A Wedding in the Village (12 page)

The artist had captured Megan’s clear-eyed gaze on the world and her striking colouring at the same time, and his heartbeat quickened. But his companion’s gaze was on the woman who had appeared from behind a heavy velvet curtain at the back of the shop. She hadn’t even noticed the portrait.

‘Sonia,’ she said. ‘This is my colleague, Dr Anderson. I’ve been telling him about the gallery and he’s come to look at your paintings as he is very interested in art of any kind.’

The woman observing him with bright birdlike eyes was not young. Sixties or early seventies, he would have thought. She was painfully thin—gaunt, in fact, with arms and legs like sticks and dark skin around the eyes, but it seemed that there was nothing wrong with her mind.

‘Good morning, Dr Anderson,’ she said briskly. ‘It is a pleasure to meet you. Though I doubt we shall be seeing much of each other unless you come to buy a painting.’

I
shall
be wanting to buy a painting, he thought, and unless I’m very much mistaken you are going to be seeing quite a lot of me.

It was not a thought that he was going to pass on to her at the moment of meeting, so he just smiled. Sonia turned to Megan, who was gazing open-mouthed at the portrait, and said, ‘So what do you think of it, Meg o’ mine.’

‘Is that really me?’ Megan breathed.

Sonia smiled. ‘None other, and, though I say it, I think it’s the best thing I’ve ever done. It’s taken me a while because I’m always tired these days, but with the coffee-shop and this place, I suppose it isn’t surprising.’

‘So maybe it’s time you paid the Riverside Practice a visit,’ Megan said gently. ‘You might need a tonic or something of the sort.’

This lady was going to need more than a tonic, Luke thought. He’d seen people like her before who ignored the signs to the point of collapse and then they had to accept treatment whether they wanted it or not, and sometimes it was too late. But he was not going to stick his oar in at that moment.

He couldn’t stop looking at the portrait. Megan had sat for it in a strapless dress of emerald brocade and as he gazed at the smooth lines of her shoulders and the hollow between her breasts he felt raw desire inside him for the first time in many long months and this time, mixed with it, was the tenderness that she aroused in him whenever they were together.

Aware of how intently he was observing it, Megan had turned away with rising colour and was saying to Sonia, ‘We’ve called for a coffee and one of Barbara’s delicious cakes.’

Barbara was a friend of Sonia’s who served in the coffee-shop and made the cakes and scones on sale there.

While they were being served, Sonia was called back into the shop and Barbara said hurriedly, ‘You doctors have got to make Sonia see sense. I feel as if she’s dying before my eyes.’

Megan nodded, her expression grave. ‘That’s why I’ve brought Dr Anderson in on the pretext of a coffee. I need his opinion. We can’t discuss it here, Barbara, but once we’ve left he will tell me what he thinks and we’ll take it from there.’

‘She does need help,’ Luke said in a low voice, ‘and some persuasion may be needed, but the lady needs to be treated fast if she wants to carry on with her painting and whatever else she does.’

At that moment Sonia came back and while Megan chatted to Barbara he said to her, ‘I’d love to have a stroll around the gallery if you could spare the time to show me what you have for sale.’

‘Of course,’ she said immediately, and the moment they were out of earshot he said, ‘I want to buy the portrait of Megan. Will you put it to one side for me? I’ll come to collect it the first chance I get. Please, don’t tell her I’ve bought it, will you? I want it to be a surprise when I tell her.’

‘I’d like it to go to someone who cares for her,’ Sonia said. ‘To a friend, or family.’

‘It will be,’ he told her with strengthening determination. ‘You can rely on that.’

‘S
O WHAT
do you think is wrong with Sonia?’ Megan asked as soon as they were out of sight of the gallery.

‘It could be anaemia, due to an iron deficiency, or further along the line than that, cancer of the liver or the colon,’ said Luke. ‘That is only guessing, but I’ve seen this sort of thing before, as I’m sure you have.’

She nodded. ‘That’s what I thought, but I needed to hear your opinion. So how do we get her to have treatment? She needs blood tests before anything else, and I know what she’ll say.’

‘To you maybe, but how about I have a go at persuading her? There shouldn’t be any delay or it might be too late. I’ll call round tomorrow on some sort of pretext and do the blood tests while I’m there. She won’t expect me to be wearing my doctor’s hat on a Sunday morning.’

‘If she’ll agree.’

Luke’s voice was reassuringly firm. ‘She’ll agree. I shall charm her into it if all else fails. Your favourite places are certainly not what I expected. The bleak, windswept moors, a youth hostel and now a picture gallery. What next?’

‘I used to go to Sonia’s place when I was a child,’ Megan explained. ‘She always had time to talk to me and feed me. My mum and dad were always so busy. I used to sit and watch her paint for hours. I was surprised when I saw my portrait. I didn’t notice it at first because I was looking at Sonia, dreading that she might have lost more weight. What did you think of it?’

What did he think of it? He would love to tell her that he was going to buy it, but it might cause her to withdraw from him. She might feel he was overstepping the mark.

There was a pond in the middle of the village green and as they walked beside it a couple of plump ducks came waddling up, expecting bread, but soon lost interest when none was forthcoming.

‘If only life could be as uncomplicated as theirs,’ Luke said. ‘Bread, or no bread, and a noisy quack, quack.’

‘You haven’t answered my question,’ Megan said, as they left the hungry birds behind.

‘I think the portrait is excellent,’ he said, hoping he sounded casual. ‘Your friend Sonia is very talented. It is up to you and I to see that she lives to paint another day, so we’ll see what tomorrow brings.’

And now can we do something that involves just the two of us? he was thinking, and almost as if she’d read his mind Megan said, ‘After lunch we’ll explore the river bank, my most favourite place of all, if that’s all right with you.’

‘Of course,’ he said, and thought with grim amusement that a tour of the places that appealed to Alexis would include the top hotels, smart restaurants, boutiques, all very nice in their own way, but froth compared to the real things of life. While to Megan, the people and places she was introducing him to had been part of the secure idyll of her youth and were just as precious now in adulthood.

On the Valentine card that she’d sent him all that time ago she’d written that she was attracted to him. He prayed that was still the case. That she’d chosen to spend this day with him because she felt the same as he did.

They had lunch at The Badger and then strolled down to the riverside, and as they passed the solid stone building that was the surgery Anne, who lived in the apartment above, came out and looked at them in surprise.

‘Megan is taking me on a guided tour of the village,’ he said easily, ‘in case I decide to take up permanent residence here.’

‘Ah! I see,’ she replied.

I wish
I
did, Megan thought with a sinking feeling inside her. Luke had said right from the start that he wanted to live in the village. That when his sister’s life was on a more stable footing he would buy a place of his own, but now he didn’t sound so sure, and she hoped that she wasn’t the reason why.

They were on the riverbank now, walking along on a carpet of bronze and gold that had been the green leaves of summer. Turning to face him, she said, ‘So it isn’t definite that you’re going to stay in the village. You aren’t so entranced with it after all.’

Luke turned away to avoid her seeing his expression and said lightly, ‘Yes, I am. I think it is an enchanting place, but I could live at the foot of a coal tip, or next to a railway line, and be happy if I was there with the right person.

‘I’ve learnt a lesson that I won’t forget in a hurry with regard to human relationships and freely admit that I’ve no one to blame but my own faulty judgement. It is a poor marriage when a wife conceals the fact that she is pregnant from her husband because she doesn’t want his child.’

They’d been strolling along at a leisurely pace, but now Megan halted abruptly, and as he observed her questioningly she said tightly, ‘Stop! I don’t want to hear any more. What Alexis did was awful, but there are lots of decent women in the world. If you look hard enough you’ll find one.’

He was staring at her, aghast.

‘What has brought this on, might I ask?’

Megan sighed. ‘Sue wants you to find your dream woman, so maybe you’d better start looking.’

‘Maybe I had,’ he said frostily, ‘and I hope they won’t all be as choosey as someone I know, who makes no bones about
her
criteria.’

Choosy, am I? Megan thought tearfully, with the pain of listening to him describe his marriage like a knife in her heart. Luke doesn’t know that I made my choice long ago without realising it. Can’t he see that? And with the need for an answer to the question she stepped up to him and placing her arms around his neck, kissed him long and lingeringly on the mouth.

She felt him go slack with surprise and then he was kissing her back like a hungry man at a banquet, and as his arms tightened around her she thought that this was what she’d been waiting for.

But she’d had to be the one to make the first move and even as she faced up to that knowledge, Luke’s arms were slackening, his kiss no longer holding her spellbound.

‘I vowed that there would be none of this today,’ he said, putting her away from him gently, ‘much as I could go on kissing you for ever. But I’ve told myself I will respect what you said regarding me having been married before, and will not take advantage of you in any way.’

Megan had gone very pale. It wasn’t exactly a rebuff that Luke was handing out, but it was a message loud and clear that she wasn’t the only one with boundaries.

‘So, are we going to carry on with our tour of the riverbank,’ he was asking quietly, ‘or have you had enough of me for one day?’

She would never have enough of him, she thought achingly. He was the answer to all her hopes and dreams, but where before
she’d
been hesitant about their relationship, now
he
was the one putting up barriers and she was going to have to accept it.

‘We’ll carry on if that’s what you want,’ she told him flatly, ‘and forget my error of judgement, if that’s all right with you.’

It wasn’t all right with him at all, he thought. He was the one who’d turned it into a lost opportunity. But at least she was still there, hadn’t gone storming off, like a lot of women would have done.

Taking her by surprise, he said, ‘Yes, it’s fine by me, and as you aren’t going to desert me, I’ll race you to the bridge that I see in the distance.’

‘Right,’ she agreed, managing a smile, and before he’d got his breath she was off, moving fast in spite of the walking boots to where an old iron bridge spanned the river.

He was only a foot behind her but Megan was there first and as she collapsed breathlessly against its ancient frame, her world was righting itself. She’d almost spoilt the day by losing control, but Luke had an answer for everything.

He was observing the structure of the bridge and commenting that it looked a bit rickety. ‘Yes, it is,’ she agreed. ‘It’s going to cost thousands to repair.’ She pointed to the land beside the river. ‘That is parkland. Lots of people walk their dogs along it, or just come for a stroll, and this old bridge is dear to their hearts. A committee has been formed to raise funds for its repair and the first event to take place is a ball at the beginning of December at Beresford Lodge, the hotel that you pass on the way to the tops.’

‘Sounds good. Am I going to take you?’

‘Maybe. Unless I get a better offer,’ she told him laughingly, knowing there couldn’t possibly be a better offer than that. She was rallying from the aftermath of the kiss. Telling herself that it wasn’t all gloom. She knew now that Luke wanted her as much as she wanted him. He’d said he could have gone on kissing her for ever. Yet the fact remained that he hadn’t. If she found herself in his arms again, it would be of his doing, not hers.

They turned back at the bridge because the light was fading and the birds and animals of the riverbank were no longer to be seen. As the surgery came into view again Luke said, ‘So are we going to go home to change, and finish the day off with dinner? That was the plan, if I remember rightly.’

She hesitated for a moment and then asked, ‘Are you sure that Sue and the boys won’t need you this evening? I know that she seems to be back on top of things, but it won’t always be the case.’

‘Megan, I’m aware of that,’ he protested, ‘and will take care to see that I’m always there if she needs me. Are you sure that you aren’t using Sue as an excuse not to have dinner with me?’

‘I might be. I’m not sure whether I am or not.’

‘Perhaps you’re thinking that it’s been a long day and enough is enough.’

Now it was her turn to protest. ‘I’m not thinking anything of the kind. I’d love to have dinner with you.’

‘Good. So why don’t we go to this Beresford Lodge place. We’ve had coffee amongst culture and a lunch of pub grub, so I think it’s only fitting if we hit the high spots for dinner. Shall I reserve a table?’

‘Yes,’ she agreed, already debating what she was going to wear.

‘I’ll pick you up about eightish, if that’s all right with you, but first I’m going to walk you home and pick up my car.’

* * *

As Megan dressed for what she wished was a date rather than just two friends dining together, she passed over a smart black dress that she’d bought recently for a more sophisticated image and chose the dress she’d worn for the portrait, quite unaware of the impression it had made on Luke. She was recalling what he’d said about sophistication, and the last thing she wanted was to appear looking like a watered-down clone of his ex-wife. Of all things she wanted him to see her as herself.