Chapter Three
Francesca slept very badly. The day had been emotional enough with her father's funeral, but the awkward scenario afterwards back at Hill Mead had produced the worst possible combination for insomnia: an exhausted body and an over-active brain.
She tossed and turned, listening to the rustle of the wind in the pine trees, growing hotter and hotter until she kicked off the duvet and then finally discarded her blue cotton-jersey pyjamas in a heap on the floor and curled herself into a foetal position, slender, well-muscled arms wrapped defensively around the fullness of her breasts, dark hair spread out like a fan on the pillow.
Her stomach felt knotted with tension. It was impossible to relax. After four long years, Saul was sleeping in the guest room just across the landing, biding a dangerous, explosive silence on the subject of Lowenna. She shuddered at the prospect of Saul's reaction, all the more daunting because of his absence of comment so far. Tomorrow would bring the inevitable interrogation, she knew. She had it all to come. The only reason she'd been spared last night was a mixture of his own iron self-control and Aunt Carol's mediating influence.
The trouble was, she knew him too well. He might be arrogant and chauvinistic, but he wouldn't spark off a major row in front of a three-year-old child. But the fact that he'd calmly accepted Mrs Prince's offer of a bed for the night, instead of high-tailing it off to his polo yard in Berkshire again, was ominous in itself.
She shivered, and pulled the duvet back up to cover herself, her thoughts twisting in another direction. Wasn't she assuming too much about Saul's reaction? It suddenly occurred to her that her long-ago decision not to tell him about Lowenna might have fostered all kinds of fantasies about his reactions if he knew, about his feelings towards her.
Saul had hardly proved himself a devoted step-cousin recently, had he? He hadn't shown a scrap of interest in her life for four years, and before that he'd said some cruel, brutal things to her, things she'd never forget as long as she lived.
Face it: wasn't it far more likely that he'd be fairly indifferent to the whole thing? That thought both comforted and tortured, and with a groan she rolled on to her stomach, burying her head in the pillow and trying to calm her confused thoughts.
The trouble was that the past, in itself, was confusing. Nothing had ever seemed to happen calmly and rationally between herself and Saul. It had always been love-hate. There had always been an ambiguous air of competition between them. And her persistent hero-worship for Saul had always been tempered by her father's contempt. She'd seen Saul as exciting, different, blessed with almost magical powers and innate wisdom. As a child, he'd been big brother, friend, cousin, all rolled into one. She'd adored Saul's mother, Aunt Carol, with her exuberant sense of fun, her off-beat attitudes, and been devastated when she moved away just after Mother died.
Her father, conversely, had viewed Saul with suspicion, as an unwelcome infiltrator into their family.
He'd despised Carol for having been foolish enough to not only get pregnant during a madly romantic affair with a high-born Romany travelling through her home town, but for actually being rash enough to become the gypsy's bride as well. The fact that she was highly intelligent, a graduate social anthropologist doing a thesis on the Romany lifestyle when she met and married her gypsy lover, merely compounded the stupidity. That the ill-matched marriage failed was no surprise in his eyes, but for his respected elder brother Harry to marry a woman with a one-year-old baby, and whose previous marriage had been, according to her father, merely a private Romany ceremony without the legality of the law of the land, was the final straw for Martin St Aubyn. If she'd heard his opinion once she must have heard it a thousand times.
How he'd hated her closeness to Saul. 'The gypsy invader', he'd called him.
It was Aunt Carol she felt really guilty about. Not telling Saul had been an automatic, reflex decision. Not telling her aunt had been unavoidable, but very painful. In order to ensure that Saul hadn't found out, come barging back to Hill Mead with questions and judgements and arrogant interference, she'd been prevented from telling the one person in the world she'd longed to tell most of all, the person whose tolerance and sheer earthiness could have helped her through so much.
And the pain must have worked both ways, Francesca thought miserably, thinking of the older woman's expression during dinner last night. Francesca opened her eyes and stared unseeingly at the cream curtains billowing in the draught through the window-frame. Her aunt was deeply hurt, but too considerate to show it. And there was still so much left unsaid.
Last night, when the rest of the guests had gone and Lowenna was safely in bed, the three of them had sat down to dinner and, while Saul had remained taciturn, his thoughts and feelings completely unreadable, she and Carol had made polite, wary conversation about coping with small children alone, the logistics of being a single working parent, and so on. But, with Saul's ominous calm and scant contribution to the discussion, it had seemed impossible to say the things she wanted to say. When her aunt had announced that she was off to bed, Francesca had made a cowardly dash for her own room at the same time, so keen to avoid Saul that she'd contented herself with the briefest of goodnight's to Carol before locking herself away in her room.
It was the longest night of her life, even worse than those endless nights when she'd longed for some word from Saul to show how he felt, yearned for the telephone call, or the letter that never came.
The minutes seemed to stretch into hours, with her tired brain alternately justifying, analysing, reasoning and panicking. She wasn't sure if she finally slept for a short while or not, but when the clock by her bed read five-thirty a.m. she abandoned the effort and, after a quiet peep into Lowenna's room when she checked that the small sleeping figure was still warmly tucked beneath her Paddington Bear quilt, she hurriedly showered, plaited her hair in a long rope down her back, and flung on breeches and scarlet sweater. Creeping past the guest room with her heart in her mouth, she made for the stables, snatching boots and an ancient tweed jacket as she went, hardly pausing in her haste to escape from the house before Saul or his mother woke up.
Chapter Four
Vengeance's loose-box was dark and warm, and Francesca inhaled the musky smell of horse and hay, too preoccupied, as she groomed and fed and saddled him, to talk to him, only acknowledging her mistake when the horse gave her a sharp kick on the shin.
'Behave yourself, don't kick the person who feeds you!' she advised him reproachfully, collecting her hat from the tack-room and jamming it firmly on her head before leading Vengeance quietly out into the deserted yard. The horse was one of her father's very last acquisitions before he'd become too ill to work at all, a six-year-old Cleveland Bay gelding he'd bought almost wild from a farmer up in Dorset. He was an enormous horse, over sixteen hands, with powerful hindquarters and hocks, and had an unpredictable nature, but his wild streak appealed to her. With patient schooling, hopefully he'd become a superb show-jumper.
There was an audible whickering and stamping from the other loose-boxes. They'd all have to wait, Francesca reflected, rapidly tugging Vengeance out onto the lane. She didn't want Kelly, a particularly highly-strung mare, to start kicking her water-bucket around in frustration, unsettling all the others. The students would be arriving at seven-thirty a.m. with Gina hot on their heels, and the first pupils began arriving later still, any time from nine-thirty a.m.
She urged the young horse onto the bridleway towards the wood, keeping him on a close rein to remind him of what was expected of him, and then relenting, giving him his head up the gradual incline of the field, feeling him take off like a bullet from a gun, his mane streaming in the wind while exhilaration filled her lungs with cool air.
The strong wind cleared her head as they galloped across the moor, watching the morning sky change and lighten. She rode right across to Barton Combe, then turned back to skirt her own boundaries and inspect the stretch of land she hoped to buy. It was a twenty-acre field, bordering her land and that of Leigh Barton, sheltering down there in its cosy hollow.
Halting Vengeance on the brow of the hill, she looked down at the soft lines of the house in the valley. The mellow, honey-gold of its brand-new thatch gave it a luxurious air, emphasised by the royal 'E' shape of the buildings, fashioned centuries ago by one of Elizabeth the First's courtiers as a mark of loyalty to the Crown. Francesca had always loved Leigh Barton. She hadn't been furious, as her father had, when Aunt Carol had opted to sell when Uncle Harry died, but she'd been sad. It had been Saul's house. And even if Saul had already left home, gone away to university, it had meant that he'd have no base in Devon to return to during his vacations. It had meant that she'd hardly ever see him.
The overheads were too high, Carol had explained ruefully, and anyway, it was far too big for her on her own, with Saul away. Carol was one of the most unpretentious people she knew. It had been quite easy to believe her when she'd disclaimed any desire to play the widowed 'Lady of the Manor'. But deep down, although she'd always shrunk from admitting it to herself, Francesca suspected that Carol had moved away because of Dad. Without Uncle Harry to act as a buffer between herself and her brother-in-law, Carol must have felt under subtle attack from Dad's disapproval.
Francesca remembered that as a painful phase. She'd been fourteen, secure and content, combining a love for riding, and an enthusiasm for competing in the junior show-jumping events at all the local shows, with a feeling that life held all kinds of fascinating experiences outside the boundaries of her home environment, and achievements unconnected with horses or the family stables.
She'd hung on every word of wisdom dropped laconically from Saul's lips, who'd always seen life on a global scale, shown an amused contempt for what he termed 'Gorgio parochialism'. 'Gorgio' was the word the gypsies used for the rest of the human population unlucky enough not to have Romany blood in their veins. It meant peasant, yokel, bumpkin. The Romanies, he'd once told her, considered themselves to be the lords of the earth. How arrogant he'd always been, she recalled with a stab of bitter amusement. It had always been debatable who was the most intolerant, her father or Saul Gallagher.
But they seemed like happy times now. Abruptly her world had fallen apart when she was fourteen. Without warning, everyone she loved and cared about most had been deserting her. Her mother's death, Uncle Harry's heart attack, Saul's and Aunt Carol's departure. It had all happened in rapid succession.
She gazed down the hill for a long time, remembering long-ago visits, climbing trees in the apple orchard, racing ponies along the wide stretch of moor encircling the house, games of hide-and-seek in the dusty attics, treasure hunts during birthday parties.
The house had changed hands twice since Aunt Carol sold up, the latter owner a man from Birmingham who wanted a show-piece Devon country estate to entertain friends and business colleagues at weekends. Unfortunately his company had gone bankrupt, and Leigh Barton had been sold again recently. Who was the rich new owner, she wondered idly, who'd made such comprehensive improvements over the last couple of months, paid for the new thatch and the repairs to the outbuildings and courtyards, yet whose identity was still eluding the gossips in the village post office and stores? The latest rumour was that a stunning ash-blond woman had been seen arriving and leaving, driving a big Audi four-wheel drive, with a high-powered executive air about her. It would be interesting to see.
As a child, she'd dreamed of living there, she reflected wryly, envied Saul his home, tucked away out of the fierce winter gales which swept the south-west peninsular, with thick walls and massive inglenooks for extra security.
Vengeance was getting restless, noisily chewing his bit and shying at a flock of rooks rising up like blackened scraps of burnt paper in the wind. But she stared down the valley for a few moments longer, memories jostling for position in her mind, gazing through the fragile spring-green of the trees at Saul's old house.
By the time she cantered back towards Hill Mead she might not have solved any of her personal problems, but at least she felt calmer, she decided. And the fresh air, and the challenge of controlling Vengeance, even putting him at some easy jumps on the way back, had made her wide awake and just a fraction more confident at the daunting thought of facing Saul over breakfast.
Chapter Five
Breakfast was in full swing as she pushed open the door of the big pine kitchen. The scene was so peacefully domesticated that she stood motionless for a few seconds, flushed and windswept, unsure of her own reactions. Lowenna was on her high-stool, her dark plait a small replica of Francesca's own, clad in work-manlike jeans and a red jumper with brown and white horses knitted in rows along front and back.
She was solemnly absorbed in conversation with Saul, who was casual in checked shirt, sweater and denims, imperturbably eating toast and marmalade and drinking coffee at the large scrubbed table as if he breakfasted every morning at Hill Mead with a mystery three-year-old for company.
Ellen, looking unusually glamorous this morning in a tight black sweater-dress, finishing well short of the knee, brown hair Carmen-rollered into waves, looked star-struck, hanging misty-eyed on every word Saul uttered.
'Morning,' Francesca murmured at last, dropping a kiss on top of her daughter's head and fending off Spike's strenuous licks of greeting, her wary glance at Saul receiving no answering clues as to his mood. 'Sorry to be such a poor hostess. Did you find everything you wanted for breakfast? There are cereals and yogurts, if you prefer.'
'Ellen burnt the toast twice, but Saul made it just how I like it,' Lowenna informed her seriously, to the young nanny's obvious mortification.
'Sorry,' the girl murmured, blushing, 'I kept getting side-tracked.'
I'll bet, thought Francesca to herself, watching Ellen soulfully trying to catch Saul's eyes, and turning abruptly to switch on the kettle and push more bread into the toaster, since toast seemed to be exclusively on everyone else's breakfast menu this morning. 'Don't worry, burnt toast is the least of our worries. Where's Carol, by the way?'
'My mother took tea and toast back to her room.'
Francesca swung round, suffused with fresh guilt. 'Is she not feeling well?'
'She's fine. She didn't sleep too well.'
'Oh.'
Saul stretched casually, his lidded gaze decidedly challenging as he eyed her across the sunny kitchen. 'If it comes to that, I've had better nights,' he added evenly.
'Weren't you comfortable?'
'I had things on my mind.'
There was a taut silence. Francesca averted her eyes, glancing swiftly at the clock. 'Time to go up and clean your teeth, Wenna. It's playgroup this morning.'
The child obligingly slid off her stool and then hesitated, looking at Saul enquiringly. 'Will you still be here when I get back? I want to show you how I can ride Cobber all by myself!'
Saul flicked a glance at Francesca, and nodded slowly. 'I'll be here.'
'Great!' With an excited skip, Lowenna darted out, followed by Ellen, and the silence returned, hanging heavily over the room, broken only by Spike's inelegant slurps as he drank noisily from his water bowl.
'Pity dog-training classes don't cover table manners as well as "sit", "lie" and "come".' She spoke lightly, striving to cover the irregular thump of her heart at the tumultuous tension being generated by Saul's motionless figure at the table. 'Would you like some more coffee?'
'No, thanks.'
'More toast, if I guarantee not to burn it?'
'No.'
'In that case, I'll take a fresh cup of tea up to Carol, if you'll excuse me.'
'Stay here, Francesca. We have to talk.'
'If it's about the stables, I'm quite happy working alone.'
'It strikes me you're happier doing everything alone.' The remark was coldly sardonic. 'Or do you just absentmindedly forget to wear a wedding-ring? Are you going to produce a husband this morning, like a rabbit from a hat?'
She looked at him in silence, her throat drying. The yellow flowers on the wallpaper blurred out of focus as she swung away, evading his challenging stare.
'Don't you dare start moralising to me!' she said at last. 'We have nothing to talk about, Saul. This is my life, and I'm living it my way.'
'You know damn well what we have to talk about, Chessy. Or is Lowenna's existence such a side-line you don't even think she's worth discussing? Are you so selfish that you put your horses and your stables before your child?'
The colour drained from Francesca's face, and she balled her fists in abrupt fury. 'That's not even worth answering, Saul,' she said tautly, 'and, for what it's worth, the world has moved on regarding the subject of equal rights for men and women, you know. I feel no need to produce a husband out of nowhere, and I cannot believe you are so old-fashioned to think I should. I refuse to be made to feel guilty for being a single parent with a living to earn. And as for doing things alone, I've done what I felt was best for Lowenna. I feel very strongly that children need two parents. But it just depends who the parents are!'
Saul was regarding her very intently. There was an ominous glitter in the ice-grey eyes boring into hers, and she had to fight to keep her gaze level with his.
'And Lowenna's father didn't come up to scratch?' he suggested softly.
Francesca swung away, staring out of the window at the sweeping view, feeling as if every nerve in her body were under attack.
'Lowenna's father wasn't interested in a permanent relationship.'
'So you do know who he is?'
'Of course I know who he is.' She turned round jerkily, blue eyes smoky with anger. 'That's a nasty thing to say, Saul.'
He shrugged calmly. 'I'm just recalling the situation. There were several randy young blokes around you, last time I was in Bellbridge. Sometimes these things must be quite difficult to sort out.'
There was a measured pause. Controlling her breathing with difficulty, she drew herself up to her full height, facing Saul with a challenging look.
'What makes you think you've the right to talk to me like this?' she asked huskily. 'We may have spent some time together as children, Saul, but you're nothing to me now, and I'm nothing to you! You're neither my brother, nor my guardian, nor even my real cousin. As for a friend, friends don't disappear for four years at a time without even bothering with Christmas cards. How dare you come back to Bellbridge and start lecturing me?'
'I wasn't intending to lecture you. But I think I'm entitled to ask a few questions.'
'You're not entitled to anything!'
'Was it your father's idea not to tell either me or my mother about the child?' he countered softly, his eyes dark but somehow remote, as if he was weighing something up silently and giving no clues as to his decision.
'What on earth do you mean?'
'It occurred to me it might have been a deliberate snub,' he went on reflectively, 'to keep "that bloody gypsy" and his mother out of St Aubyn business. As a method of revenge, it has a certain cruel refinement about it, Francesca.'
'You're talking rubbish. You make it sound as if I was right under my father's thumb.'
'Weren't you?'
'No!' She was scarlet in the face now, almost shaking with anger. 'You may find this hard to believe for some reason, Saul, but I have a mind of my own. I make my own decisions.'
'Then why didn't you tell me?'
'I chose not to tell you.'
'Why?'
'Because you weren't here,' she exploded, 'And because it was my business and no-one else's!'
'How the hell can it be your business, and no one else's? It takes two to make a baby, Chessy.' The deep voice was lethally soft, the expression in Saul's grey eyes so quietly formidable that she felt her stomach contract in sudden fear.
Before she could retort, Lowenna came running into the kitchen again, face washed and anorak on, with the golden spaniel close at her heels, ‘I'm all ready. Why were you shouting?'
'I wasn't shouting, I was just talking loudly,’ Francesca said quickly, giving the child a bear-hug as Ellen appeared behind her. 'Have a lovely time at playgroup, sweetheart. And if Ellen tells me you've been really good you can ride Cobber when you get back.'
'I'll be really good!'
Francesca felt her throat constrict as she kissed the small olive face upturned to hers. Watching them climb into Ellen's Mini, and waving from the window as the small blue car disappeared down the track to the road, she found her heart aching almost unbearably with the love she felt for her tiny daughter.
Saul was standing behind her when she turned round. His sheer size was intimidating.
'Why did you call her Lowenna?' he asked evenly, his eyes still shuttered, bright slits of grey steel narrowed on her face.
'I like the name,' she retorted shortly, side-stepping to try to widen the distance between them, it's Cornish. It means "joy".'
'"Joy"?' He sounded thoughtful. 'Does that reflect your feelings about the happy event, Francesca? The father presumably brought you sorrow, but his child brought you joy?'
'Lowenna is my child. I can't imagine life without her. I love her more than anyone or anything in the world.'
'And yet you let the dreamy Ellen drive her to playgroup every morning?'
She was sure she would explode inside. 'Ellen is perfectly good at her job when she's not being chatted-up by glamorous polo players!' she snapped, 'I need a nanny for Lowenna. I have no choice. Gina and I are teaching most of the morning. We enter students and pupils for at least one show a month. I've got nearly seventy horses here, Saul, and, though I'm negotiating for some more land at the moment, I've only got thirty acres. That's a lot of juggling around, and a lot of hay-buying. This business isn't a neat little side-line I can fit in around playing house and running up dungarees on the sewing-machine!'
'I was not "chatting-up" your nanny,' Saul protested blandly, 'I was talking to your highly entertaining little daughter while your nanny appeared to be handicapped by two left feet and a severe speech impediment.'
'Don't be so rude! I expect the poor girl was just bowled over by your rugged gypsy charm!' Francesca snapped, indignant at his teasing mockery.
'OK, calm down.' His crooked smile did appalling things to her insides, even through the haze of anger. 'Let's forget your nanny for the moment. I think I'm beginning to get the picture. You're not just playing at running a riding stables; you're high-powered, the real thing.'
'Don't be so bloody patronising.'
'Language! With small impressionable ears around, moderation must be the order of the day, surely?'
Since they'd both waved Lowenna off down the drive a few moments earlier, she decided that this gibe didn't even merit an answer. Drawing a deep breath, she began to make a fresh pot of tea, relieved to see Mrs Prince puffing up the lane on her bicycle.
'I'm going up to see your mother, Saul,' she said coolly, making her way towards the door with a tray of tea. 'Perhaps you'd be good enough to let Mrs Prince know how long you intend making use of my spare room in the meantime? While I'm normally fairly hospitable..'
'Very true.'
His inflexion was sufficiently meaningful to be deeply insulting, and she flushed, glaring at him with suppressed loathing.
'Uninvited guests make a lot of extra work. I'm sure you'll appreciate that.'
'Of course. If I strip my own bed, vacuum the room and scrub out the en-suite loo, will I be redeemed?'
'Don't be ridiculous!'
Saul was standing in her way, his expression managing to be both mocking and intimidating at the same time.
'Let me pass, please.'
'In a moment. If I'm being summarily dismissed from Hill Mead this morning, I'm anxious to make the most of this intimate little breakfast chat together.'
The brilliant grey eyes were narrowed assessingly on her face. She compressed her mouth into a tight line, and tried to ignore the shivers running down her spine.
'Stop staring at me like that,' she began hoarsely, that drowning feeling beginning to claim her again. They both turned abruptly as the kitchen door swung open on a gust of wind, and Mrs Prince hurried in, her round face bright, her eyes on Saul.
'Good morning!' She busied herself in taking off her coat and hanging it on the back of the door before turning round with avid curiosity in her eyes. 'I've just been talking to Maggie French in the village stores. Honestly, gossip is all that woman lives on. Do you know what she told me this morning? That she thinks you've bought Leigh Barton back, Mr Gallagher!'