Proud Harvest

by Anne Mather

  ‘Six-thirty,’ she told him nervously. ‘Did I wake you?’

  He moved his head slowly from side to side. ‘I was awake half an hour ago. I guess I must have fallen asleep again.’

  ‘You were awake?’ One hand went selfconsciously to her tangled weight of hair. ‘Was I snoring?’

  ‘Not to my knowledge,’ he responded shortly. ‘Did you sleep well?’

  ‘Did you?’

  ‘I slept,’ he agreed non-committally. Then: ‘I suppose I’d better get up.’

  Lesley glanced awkwardly at him. ‘About last night, Carne, I—I’m sorry—–’

  ‘Forget it.’ His tone was flat as he turned and thrusting back the covers got to his feet. ‘It looks like being another hot day.’

  Lesley sat up, knees drawn to her chin, but without the encompassing folds of covers. Carne, who had picked up his pants, gave her an impatient stare.

  ‘I don’t need an audience!’ he declared shortly. ‘Look, forget about last night. It won’t happen again.’

  ‘Oh, Carne …’ Her lips curved upward, only to describe a reverse curve as she encountered his warning gaze. It was madness, a small voice inside her warned, but still she continued to look at him, her eyes moving compulsively over the hard planes of his face, the taut curve of his jawline, the arrow of hair that darkened his chest and drew her eyes to the lean muscularity of his hips.

  ‘Have you seen enough?’ he demanded at last, his voice hoarse and tormented, and she coloured hotly, tearing her eyes away and plucking nervously at the bedspread. ‘Can I put my clothes on now?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said inadequately, but uttering a tortured imprecation, he dropped his pants and seized her shoulders and hauled her up out of the bed. She was crushed against him as his mouth bruised hers, parting her lips with passionate expertise. Still only lately woken from sleep, she had had no time to construct any defences against him, and besides, the pressure of his hard masculine limbs made her curiously weak.

  The sensuality of his kiss was changing, and his hands had slid beneath the nightshirt, seeking and finding the surging fullness of her breasts. Somehow he had unfastened the buttons, and it slid from her shoulders just as he pressed her back against the pillows, his own urgent body bearing hers down.

  ‘Carne …’ she managed to say once, but it was hardly a protest, her own hands spread against his smooth skin.

  ‘I didn’t plan this, Lesley, but God knows, I’m a man, not a saint!’ he groaned, and lips moistened at her breast sent the blood spinning dizzily through her head. Passion wasn’t savage, she thought incoherently, but sweet, sweet … And then the caressing arousal of his hands swept even these thoughts into the maelstrom of sensual oblivion …

  CHAPTER SIX

  CARNE was already dressed when Lesley summoned the energy to lift her head from the pillow. She was lying on her stomach, and she turned slowly, drawing the covers protectively over her. He was fastening the belt of his Levis, and looking at his withdrawn features, she would never have believed that only minutes before he had been making love, his eyes glazed and passionate, his body trembling in her arms. Now he looked cool and detached, a thoughtful frown causing a deeply drawn cleft between his brows.

  He saw her watching him, and his mouth drew down at the corners. ‘Are you all right?’

  Was she all right? Lesley could have laughed at the question, but it would have been hysterical laughter. And yet she couldn’t altogether blame him for what had happened. She might not have been able to stop him, but the most galling thing was that she hadn’t even tried. On the contrary, if she was honest with herself, she would acknowledge she had encouraged him, and the consummation of their lovemaking had been as rapturous and satisfying as in the early days of their marriage. Further, it had matured, like wine, and its heady full-bodied fermentation had swept away her fears and inhibitions and left her wantonly wanting more. But Carne must never know, he must never have that power over her, she thought, struggling for self-possession, and with a sudden pang she realised how careless she had been. After Jeremy was born, she had insisted on practising birth control, but she had given that up years ago after leaving Raventhorpe, and now here she was taking the most enormous risks without a shred of protection …

  ‘I said—are you all right?’

  Carne had come to stand beside the bed, and her cheeks flamed at the possibility that he might be able to read her thoughts. But if he did, he read them wrongly, and his voice was cold as he added:

  ‘For God’s sake, Lesley, you’d think I’d violated a vestal virgin! We were man and wife for almost two years, you know. There’s no need to look at me as if I’d destroyed your innocence. I know I shouldn’t have done what I did, but—well, you didn’t exactly turn me off!’

  ‘Did I turn you on?’ she asked facetiously, but it had a hollow ring and he knew it.

  ‘Get dressed!’ he advised, consulting his watch. ‘It’s almost eight. Or do you want your son to think you slept in the raw?’

  ‘Jeremy!’

  For a brief moment in time she had forgotten all about him, and guilt caused her to throw back the covers without really thinking what she was doing. Colour burned in her face again, but Carne resignedly turned his back and she snatched up her dressing gown and made for the bathroom.

  When she came back, Carne had gone, but her suitcase was occupying the end of the bed. She rummaged through it eagerly, anxious to find out what was going on next door, and came up with clean panties, jeans and a sleeveless cotton vest. It was too hot for more formal gear, she decided, so Mrs Radley would have to accept her as she was. After all, her son had, she thought emotively, and that had always been the thing Mrs Radley could not swallow.

  She had to knock to gain admittance to the other room and Jeremy himself opened the door to her dressed in his underwear. He looked none the worse for his upset the night before, and grinned when he saw his mother.

  ‘There you are,’ he said. ‘We’ve been up ages.’

  Lesley’s eyes went past him to Carne leaning indolently against the window and she wondered how he had explained his absence when Jeremy awakened. ‘Have you, darling?’ she said now, transferring her attention back to her son. ‘Why aren’t you dressed, then?’

  Jeremy’s face fell. ‘Oh, do I have to wear my uniform again? I thought you said you’d brought my jeans!’

  ‘Oh, I have. I have.’ Lesley made an apologetic sound. ‘I’ll go and get them. They’re in my case.’

  ‘Good-oh!’

  Jeremy grinned again, apparently not at all perturbed at being left with his father, and Lesley, pulling his jeans and tee shirt out of the suitcase, thought rather maliciously that she wouldn’t be at all surprised if he started calling Carne Daddy before the day was out.

  ‘I’m going to see the bull!’ he announced, pulling on his jeans without his father’s disdain for an audience. ‘Have you ever seen a bull, Mum? Have you ever been really close to one?’

  ‘No!’ declared Lesley, rather shortly, folding his pyjamas and dressing gown. ‘Did you clean your teeth this morning?’

  ‘Of course.’ Jeremy was off hand, more concerned with the things he planned to do than with those he had done. ‘Mum, do you know how to drive a tractor? I’m going to learn. Did you know a person could drive a tractor when they’re only sixteen, not seventeen, like for a car?’

  ‘You’re a long way from sixteen yet,’ retorted his mother quellingly, and sensed Carne’s mocking gaze upon her.

  ‘I don’t think she’s interested, Jeremy,’ he drawled, with irritating candour. ‘Are you hungry? Shall we go downstairs and order breakfast while your mother finishes packing?’

  Jeremy hesitated, his obvious desire to learn more about the farm conflicting with his loyalties towards Lesley. ‘I—er—what do you think, Mum?’ he asked at last, shifting the decision on to her shoulders, and Lesley made a gesture of indifference.

  ‘Go, if you want to,’ she said curtly, and then, seeing his tro
ubled face, added: ‘Yes, go along. I shan’t be much longer myself.’

  With the cases packed again, Lesley examined her reflection in the mirror of the vanity unit. Her brown eyes, so unusual with her colouring, were dark and slumbrous, her cheeks faintly pink with the rasp of Carne’s jaw. An imprint near her right breast could have been the mark of his thumb, but it was not distinguishable as such, or so she hoped.

  She must have been crazy, she thought in disbelief. All those months when she had lived at the farm and Carne had not laid a hand upon her. And now, in the space of two weeks, he had thrown her hitherto uneventful world into a turmoil. She recalled the events of the night before with painful incredulity. How could she have invited him to share her bed? No doubt he had planned the whole thing, and she had gone along with it with all the naïve obedience of a schoolgirl.

  She sighed. No, that wasn’t strictly true. He couldn’t have arranged for Jeremy to make himself sick, or been sure that she would go along with his suggestion to sleep in his bed. If only she hadn’t had those two whiskies, she thought with bitter hindsight. Maybe then she would have felt more capable of handling the situation. And yet, as she left the room and made her way downstairs, she had to concede the depressing truth that it was this morning when she had really betrayed herself.

  The dining room was small, but cheerful, and in spite of her nerves, Lesley found she was ravenously hungry. Ignoring Carne’s speculative interest, she ate cereal and bacon and eggs, toast and marmalade, and finished it off with several cups of strong black coffee. Carne himself ate with less enthusiasm, and he and Jeremy talked throughout the meal, the boy displaying a warmth towards him that smacked of shared interests. Perhaps Jeremy did need a man in his life, she conceded reluctantly. Would it eventually come to the crux of deciding which of them he needed most?

  Such thoughts were not conducive to digestion, but piling into the station wagon for the last stage of their journey, Lesley was more anxious about the welcome she was likely to receive at their destination than worrying over some nebulous time in the future. Instead, she gave in to Jeremy’s request to sit beside his father, and herself occupied the back seat, along with some farming periodicals and Carne’s leather car coat.

  They made good time, stopping for a snack lunch at twelve and pressing on into North Yorkshire. The M.1. gave way to the M.18. which in turn gave way to the A.1. Then, beyond Dishforth, they left the motorways altogether and turned on to the minor roads that led into Ravensdale. After the freedom of two and three-lane traffic, the country roads seemed narrow and twisting, but Lesley found her attention soon caught by the beauty of it all. Climbing up and down, through lushly pastured fields, which in winter could be as bleak and desolate as any place on earth, she recognised the waters of the Ravensbeck reservoir, and beyond, the twisting valley of the Raven that gave Ravensdale its name.

  Carne was talking to Jeremy, pointing out Scar Cross and Ravensmoor, Warrengill and Liddesmoor Forest. There was the huge Norman keep of Burnridge a twelfth-century castle largely fallen into ruin, and the ivy-clad ruins of the nearby abbey, destroyed during the reign of Henry VIII. He was indicating the different farmhouses, telling the boy who owned them, but inevitably they reached Kirkby Clough, the nearest village to Raventhorpe, and Lesley felt all the fears and anxieties she had been experiencing crystallise into a hard knot of apprehension inside her.

  As if sensing her unease, Carne’s eyes met hers through the reflection of the rear-view mirror. There was query there, and some impatience, but mostly the heavy lids concealed their expression, and she guessed he had his own doubts about how she would react if Mrs Radley made things difficult for her. She wondered what his mother would say if she was told that her son had been unable to keep his hands off her. Bitter memories hardened her heart. It would not be received at all well, but maybe that was her defence against Carne. Her lips tightened. It was the first time she had admitted that she might need one.

  Raventhorpe was the largest holding in the district—a thousand acres, covering much of the fertile pasture of the valley floor and climbing the limestone terraces to the desolate moorland above. Approximately a third of the land was leased by tenant farmers running sheep on the moorland ranges, but Carne’s most profitable income came from his milk yield and the pedigree herd he had improved over the years. At present, he was telling Jeremy, he was experimenting with a breed of French cattle whose milk capacity was greater, and Lesley realised his knowledge of biochemistry had not gone to waste.

  Carne drove over a cattle-grid and they were on Radley land, land that had been in the Radley family for more than two hundred years. He was the only son of this generation of Radleys, but two of his sisters had married local men and continued to farm in the district. His eldest sister, however, had married a vet, and they had their practice in the nearby village of Ravenswick. It was this continuation of family loyalties which Lesley had found so hard to accept, although with hindsight she understood that Carne could not have abandoned his responsibilities. Maybe she would never have asked him to if his mother had accepted her. But Mrs Radley had always been opposed to Carne’s ‘city’ wife, and Lesley’s desire for independence had flowered.

  With the car windows down, the smell of new-mown hay was intoxicating, mingling as it did with the scent of wild thyme and poppies, and the damper scents of the river. The Raven had swept round in a curve to slice through the pasture below Raventhorpe, its banks bright with meadowsweet and foxgloves, and the fence that edged the paddock was overhung with bindweed and flowering thistle.

  Jeremy was enchanted, leaning out of the window eagerly, pointing at the foal that kicked its legs as the station wagon passed. But before he could ask if he might feed the colt later, a horse came galloping across the fields to meet them, its rider waving enthusiastically. Lesley guessed it was a woman because of the hat she was wearing, but not until she drew nearer did she realise it was Marion Harvey. Or was she still unmarried? The hand holding the reins seemed to be adorned with several rings.

  Carne slowed and eventually stopped, and Lesley found her teeth were all on edge. It was ridiculous after all these years, but she wished she could have felt installed at Raventhorpe before the other woman made her appearance.

  Marion appeared to have no such inhibitions. She reined in her chestnut hunter and climbed down just as Carne got out of the car, and the smile she gave him had all the possessive intimacy of which she was capable.

  ‘You’re back,’ she said, unnecessarily, and Lesley felt if they had not had an audience she might well have kissed him. ‘I saw the car from Maltby Pike.’

  Carne turned to his son who had scrambled out behind him, ignoring Lesley’s admonishment to stay where he was, and smiled. ‘We made quite good time on the motorway,’ he said, as Jeremy came to stand beside him. ‘But it’s good to get away from the diesel fumes, isn’t it, son?’ and Jeremy nodded happily, pleased with his importance.

  ‘So this is Jeremy.’ Marion barely glanced at the car as she spoke. ‘What a big boy you are! You were just a baby when I saw you last.’

  Jeremy looked doubtful, and glanced round at his mother. But Lesley had assumed a sudden interest in one of the magazines beside her and he had to answer for himself.

  ‘Do I know you?’ he asked, and Marion’s laugh grated on Lesley’s already strained nervous system.

  ‘Do you know me?’ she echoed. ‘Don’t you remember Aunt Marion? I thought we were friends.’

  Lesley’s lips tightened. That was patently not true. Marion had never had any time for babies, and while she had suggested that when Jeremy was older he might regard her as an adoptive aunt, he had grown to boyhood in London.

  While Marion was speaking to the boy, however, Carne took the opportunity to put his head through the car window. ‘Don’t you think you could stir yourself to speak to an old friend?’ he demanded, his eyes dark with impatience, and Lesley felt irritated that he should feel the need to reprove her.

  ‘Miss Harv
ey is no friend of mine,’ she retorted, aware of his anger, but his: ‘Mrs Bowland!’ brought her head up with a jerk.

  ‘She’s married?’ she demanded involuntarily, but Carne shook his head.

  ‘Widowed!’ he corrected coldly, and withdrew.

  Widowed! Lesley could hardly believe it. She stared at the other girl, tall, and quite heavily built in the manner of the daleswomen, and simply could not see her married to anyone. Although Marion was a couple of years older than she was, she had always appeared younger, not so much in looks but in behaviour, and her love of horses had curtailed any aptitude for dress sense she might have had. She invariably wore corded pants and checked shirts, similar to what she was wearing now, relying on her forceful personality to attract attention. But married—and widowed! In what—four or five years? It was incredible. What was the name Carne had used? Bowland? Bowland? The only Bowland she could remember was old Aaron Bowland, who had farmed High Etherley, the holding at the head of the valley.

  Marion was looking towards the station wagon now and Lesley found she was not as immune to attention as she had thought. With a feeling of compulsion, she opened the door and reluctantly stepped out.

  ‘Hello, Lesley!’ Marion was irritatingly hearty. ‘This is a surprise. Never thought to see you back at Raventhorpe.’

  It was a tactless comment, but Lesley ignored it. ‘How nice to see you again, Marion,’ she returned politely. ‘I hear I should offer you my condolences. I’m sorry. I didn’t even know you had been married.’

  ‘Oh, that’s all right.’ Marion regarded her smilingly, but Lesley could see the light of hostility in her eyes. ‘Aaron’s been dead these six months now. I’m quite recovered from the bereavement.’

  ‘Aaron?’ Lesley raised speculative eyebrows at Carne, and his mouth drew down.

  ‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘Marion was married to Aaron Bowland. I thought you knew.’

  ‘How could I?’ retorted Lesley sweetly. ‘You haven’t kept me up to date with every little bit of gossip in the valley.’