Larkrigg Fell

by Freda Lightfoot

  Now her sobs had calmed and she slapped at her eyes with the palms of her hands. ‘It was never a happy house. Meg was right. I shan’t miss it as much as I think.’ She gave a small hiccup of distress. ‘But it’s still so terribly sad.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, pushing back a damp curl of hair from her cheek. ‘It is. But no one is hurt. It could have been much worse.’

  Beth sighed and rested her head against his shoulder. It was a good shoulder to rest on, solid and strong. ‘If Pietro isn’t in the house then, where is he?’

  It was as if an electric current had shot through her body. Beth was out of his arms in a second, smoke sore eyes wide and frightened. She said only one word. ‘Meg,’ before turning and setting off at a run down the fell towards Broombank as if indeed her own heels were on fire.

  Pietro was sitting in the rocking chair by the wide inglenook fireplace where the women of the house would sit and knit. Above his head ran the huge beam from where hams had once hung to catch the oak scented smoke from the fire. The embrasure now held a solid fuel range but a griddle iron still swung from a ratten crook in the comer although no one baked oat-cakes on it these days. It was there for show in this dearly loved home, a touch of nostalgia for times long gone.

  ‘Three hundred years Broombank has stood on this spot,’ Pietro said as she walked towards him. ‘A family house. My family, by rights.’

  ‘Not any more,’ Beth quietly pulled up a stool so she could sit before him. Tam and Andrew were checking all the barns and outbuildings, to make sure no one had set a fire in any of them. She’d had to battle with Andrew to let her come in here alone to talk to Pietro, but she’d won in the end. She could only hope this decision would not put her marriage, or her life, at risk. ‘Those days are over, Pietro. Long gone. You can’t resurrect the past.’

  ‘Exactly what I decided,’ he agreed, in his most reasonable tone. ‘But three hundred years is a long time and if we, the Lawson family can’t have it, then why should you? More to the point, why should Meg? So I’ve decided to destroy it.’

  ‘I won’t let you.’

  He looked at her and laughed, then getting up placed the rocking chair on top of the pitched pine table. ‘How will you stop me, little one?’

  ‘I don’t know, but I will.’ Beth was amazed how calm her voice sounded when inside she trembled. She watched as he piled other items on to the table. A sewing box, two dining chairs, a foot stool. Then he set about screwing up pieces of newspapers, stuffing them in all the gaps between, as if building a bonfire. Which was exactly what he was doing. ‘Where is Meg?’ Quietly asked, her breath held like a ball of iron in her throat. The question only made him laugh all the more.

  ‘Gone to the devil for all I care.’ His eyes glittered in the light from the lamp. ‘I disposed of Larkrigg Hall. Did you see it?’

  ‘I saw it.’ She drew every ounce of strength into her next question. ‘Did Meg see it? Meg wasn’t inside it, was she?’

  He didn’t seem to be listening to her, yet he gazed with an aching sadness into her face. ‘It is the very great pity that you would not marry me, little one. We could have had Larkrigg Hall, and Broombank too. We would have been rich, you and I, and I would have restored my family’s inheritance.’

  Beth was not to be diverted. ‘Was Meg here, at Broombank, when you arrived?’

  He shook his head, seeming to lose patience with her questions and almost shouted his reply. ‘Meg stole Broombank from my family.’

  Beth was on her feet in a second, facing him with equal fury. ‘I won’t have you say that. Meg never stole anything from anyone in her life.’

  For a second she thought he might hit her as his eyes lit with shock at her spirited response. Then the upper lip curled, as it had so often done in the past, she realised. Only she’d never really noticed. ‘You would be bound to take her side.’

  ‘I take no side. Meg took on Broombank and paid for it fair and square. From all accounts Jack was a wastrel with no interest in the farm and entirely unfaithful and disloyal to her. He deserved to lose his inheritance.’

  ‘You dare to attack my family?’

  ‘I dare. I’ll certainly not stand silent while you attack mine.’ Grey eyes met blue in blazing defiance. They were so close she could trace every feature, every fine line of his perfect face. A face she had once loved and now loathed for the pain he had caused. Pietro was the first to break the hold, the cynical smile twisting the lips she had once kissed.

  ‘But now, at last,’ he said. ‘I take the revenge. The bellavendetta, the quiet vendetta which bubbles and simmers for years and then boils over. Poof!’ He smacked his hands together, laughing. ‘You will miss your precious Larkrigg, I think? Meg will miss Broombank. So I beat you both.’ His delight was rather like that of a naughty child who had deprived someone of a special treat.

  ‘If you wanted a fine home you should have provided it for yourself and not attempted to steal it from others, or attack them out of greed or cruel vengeance. I’ve seen Ellen’s animals battle against man’s greed and destruction of their environment. I’ve seen them attacked for no reason, when they were only defending their territory or loved ones. But they never give up striving to find the haven of peace which is their right, and neither will I. I found mine, Pietro, with Andrew. If you did not find yours, perhaps it is because you did not deserve to.

  ‘Larkrigg Hall is my home no longer and I’m glad. I’ve no wish to return to it. I’m not a sweet, dreamy child any longer, Pietro. I’m a woman.’ She stood up and walked to the fire, holding out her hands to warm them by the blazing logs which crackled in the iron grate, while she considered her next words. She was aware that he paid her little heed, all the while continuing to add items of furniture to the growing pile, still stuffing newspaper between. At any moment he might put a match to it. It made her shiver.

  ‘In any case, Meg no longer owns Broombank.’ It was a gamble, but a risk Beth felt she must take. He turned to glare at her and for the first time she saw a hint of confusion in those brilliant eyes.

  ‘You lie.’

  ‘No. It is mine now. Mine and Andrew’s.’

  His whole body jerked and the glare from those ice blue eyes almost cut through her. ‘Yours?’

  ‘Yes. Meg wishes to retire, so has offered it to me and I have accepted.’

  There was almost admiration in his face now. ‘Damn you, Beth, why wouldn’t you marry me? If only I’d discovered this fire deep within you.’

  ‘It comes from my love of Andrew, and family. You never inspired that sort of love in me. No one can force me to do anything. Not ever again.’

  Drawing a steadying breath into her sore lungs, she continued, her tone quite matter of fact. ‘I’m exceedingly thankful that I didn’t marry you. We wouldn’t have got on at all well.’ She turned to him and smiled with perfect serenity. ‘What a child I was. Besotted, and intrigued by your superficial perfection, when underneath the picture is quite different, is it not?’

  Somewhere deep in the house a gust of wind rattled a window, and a door clicked shut, making her feel a breath of unease. Had he started a fire somewhere in the house? Were the bedrooms even now burning? Her nostrils were so full of smoke already, she wouldn’t know until it was too late. Where were Tam and Andrew?

  And where was Meg?

  ‘The reason I couldn’t bring myself to marry you, Pietro, was because I didn’t truly love you. Oh, I was infatuated with you, fascinated by your flattering, latin charm, but it was no more than calf love. What I have with Andrew is the genuine variety. Rich and full and satisfying. I’d do anything for him, lay down my life for him. But you wouldn’t understand selfless love, would you? You are too filled with greed and your own selfish demands.

  ‘I’m sorry if your mother was unhappy with your father, but she surely had a right to make her own decisions in life. It is only your assumption that she would have been happier here, when in all likelihood the marriage would have collapsed anyway.’

&
nbsp; ‘No, you are wrong. She dream of England all the time. She hate to be poor.’

  ‘If that is the case. then I’m sorry for her, and for you. You should marry someone because you love them, and want to be with them and make a life together, not for them to provide for you. What Meg has here she has built herself. She owes your family nothing, nothing at all. And we won’t let you take it, or destroy any of it. Ellen was right. You used me, and Sarah, playing with one to make the other jealous. We all thought Jonty was the joker, but your games were far more evil.’

  She moved towards him then, a confidence in her step which brought a new elegance to the more mature line of her slender body. ‘I used to think Sarah was selfish, but she was only childishly so. You are the supreme master and have hurt her deeply. If you don’t truly love her then let her go. No more teasing, no more using her for your own purposes. I hope she has the strength to leave you, as you deserve. But you aren’t ever going to hurt my family ever again. I won’t let you.’

  He snorted his derision. ‘And how do you intend to stop me?’

  ‘Enough is enough, Pietro. Even I have a limit to my patience.’ She went over to the dresser, found a pad of paper amongst the debris stuffed within its shelves and scribbled furiously for a moment. Beth handed it to him, holding out a pen. ‘It’s an IOU. Sign it. You will promise to pay for Meg’s fifty sheep and then you will go far away from Broomdale, and never return.’

  He laughed. ‘Or what will you do?’

  ‘I will have you charged with arson, sheep rustling, damage to an old woman’s property, and anything else I can dream up in the meantime.’ She smiled. ‘And you know what a good imagination I have, and how desperately stubborn I can be.’

  His glare should have burned her where she stood but Beth only continued to smile confidently. After a moment his mouth slipped into its characteristic sulk and he signed without further protest. Handing the paper back to her he walked to the door, puffing out his chest with self importance.

  ‘I was intending to return to Italy, in any case. My point has been made, sì? I have taken my revenge by disrupting all your lives, and I am content. I hate your damp, cold England. I shall buy a villa in Tuscany and enjoy life. This land is not for me.’

  ‘You do that.’ The paper trembled in her hand. What had she achieved? He would never return the sheep, or pay for them. But it didn’t matter so long as he went out of their lives and never came back. He was right, he had succeeded in taking a warped sort of revenge. He’d broken her lovely sister, burned down Larkrigg, almost ruined her own marriage, and what had he done with Meg?

  As he opened the door to leave, it flung wide and in she walked, large as life. ‘By heck, its cold out there, for all it’s May.’ Wide mouth grinning broadly on a face streaked with soot and smoke, nose glowing almost as brightly as the honey gold hair that stood out like a blazing oriel about her head. ‘Whoever put a match to that place did us all a favour. I’m not sorry to see the end of it. Brought this family nothing but trouble. I, for one, won’t cry to see it go.’

  A gurgle of joy bubbled up in Beth’s throat, and she dashed to fling her arms about her grandmother and hold her tight. Andrew and Tam came in behind her, grinning from ear to ear. Beth looked from one to the other of them and became very still. ‘How long have you been outside that door?’

  ‘Long enough,’ Andrew quietly told her.

  ‘Keeping an ear on things, as you might say,’ Tam agreed, fixing his piercing gaze on Pietro who backed away, startled as the family seemed to mass against him.

  Beth was still hugging Meg. ‘Oh, we thought we’d lost you.’

  ‘Lost me? No, I’m not so easily got rid of.’

  ‘But where were you?’

  Andrew came and rested a hand upon Beth’s shoulder, it felt so good she pressed her cheek instinctively against it and lifted her eyes to his, feeling a spark of recognition as their glances met. ‘Meg had gone up to Larkrigg to investigate for herself,’ he said, ‘instead of going to bed as she promised.’

  ‘And got herself locked into an outhouse up there,’ Tam added. ‘Daft eejit!’ But he spoke lovingly, with his arm about his wife.

  ‘I wasn’t tired, and wanted to help.’

  Andrew gave her what could only be described as an old fashioned look. ‘If the firemen hadn’t found you, God knows what might have happened.’

  ‘Don’t say it,’ Beth cried. ‘Don’t even think it. Thank God she’s safe.’

  ‘It’d take more than a bit of a fire to harm me.’ Meg held something bright and shining in her hand. ‘Besides, see, I had my luckpenny with me. Never let me down yet.’

  And they all burst out laughing. Then she looked across at her granddaughter, contentedly snuggled in her husband’s arms, and smiled. ‘Course, I’d be happy enough to hand it on were someone willing to take Broombank and the land with it. Sarah isn’t interested, I talked to her about it. She’s planning on returning to America, to reassess her life, she says.’ Meg turned the coin in her fingers. ‘It needs to go to someone who cares about sheep and farming, same reason it was once handed on to me.’

  Smiling, Beth glanced up at Andrew and kissed the rigid line of his jaw. ‘I could only take it if it was in an equal partnership, given and accepted with love.’

  As the corner of his mouth lifted into a smile he placed a kiss on her small nose, right on his favourite spot. For a moment nothing existed but what they read in each other’s eyes. Then Andrew turned his grin on Meg.

  ‘I don’t have any problem then.’

  And as the shining luckpenny spun through the air no one noticed as a figure slunk quietly from the room. They were far too busy holding out their hands to catch it.

  Also by Freda Lightfoot as ebooks

  Ruby McBride

  9780957097834

  ‘An inspiring novel about accepting change and bravely facing the future.’

  The Daily Telegraph on Ruby McBride

  The grand opening of the Manchester Ship Canal is a big day for Ruby McBride and her young sister and brother. Its glories fade into insignificance, however, when their mother Molly, due to illness, reluctantly entrusts her beloved children to Ignatius House, and the not-so-tender care of the nuns. Ruby, a rebel at heart, is always on the wrong side of authority, but when she is sixteen, the Board of Guardians forces her into marriage and she has to abandon her siblings, vowing she will reunite the family just as soon as she can.

  Convinced that her new husband is a conman, she discovers life on the barge is not at all what she expected. She is furious at being robbed of the chance to be with her childhood sweetheart, Kit Jarvis, so resists Bart’s advances for as long as she can. But Ruby’s courage and spirit enable her to rise above the disadvantages of her birth and make a life for herself within the thriving community of waterways folk.

  Daisy’s Secret

  ISBN 9780957097827

  ‘Another Lightfoot triumph’ Dorset Echo on Daisy’s Secret

  The Lakes 2012

  Laura is having problems with her marriage, so when she is left a house in the Lake District by her grandmother, she starts to look at her life anew. And she begins to investigate the cause of the feud between her father and his mother. What was Daisy’s Secret?

  Manchester 1939

  Abandoned by her sweetheart and rejected by her family, Daisy agrees to being evacuated to the Lakes at the start of the war. Still grieving for the baby boy she was forced to give up for adoption, she agrees that he will be her secret - a precious memory but spoken of to no one. She seeks consolation by taking under her wing two frightened little girls. Can helping evacuees make up for losing her own child?

  Historical sagas

  Lakeland Lily

  The Bobbin Girls

  The Favourite Child

  Kitty Little

  For All Our Tomorrows

  Gracie’s Sin

  Daisy’s Secret

  Ruby McBride

  Dancing on Deansgate


  The Luckpenny Series:

  Luckpenny Land

  Storm Clouds Over Broombank

  Wishing Water

  Larkrigg Fell

  Poorhouse Lane Series

  The Girl from Poorhouse Lane

  The Child from Nowhere

  The Woman from Heartbreak House

  Champion Street Market Series

  Putting On The Style

  Fools Fall In Love

  That'll Be The Day

  Candy Kisses

  Who’s Sorry Now

  Lonely Teardrops

  Historical Romances

  Madeiran Legacy

  Whispering Shadows

  Rhapsody Creek

  Proud Alliance

  Outrageous Fortune

  Contemporary

  Trapped

  Short Stories

  A Sackful of Stories

  Available in print and ebook

  Historical sagas

  House of Angels

  Angels at War

  The Promise

  My Lady Deceiver

  Biographical Historicals

  Hostage Queen

  Reluctant Queen

  The Queen and the Courtesan

  The Duchess of Drury Lane

  About Freda Lightfoot

  Born in Lancashire, Freda Lightfoot has been a teacher and bookseller. She lived for a number of years in the Lake District and in a mad moment tried her hand at the ‘good life’, kept sheep and hens, various orphaned cats and dogs, built drystone walls, planted a small wood and even learned how to make jam. She has now given up her thermals to build a house in an olive grove in Spain, where she produces her own olive oil and sits in the sun on the rare occasions when she isn’t writing. She’s published 40 novels including many bestselling family sagas and historical novels. To find out more about, visit her website and sign up for her new title alert, or join her on Facebook and Twitter where she loves to chat with readers.