Shining Threads (29 page)

No such thought was in her head as she sat next to him that evening. Though they were the conventional distance apart at the dining table she could feel the warmth of his body strike hers, smell
the fresh, lemon-scented aroma of his shaving lotion and was acutely aware of the texture of his brown skin, the movement of his muscled shoulders beneath the well-fitting evening coat, the shape
of his smiling mouth from which came the courteous and correct words a dinner guest is expected to address to another and the fierceness of his desire which lay deep in his brown eyes.

They met again the following weekend when the Squire ended the season with a hunt ball to which Miss Harrison and her cousins were invited.

She had marked time all that week, chafed by her need to see him again, to see if he was as she remembered him, consumed by the span of the days which dragged from second to everlasting second,
from hour to endless hour. She had been unable to sit still for longer than thirty seconds, to sleep for longer than an hour, her mind dwelling on the colour and shape of his eyes, the tilt of his
eyebrows, the soft brushed gold of his hair and the absolute certainty that when his mouth found hers, as she knew it would, she would know the absolute and supreme truth of life itself. She rode
for hours on the tops, demanding of her mare impossible speeds, then standing, shivering, as the animal did, in a fit of remorse. She could not understand the way that she felt, nor, if she was
honest, did she care to wonder about it since it could not be altered by wondering and marvelling. She fretted through every long hour which kept him from her.

She wore an evening gown of stark simplicity, a sheath of poppy-red taffeta, cut so low there had been a murmur as she entered the ballroom between her cousins. She wore no jewellery though it
was known there were many fine pieces in the family, owned by her aunt, and her aunt’s mother, Hannah Chapman. Since Drew had cut her hair so dramatically, it had grown again and she wore it
now low on the nape of her neck in an intricate coil in the centre of which was one enormous red silk poppy. Drew and Pearce were elegant at her side in their black evening attire, handsome and
superior as thoroughbreds and glaring about them, those in their vicinity declared, as though they might strike any man who so much as spoke to her, though why they should since they were known to
be light-hearted themselves, was quite an enigma. But it was agreed that they made a most arresting trio as they stood at the top of the Squire’s splendid staircase waiting in line to be
received by him and his lady, their commercial background scarcely showing.

He was at her elbow almost before her hand had been released by the Squire’s and for the next three hours, to the chagrin of every lady present, to the swelling, dangerous, and surprising
resentment of her over-protective cousins, and to the mortification of the Squire’s lady who could not understand how a gentleman of such impeccable breeding could be so ill-mannered as Robby
Atherton, they danced every dance together, ate supper together; bemused, bewitched, the Squire’s lady said acidly to her husband, raising pained eyebrows as they floated past her once more,
and, really, if her husband did not intervene and remind their weekend guest of his obligation in return for their hospitality, she would.

13

She thought about Will in those weeks of enchantment more than she had ever done since their last bitter quarrel and she wondered on the reason for it. Was it because in this
new and rapturous love, this giddy joy she knew each time she and Robby Atherton met, she could at last understand what Will had felt for her and, in a strange way, sympathise with him? How would
she feel if she were to be deprived of the man, the handsome, complex, lovable man who was Robby Atherton? Would she not have felt and acted in exactly the same way? Would she not have been empty
of hope and joy, as Will had been? Would she not have been angry and bitter because the love which had filled her days, and her life, had been savagely ripped away from her? As Will had been. But
surely Will must have known that eventually what they had must end, for how could he, an employee in her family’s mill, hope to become the husband of one of its daughters? He would have known
in his head, where reason and logic was, that one day she would marry one of her own class, or even above it, for she was a woman not only with physical attraction but a splendid dowry which would
be enough to earn her a grand catch in the marriage market She was, if not by name then by birth, a Greenwood, a member of a family which had clawed its way from weavers’ cottage to what it
was today, and certainly she could not be expected to go back a step, which was what she would do if she married Will. That is, if she had wanted to!

She looked back curiously to that period in her life, no longer than three or four months really, in which she had been bewitched, she could think of no other word, by the splendour, the hard
masculine beauty of Will’s body. Though she tried to tell herself that it had been no more than the awakening sensuality of young womanhood – since she knew about that now – an
inherited recklessness which all the Greenwoods seemed to possess and which she had been unable to deny, she was honest enough to admit that it had been more than that. True, she had been delighted
with the amber glow of his smooth skin, the steady gaze of his smoky brown eyes, the warm strength of his firm mouth. She had desired only to be across the threshold of his cottage with the door
shut firmly behind her; shut herself and Will Broadbent on one side of it, leaving on the other reason and sanity; shut out the world which, she admitted to herself, she wished to remain ignorant
of what she did with a man who was no more than her uncle’s overlooker. All she had wanted, desperately needed, was to have her arms about his neck, to be clinging to his strong shoulders
whenever they met. It had been a folly in which she had indulged herself a folly she had thought never to undertake. She had wanted him. She had wanted his brown and muscled body, the hard yet
tender love he had offered her. She had wanted it and she had been prepared to do, or say, anything to have it.

But there had been another side to their relationship and she must not scorn it. Will Broadbent was a man who had been given the ability to sharpen his own intelligence. He was keen, shrewd and
with a warm spirit to add balance. He had possessed the knack of giving her, as she knew he gave others, not self-esteem exactly, since she had that, but a worth which had nothing to do with how
she looked or who she was. He had argued with her, naturally, since they were both stubborn with a belief in the rightness of their own opinions, but he had given her the realisation that her mind
and her emotions were as important to him as her line body. He had made her laugh, his wit often audacious and irreverent. He was well read and had told her tales she had never heard from Miss
Copeland, adventures of men like Columbus and Marco Polo and more recently of the great David Livingstone and his discoveries on the continent of Africa, holding her in his arms in the deep
feather-bed until other, more pressing matters had overtaken them.

So, a man worthy of loving was Will Broadbent, but not to be compared with the dazzling splendour of Robby Atherton.

He called the following Friday, giving the appearance of a man who has been hard pressed to contain himself for the required period polite society demanded of a gentleman, arriving in the
Squire’s carriage which he had borrowed, he told her, since he could hardly carry ‘these’ on his roan. ‘These’ were roses, masses of velvet-textured, heavily perfumed
buds of every shade from the palest cream through delicate pink to deepest scarlet, a carriage-full begged, he said ruefully, from the Squire’s garden. Not to be compared with
her
velvet-eyed beauty, of course, his eyes told her, smiling down at her with that easy, lounging charm she found so irresistible. She was so indescribably happy she could barely speak.

‘I know I should not have called unannounced but I thought if your mother was receiving . . . well, I would dearly love to . . .’ he shrugged his shoulders, telling her without words
that her family was of the utmost importance to him now. As the astonishing image of her mother ‘receiving’ slipped in and out of her mind, the roses were placed carefully in her arms,
thorns catching in the fabric of his superbly cut, superbly tailored coat and in the soft ivory muslin of her afternoon gown, fastening them together for a breathless moment, his mouth close to
hers, his hands hovering as he delicately disentangled them.

‘My mother is not at home but I believe Laurel . . . my cousin . . . is receiving callers. That is if you would not mind . . . well, there are other ladies . . .’

‘I should be delighted to meet Laurel,’ he said gravely.

‘The ladies, wives of manufacturing gentlemen, naturally, for Laurel had not yet been successful in enticing those from the gentry on whom she had set her heart – the Squire’s
lady, Mrs Celia Longworth, related to a minor earl, it was said; Sir Anthony Taylor’s wife, Lady Prudence, a lady in her
own
right – were flung into an absolute turmoil of
genteel confusion at the arrival of such an obvious member of the ruling class. So well mannered, they observed, so well bred, so patently interested in Jenny Harrison’s girl it was almost
indecent. And would you look at her with her arms full of roses and her eyes with stars, and which way was the wind blowing
there
, they wondered to one another.

‘Laurel, may I introduce Mr Atherton? He is a guest at the Hall.’

At the Hall! Did you hear that? The ladies were positively agog, casting sidelong, knowing glances as he bent his head courteously over each hand. As for Laurel Greenwood – well, if she
had been a dog she would have wagged her tail, so great was her satisfaction. He sat amongst them, perfectly at ease as he balanced a fine bone-china teacup and saucer in one hand, a fine
bone-china plate on which Laurel had placed a dainty macaroon, in the other. He listened to every word they each addressed to him. They were delighted with him and his pedigreed presence in their
midst and when he begged Tessa if he might be shown the gardens, they watched, with sighing regret, as he went down the steps from the drawing-room and on to the wide green lawn.

Tessa felt her face soften with blissful satisfaction. She had known from the first, of course, but it was miraculous to realise that her instinct about him had been right. He was not only
handsome and charming, he was amiable. He was kind No sunshine had ever been so warm and bright, dancing on her skin as she walked beside him on that afternoon – a bright blue afternoon
shading into a golden evening and the dazzling prospect of what was waiting for them, though not to be spoken of yet, naturally. How did she know? What was it about him that was so in tune with
her
, with the intricate bone and muscle, tissue and nerves of Tessa Harrison? Why did she feel so at
one
with him? She neither knew nor cared. It was there, it had happened and why
should she question it? What did they talk of that afternoon, she wondered later? They laughed at the same absurdities, she did remember that, until, with a suddenness and a fierceness that
surprised her, Drew and Pearce were there, like two boisterous, roistering, foolish schoolboys, or so they seemed in contrast with the complete man who was Robby Atherton. They invaded the magic
circle which had wrapped itself around them; became surly when she was disinclined to notice them, her haughty manner telling them quite plainly to take themselves off, for could they not see that
just for this one time, this enchanted moment, she could well do without their presence?

They only scowled, placing themselves on either side of her.

‘You’re in these parts again I see, Mr Atherton,’ Drew said, rudely, Tessa thought. ‘Or have you been a guest at the Hall since last weekend?

‘Please, call me Robby. And no, I have been home but the Squire invited me to meet some friends he has coming for the weekend.’ And what has it to do with you? his coolly arrogant
expression asked before he remembered that these were Tessa Harrison’s cousins of whom she was, presumably, fond, and therefore must be treated politely, difficult though that might be. He
knew, naturally, being a man, what caused their antipathy.

‘Indeed.’ Drew sounded as though he couldn’t quite bring himself to believe him.

‘Indeed. A champagne picnic is planned for tomorrow afternoon, and a party in the evening. But are you not invited? he asked somewhat urgently, turning to Tessa, his whole demeanour
implying that if she was not he could scarcely be expected to attend himself ‘I was given to believe that you . . .’

‘Oh, yes, we shall be there, shall we not, cousin?’ Pearce took Tessa’s arm quite savagely, much to her surprise and annoyance. We shall
both
be there, Mr
Atherton.’

‘I believe you had a gentleman caller this afternoon, Tessa?’ Her mothers look was keen and Tessa turned eagerly to her, her radiance shining about the candle-lit
drawing-room, her expression that of all those who love and long to talk of the beloved.

‘Yes, did Laurel . . . speak of him?’ She and her mother had dined alone that night, Drew and Pearce galloping off into the darkening night, only they knowing where they were going
and why they rode at such a breakneck speed to get there.

‘No. She and Charlie had already left for the Abbotts when I got home. It was Briggs who told me. You know what an old gossip he is. Quite beside himself with it, he was. A gentleman
caller, he said, making sure I knew exactly what he meant.’ Her mother smiled for there was no worse snobbery than that which existed amongst servants. ‘Who was he, lass?’

For some reason Tessa turned awkward, assuming the casual air of a hostess who has been called upon by an acquaintance of no importance and who is really not worth the mentioning.

‘Oh, no one really. A friend of . . . a mutual friend of Nicky Longworth’s and, I suppose, of Drew and Pearce. They were here to greet him.’ It was almost true.