She meant to go into the business of producing swill baskets, she told him, when they were both calm. She leaned in the curve of his arm as they rested their backs against a rough grey stone which grew out of the grass.

“
Not just a dozen swills at a time, but a hundred, a thousand even. I have the coppicing at Browhead and now at Upfell, and could purchase more. There is a coppice wood for sale by auction in November, at Wood Top near Stepthwaite. Mostly oak of fourteen years' growth so it is almost ready for harvesting, but of course . . . well, when I have the money, that is the kind of land I will belooking for. And I will need a . . . a . . . place to work. I have the building, the barn, which could be turned into a small workshop, but I will need more, and then there are the men to make them. They are used in so many industries, the need is enormous. Coal mines, the shipping lines, farming, they could even be sent abroad. I have served my apprenticeship, Reed, so I know what I'm talking about. I could train boys, men, to be swillers, or take on men who are fully trained themselves. All it needs is someone to find the market for the swills and supply it."

“
And that would be?"

“
Perhaps myself . . . or . . ."

“
I thought so. You would tramp about the country treating with men of business?"

“
I already have a contact in Whitehaven. A sea captain who said, for a small commission, of course, that he would take my swills to Liverpool and sell them for me."

“
I see.
”

Dear God, it was hard and would get harder, she agonised, feeling the struggle of him as he did his best not to turn and shake her into obedience and submission. He didn't like it. He was doing his best to allow her to be the woman she wanted to be, to do what she longed to do, but it went against every instinct in his masculine world which told him that she should be in his life, in his home, in his bed, safe and loved, at least by him; an instinct that detested the very idea of her being independent, free and at liberty to do as she pleased.

“
Will you help me, Reed? Tell me where to start? Where you would start?
”

He was silent for so long she sat up, turning to gaze anxiously into his face. He was looking out over the pool, his attention centred on the still depths of it, his face set, his eyes flat and expressionless.

“
Reed?"

“
I shall lose you if I don't, won't I?"

“
Oh no, my darling, I love you . . ."

“
I know you do, and I also know that if I let you struggle
on, unaided, you will do your damnedest to succeed, but you will resent me. Resent my unconcern, though of course, I shall be concerned. I have no choice, have I?"

“
Of course you have."

“
No, I knew it long ago. To keep you I must set you free so . . ." turning to smile sadly into her eager face, ". . . let us begin. Your first lesson in sharp business dealings ... "

“
Honest business dealings, Reed."

“
Indeed, but you must learn that the two can run
together.
”

*

She was vaulting the wall at the back of Browhead when Charlie rose up at her feet. Her heart was light, her face vibrant with it, her eyes dreaming, her senses enthralled with the marvel that was to be her future. With Reed, with her love, with her satisfying attack on the world of business where only men went. For that moment her farm, her sheep, her expansion into Upfell, the life she had lived with Charlie and Phoebe, and before that with Cat and Natty, had evaporated as easily as the mist at the top of Skiddaw when the sun touched it.

“
Where in hell have you been?" he snarled, catching her wrist with a cruel, savage hand, one which meant to hurt.

“
Charlie, you scared me, jumping up out of nowhere like that. What were you doing behind the wall . . . ?"

“
Never mind what I was doing, tell me what you were doing, and who with, and not just today but every day for the past few weeks? I've seen you go up there to the peat moss and come back with an empty sledge. You thought I was in the coppice working, as I am supposed to, as I have been doing for the past four years, without wages mind, whilst you crept up there on the fell, and by God, the temptation to see for myself what you were up to has been almost too much to bear, and only the . . . the horror of knowing, of actually knowing, what I only suspect, has kept me from it. I could not stand it you see, having the images which torment my over active imagination, actuallycome to life so I stayed away, but I knew, of course I did . . . oh God, Annie . . . tell me I am imagining it, that you have . . . have been . . . elsewhere . . . anywhere .. but not with him . . ."

“
Charlie ... "

“
Don't . . . don't try to . . . to comfort me, Annie. Don't lie." His face was haunted. "I have never known anyone as honest and brave and beautiful as you, my dearest love, and I couldn't bear it if you lied to me now. I've watched you taking on the whole of Bassenthwaite parish, all by yourself, fighting them and their prejudices, hurting I know, but always getting up again when they knocked you down. You have been my pride and delight and glory and . . . even now . . . I cannot help but love you. I have not been celibate, Annie. It is possible to enjoy a sexual relationship without love in it you know, but nothing, none of them, drove you from my heart.
“

They stood on the high ground at the back of Browhead, the land sloping away to the farmhouse and the patchwork of fields beyond it, each one divided from its neighbour by a grey ribbon of drystone wall. There was a sudden flicker of wind straight from the fell, bringing the summer fragrance of heather and bracken. Nothing moved, only her painful heart as it beat for Charlie's anguish.

“
Charlie, please listen." She put a warm, steadying hand on his arm, affectionate, reassuring, but he threw it off with a violence she had not known was in him.