Country Lovers (24 page)

         

T
HEY
hadn't realized a sudden strong wind had got up while they'd been eating in the mall, but as soon as they came out of the car park onto the main road, the wind caught the car and Rhodri had to grip the steering wheel tightly to prevent its being pushed against the curb.

“My word! Would you believe this? Some gale this is, Megan love.”

“Let's get home. I'm worried about Da.”

“No need. He'll be all right.” But perhaps he won't be when I've said my piece to him, Rhodri thought.

They battled their way to Beulah Bank, expecting any moment that a tree would be down across the road. Up Beulah was a difficult road at the best of times, with all its steepness and twists and turns, but now it was a nightmare.

Rhodri had to hold on to the door so Megan could get out of the car. They struggled across the yard and into the house. Megan's first words were “Da! We're back! Are you all right?”

She'd no need to have worried. He was as cool as a cucumber, reading a book. “I'm fine. Hello, Rhodri. Bad night.”

“It is. I was expecting a tree across Up Beulah, but there isn't, not yet.”

“Can I get you a drink, Da?”

“No, thank you. I haven't finished the wine I had for dinner.” Mr. Jones picked up a wineglass from the table beside his chair and drank from it. “Nice wine, this.”

“Would you like a drink, Rhodri?”

“I'd like tea, please. Don't want any more alcohol when I'm driving.”

“OK.”

Rhodri sat down on the chair nearest to Mr. Jones. “Megan has been telling me about your plans for opening up the old dairy as a bedroom for you. It sounds like an absolutely splendid idea and very astute of you to have thought of it. It will be great for you to have a room where you can go when you're fed up with the two of us and great for us to have space to ourselves, and I reckon it's a very civilized way of going about it.”

“But…?”

“You're right, there is a but. I shall come straight to the point because you're a man who prefers to look things squarely in the face, and I admire that. You know where you are with a man like that. So…at the moment, I cannot see my way to changing my name. So that will have to be put aside for the time being. You're not, please, not to make things difficult for Megan. She's had quite enough worry over Gab and your health without adding to it with this suggestion of yours.” Rhodri looked Old Man Jones straight in the eyes and didn't lower his gaze for a second.

But he didn't get a reply, so Rhodri continued the conversation as though he'd never mentioned the Hughes-Jones question. “I hear you're going to stay with Dan and Rose while Megan and I are in Wales. You'll enjoy having the baby to watch; he's getting to look quite human. Smiling and such.”

Still there was no reply to his statement, so Rhodri fell silent and watched the logs burning in the grate instead of talking. Megan came in with a tray, and he got up and pulled a small table in front of the fire so she had somewhere to place it.

“You two are very quiet. What's the matter, Da? Cat got your tongue?”

“No, definitely not. Rhodri here has been telling me how pleased he is with the building work I've suggested, you know, breaking through into the dairy, and that he knows me as a man who likes to look things squarely in the face, and one who values honesty. So that's how he likes things too, and he's agreed to add Jones to his name, like I suggested. Jones-Hughes. Sounds imposing, don't you think?”

Rhodri's mouth dropped open in disbelief. Once or twice he'd used the word “conniving” when he'd spoken of Old Man Jones, and he'd never been more right.

Megan looked amazed. “Have you?”

Rhodri shook his head at her. “No, I have not. I said that at the moment, I can't see my way to changing my name. Not at all. At the moment.” He turned to face Mr. Jones. “You know full well that's what I said, and what I say I mean. If it is a prerequisite for marriage, then I'm afraid it's just not on. We shall marry anyway and damn the consequences. You once said to me that there wouldn't be a penny of your money for Megan if we married, and I said we didn't care. We still don't care. We shall still marry whether you like it or not. We shan't starve, believe me.”

Rhodri got to his feet and put a cup of tea on his future father-in-law's table. Mr. Jones dashed it aside, and the tea spilled all over his table and on his bottles of tablets. Rhodri saw his hand stray toward his stick as he shouted, “I said I didn't want tea.” His fingers closed as best they could over the handle of his stick, his intention only too obvious.

His voice fierce with anger and more Welsh than ever, Rhodri shouted, “Pick up that stick and threaten me with it, and I shall walk out of this house with Megan and we shan't return. I will not be dominated by your temper and your wishes to the exclusion of everyone else's feelings. Megan comes first now and not before time.”

“I see. You can shout at me now, can you, now you think you've got your feet under my table?”

“I don't want to shout. What I do want is Megan's happiness. She's had little of that lately, at your beck and call seven days a week. I hear you've actually made a cup of tea, got upstairs without any help, served your own meal tonight while we've been out. That doesn't sound like the helpless man I've always thought you were. If ever it got out that you'd been
acting
helpless all this time, it wouldn't reflect very well on you, now would it?”

“Hmmph.”

Megan was silently crying, but, intent on their quarrel, neither of them noticed.

“Wanting me to change my name is your way of dominating me. Well, those days are done. Believe me. It is the most enormous sacrifice on my part to live here in this house. I so wanted Megan to live in my house, with me, away from all this, free from this slavery.”

Rhodri waved a hand at the invalid paraphernalia on Mr. Jones's side table. “I can just hear Rose tut-tutting if she heard about your behavior.”

That stung Mr. Jones. A picture of a smiling Rose came uppermost into his mind, and he knew he didn't want her to know. Not Rose. No. Not all weekend knowing that in her eyes he'd behaved less than honorably. But, he asked himself, why did he feel able to behave dishonorably to Megan, then?

Ah! But if he was honest, he knew the answer to that; it was because she was so like her mother in looks that he harbored a passionate desire, buried very deep, to get his own back at her. Her mother. His wife. Who'd despised him. Hated him even. He remembered how his behavior had driven her to weeping bitter tears, and he hadn't thought about those tears for a long time. Mr. Jones looked about him. Saw Rhodri standing quite still, looking down at him waiting, waiting for an answer. Megan quietly crying so despairingly. There was an awful lot to lose at this moment. She wasn't to blame for what was happening now, simply because she reminded him of his failures. The bitter tears of her mother had to be laid at his door. And this Rhodri fellow was stout in his defense of her, a rock he was, a loving, devoted rock that's what—and a Welsh Nationalist too.

Old Man Jones took another drink of his wine, hoping it would steady his nerves. The glass almost slipped from his twisted fingers as he put it down, but he mustn't let it, he mustn't show his weakness. “The matter of changing your name can be left in abeyance. We'll have the reception at the George, and I shall foot the bill like all brides' fathers do, and if I can, I'll give the bride away but not from that damned wheelchair. I shall be upright on my own two legs.”

“Thank you. Thank you.”

The wind hammered at every window and door of the house, and howled down the chimneys. “You must stay the night. It's too risky driving back in this gale. There's only Megan's bedroom aired, so you'd better sleep in there.” He picked up his book, placed his reading glasses on his nose, and didn't look up to see their reaction. There was nothing like a magnificent gesture to impress everyone. He couldn't read a word; he was too confused. The lines wavered and waltzed over the page, so he had to pretend he was reading till his head cleared.

He glanced up at the two of them. His daughter was sitting on a stool at Rhodri's feet, and they were holding hands. He had an idea that Rhodri'd make sure Megan wouldn't be crying bitter tears, ever.

Megan must have forgotten he was still in the room. He watched her look up at Rhodri crouched on the edge of his chair, his arm around her shoulders, staring into the fire, and the look on her face caused her father's heart to lurch. He hoped Rhodri knew how blessed he was to have a wife who loved him like Megan did. But then he caught sight of Rhodri's face as he turned to her with a look full of love and adoration, and the dried-up, wizened core of him warmed to them both.

By Rebecca Shaw

THE BARLEYBRIDGE NOVELS

A Country Affair

Country Wives

Country Lovers

Also by Rebecca Shaw

COME BACK TO BARLEYBRIDGE, the picture-postcard English village where everybody knows their neighbors…

I
N THE
first of Rebecca Shaw's Barleybridge novels, a young, inexperienced, and shy woman named Kate Howard arrives in this idyllic village to embark on a new adventure as the receptionist at the Barleybridge Veterinary Hospital.

         

A Country Affair / 1-4000-9820-3 / $12.95 paper

A
S
K
ATE
worries about her veterinary exam results, she learns that everyone at the Barleybridge Veterinary Hospital has a secret worry of their own.

         

Country Wives / 1-4000-9821-1 / $12.95 paper

         

Available from Three Rivers Press wherever books are sold.

         
THREE RIVERS PRESS. NEW YORK.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2003 by Rebecca Shaw

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Three Rivers Press, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

www.crownpublishing.com

Three Rivers Press and the Tugboat design are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Originally published in paperback in Great Britain by Orion Books Ltd., London, in 2003.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Shaw, Rebecca, 1931–

Country lovers / Rebecca Shaw.—1st American ed.

p. cm.

1. Veterinarians—Fiction. 2. Dorset (England)—Fiction. I. Title.

PR6069.H388C686 2007

823'.92—dc22                                                                                                                                                                           2006017809

eISBN: 978-0-307-38194-1

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