Shining Threads (42 page)

‘I want to marry him, Mother. I love Drew, you know that, and he needs me. And I have no one else in my life, no one else I could share my future with. What better way to spend my life
than with a man I have loved ever since I was a child? There is nothing else for me, Mother,
you
know that.’

‘But that is no reason to marry Drew, child. He is recovered now.’

‘That is because he knows I’m here to . . . protect him.’

Jenny looked surprised, then disbelieving.

‘No, Tessa, you mustn’t think that. If you believe that he can only live his life with you by his side then you are being . . . well, I was going to say coerced into marrying him.
Oh, I know not deliberately since Drew wouldn’t do that to you, but unwittingly. You have been his . . . his crutch – no, don’t argue with me for that is the right word –
ever since he got home. You have taken Pearce’s place by his side and have helped to heal him. Now I’m not saying I’m against the marriage, but I don’t want you to do it for
the wrong reason. Drew is . . . a wild young man and you’re no meek and mild miss yourself, my girl, and I reckon when he gets over this gratitude he feels towards you and you overcome the
sense of responsibility you seem to have for him, there’ll be fireworks. You’re a strong girl . . . woman . . . Tessa, and you’ll not take kindly to bonds . . .’

‘
Bonds?
Drew would not bind me.’ The uneasy calm which existed between Tessa and her mother flared up instantly into the tense friction left over from the grief they had
shared two years ago. She was polite with Jenny, enough to hide the rift between them from the rest of the family, but the ease had gone from their relationship and would never be as it once was.
She was aware that the devastation, the desolation had not been caused by her mother, just as the shell, aimed by a soldier’s hand, which had killed Pearce, could not be blamed for his death,
but the bitterness remained in her heart just the same.

‘Drew is a man, child, and has all the male characteristics of possession, pride and pigheadedness. And you are a beautiful woman, yes, you might well stare and smile, but there is
something about you, not just to do with the way you look, that men like.’

‘Oh, come now, Mother. When I’m Drew’s wife I’m hardly likely to attract men to my side.’

‘Why not? You have always been . . . different from other girls, mixing with that free and easy lot up at the Hall. Oh, yes, I hear about the goings on . . . Now don’t pull your face
at me, my girl, since I know you, and I know you wouldn’t do anything to shame your family or yourself . . .’

Tessa turned abruptly away so that her mother could not see, and wonder at, the expression on her face.

‘. . . but your name is linked with it just the same. Drew is a friend of Nicky Longworth. The Squire seems to have taken a fancy to you both and at the moment, with Drew not entirely
himself yet, there has been no discord. No . . . problems, shall we say. But let me tell you this: when you are his wife things will be very different. He is his father’s son with a capacity
for enormous emotions, whether love, hate, jealousy or rage, of the most red-blooded kind.’

Tessa listened to her mother with every appearance of disbelief but her mind returned to that moment when she had been laughing with Nicky Longworth and the others at the Hall as she had done a
dozen times before in the past. They accepted her cheerfully, as they had always done, seeing her not as a girl when she had tagged along with them, but as an appendage of Drew and Pearce. But she
was a woman now and she had sensed the change in them, the speculation in their eyes. Admiring certainly, and still respectful for dare they be anything else in the company of Drew Greenwood? But
assessing just the same, since she was an unattached girl whose reputation was somewhat questionable.

And Drew had not liked their recognition of her attractions, nor the way she had responded to it. It had amused her and, if she was honest, pleased the female in her, that was all, but he had
not known that and his displeasure had been very evident. She had thought at the time it was his own fragile condition and state of mind but now, as she listened to her mother she recognised there
had been something else there, something she had seen once before.

On the face of Will Broadbent!

‘I cannot let him down. He does need me, Mother.’

‘I think it might be you who needs him, Tessa. I think that is what you are saying. You have made up your mind there is no one else for you and so, because he has asked you and you feel
beholden, you will marry him. To comfort yourself as well as him.’ Her mother’s voice became urgent. ‘But there will be someone for you one day, lass. Don’t rush into this
thing because it is expected of you.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Mother.’ Then her manner softened somewhat ‘Don’t you see it would be suitable for both of us . . . ?’

‘Suitable! That is no reason for marriage, not in my opinion, though I daresay there are those who would argue with me over it.’

‘I only mean Drew and I really are alike. We are suited by our temperament and upbringing. We admire the same things, activities and . . .’

‘Yes?’

‘He knows I cannot abide housekeeping and doing all the things Laurel does . . .’

‘And what about Laurel? You and she do not get on. Are you prepared to live under the same roof with her for the rest of your days? This house is Drew’s inheritance and will one day
be his. Laurel has run Greenacres for a long time now, and very competently, if we are to be fair to her. She looks on it as her home and unless you and Drew are prepared to ask her and Charlie and
the children to find other accommodation you will have her at
your
dinner table, which she will consider to be
hers
, forever.’

‘I will not interfere with her. She is mistress here.’

‘No! You will be mistress. Your husband will be its master,
is
master now with Joss and Kit permanently abroad. You would do better with a housekeeper who could run the place, and
Laurel in her own home elsewhere. Charlie could afford to buy a grand house where she could be in complete charge but it would mean you would have to settle to domestic duties . . .’

‘Good God, I couldn’t bear it. I’d rather have Laurel queening herself about the place.’

‘You could perhaps share the responsibility . . .’

‘Merciful heaven, how appalling. No, she does it so well, as you say, and I should be bored to death within a week. Besides, I want to help Drew.’

‘To do what?’

‘Well,’ she shrugged her shoulders since she was not sure, ‘in whatever it is he is to . . . to do.’

Jenny looked at her sadly, not awfully sure her daughter knew what marriage to Drew Greenwood entailed, and not awfully sure she wanted to tell her. He was a complex man, particularly since the
death of his brother, always youthfully self-willed and ready to challenge any opinion which opposed his own. Now that he was a man would he not be doubly so? Pearce’s death had shattered him
in a particularly subtle way, for they were not only brothers but twins. And the manner of Pearce’s death had been harrowing for in the back of Drew’s mind was surely the thought that
his brother had died from wounds sustained as he rescued Drew from the Redan at Sebastopol. What nightmares dwelled in the mind of Drew Greenwood? What frailties remained to bring him down? What
weaknesses which he might be unable to withstand? He had, almost overnight, become himself again, confident, positive, audacious even, his wit and charm a delight at the dinner table. He had even
apologised to Laurel and Charlie, begging their forbearance, claiming the strain of his recent illness, for what else could it be called? His good humour, at least to Charlie, proved irresistible,
though his sister was less inclined to be forgiving.

The three months betrothal was something which must be got through with the best possible grace, he said to Tessa. It was expected of them. They were members of a family with obligations not
only to each other, but to his father and mother, to her mother and to their position in the community. There would be parties and dinners in their honour and it would be churlish not to comply.
Joss and Kit Greenwood were to come home at once, to see their only son married and also to attend to several legal matters which now arose because of it. There were many preparations which must be
attended to, not the least Tessa’s wedding outfit and trousseau for her mother declared, despite the peculiarity of the betrothal, her daughter would not go to her marriage without a new
shift to her name. And Laurel, her mouth grim, her face set in a mould of cold disapproval, was nevertheless determined to snatch every advantage she could from her brother’s connection with
the gentry and would entertain as many as could be crammed into Greenacres in the three months prior to the wedding.

They had ridden that day up to Friar’s Mere, guiding their mounts amongst the browning, mist-soaked bracken which dripped about them. It was cold that autumn, almost winter though
September was barely done with, and they both wore warmly lined capes and gloves. Their own breath wreathed with the horses’ about them and when they dismounted to look over the shaded
valley, she shivered suddenly, not with cold but with some sudden disquiet which came from nowhere to trouble her.

He draped a companionable arm across her shoulders, wise in the ways of women. Best not to startle her too soon with his own needs, and so he remained, despite the magnificent diamond on her
finger, just as he had always been, cousin, companion, friend.

‘Are you cold, sweetheart,’ he asked lightly, ‘or just contemplating the future as Mrs Drew Greenwood and finding it somewhat daunting?’

She looked up at him sharply. She was not always sure lately when he was teasing. In his new role as her ‘fiancé’ she supposed he had the right now to be somewhat more . . .
familiar with her, not intimate, for that was reserved for their wedding night, but not exactly the same as he had been as ‘cousin’. But he was just the same. Both of them had suffered
a great loss. They had been bruised and lonely, needing, probably, to be loved and they had given something to one another on the day when he had asked her to marry him and she had accepted
gratefully. She needed warmth and some emotion he seemed to be offering. She rested easily when she was with him, trusting him as implicitly as she had always done and she was aware that in her he
found something he had lost with Pearce.

‘Oh, really, Tessa, don’t tell me you don’t find this somewhat strange?’

‘Well . . .’ She knew what he meant and was grateful that he was treating it with humour and lightness.

‘It is new to us both, this “betrothal”.’ He grinned down at her, making her smile as he exaggerated the word.

‘I’m not afraid, Drew Greenwood.’ Immediately she began to bristle, shying away from him indignantly but he pulled her back, laughing, his eyes narrowed and shining.

‘Yes, you are, just a little bit. Afraid that things might be changed between us because of . . . well, because you will be my wife, but I promise you they won’t.’ He grinned
wickedly. ‘Would you like to try something?’

‘What?’ she said suspiciously.

‘Well, we are betrothed, as they say, so surely it would be allowed?’

‘What?’ she said again.

‘A kiss to seal our . . . pact.’ He smiled even more engagingly, turning her so that she faced him. He reached up to tuck a damp strand of hair behind her ear, his gaze moving across
her face, resting on her smooth brow, the puzzled depths of her eyes, the touch of rose in her cheeks put there by the cold, and finally, her soft, parted lips.

‘What pact?’

‘To marry, of course, and besides, it won’t be the first time. Remember that Christmas when Pearce and I caught you under the mistletoe? We each stole a kiss from you. In fact, I do
believe we had no need of theft.’

Her mouth curled up in a wide smile and as it did so he placed his own carefully against it. It was a smiling kiss, light as thistledown with no more in it than a friend might give to another.
He tasted the sweetness of her breath and felt the warmth of it drift into his open mouth. She leaned against him, willing to go on, her eyes so lovely and trusting told him, and he caught his
breath.

‘Did you know that in this light your eyes have the palest, softest blue in them?’ he said wonderingly. ‘Like the smoke you see against a summer sky. Transparent
almost.’

‘Oh, Drew, stop teasing.’ Her arms crept up behind him, her hands gripping one another in the centre of his back. His were across her shoulders and he pulled her into them, tucking
her head into the hollow of his neck.

‘I need you, Tessa,’ he said quietly, his breath moving her dark hair.

‘I’m here, Drew,’ she answered and when she looked up at him, smiling, his face was serious. He held her gaze for a moment, then bent his head and took her lips again and this
time it was different. For a moment she wanted to draw back for this was how Robby had kissed her. This was warm and filled with desire and she was not really ready . . . no . . . not with this man
who was her cousin. She closed her eyes so that Drew could not read the expression in them, the expression which surely would reveal to him that . . . that other kisses had been left there, and in
her heart, and that no one, no others could replace the ones she had lost.

But when she opened her eyes again there he was, Drew Greenwood, her beloved cousin, grinning delightedly, dashingly handsome, familiar, loved, winsome and dear.

‘There you are,’ he said, ‘how was that?’ Taking her lead from him, she pretended to bob a curtsey, dimpling in laughter.

‘Very nice, thank you, sir.’

‘Have you another to spare, d’you think, since I must admit to finding it very pleasant myself?’

He was breathing rather more heavily than usual when he drew away, but he merely looked into her face as though to check that she had not taken fright and when he could see that she
hadn’t, he pulled her gently back into the circle of his arms.

‘That’s enough for today, cousin,’ he said, his voice soft and inclined to tremble over the top of her head.