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‘Blake?’
‘How very flattering that you should recognise my voice so quickly after all this time.’
‘They say people always remember anything connected with acute trauma,’ Sapphire snapped sharply. ‘Blake, I’ve got your letter. My father, how is he?’
‘Why don’t you come home and see for yourself, or are you still running scared?’
‘What of? You? Of course I’m coming h … back, but I can hardly arrive without warning Dad to expect me.’
‘Very thoughtful. Giving him time to kill the fatted calf is that it? I take it you’re coming alone,’ he added, before she could respond. ‘Flaws Farm only has three bedrooms remember; your father’s in one, his housekeeper’s in the other, and I’m sure I don’t need to tell you how the valley will feel about one of its daughters openly co-habiting with a man she isn’t married to—to say nothing of your father’s feelings.’
Gritting her teeth Sapphire responded. ‘I’m coming alone, but only because Alan couldn’t make it. Now may I please speak to my father?’
It was only when Blake put the receiver down that she realized she hadn’t asked him what he was doing at Flaws Farm. He had sounded very much at home, and she bit worriedly at her bottom lip. She had forgotten how freely Blake was used to coming and going in her old home, and if she was forced to endure the constant sight of him how would it affect the calm control she had sheltered behind for so long?
It won’t affect it at all, she told herself angrily. Why should it? Blake had effectively killed whatever feelings she had had for him—and they had only been infatuation—a very deep and intense infatuation agreed, but infatuation nevertheless …
Five minutes later she was speaking to her father, unable to stop the weak tears rolling down her face. Normally they only rang one another at Christmas and birthdays, and it shocked her to hear the hesitancy in his voice.
‘Blake tells me you intend paying us a visit?’
‘If you’ve got room for me. I hear you’ve got a housekeeper?’ Sapphire responded drily.
‘Yes, Mary Henderson. You probably remember her from the old days. She used to nurse at the local hospital. She was widowed a couple of years ago, and her husband left a lot of debts, so she had to sell her house and look for a job. Blake recommended her to me. This is still your home Sapphire,’ he added in a different voice. ‘There’s always a room for you here.’
Without saying it he was making her aware of all the times she should have gone home and hadn’t, because she hadn’t been able to conquer her weakness; her fear of meeting Blake, and discovering that she wasn’t as strong as she had believed. What was she really frightened of though? Blake seducing her? Hardly likely—after all he hadn’t wanted her when they were married, so why should he want her now?
‘Expect me late tomorrow evening,’ Sapphire told him. ‘Alan’s lending me his car, because he doesn’t think my old VW is reliable enough.’ For some reason Sapphire found the silence that followed oddly disconcerting.
‘You’d better use the top road,’ her father said at last. ‘They’ve been doing some roadworks on the other one and there’ve been traffic jams all week just this side of Hawick.’
Mentally revising her plans, Sapphire said her goodbyes. She had planned to drive up the M6 to Carlisle and then take the A7 through Hawick and Jedburgh, rather than using the ‘top road’ which was shorter but which meant driving along the narrow winding road which crossed and re-crossed the Cheviots.
That night, too wide-awake to sleep, she acknowledged that hearing Blake’s voice had disturbed her—dangerously so. The sound of it brought back memories she had struggled to suppress; herself at fourteen watching with shy adulation while Blake worked. Fresh from university he had seemed like a god from Olympus to her and she had dogged his footsteps, hanging on to his every word. Was it then that he had decided to marry her? It was certainly then that he had started to put into practice the modern farming techniques he had learned partially at university and partially during his working holidays in New Zealand into force. Perhaps it was also then that he had first cast covetous eyes on Flaws Farm and mentally calculated the benefits to himself of owning its rich acres in addition to his own. She would never know, but certainly he had been kind and patient with her, carefully answering all her shy questions, tactfully ignoring her blushes and coltish clumsiness. She remembered practically falling off her pony one day straight into his arms, and how she had felt when they closed round her, the steady beat of his heart thumping into her thin chest. From that day on she had started to weave the fantasies about him that had taken her blissfully into their marriage.
At eighteen she had known very little of the world—had only travelled as far as Edinburgh and Newcastle and had certainly not got the sophistication to match Blake. He had left the valley when she was fifteen to join the army and had returned two years later the same and yet different; harder, even more sure of himself and possessed of a dangerous tension that sent frissons of awareness coursing over her skin whenever he looked at her.
The Christmas she was seventeen he had kissed her properly for the first time in the large living room of Sefton House—the large rambling building his great-grandfather had built when a fire had gutted the old farmhouse. There had been a crowd of people there attending a Boxing Day party and someone had produced a sprig of mistletoe. Even now she could vividly remember the mixture of anticipation and dread with which she had awaited Blake’s kiss. She had known he would kiss her. He had kissed all the other girls, but the kiss he gave her was different, or so she had told herself at the time. Her first ‘grown-up’ kiss; the first time she had experienced the potency of sexual desire. His mouth had been firm and warm, his lips teasing hers, his tongue probing them apart.
Restlessly, Sapphire sat up in bed, punching her pillow. She must get some sleep if she was going to be fresh for her drive tomorrow. No doubt if Blake were to kiss her now she would discover that his kisses were nothing like as arousing as she remembered. She had been an impressionable seventeen-year-old to his twenty-five already halfway to worshipping him, and during the brief spring days he had cashed in on that adoration, until by summer he filled her every thought. He had proposed to her one hot summer’s day beside the stream that divided Sefton and Bell land. Blake had wanted to swim, she remembered, in the deep pool formed by the waterfall that cascaded into it. She had objected that she hadn’t brought her suit and Blake had laughed at her, saying that neither had he. She had trembled as revealingly as a stalk of wheat before the reaper, not troubling to hide her reaction. He had pulled her to him, kissing her; caressing her with what she had naively taken to be barely restrained passion. God how ridiculous she must have seemed. Blake’s actions couldn’t have been more calculated had they been programmed by computer, and whatever passion there had been had been for her father’s lands and nothing else.
‘DAMN BLAKE, this is all his fault,’ Sapphire muttered direfully the next morning, as she ate a hurriedly prepared breakfast. Ten o’clock already, and she had hoped to leave at eight, but she hadn’t been able to get to sleep until the early hours and then when she had done she had slept restlessly, dreaming of Blake, and of herself as they had been. Now this morning there was a strange ache in the region of her heart. She couldn’t mourn a love she had never had, she reminded herself as she had done so often during those first agonising months in London, and Blake had never loved her. It had been hard to accept that, but best in the long run. She had once suffered from the delusion that Blake loved her and the penalty she had paid for that folly had warned her against the folly of doing so again.
It was eleven o’clock before she finally managed to leave. The day was crisp and cold, a weak sun breaking through the clouds. February had always been one of her least favourite months—Christmas long forgotten a
nd Spring still so far away, and she was looking forward to her holiday. There was something faintly decadent about going to the Caribbean in March.
A John Williams tape kept her company until she was clear of the City. Blake had had very catholic tastes in music and in books, but it was only since coming to London that her own tastes had developed. Music was a key that unlocked human emotions she thought as she slowed down to turn the tape over. Alan’s BMW was his pride and joy, and although she appreciated his thoughtfulness in lending it to her, she was slightly apprehensive with it.
She had planned to stop for lunch somewhere round Manchester, but oversleeping had altered her schedule, and she glanced at her watch as she travelled north and decided instead to press on to Carlisle and stop there.
She found a pleasant looking pub a few miles off the motorway and pulled up into the car park, easing her tired body out of the car. As she walked in the bar she felt the sudden silence descending on the room, and suppressed a wry grimace. She had forgotten how very conservative northern men were. Even now very few women up here entered pubs alone, but she shrugged aside the sudden feeling of uncertainty and instead headed for the bar, breathing in the appetising smell of cooking food.
The menu when she asked for it proved to be surprisingly varied. She ordered lasagne and retreated to a small corner table to wait for it to be served. While she waited she studied the people around her; mostly groups of men, standing by the bar while their womenfolk sat round the tables. So much for women’s lib, she thought drily, watching them. If she had stayed at home she could well have been one of these women. And yet they seemed quite happy; they were fashionably dressed and from the snatches of conversation she caught even the married ones seemed to have jobs, which to judge from their comments they enjoyed.
A chirpy barmaid brought the lasagne and the coffee she had ordered. The pasta was mouth-wateringly delicious. She hadn’t realised how hungry she had been, Sapphire reflected as she drank her coffee, reluctant to leave the warmth of the pub for the raw cold of the February night outside, but she was already late. At last, reluctantly, she got up and made her way to the car, unaware of the way several pairs of male eyes followed her tall, lithe body. She had dressed comfortably for the journey, copper coloured cords toning with a coffee and copper sweater, flat-heeled ankle boots in soft suede completing her outfit. She had always worn her hair long, but in London she had found a hairdresser who cared about the condition of his clients’ hair and now hers shone with health, curving sleekly down on to her shoulders.
The BMW started first time, its powerful lights picking out the faint wisps of mist drifting down from the hills. Living in London insulated one from the elements, Sapphire thought, shivering as she drove out of the car park, and switched the car heater on to boost. She had to concentrate carefully on the road so that she didn’t miss the turning which would take her on to the ‘top road’ and she exhaled faintly with relief when she found it. The mist had grown thicker, condensation making it necessary for her to switch on the windscreen wipers, the BMW’s engine started to whine slightly as the road climbed. She had forgotten how quickly this road rose; the Cheviots were gentle hills compared with some, but they still rose to quite a height. It was an eerie sensation being completely alone on this empty stretch of road, her lights the only ones to illuminate the darkness of the bare hills. Here and there her headlights picked out patches of snow and then visibility would be obscured by the mist that seemed to waft nebulously around her.
