AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Guilt … every way she turned. Guilt over her grandmother for not being with her, guilt over the reasons she’d gone to Leon at her father’s malign bidding, then yet more guilt for abandoning him to rush back home again …
The guests were all gone at last, and she finished clearing up after them. She wandered blindly outside, looking back at the house. Never again would she see her grandmother here. Never.
The word tolled in her head and she felt her heart squeeze with grief. The future stretched ahead—a future she would have to cope with somehow. Dealing with probate, with the aftermath of death. She took a shuddering breath. Dealing somehow with what was going to happen to Harford.
The burden of her father’s loan still hung like an ugly weight over her head, and now death duties would strike, too. Could Harford survive them both? Anxiety pressed at her. Her plans for the time when her grandmother would be no more had been laid long ago. She would raise a mortgage on Harford and use the money to pay off death duties, pay the mortgage off slowly by turning the house and any outbuildings she could afford to convert into upmarket holiday lets.
Now, though, she would have to raise enough to pay off her father as well. On that she was determined. Her father would be out of her life. Out for good! And when she was finally free of him …
She felt a rush of blood, of longing.
When I’m free of my father—finally, finally free!—then and only then can I be free to seek out Leon again. To see if the magic is still there, to see if that wonderful, blissful time with him can be recaptured. But pure this time, clean and free of any taint by my father!
The power of her longing almost overcame her. To be able to go to Leon without deceit, without pressure, without the malign, corrupting influence of her father. She would offer herself as she truly was, without any of her father’s venal agenda, with no hidden motive, no shameful collusion to further her father’s interests, no guilt-racked obligations to her grandmother to save her house by any means she must—whatever it took.
Shame flushed through her again at what she had done. Oh, she would have willingly—so willingly!—gone to Leon, given herself up to that overpowering response to him she had felt the moment she’d first set eyes on him, had she not had her responsibility to her grandmother, the duty of love for her, to hold her back. Yet even with that knowledge the taint of her father’s scheming still haunted her. Even though she knew that she would have done what she had, rejoiced as she had, embracing the time she’d had with Leon, it still had the sleazy shadow of her father’s ultimatum to her louring over it.
But now—now she could finally free herself of that sleazy shadow. Now she could pay off her father?
?free herself for ever from his baleful influence over her life.
Free herself to focus only on what she so deeply longed for.
Leon.
I want him so much. I miss him so much.
Like a beacon shining through the pall of her grief for her grandmother, the malign shadow of her father, her longing for Leon called to her.
And now I can go to him. Free—free of my duty of love to my grandmother, free of my father’s hideous threats. Free to go to Leon only as myself, what I am, what I truly am …
Hope flared in her and she lifted her bowed head, looking afresh out over the gardens of the house she loved. Resolution filled her, and hope for the future—longing for the man who had opened to her a world of wonder she had never dreamt could be hers.
And it could be hers again …
Memory, rich and golden, glowed in her vision. The starlit terrace at Mereden, the river flowing beyond the lawns stretching away from them, Leon’s hands cupping her face, his mouth seeking hers. The warm, cicada-filled nights on Santera, clinging to Leon, her body trembling in ecstasy.
Just being with him! Walking along the little sandy beach among the fragrant pine trees, barefoot, hand in hand. Laughing with him as they made their nightly barbecues. Curled up against him on the sun lounger as they took their daily siesta in the baking heat of the day. Breakfasting with him over coffee and pastries in the cool of the morning, with the little breeze fresh off the water’s edge.
Just her and Leon. Easy. Happy. Blissful.
Yearning filled her—an ache in her heart for him … only him …
She took a deep, steadying breath. Her mind raced ahead. Tomorrow she would see the solicitors, get probate moving as swiftly as she could. She would visit the bank manager, too, to set in motion her plans for raising a mortgage, getting liquid funds to pay off her father’s pernicious, punishing loan. Plan ahead for readying Harford for the holiday let market in the spring.
And, most precious of all, tomorrow she would write to Leon.
I’ll tell him everything! Everything! About my grandmother, how I had to abandon him as I did because she was dying. About my vile father, how he threatened Harford, and how I had to protect it for my grandmother’s sake. I will confess everything to him—confess what I dared not tell him before—and beg his understanding, his forgiveness!
As she stood there in the warm summer air, gazing out over the lawns streaked with the last of the afternoon’s sun, for the first time since she had rushed back to her dying grandmother’s side she felt hope surge through her. Yes, she would grieve for her grandmother, accept her guilt for abandoning her as she had, accept her shame for the way she had had to capitulate to her father, but for all that she would not give up on Leon—she would strive to recapture the bliss they had shared. Make all things right with him.
Make a future with him.
Her heart squeezed with longing.
Oh, please, please let it be so! Let there be a future with him—I long for him so much. So much!
As she stood and felt the emotion of her longing for him seize her, her hope for a future with him sear within her, gazing out over the gardens of the home she loved so much, she became aware of a disturbance in the peaceful tranquillity of the air. A distant, rhythmic throbbing that grew louder and louder still.
