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‘There was a phone call for you,’ Mary added, ‘an Alan. I said you’d ring back in the morning.’
Alan! Sapphire started guiltily. She had almost forgotten about him, and even more unforgivably she had forgotten about his car. The BMW was Alan’s pride and joy and he wouldn’t be too pleased to hear about her accident.
Tomorrow, she thought wearily as she climbed into bed. Tomorrow she would think about what had happened. Somehow she would have to convince her father that there was no chance of her and Blake getting together again. Selfish, Blake had called her. Was she? Her father had very little time left to live … six months or so … if she re-married Blake she would be giving her father a gift of happiness and peace of mind which surely meant more than her own pride and freedom? She wasn’t seventeen any more, held in thrall by her adoration of Blake. She could handle him now as she hadn’t been able to do then. A six-month marriage which would be quickly annulled—six months out of her life as payment for her father’s peace of mind. What ought she to do?
CHAPTER THREE
‘GOOD MORNING.’ Mary smiled a warm welcome at Sapphire as she walked into the kitchen. ‘I was just about to bring you up a cup of tea.’
‘Yes, I’ve overslept disgracefully,’ Sapphire said wryly. Time was when she had thought nothing of getting up at half-past five with her father.
‘You were exhausted, what with the accident and all. Oh that reminds me, Blake rang. He said not to panic about your luggage. He’s bringing it over later when he comes to see your father. He calls in most days,’ she added, plugging in the kettle. ‘Your father looks forward to his visits, Blake keeps him up to date on how the farm’s running.’
‘May I go up and see my father?’ Sapphire didn’t want to think about Blake right now. He had occupied far too many of her thoughts already.
‘Of course.’ Again Mary smiled warmly. ‘Would you like to have your breakfast first?’
‘Just a cup of coffee will be fine,’ Sapphire assured her. ‘I’ll go up now.’ Before Blake arrives, she could have added, but didn’t. Somehow, quite how she didn’t know yet, but somehow she was going to have to find a way to explain to her father that she and Blake were parted for good. Even now she could still remember that agony of those first months in London, of having to come to terms with the truth about her marriage; about Blake’s feelings for her. He had tolerated her because he wanted the farm. He had never loved her, never desired her and knowing that she had not seen these truths had diminished her self-esteem to such an extent that she had felt somehow as though everyone who saw her or spoke to her, must share Blake’s opinion of her. The only way she could escape had been to shut herself off mentally from the rest of the world. There had been days when she felt like dying; days when she would have given anything simply not to wake up in the morning. But all that was past now, she reminded herself. She had overcome the trauma of Blake’s rejection; had put the past and all that it held, safely behind her. But she couldn’t forget it, she acknowledged. She still occasionally had those terrible dreams when she was forced to witness Blake making love to Miranda, when she had to endure the sound of their mocking laughter. How she had hated herself; everything about herself, from her height to the colour of her hair, torturing herself by imagining how many times Blake must have looked at her and put Miranda in her place. The only thing that surprised her was that Blake hadn’t married. Those love letters she had found had obviously been meant for Miranda.
No-one, not even Alan knew how totally Blake had rejected her; physically, mentally and emotionally. And facing up to that knowledge had driven her almost to the point where she lost her sanity. But she had emerged from it all a stronger person. Being forced to come face to face with the truth had made her re-evaluate herself completely. No man would ever hurt her now as Blake had done. She allowed no-one to come close enough to her to do so.
If Alan did propose to her she would probably accept him. She wanted a family; she and Alan got on well. She would never feel for him what she had once felt for Blake, but then he would never look at her body, imagining it was another woman’s, he would never lie to her, or look at her with contempt. Blake was an arrogant bastard, she thought bitterly as she stood at the top of the stairs, poised to enter her father’s room. After what he’d done to her, she didn’t know how he had the nerve to suggest what he had.
‘Sapphire.’ Her father greeted her happily, from his chair by the window. The cold March sunshine picked out with cruel clarity the signs of wasting on his face, and Sapphire was overwhelmed with a rush of emotion.
‘Dad.’ She went over to him, hugging him briefly and then turning away before he could see her tears.
‘What’s this?’ Her eye was caught by the heavy, leather bound book on his lap. ‘Don’t tell me you’re actually reading something, other than a farming magazine,’ she teased. Never once during her childhood could she remember seeing her father reading. He had always been an active, physical man more at home in his fields than in the house. It saddened her unbearably to see him like this. Why … why? she cried bitterly inside.
‘It’s the family Bible.’ His smile was as she had always remembered it. ‘I haven’t looked at it since your mother wrote your name inside.’
After her, her mother had not been able to have any more children. Had she too, like Sapphire, sensed how much her father felt the lack of a male heir? Had that in part contributed to the break-up of their marriage? Questions she would never know the answer to now, Sapphire thought dully, watching her father open the Bible.
His hand trembled slightly as he touched the old paper. ‘This Bible goes back as far as 1823, and it lists the birth of every Bell since.’ He gave a faint sigh and closed it. ‘I had hoped I might see the name of your’s and Blake’s child added to that list, but now …’ He turned away dejectedly.
The words Sapphire had intended to say died unspoken. A tight knot of pain closed her throat. She reached out her hand touching her father’s shoulder, ‘Dad …’ He turned to look at her, and as though the words were coming from another person, she heard herself saying shakily, ‘Blake and I are going to try again. I … we … we talked about it last night.’ She looked out of the window without seeing the view. Could her father honestly believe that what she was saying was true? Perhaps not, but he would accept it as the truth because he wanted to believe it so desperately; just as she had once desperately wanted to believe that Blake loved her.
‘You mean the two of you plan to re-marry?’
‘We may …’ What on earth had she got herself into? Panic clawed at her. She couldn’t marry Blake again. But she had just told her father that she might.
‘I suppose if we do it will make the local tongues wag.’
‘Not necessarily. I don’t think Blake’s ever told anyone that you’re divorced. Most people think you’re still just separated.’
Why hadn’t Blake told them? Could it be that he was using her father’s illness as a lever to force her to fall in with his plans? He would buy the land from her, he had told her, but as her husband he wouldn’t need to buy it, and being married to her need not stop him from finding love elsewhere. It hadn’t stopped him before.
She must tell her father that she had changed her mind, she thought frantically, she must tell him now, before this thing went any further. Even now she couldn’t believe that he was dying. He looked ill yes, but … But hadn’t she learned the futility of self-deception yet?
‘Dad …’
‘Isn’t that the Land Rover?’ he asked interrupting her. ‘Blake must have arrived.’
‘Dad, I …’
Both of them turned at the sound of firm footsteps on the stairs, Sapphire unconsciously blending into the shadows of the room as the door was thrust open and Blake strode in. Strangely his eyes met hers almost immediately, as though he had known by instinct where she was.
‘Blake, Sapphire’s just told me the good news.’ If she hadn’t known better she might almost have believed the look the two men exchanged was one of complicity, but even as the thought formed it was gone as her father turned his head and the harsh light through the window made her acutely conscious of his illness.
‘Has she now.’ For a man who spent so much of his life outdoors Blake moved exceptionally gracefully, and far too swiftly. She had no opportunity to avoid him as he walked towards her, lean brown fingers curling round her upper arm. ‘And do you approve?’
‘Need you ask?’
‘Not really.’
‘I’m sure you two have lots to discuss.’ Sapphire snapped out the words bitterly, resenting their male unanimity. ‘I must go and telephone Alan. He doesn’t know about his car yet.’
‘Or about us,’ Blake reminded her, and while the look in his eyes might have been mistaken for one of possessive hunger Sapphire knew it was for her father’s land rather than for her.
Outside the room she paused on the landing feeling acutely sick. Why had she said what she had to her father? Heaven only knew, she didn’t want to be married to Blake again, no matter how temporarily. And yet her father had been pleased; pleased and relieved and surely for six months … Gnawing on her bottom lip she walked down to the kitchen and picked up the ‘phone. Alan answered almost straight away.
‘Where’ve you been?’ he demanded. ‘I expected you to ring hours ago.’
‘I overslept I’m afraid. Alan, I had an accident last night and damaged your car.’ She waited for his anxious spate of questions to finish before explaining what had happened. ‘Don’t let them touch the car—these country garages, God alone knows what sort of damage they might do. I’ll come up and sort it out myself.’
‘Alan no …’ Sapphire started to say, but it was too late. ‘Look I’ve got to go,’ he told her before she could continue. ‘I’ve got an appointment. I’ll be up as soon as I can—possibly in three or four days.’
‘Everything okay?’ Mary nodded to the kettle. ‘Fancy a drink? I normally take one up to your dad about now.’
‘No … no thanks, I think I’ll go out for a walk.’
‘Well, don’t go too far,’ Mary cautioned her. ‘The temperature’s dropping and we might well have snow. Snow in March isn’t uncommon up here,’ she reminded Sapphire dryly when she raised her eyebrows. ‘Many a farmer’s lost a crop of newborn lambs to the weather. You should know that.’
She needed time to think, Sapphire acknowledged as she walked into the cobbled yard and through into the field beyond; time to come to terms with what she herself had set in motion. She couldn’t back out now; that much was plain. How could she have been so stupid as to allow Blake to manoeuvre her into this situation?
But it hadn’t been Blake’s logical, reasoned arguments that had won her over, it had been her father’s pain. Guilt was a terrible burden to carry. She shivered suddenly, conscious that her jumper was no real protection against the bitter east wind, but she wasn’t ready to go back to the farm yet. Going back meant facing Blake; and that was something she wasn’t ready for yet. But she couldn’t avoid him forever, and it was getting colder. Reluctantly she turned and re-traced her steps but when the farm came in sight and she saw that the Land Rover was still there, instead of heading for the house she walked towards the large attached barn.
In the days when Flaws Farm had possessed a small dairy herd this barn had housed them but now it was empty apart from the farmyard hens whose eggs were purely for domestic use. She had kept her pony, Baron, in here and had spent many hours grooming him, preparing him for local agricultural shows. They had even won a couple of prizes. Sighing faintly she wandered deeper into the barn stopping beside the ladder into the hayloft. As a teenager she had retreated up there to read and daydream. The sound of familiar footsteps made her body tense. Even without turning round to look she knew who it was.
‘Something told me you might be in here.’ Blake’s voice was mocking. ‘You always did use it as a bolt-hole.’
She turned round, trying to blank all emotion out of her features, while Blake studied her with a slow, insolent appraisal that set her teeth on edge. Inwardly shaking with nerves she refused to let him see how much his presence disturbed her. ‘Finished?’ she asked sourly. ‘What exactly were you doing Blake?’
‘Just wondering why you choose to wear such masculine clothes.’ It was a blatantly challenging statement when coupled with his open study of her, and to her resentment she knew she had already been betrayed into a response to it, even if it was only in the increased stiffening of her muscles.
‘These happen to be the only clothes I had this morning. No doubt you like your women dulcet and feminine, compliant and obedient, but I’m not like that Blake. Not any more.’
‘No, you’re not are you?’ There was just a suspicion of laughter trailing in his voice, enough to make her stare back at him aggressively and refuse to give way as he came towards her. ‘I also like them aroused and responsive—just as you are at the moment.’
The explosive denial trembling on her lips died as he reached forward, his thumb stroking along her throat to rest on the point where her pulse thudded betrayingly. ‘Anger is a form of arousal isn’t it?’ he mocked lightly. ‘And you are angry with me, aren’t you Sapphire?’
‘Not as much as I am with myself,’ she told him curtly, drawing away. She wasn’t going to give Blake any advantages this time. ‘What I said to you last night still holds good, I don’t want to marry you.’
‘But you told your father that you did.’
‘No. I told him that I was doing. I didn’t mean to, but before I could retract you arrived.’
‘And now?’ He asked the question softly, watching her with eyes that gave nothing of his own feelings away.
‘I’ll have to go through with it—you know that. You saw how he reacted. Dear God, even now I can’t believe that I’m going to lose him.’ She paced distractedly, too strung up to give way to tears and yet needing to release some of her nervous energy.
‘And what about the boyfriend—have you told him?’
‘Alan? No … not yet, but he’s coming up for his car soon, I’ll tell him then.’
‘How soon is soon?’ Blake asked idly. ‘Because in three days’ time we’ll be married.’
Three days! She looked up at him not even attempting to hide her shock. ‘So soon?’
Blake shrugged his shoulders and against her will Sapphire found herself comparing the masculine breadth of them to Alan’s. Even dressed in faded jeans and an old woollen checked shirt Blake possessed a lithe masculine sensuality that Alan would never have, for all his expensive tailoring Alan believed that appearances were important and Sapphire wouldn’t have denied it, but Blake was one of those men who could afford to break life’s rules. Angrily she pushed the thought away.
‘Why wait?’ Blake asked laconically. ‘The sooner it’s done the happier your father will be.’
‘He told me that most people up here don’t even know that we’re divorced.’ Her voice gave away her anger.
‘Most people? No-one knows,’ Blake corrected, blandly.
‘Not even Miranda?’
His eyebrows rose, and Sapphire felt her face flush. What on earth had possessed her to bring Miranda’s name up? She had no interest in Blake’s love life—it was his own affair.
‘Why mention Miranda in particular?’ Blake mocked.
‘Perhaps because it’s the sort of thing a man would tell his mistress,’ Sapphire came back curtly. ‘After all you told her that our marriage … wasn’t consummated.’
‘How do you know that?’ His voice had sharpened, hardened almost, but he had turned slightly away so that Sapphire couldn’t see his expression, but she had definitely caught him off guard. Good, she thought, watching him. Obviously he didn’t know what Miranda had said to her.
‘Because she told me.’ She shrugged disdainfully as he turned round and stared at her with cold hard, golden eyes. ‘It was at the same time as she told me about the weekend the two of you spent in the Cotswolds actually.’ Giving him a cold smile she marched past, heading for the barn door. It would do him good to realise that she wasn’t as naive as he had always believed, but just as she drew level with the door his arm snaked out, his fingers curling painfully round her wrist.
‘And that, of course, was why you left me?’
‘It was one of the reasons—there were others.’ It was her turn to shrug dismissively. ‘But none of that matters now, I merely asked about Miranda so that I could be prepared for any situation that might arise.’
‘She doesn’t know we’re divorced,’ Blake told her. ‘After my experiences with you I decided I preferred the life of a bachelor.’
‘And having a wife tucked away in the background made it all a lot simpler. Yes I can see that. Let me go Blake, I want to go back to the house.’
‘Isn’t there something you’ve forgotten?’
She frowned, glancing uncertainly at him.
‘Loving partners normally part with a kiss,’ he told her mockingly.
‘Maybe they do, but there’s nothing “loving” about our relationship,’ Sapphire snapped. ‘You didn’t want to kiss me four years ago Blake, I can hardly see why you would want to now.’
‘No? Perhaps I want to see how much your London lover has taught you.’ His head bent towards her and Sapphire immediately tensed trying to pull away, but Blake was still gripping her wrist. His free arm fastened round her, his hand on the small of her back forcing her against him.
A mixture of sensations raced through her as the heat of his body imposed itself against her; anger; tension, but most of all a resurgence of a familiar vulnerability she thought she had long ago overcome. The knowledge that she hadn’t, blinded her to everything else. She trembled against Blake, closing her eyes to blot out his mocking smile trying to convince herself that she was wrong; that the panic storming through her came from anger and not from fear.
But what was it she feared? Not Blake. No, herself, she admitted sensing the downward descent of his mouth, and twisting away to avoid it. Not Blake, but herself, her vulnerability towards him; her …
His mouth brushed hers and she tensed. ‘Is that all you’ve learned? Not very good,’ Blake drawled, as his mouth moved from her lips to her ear. His tongue tip explored the delicate shaping of her ear and panic exploded inside her. She mustn’t let him do this to her, she … Another moment and he would be kissing her again and this time … No she wouldn’t let him see that he could evoke a response from her … a response that was really surely nothing more than a conditioned echo of the old feeling she had had for him?
His mouth was feathering across her skin towards her lips. Taking her courage in both hands, Sapphire turned to meet it, willing herself to relax. She had dated several men in London before settling for Alan, and surely she had learned enough technique from them to show Blake that she wasn’t a frightened seventeen-year-old any more.
Forcing herself to ignore the screaming protest of her nerves Sapphire opened her mouth inviting his deeper invasion, teasing him with the tip of her tongue. She actually felt the sudden tension in his muscles, the quickly controlled start of surprise, but her brief advantage was lost as Blake’s arms tightened around her, his mouth taking what she had so recklessly offered, his lips harshly possessive against hers.
If only he had kissed her like this when she was seventeen. The thought surfaced through a whirling jetstream of jumbled emotions, fiercely clamped down as soon as she acknowledged it, and pushed Blake away.
He let her go, watching her with unblinking gold eyes. Almost as though he willed her to do it, Sapphire ran her tongue over the swollen contours of her mouth. ‘Well, well … That was quite something.’
His mouth was wry where she had expected it to be triumphant, because she couldn’t deny to herself that there had been a moment in his arms when she had forgotten everything that lay between them and she had responded to him in a way she had never responded to any other man, but if anything he looked angry.
‘He’s obviously taught you well.’ The comment bordered on the harshly accusatory and coming from anyone else Sapphire would have instantly taken exception to it, but sensing that for some reason she had got under his skin she responded lightly. ‘And very extensively, I’m not seventeen any more Blake.’
‘No, you’re not are you,’ he agreed, ‘so don’t expect me to handle you with kid gloves will you?’
‘I don’t expect you to “handle” me at all Blake—that’s part of our agreement—remember?’
‘Oh I think I’ll be able to, now, but will you?’
He turned on his heel and left before she could speak, and although Sapphire told herself it was relief that made her shake so much that she had to lean against the stairs, in reality she knew that her emotions were far more complex than that.
What had she let herself in for agreeing to remarry Blake? She had always known he must despise her, but the anger she had just seen, so savage and bitter, that was something she hadn’t guessed at. He must want Flaws Farm very badly, she thought bleakly as she made her way on shaky legs back to the house.
‘Blake gone?’ her father asked, when she walked into his room. Already he looked much better, and Sapphire realised with an aching pang how much her marriage to Blake meant to him.
‘Yes.’ She couldn’t inject any enthusiasm into her voice. ‘Never mind.’ Her father obviously mistook the reason for her listlessness. ‘You’ll be seeing him tonight. He’s taking you out to celebrate—at least that’s what he said to me.’
To celebrate! Sapphire grimaced, inwardly resenting the fact that Blake hadn’t said anything to her about going out. Had he done so, she would have refused.
‘I can’t tell you how much it means to me that the pair of you are getting back together again,’ her father said quietly. ‘He’s a fine man Sapphire. A good strong man, the sort of man you need.’
She made her escape from the room without giving any response, half-blinded by the weak tears threatening to obscure her vision. In her own room she opened the suitcase Blake must have brought up. Even to think of him walking into her room made prickles of antagonism run down her spine. How on earth was she going to live with him for six months when she hated him so much?
She hadn’t brought much with her, certainly nothing she could go out in to ‘celebrate’—and nothing she could wear to get married in. Fresh tears blurred her eyes as she remembered the dress she had worn the first time they were married. Stupid sentimentality, she derided herself; their wedding had just been another part of Blake’s elaborate charade, just like the half-reverent, almost worshipping kiss he had given her just outside the church doors. Sighing, Sapphire hung up her clothes. She would wear the plain black wool dress she had brought; it was a perfect foil for her colouring and a perfect accompaniment for her mood; Alan had always liked her in it.
Alan! She hadn’t told him yet about Blake. She gnawed on her lip uncertain as to whether to ring him, or wait until he came up. She was sure he would understand; Alan was always logical and reasonable. For the first time it struck her just what she had committed herself to. She would have to give up her job; her flat; her London life; everything she had fought so hard for when she left Blake. But surely it was a small price to pay for her father’s peace of mind? But say Alan did not accept her decision. She would not only have lost her job, she would have lost a good friend and potential lover as well. She couldn’t understand why the knowledge should cause her so little pain. Perhaps the agony of meeting Blake again; of being forced to remember how much he had hurt her had anaesthetised her against other, lesser hurts. Sighing she finished unpacking and went downstairs. One thing she did remember about farm life was that there was always work to be done and work, as she had learned in London, was a very effective panacea.
