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Childishly she held her breath a little as it rolled down the hill, only letting it out when she saw that the egg had gone a respectable distance and remained unbroken as it lay in the small dip in the group that had trapped it.
‘Ah-ha. That is good, but I believe I can do better,’ Gideon boasted.
He had seen the look of smouldering female resentment that Ellie had given Nancy, and it was that rather than any desire to win the egg-rolling race that was responsible for his high spirits. Ellie had been jealous!
Carefully, Gideon reached for his first egg.
‘No, you can’t do that,’ Ellie reproached him firmly, as he gently threw the egg several yards before it dropped to the ground and rolled with great speed down the hill.
‘Why not?’
‘It’s against the rules.’
‘What rules? I haven’t seen any rules,’ Gideon protested, mock innocently.
He loved the way Ellie’s eyes darkened with emotion, the way she threw herself so wholeheartedly into everything she did. Was she herself aware of the passionate intensity of her own nature or had her mother succeeded in hiding it from her beneath the smothering strait-jacket of ladylike behaviour she imposed on her?
‘Gideon’s egg has gone further than yours, Ellie,’ John sang out.
Ellie reached for her second egg, giving Gideon a challenging look of determination.
This time it was Connie who was dancing up and down in excitement as they watched Ellie’s second egg roll triumphantly past Gideon’s.
‘Right!’ To John’s delight Gideon immediately took up a very determined male stance, rubbing his hands together lightly before picking up his own second egg.
Once again Ellie discovered that she was holding her breath whilst willing Gideon’s egg not to match the distance achieved by her own.
Judiciously, Gideon mentally measured the distance from where he was standing to where Ellie’s egg lay.
‘Come on, Gideon,’ John shouted. ‘You can’t let her beat you. She’s a girl.’
She certainly was, Gideon acknowledged, trying not to let himself think about the way the bodice of Ellie’s dress moulded the soft curves of her breasts.
There was something distractingly enticing about the demure, daintily pleated neckline against her throat. And as for that enchantingly ridiculous nonsense of straw and ribbons she was pleased to call a hat – did she have any idea just what she was doing to him when she looked up at him from beneath its brim, or when he looked at her and could see only the straight sweetness of her nose, and the full promise of her mouth?
If he allowed her to win, John would never let him hear the end of it, but if he beat her…He too was holding his breath as he watched his egg roll down the grassy slope.
Just a few feet short of her own, Gideon’s egg came to a stop. Exhilarated colour warmed Ellie’s face. She started to turn towards Gideon and then stopped as out of the corner of her eye she saw Rex, John’s pup, suddenly rush past her in pursuit of the egg.
‘No…he mustn’t touch it!’ she cried out, but Gideon, guessing what the pup had been instructed to do, was already lunging down the hill. Angrily, Ellie followed him, whilst Robert Pride firmly held John back, demanding that he recall his errant accomplice.
The pup had already reached the egg, which he had picked up, but the moment he saw Nemesis in the shape of both Gideon and Ellie bearing down on him, he dropped it and headed back to his master.
The egg, given fresh impetus, rolled happily forward, quickly overtaking the others, before dropping out of sight into a small hidden grassy dip.
‘Oh no!’ Ellie cried out hotly, and then gasped, as she suddenly lost her footing and pitched forward.
Immediately, Gideon turned to try to help her, his arms wrapping protectively around her, and somehow ended up also slipping on the steep slope. Body to body they followed the path of the egg and, like it, came to rest in the secluded grassy dip.
‘Oh, that John,’ Ellie condemned her young brother, as she lay against the protective warmth of Gideon’s body, trying to get her breath.
‘He is a mischief,’ Gideon agreed in amusement, the expression in his eyes suddenly changing as he looked at Ellie. ‘But right now,’ he murmured, ‘it is his sister I am much more interested in. Has anyone ever told you, Ellie Pride, just how beautiful you are? How adorably sweet your nose is. How irresistibly kissable your lips are…?’
With every word he uttered Gideon’s voice became thicker and softer, and with every word Ellie’s sense of excitement and wonder grew. She could feel her heart beating so fast beneath the bodice of her dress that it was a wonder she could still breathe.
As he looked down at her, into her eyes and then at her mouth, before lifting his gaze to her eyes again, Gideon groaned softly.
‘Ellie,’ he whispered. His fingertips touched the side of her face, and he marvelled at the softness of her skin, its purity and perfection, whilst Ellie shuddered in pleasure that such a little touch should do so much!
She could feel the warmth of Gideon’s breath against her face, her lips. His eyes were no longer a cold silver grey, but a hot liquid gunmetal colour that made her insides feel as though they were melting.
His lips touched hers, brushing them gently. Ellie gave a small gasp and then a soft sigh.
Boldly, Gideon kissed her with more pressure. He could feel his longing for her, his love exploding inside him. Unable to stop himself he ran the tip of his tongue along the soft, closed virginal innocence of her mouth. Her lips felt so soft, so warm, so Ellie…Cupping her face in his hands, Gideon forced himself to remember where they were.
‘I know it may be too soon to say this to you, Ellie Pride, but let me tell you this,’ he began, his voice husky with emotion. ‘I love you and I will always love you. And just as soon as I am able to do so I intend to claim you for my own. For my wife,’ he emphasised, just in case Ellie might mistake the seriousness of his intentions.
Her eyes shining with emotion, Ellie gazed wonderingly back at him. Gideon loved her. And she knew that she loved him. Hadn’t she spent far too many nights lying in the bed she shared with Connie, secretly thinking about him and dreaming of a moment like this, even to think of doubting it?
‘Nothing can stop what’s happening between us,’ Gideon told her fiercely. ‘Nothing…and no one.’
‘If the ladies are ready, I suggest that we start to make our way back to Winckley Square.’
Courteously Stephen Simpson waited for the female members of his party to agree with him. It had been at his suggestion that they had gone to the park to watch the local children rolling their eggs. He had a house party this Easter, and his guests had clamoured to witness such an unusual custom.
As she joined the other ladies of the party, Mary Isherwood smiled at her host. The Simpson family had owned their gold thread works in Avenham Lane for several generations, and were a sociable family, who, Mary knew, had been very fond of her mother. It had been kind of them to invite her to join this party. The ladies of the family had been the first hostesses to leave a calling card on her return to Preston.
‘I understand that you are having a great deal of work done on your late father’s house.’
Mary turned towards the woman speaking to her. They had met for only the first time today, and it was tempting for Mary to reply that she must have come by her information from someone else, since Mary herself had made no mention of Isherwood House.
Almost as though she guessed what Mary was thinking, the other woman explained, ‘I live across the square from you. My husband is Dr Gibson.’
‘Yes, of course,’ Mary acknowledged, fibbing politely. ‘I believe I have seen you in the square with your family.’
‘My daughters,’ Amelia informed her proudly. ‘My eldest, Cecily, has recently become engaged to Mr Paul Charteris. His father is an eminent surgeon and Mr Charteris hopes to follow in his father’s footsteps.’
Mary was able to place the other woman now and to realise who she was. ‘Ah, yes. I see that your daughters have inherited the Barclay family looks. They are both very pretty girls.’
Amelia beamed and preened herself a little. ‘Well, yes, it is true that they have. That is…my sisters and I…and luckily all our daughters have…’ She trailed off as she saw the direction in which Mary was looking.
‘I see that you are admiring Mr William Ainsworth’s villa,’ she smiled.
‘Admiring it!’ Mary’s voice hardened. ‘I could never do that, knowing the nature of the man who built it. My father had the reputation of being a hard employer – he was certainly a very hard father – but his lack of regard for his workers was nothing to that of William Ainsworth. The cruelties and injustices he inflicted on those who worked for him!’ Mary’s mouth compressed. ‘It is an open secret that the fines he imposed upon his wretched workers for his own cleverly thought-up “offences” rendered them unable to live on what was left of their wages, to the extent that the female workers were forced to –’
‘My dear,’ Amelia intervened hastily, her face flushing, ‘I have no wish to offend you, but as an unmarried woman, I do not think –’
‘You do not think what?’ Mary challenged her sharply. ‘That I should have been indelicate enough to discuss the fact that members of our sex have to sell their bodies on the streets of our town simply to feed themselves? No, shameful indeed that I should dare to do so! But how much more shameful is it that such a situation should exist and that we as women should turn our backs on it?’
Without waiting for Amelia to respond, Mary turned away and went to take her leave of her host.
It was perhaps unfair of her to let rip at her neighbour in such a way, but it infuriated her that women of Amelia’s ilk should so easily and so damagingly turn their backs on the misery that lay so close to their homes. But then who could blame her for her attitude when the law of the land itself denied her any say in the way the country was run? It was inequitable that in a country like Great Britain, which considered itself to be the foremost and most advanced, politically democratic nation in the world, that its women should be denied the most basic and most important political right – that of being allowed to vote.
The sooner that situation was changed the better, so far as Mary was concerned, and she knew that she was not alone in her desire.
FIVE (#ulink_6d681b15-508d-5bcd-8d34-190349b1ebc4)
‘And this year I am going to enter Rex in the agricultural show, and –’
‘Oh, do stop going on about your wretched dog,’ Connie commanded her brother impatiently. ‘Have you spoken to Mam yet about my new dress, Ellie? I’m old enough now to have a proper grown-up outfit. All the other girls in my class –’
‘Connie!’ Ellie stopped her sister angrily. ‘You know that Mother does not like us to speak like that. We are to call her Mama or Mother.’
‘That is because she is a snob. That’s what Jimmie Shackleton three doors down says his mam calls her. Oh, look, here is our aunt arriving.’
As Connie made to slide off the piano seat, Ellie informed her firmly, ‘I shall see to our aunt, Connie, whilst you continue with your piano practice.’
‘You cannot tell me what to do, Ellie,’ Connie declared sulkily. ‘Just because you are walking out with Gideon, that does not mean –’
‘I am not doing any such thing,’ Ellie protested, pink-faced.
‘Oh, yes you are,’ Connie insisted. ‘You are sweet on him, and don’t try to pretend that you are not. Your voice goes all gooey and funny whenever you speak about him.’
Ellie could feel her colour deepening.
Since Gideon had declared his feelings for her, they had spent as much time together as they could, but it had not been easy, as her mother was increasingly dependent on Ellie’s help, and increasingly insistent on keeping her close at hand.
Gideon had told Ellie that there was no way he could approach her father to ask for her hand until he had established his business and was able to provide her with a proper home.
‘I know that you can do it, Gideon,’ Ellie had whispered lovingly to him, her eyes warm with pride and dreams. ‘I can see it now. Everyone will want to commission you to make them furniture, including the Earl. All you need is the opportunity to prove to people how good you are.’
‘I hope that you are right,’ Gideon had responded.
By taking on extra work for William Pride he was managing to save some money, but the extra work he was doing meant that he had less free time to visit Preston and see Ellie, never mind look for premises for his business.
Ellie had urged him to seek help from her father. ‘Since he is in business himself he is bound to know if the right kind of shop premises become available,’ she had counselled Gideon practically.
But Gideon had told her stubbornly, ‘No, Ellie, I do not want to go cap in hand to your father for help. I want to show him that I can establish myself, that I am fit to be your husband. And besides, we have plenty of time. You are still only sixteen.’
‘Seventeen soon,’ Ellie had reminded him.
Putting down the nightgown she had been sewing for the expected baby, she checked Connie with a stern frown before going to greet her Aunt Gibson.
‘Ah, Ellie, I am come to see your mother.’
‘She is upstairs in her room,’ Ellie informed her aunt.
There was something about her mother’s eldest sister that Ellie had always found slightly daunting. And now, for no reason at all, she discovered that she was fidgeting slightly as Amelia subjected her to scrutiny.
‘I know the way, Ellie. You do not need to accompany me,’ she informed her niece firmly, as she swept towards the stairs, obliging Ellie to stand to one side.
Ellie waited until she had heard her mother’s bedroom door open and then close again before returning to the back parlour to oversee Connie’s piano practice.
‘Lyddy, my dear, I came as soon as I had your message. What has happened? Is it the baby?’ Amelia demanded anxiously as she hurried to embrace her sister.
Lydia shook her head. ‘No.’ Her pregnancy still had some three or so weeks to run, and the enforced rest Amelia’s husband had insisted she must take was making the time hang heavily. She would much rather have been active, the chatelaine of her home as she had always been, rather than being obliged to leave so many of her duties in the hands of her elder daughter.
Not that Ellie was not fully capable of running a home. No, Lydia had seen to it that both her daughters knew how to maintain and order a household.
‘Then what is amiss?’ Amelia asked her.
In contrast to the obvious swollenness of her belly, Lydia’s face looked alarmingly thin, her eyes sunken in its paleness, her flesh stretched almost painfully over her elegant bones, but it was the look of fear in her eyes that affected her sister the most.
Lydia was ten years Amelia’s junior, the baby of their family, the prettiest of all of them, the spoiled precious youngest child, who had been adored and fêted all her life until she had so foolishly and disastrously married Robert Pride. And now look at her!
‘It’s Ellie, Amelia,’ Lydia told her sister tiredly. ‘I am so concerned about her.’
‘Concerned? In what way?’
‘She has become involved with this Gideon Walker – I have told you about him. Oh, she says nothing to me, but I know what has happened. She thinks herself in love with him. I can see it in her eyes, hear it in her voice every time his name is mentioned. I have tried to talk to Robert about it, but he will not listen. He does not understand – how can he? Melia, Ellie must not do as I have done. She is worthy of so much more. But what is to be done? Robert is allowing Gideon the run of the house as though…as though he were already a member of our family. John worships him, and I am not well enough to keep a check on what is happening.’
‘Ellie must be sent away before any more harm can be done,’ Amelia announced grimly. ‘The best place for her to go would be to our sister in Hoylake. Lavinia and Mr Parkes live a very social life there. Mr Parkes has several wealthy shipowners as clients, and I dare say that after attending a few parties where she may meet some proper young gentlemen, Ellie will soon forget any foolishness over this…this Gideon.’
‘Oh, Amelia, do you think so?’ Lydia’s expression brightened. ‘But Hoylake! I don’t know…I need Ellie here and –’
‘You need do nothing for the present,’ Amelia assured her comfortingly. ‘I shall write to our sister, and just as soon as you have been confined and safely delivered, Ellie may be sent to stay with Lavinia in Hoylake until the danger of her fancying herself in love with Master Gideon is completely over.’
‘When?’ Lydia cried bitterly. ‘Oh, Amelia, I am so –’
Hastily Amelia interrupted her. ‘Alfred says that you may expect to be confined before the end of the month.’
‘Yes. He has said as much to me.’
Lydia’s lips trembled. She had not been able to bring herself to ask her brother-in-law if he still believed her life to be at risk. She had been too afraid of what he might say, and so instead she had allowed herself to believe Robert when he insisted optimistically that she had nothing to worry about. But sometimes in the dead of night, she woke sweating and trembling, her heart racing and her mouth dry, overwhelmed by fear.
Making plans for Ellie’s future, and the ways in which she could thwart Gideon Walker’s intentions of ruining her daughter’s life, gave her a means of escaping those fears.
‘Cecily is to put off her wedding until next year so that you will be able to attend. She is determined to be a June bride,’ Amelia informed her sister.
What she could not tell Lyddy was that she herself had had to suggest discreetly that her daughter plan her wedding more than twelve months hence, just in case they should be overtaken by events. She certainly had no wish to wear mourning at her own daughter’s wedding.
And neither had she any wish to lose her youngest sister, but Alfred had refused to offer her much hope.
‘The damage caused by the birth of her last child is such that I do not believe she can survive this birth. I pray that I may be wrong,’ he had said to his wife when she had questioned him.
‘You must not tax your strength, Lyddy,’ Amelia told her now. ‘Whatever happens, you can trust us, your sisters, to do whatever is necessary for your children. We have already discussed this.’
‘Yes, I know that, Melia, and I am grateful to you all…’ Tears welled in Lydia’s eyes.
