A Rose In Flanders Fields (6 page)

He let his arms drop, but he didn’t hold them out to invite me closer. ‘Of course I do,’ he said, gently enough, then went on in a firmer voice, ‘but I won’t be your toy, a means of annoyance to your mother.’ He shook his head, his expression touched with exasperation now. ‘I don’t understand you sometimes. You clearly love her, but you have this need to push her to the limit of her endurance. I can’t just be another weapon in your armoury.’

That stung. ‘This is about you and me, Will, no one else.’

‘And what of your mother?’

‘Well, of course I love her, even though she’s sometimes hard to love.’ I saw a way to convince him then, and hurried on: ‘And yet I’m prepared to risk hurting her to be with you. Doesn’t that tell you all you need to know?’

‘You torment her at every chance,’ he pointed out, but he had softened his stance and now took a hesitant step closer. ‘Look, I know you’ve always been a bit of a tearaway, but you’re growing up fast, and Lady Creswell needs to get to know the young lady you’ve become. She’ll never like me, I understand that, but when she sees you’re serious she might give us her blessing.’

I shook my head. ‘She won’t. And it’s not because of who you are, because if she knew you she would love you as much as I do. It’s because of who you’re not.’

He slumped a little then, but my words seemed to reach him and he accepted my tentative embrace. We stood for a while, on top of the rock, while our first ever moments of discord gradually slipped away into the breeze, and began to appreciate, once more, this precious time alone together.

I ran a finger over the back of one of his hands, noting the slender strength of his fingers and remembering their dexterity with the paper sculptures. ‘You never did tell me: how did you end up working for Mr Markham? And what do you want to do, really?’

‘I suppose if you’re going to marry me you ought to know something about me,’ he conceded. ‘I have no deep, dark secrets, but you’re right, butchery was never my first choice.’ He jumped off the rock and turned to me, hands outstretched to help, but I’d been jumping off this rock for years and, with a withering look at him, I managed it quite well again today without his help. He grinned and took my hand, tucking it around his arm as we walked up towards the big quarry pit that lay over the hill.

‘Dad wanted me to take over the business. He worked seven days a week, but that wasn’t why I left, I’ve never been afraid of a full working life. I just felt as if I had no time to do what I loved most: sculpting wood.’

I should have expected this; his eye for crafting beautiful things was clearly echoed in the skill of his hands. ‘I had a friend,’ he went on. ‘Nathan. He lived in Blackpool too, but he had family in Breckenhall. Quite well off, I think. We both shared this…’ he looked down at his free hand and flexed the fingers reflectively, ‘this need to create, I suppose.’ He glanced down at me, a little embarrassed, a little defiant.

‘Go on,’ I said, delighted to be learning about him at last. ‘Where is Nathan now? Oh, and what was the family business you couldn’t wait to get away from?’

Will stopped and withdrew his arm from mine to shove his hands in his pockets. ‘You’ll laugh.’

‘I won’t, I promise.’

‘Cross your heart?’

‘Absolutely. I will not laugh.’

His eyes narrowed in warning, then he shrugged. ‘All right. It was a butcher’s shop.’

I bit my lip, but it was no good, and although I didn’t laugh outright I did feel a wide smile on my face that made him roll his eyes, pull my hat down over my ears and stalk off. I chased him, letting the giggles out at last, and caught his hand. ‘Wait! I want to hear the rest!’

‘I’ll tell you the rest if you promise not to say the word “butcher” to me once more today.’

‘I promise,’ I said again, with the proper solemnity, and he sighed.

‘Might as well get the grass to promise not to grow,’ he grumbled. ‘Anyway, Nathan was – is – an artist. A proper artist, not like me; I just like to make things, but he’s a painter.’

‘I don’t see why that makes you less than a “proper” artist,’ I protested.

Will shook his head. ‘He had
real
talent, everyone said so. He was offered a studio here in Breckenhall, one of his family left it to him. So he asked me if I wanted to leave Blackpool, come here and set up with him in business. He would take commissions, I would work on my carvings and sculptures, and we would sell them at the market.’ He shrugged again. ‘It all sounded wonderful. I was just in the way at home, anyway.’

‘In the way? How could you be?’

‘I’m the youngest of five. There were plenty of others to take my place beside Dad.’

I tried to imagine how anyone could make him feel anything less than special, but I couldn’t begin to. ‘So the two of you came to Breckenhall, set up your studio, and what happened then?’

‘Nathan’s dream carried us for a while. I sold a few pieces and we set ourselves up using our savings. But we’d not thought it through really; frames, oils, canvas, brushes…it all cost much more money than we’d allowed for.’

‘But you owned the studio outright?’

‘Yes. We partitioned it off and slept in one half, worked in the other. It was fun, those few years,’ Will said, smiling in remembrance. ‘We got on well, and we were able to spend all our time doing the thing we each loved the most. I was able to get by without spending too much on equipment; I walked to the forest and gathered hardwoods there, so all I had to do was keep my blades sharp. And eat and keep warm, of course.’

I wished I’d known him then, it gave me an odd feeling to think he’d been there all this time, I’d probably even seen him selling his carvings in the market without noticing him…it didn’t seem possible now. ‘Sounds heavenly,’ I said.

‘Well, I knew things were difficult, but I thought we were muddling through. Then one day Nathan stayed up late to finish a project he was working on, and when I woke up I found a note. He’d gone.’

‘Gone? Where?’

Will shrugged. ‘Just…gone. He’d been struggling for a long time, borrowing from friends and family, until he found himself in so much debt he couldn’t pay it back. Not even his family could help. I had no idea things were so bad.’

‘What about the studio?’ I said, aghast, ‘Couldn’t you sell that?’

‘He’d already sold it, without telling me, and now I owed rent to the new owners.’

‘What on earth did you do?’

‘I sold everything I could to pay the back rent, found a smaller room above the fruit shop, and just when I thought I would have to go back to Blackpool with my tail between my legs, I saw the note in Frank Markham’s window.’ He looked at his hands again and gave a rueful laugh. ‘It seemed I’d learned more from my father than I thought, Markham was very impressed despite my “advanced age”. He gave me the job there and then.’

‘Well, thank goodness he did,’ I said, ‘or I’d never have met you.’

Will stopped and turned me to face him. ‘Thank goodness,’ he echoed, and I stood very still, breathless, thinking how close I had come to driving him away with my childish need to provoke my mother.

‘I’m sorry,’ I blurted. ‘You had every right to be angry.’

‘I wasn’t –’

‘Yes, you were.’

He smiled, suddenly. ‘Yes, I was. Bloody angry, actually. There was I, baring my soul to you, and all you can do is start yelling down the valley.’

‘Sorry,’ I said again, then gave him my wickedest grin. ‘You do look very handsome when you’re angry though, I must remember that. Perhaps I should begin a list of all the things that make you cross.’

He growled, and lunged for me, but I danced back out of reach and sat down on the grass. ‘You’re so easy-going, what
does
make you angry?’

‘Apart from young ladies reacting incorrectly to proposals of marriage?’

‘Apart from that, yes.’

He sat next to me, and pretended to consider. ‘Grown-ups sulking,’ he said at last. ‘I find that more annoying than almost anything.’

I lay back and rolled over, letting out the biggest, grumpiest sigh I could manage. Hechuckled, and I felt his hand on my back, but although I smiled into the crook of my elbow I didn’t roll over. I liked the feeling of the persistent rubbing of his hand through the thin material of my dress, and as he lifted the hair away from the nape of my neck I knew what would happen next. Sure enough, his lips touched the newly exposed and tender skin and I bit my arm to keep from letting out a sigh of pleasure; I wasn’t ready for this to end yet, and as I gave another grunt of feigned annoyance I felt his mouth curve against my neck in a smile that I knew would be wide and beautiful.

‘I’m getting very angry now,’ he whispered, and the warmth of his breath sent a shock of longing through me that I wasn’t prepared for. My playacting ceased immediately and I lay very still, aware of the heat of his hand at my shoulder, and of the cool shade of his body. He kissed my neck again, and his hand moved gently down my side to cup my hip, then roll me gently towards him, brushing across my body to rest at my waist. I found myself unable to speak, but it didn’t matter; his face blocked out the sun, and as his lips touched mine, I knew this time things were different.

Our afternoons had always held the
frisson
of forbidden pleasure, and, while I knew the attraction between us had been growing, I had never, until now, felt the almost painful need to take our innocent kisses any further. Now, as he drew back and looked down at me, his breathing suddenly shallow, I felt a sweet, tugging sensation in the pit of my stomach that grew stronger the more I studied him. I noticed every single thing about him; the way his hair flopped untidily across his brow; the stray lash that lay beside his left eye; the slightly reddened skin along his jaw where he’d shaved in a hurry before coming out to meet me. I felt his hand slide up from my waist and across my ribcage to lie tentatively beneath my breast, and then his thumb moved to caress the swell there and he closed his eyes.

I kept mine open. His collar was open in the August warmth, and I saw the muscles move in the strong, smooth column of his throat, and the pulse beating rapidly below the angle of his jaw. I smelled grass and soap, the faint tang of moorland animals, and my own light perfume, all mingling in the dry air, and then his mouth was on mine and as my lips parted I felt him sigh against me, and I was lost.

I came to only moments later. Will jerked away from me as if I had slapped him, and I stared up at him in mortified astonishment before realising he had not moved voluntarily. A tall shadow fell over us both, and even as I recognised the angry face of my cousin David Wingfield, Will rolled away from me and came to his feet. Before he had gained his balance David shoved at him and he stumbled back, but recovered in time to deflect a blow that would otherwise had crashed into the side of his head. His own fist came up with a short, quick motion and connected with David’s jaw, and from where I lay I could see David go sprawling backwards.

Will turned back to me, stunned, and crouched down. ‘Darling, I’m so sorry, are you all right?’

‘What on earth is going on?’ I said, putting my hand in his.

He pulled me to my feet. ‘I have no idea why he’s here, but you’d better –’

Before he could finish, David’s foot rammed into the back of his knee and he staggered into me, carrying me back to the ground with a grunt, and my teeth clacked together painfully. He only just avoided landing on top of me by rolling onto his side and, off-balance and worried about me, he failed to move out of the way quickly enough and David’s next kick took him below the breastbone, knocking the breath from his body. He slumped, gasping, but the next time David’s foot flew out he caught it and tugged hard, spilling David onto his back again.

Will climbed to his feet, pale and still dragging painful breaths, and waited until David was upright again before advancing with his fists ready. I stared at them both, dizzy with the suddenness with which everything had changed, and wanting to go to Will and make sure he was all right. But he was completely focused on David now, and as David lunged, he easily dodged and clipped David on the point of his chin.

I watched, my heart slowing as the panic eased; Will was older, and easily the most agile and stronger of the two, and, despite the bruising kick, he was breathing more easily now. I wondered what had brought David up to the quarry in the first place, and, hot on the heels of that came the more urgent question: how could we prevent him from telling everyone what he had seen?

The two circled one another like wolves, the twenty-six-year-old and the seventeen-year-old, but David had already lost and we all three knew it. He eyed Will warily; Will had pushed his sleeves back to reveal forearms made strong by the hard work he did six and a half days out of seven, and the muscles flexed beneath his skin as he tightened and relaxed his fists. There was a gleam of sweat along his brow, and his eyes flashed bright blue in the sunlight, but now they weren’t friendly at all.

David cleared his throat and stepped back, dropping his hands back to his sides, an act I reluctantly admitted took courage. Defiantly, he raised his chin and I could see the red mark that would bruise nicely later. ‘I’ll have you arrested if I catch you anywhere near Miss Creswell again.’ His gaze flicked to me, and although I was quite respectably dressed I felt as if Will’s warm hands had left blazing prints all across my summer dress, and that they must have shown. Then he looked back at Will, clearly relieved as Will also dropped his guard and assumed a more relaxed position.

David’s tone turned rather snooty and I lost the fleeting sympathy I’d felt. ‘Who are you, anyway? No gentleman, that’s for sure. A gentleman would never assault a lady while she was out riding.’

‘What do you want, David?’ I said, moving to Will’s side. ‘Just say what you came for and then leave.’

‘I came to see you, as a matter of fact,’ he said. ‘Your mother invited me to dinner.’

Whatever I had been expecting, it wasn’t that. ‘What on earth for? And how did you know where I was?’

‘Everyone knows where you come to get away from everything, even your stable-hand. It’s a good thing I came, if you ask me, another few minutes and that low-born thug might have done anything!’