Annie was clattering about the kitchen now, awkward and ungracious, tidying away the pans which had heated the water for her bath, waiting for them to take themselves off and leave her to recover with her family with whom she was at ease. The bath stood before the fire, the cooling, muddied water still in it, embarrassing her. Her sisters were inclined as yet to cling about her impatient figure and when Tessa nodded towards the bath Pearce and Drew instantly sprang forward to lift it, laughing now that the drama was done with.
‘Where . . . ?’ they queried, for really, what did one do in these circumstances, since they had known only the comfort of an upstairs bathroom, with hot and cold piped water.
‘The back door, you idiots,’ she mouthed at them and as they tussled with the bath between them even the children began to smile despite the god-like proportions of these two gentlemen, circling about them as they edged towards the door.
‘Sit down, Annie,’ Tessa beseeched her, ‘just for a moment.’
‘Give ower, lass. I’ve them childer ter see to . . .’
‘Oh, sit down and tell me all about this union thing. I’m sorry to say I didn’t take much notice last week when you and . . .’ she turned round to make sure they were not overheard, ‘. . . when you and Will were talking about it.’
‘No, I didn’t think you was listening,’ Annie replied dourly but there was a glint of amusement in her eyes.
Her cousins, returned from their mastery of the bath water, listened, fascinated for the first time by this aspect of mill life of which they had previously known nothing. They had heard it mentioned a dozen times around the dinner table but what had it to do with them, they had asked one another, yawning? Now they had an almost proprietary interest in this quaint thread of a girl who was as sharp of voice as she was sparing of words.
When they had gone to fetch the horses Tessa took Annie’s reluctant hand and from her own superb height and splendid good looks, smiled down into her face.
‘You have nothing to be ashamed of, you know,’ she whispered, ‘and nothing to fear now. My cousins will see to that. Something like this appeals to the gallant in them.’
‘Aye, so I noticed,’ Annie answered shortly.
‘Will you be all right now?’
‘O’course. I’ve got ower worse n’ this.’
‘Would you like me to . . . ?’
‘Nay, you gerron ’ome.’
‘I’ll call to see how you are.’
‘Give over, there’s no need.’
‘Nevertheless, I will. We are friends you know, Annie, though you make it very difficult at times.’ She smiled to take the sting out of her words.
‘’Appen yer right,’ Annie agreed grudgingly, the light in her eyes soft.
Tessa lifted her head in that haughty gesture Annie knew so well as though to say that all was now settled to her satisfaction.
‘I shall come on Sunday on my way to . . . well, on Sunday.’
She had explained to her cousins, to her own satisfaction at least, how she had become friendly with Annie, leaving out all mention of the tinkers who had frightened her last summer, and naturally, of Will Broadbent.
‘I visit her now and again,’ she said airily, ‘and take a few things for the children. Well, you can see how they are placed,’ she added, making it sound as though she was the lady of the manor distributing munificence to the poor and they seemed to find no reason to question her further.
They rode home companionably side by side, the three of them taking up the width of the rough track which led over Besom Hill and beyond Badger’s Edge to Crossfold. Those they met on the way were forced to step off into the grass to let them go by, but it is doubtful the three riders noticed or, if they did, thought anything much about it.
There would be no more collecting in the mill, Pearce said ominously, for the out-of-work operatives at Preston. Besides, had he not been told that they were slowly drifting back to work, those who had been on strike for the best part of thirty-six weeks? They had won nothing beyond a long, hungry winter. The strike leaders, it appeared, had no option but to capitulate and the masters would soon be celebrating a victory. It was being said that labour, as a commodity, could obtain no higher price than the purchaser was willing to give for it and the strongest party would, in the end, win.
The March wind ruffled through Tessa’s growing hair, flicking a damp strand across her mouth. Her eyes were a soft grey velvet musing on the plight and appearance of Annie Beale, and her thoughts were full of admiration. A nasty experience, but Annie had made herself recover, for the sake of her family. Not many young girls in factory life today would have had the strength, of mind and body, to evade those bully boys, for so long, as she had, and then pick herself up and reassure her sisters that she was not in the least hurt, just madder than a wet hen, or words to that effect.
Tessa smiled, then glanced down at her own slim legs which were becoming wetter every minute in the persistent drizzle which fell. She had flung her cape about her, fastening it carelessly as she left Annie’s cottage but it had become loosened, riding back over her shoulders, allowing the damp to penetrate her clothing beneath.
‘Just a minute, you two,’ she said, falling back a pace. ‘I want to fasten my cape. This drizzle is getting heavier and I’m going to be wet through by the time we reach home.’ She made her horse stand whilst she undid the cloak, lifting and whirling it about her head and shoulders, allowing it to settle but not before the two men who had halted obediently had seen the joyous lift of her breasts, very obviously unconfined, the dark and peaked circle of her nipples through the damp silk of her shirt. Two pairs of vivid blue eyes narrowed. Two brown throats dried up, the breath within them becoming trapped, and when they each turned away and their eyes met it was with the murderous rage which springs up between two dogs who covet the same bitch.
‘What the devil are you staring at?’ Drew snarled, just as though Pearce had been found ogling Drew’s woman. His hand closed viciously about the crop he held and it was quite certain, if he had been within range, that he would have sliced it across his brother’s cheek.
‘I might ask you the same question.’ They drew their horses up hard against one another, nose to tail, and as Drew lashed out with the crop, Pearce caught his arm. The bays, unused to such rough and menacing handling, reared and pranced, their thoroughbred eyes rolling in fright, their long and fragile thoroughbred legs clattering across tumbling stones and treacherous rabbit holes. But still they came at one another, their well-muscled arms and strong brown hands looking for a hold, for something to hit, to damage, to destroy, in their mindless, unreasoning jealousy.
A sharp lunge brought Drew from his mount and he slid beneath the belly of Pearce’s kicking, enraged animal, but in a second he was up, his arms reaching for his brother, his feet digging into the soft ground, finding enough purchase to heave Pearce down with him.
‘You filthy bastard . . . you filthy bastard,’ he was snarling, his eyes slitted with rage, his mouth hard and cold and cruel. His arms were about his brother, lifting him bodily from the ground; then they both went down, rolling against the legs of the screaming horse, sending it, and the other, racing away in terror in the direction of Crossfold and the safety of the stable.
‘I’ll kill you,’ Pearce sobbed in the back of his throat, his hands reaching for his brother, his teeth searching for his jugular, his booted feet for anything, preferably in his breeches, which might do him the most harm.
‘Drew . . . oh, dear God . . . Pearce . . . Stop it, stop it. What is it? . . . Dear Lord, what is the matter? Stop it, stop it . . .’ She tried to get between them, her cape hampering her so she flung it off. She had done no more than secure the top button when her cousins had, unaccountably, gone for each other’s throats, and it came undone easily. The rain was coming down harder now and she slipped in the wet grass, falling heavily on her back, drenched to her skin, her bold breasts almost naked, but the two men who fought over her were too concerned w
ith killing one another to see. Splattered with mud and blood from a wound one had inflicted, they grappled fiercely, flinging unco-ordinated blows, some of which found their mark but most ending ineffectually in the ground. If they could have kept their feet, face to face, doubtless they would have half-killed one another since, both being skilled at bare-knuckle fighting, they would have fought to a standstill, but scuffling on the wet and slippery grass as they were they did little damage.
During the five minutes the fight lasted Tessa did her best to stop them but it was they themselves who ended it.
They rolled away from one another as though sense and reason and sanity infiltrated their fevered minds at the same moment. Slowly they sat up, several feet apart, their heads bowed on their arms which were draped across their bent knees. They did not look at one another, nor at her.
‘Well,’ she said indignantly, ‘what the devil was that all about? You realise you have terrified your horses into stampeding, I am wet through and covered in mud and one of you, or both, is certain to have a black eye or a bloodied nose. What happened? What were you fighting about? Did one of you say something the other did not care for, was that it? You’re like a couple of schoolboys, always ready to scrap over nothing. One of these days those tempers of yours will get you into serious trouble. Oh, I know I’ve a temper too, but nothing like the exhibition I’ve seen here today. Now you’ll have to walk home and I hope to God those bays of yours have come to no harm or Charlie will . . .’
‘Go home, Tessa, there’s a good lass.’ Pearce’s voice was drained of all expression.
‘Go home! Don’t you start ordering me about, Pearce Greenwood. Just because you and Drew have had a spat it doesn’t mean you can . . .’
‘Go home, Tessa!’
‘Dammit, I will then. Why should I stay, or even concern myself with either one of you?’
‘Quite, cousin, so go home.’
She had gone, her cape enveloping her from head to toe when Drew spoke.
‘What are we to do, brother?’ he said softly, still staring at the ground between his legs.
‘God knows, for I don’t.’
11
‘We can’t go on like this, dammit, and well you know it. It’s nearly six months since we became . . .’
‘Lovers. Is that the word you hesitate over, my lad?’
Tessa rolled on to her stomach, draping her arms across Will’s broad, naked chest, smiling languorously into his face. Her eyes were soft, filled with the sighing warmth of the aftermath of their love-making and he felt a great desire to shake her, to fling her off and climb out of the vigorously crumpled depth of the feather-bed, to stand up and bellow his frustration, to stamp about the small room and bang himself against the walls, to hurt himself physically, as his sore heart was hurting now.
‘Don’t turn away from me, Will,’ she said plaintively, moving herself up his body until her lips were an inch from his. She put up a hand to his face, forcing him to look at her then took his bottom lip between hers, sucking it gently into her mouth, tracing her tongue along the inside of his lips in the way he had taught her. She smiled into his eyes, inviting him to begin again, then lifted herself on to her hands until her breasts touched his face, each nipple brushing sensuously across his parted lips.
‘Open your mouth wide,’ she ordered breathlessly and when, unable to refuse, he did so, she pressed each one in turn between his lips, the rosy peaks finding his tongue. He licked them slowly, rolling his tongue about the soft flesh which hardened and filled. He felt his body begin to respond to her, as it always did, rejoicing in the way hers pleased it, again as he had taught her, and inside him something tore loose and broke away in pain. Whore’s tricks, his anguished mind told him before he could stop it, then it thought of nothing as the wicked skill she brought to his bed overcame him. She was expert in the art of love-making now, bringing him and through him, herself, to peaks of glorious, shouting delight, not once, not even twice, but several times at each encounter. Sometimes it was a quiet, shivering, almost lyrical experience. A soft rejoicing in the way their bodies met and joined, so perfectly balanced in their need and fulfilment, he felt a great desire to weep at the beauty of it. Then she was tender, as gentle as a dove on his hand, submissive and willing, he thought, to be anything he wanted her to be.
‘Marry me,’ he would say then, even as he spoke the words knowing the foolishness of them, and he would watch her, hopelessly, as she became restless beneath his gaze. ‘Marry me and we’ll go away. Emigrate to the colonies. They want strong, healthy men and women to begin a new nation in Australia . . .’
‘Among the felons?’ she would laugh.
‘There are men of importance there now. Land to be had for those prepared to work. You’d love it there, sweetheart. There’d be no restrictions on you as there are here. An outdoor life in a world so big and empty and free you could ride that mare of yours for evermore and never meet another living soul. A farm of our own . . .’
Her gaze avoided his, or worse still, to him, became filled with a mischievous gleaming, that look of smiling ardour, of passion which would, without question, render him to the depths and heights where her need took him. Always it was the same. She answered his questions, his pleas, his demands with the certain persuasion of her body, diverting his masculinity to the attention, not of their future, but to the rapture of now.
From the day it had begun she had set the pace, the rhythm, made the rules, giving him everything he wanted of her body, taking everything she needed of his, fulfilled to such glowing beauty he had been amazed, on the next occasion he had come face to face with her mother, that she had not approached him on what he had done to her daughter. She was seventeen now and certainly ready for marriage and her body, nourished by his, for as the saying goes, ‘man feedeth woman’, became a woman’s, magnificent and proudly flaunting. And each time he tried to speak of the future, even though he knew inside himself where practical common sense lay that his hopes were forlorn, she would fling herself upon him, her mouth reaching greedily for his so that the words were kept locked inside him. She made his body desire hers, filling his mind not with what he recognised as a pathetic dream of the future, but with forthright and lusty desire.
But not this time. This time he would not be seduced into that mindless abandonment of thought and sense which her magic wrought in him. This time her body and her use of it would not come between him and what he had to say to her. He meant to make her understand that he wanted to be not her lover but her husband. He could not go on like this, week in and week out, hiding away in this cottage the love he had for her, delightful though their hours together in this bed were. It was a marvel to him that their relationship, which surely to God must be known to those who lived nearby, had not yet reached the ears of her family. She was discreet, too discreet for his liking since if it became generally known that she was seeing one of her uncle’s employees in secret, would it not force the confrontation he hoped would end this deceit and make her his wife? They would not like it, especially those two lordly cousins of hers, but the Greenwoods had come from working stock and might that not incline them to look more kindly on him as a husband for the daughter of the house! He was strong. He had a good brain and that most driving whip of them all, ambition. He would be more than overlooker or foreman in someone else’s mill, by God, he would. His clever brain, and he knew it was clever, would find a way to make him his own master one day. He wanted none of their money and, if he were honest, none of it for Tessa though he supposed he could not deny her her inheritance. It was only recently that he had been made up to foreman with a decent wage to suit his new position. He could afford to rent perhaps a small villa on the outskirts of Chapmanstown, or at least something a bit better than this cottage. He was realistic enough to know that Tessa was used to luxury beyond his imagining but if she loved him, and she told him over and over again that she did, she would be prepared to make some sacrifice, surely? He would even try to get in a
girl to help with the heavier housework. Allow her to have more freedom than the wives of other foremen. Freedom to ride her little mare up on the moorland road and . . .
Here his thoughts became confused for how was he to afford to feed and stable a horse, and besides, would he care to have his wife galloping about the countryside as Miss Tessa Harrison did? He knew he wouldn’t and if that was the case, could he hold her to him, reined in and locked in a cage, which is how she would see it, if he dared not allow her the freedom she needed? Was he being selfish in asking this child-woman, since that was what she was despite her sexual maturity, to set herself down into the life a woman of his class must live?
He turned away from her then. Easing her body to one side, he slipped out of the bed and strode to the window, staring blindly out into the pale spring sky. The candle on the small bedside table which she had insisted upon lighting so that they might study one another more intimately, turned his hard, muscled body to the colour of amber, the light emphasising the broadness of his shoulders, the lean beauty of his narrow waist, buttocks and shapely legs. He did not look back at her but he was conscious of the tight-clenched impatience and distinctly heard, as her breathing slowed, her long drawn-out sigh of resignation.
‘What are you doing over there?’ she asked softly, knowing quite well what was coming for had it not happened a dozen times before, but attempting to avoid it with lightness. ‘Come back to bed, sweetheart. I shall have to go soon if I’m to be home for dinner and you know we won’t see one another until next weekend. Come here, Will, and put your arms . . .’
Shining Threads Page 19
