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When Ellie had glanced across the table at her father she had seen a look in his eyes, a sadness that had made her heart ache.
And then he had got up and had left the table without finishing his supper, and her mother had sent John to bed.
But now, as she hurried downstairs, Ellie could hear John calling out excitedly, ‘Gideon’s here!’
Her heart was beating so fast she felt giddy. And even in the darkness of the narrow passageway Ellie felt as though she could feel the warmth and brilliance of the sun.
‘What on earth is happening?’
Ellie felt her whole body quiver at the sound of Gideon’s voice from across the small room at the back of the shop, where he was standing, with John and Connie both trying to out-do one another to engage his attention. At the same time, the dog, Rex, was barking his head off, as eager for Gideon’s acknowledgement of his presence as the others.
Ellie’s shy gaze met Gideon’s much bolder one. For a few seconds her feelings were so intense that it was impossible for her to answer his question, and even more impossible for her to tear her gaze from his.
‘The noise?’ Gideon prompted her, and Ellie shook her head, laughing, as Gideon waved in the direction of the workmen.
‘They are installing one of the new telephones,’ she informed Gideon.
Immediately, John chimed in, ‘Yes, and we went to the telephone company’s offices and saw how they worked, and they told Ellie that she could have a job working in the telephone exchange any time she wished.’
‘Did they indeed!’ Gideon marvelled, but it was the look in his eyes as his gaze met Ellie’s over the head of her younger brother that made her colour up so prettily, her argument with her mother already almost forgotten. Almost, but not quite.
‘Gideon, if you don’t mind I should like to call at Miller’s Arcade on our way back later. I want to buy some sweets for my mother. And there is a shop there that sells her favourite ginger pieces dipped in chocolate.’
As Gideon inclined his head, Robert Pride gave his elder daughter a pleased look. He was aware of just how much responsibility had been placed on Ellie’s shoulders recently, and just how much more there would be if things went wrong with the coming child’s birth, as had been so gravely forecast.
Sombrely he waited until the chattering quartet had moved out into the street, before giving his assistant instructions to mind the shop and hurrying up into the house.
Lydia looked up expectantly as the bedroom door opened. Ellie had obviously realised how badly she had behaved and had come back to beg her forgiveness. Mentally Lydia rehearsed what she intended to say to her erring daughter, but to her irritation it was her husband who was coming into the room.
‘Where is Ellie?’ she demanded peremptorily as Robert closed the door behind him.
‘She has gone off to the river with Gideon and the children.’
‘And you permitted her to go?’ Lydia’s mouth thinned. ‘I wish you would not encourage that young man to believe himself welcome here, Robert.’
‘But he is welcome,’ Robert told her easily. ‘He is a hard-working lad, and –’
‘He has no prospects! No family! Can you imagine what my sisters will think if Ellie should be foolish enough to walk out publicly with him?’
‘Your sisters?’ Robert’s genial expression gave way to one of anger.
‘Robert, listen to me,’ Lydia stopped him. ‘If anything should…should happen to me, I want your promise that Ellie will not throw herself away over someone like Gideon Walker. She is worthy of so much better. Surely you can see that?’
‘Lyddy, nothing is going to happen to you,’ Robert tried to reassure her, going over to stand behind the chair on which she was seated, placing his hands tenderly on her tense shoulders. ‘Even that old woman your brother-in-law has admitted that he does not know…’
‘That he does not know what?’ Lydia demanded tearfully. ‘That I shall die in childbed? Why didn’t I listen to my own mother? Why didn’t I realise how much wiser she was than I, and that she was only speaking in my own best interests when she tried to dissuade me from marrying you? It is easy enough for you to speak, Robert! You should have taken more care,’ she told him bitterly.
Behind her Robert’s face went white. He already knew that Lydia blamed him totally for her pregnancy and he had been too concerned for her to want to remind her that she had been the one to urge him on.
He ached to hold her in his arms and tell her how much he loved her, how afraid he was for her, and for himself, but he knew already that she would reject him and pull away from him. From the moment she had known she was pregnant she had erected a barrier between them, turning for consolation and comfort more and more to her sisters, especially her eldest sister in Winckley Square, and increasingly excluding him from her life.
It hurt him unbearably to know not only that she blamed him for her plight but also that she felt so contemptuous towards him, so angrily resentful, that she now allowed the love she had originally felt for him to be deemed secondary to her mother’s wishes.
‘I cannot bear to think that Ellie might make the same mistake that I did, Robert. You must promise me that you will not allow her to do so! Promise me!’ Lydia insisted, her voice rising with emotion. ‘You owe it to me and to Ellie to do so!’
Robert hesitated. ‘Lydia,’ he began gently, ‘you are overwrought and upset –’
‘Why won’t you listen to me? I intend to forbid Ellie to ever see Gideon Walker again, and you must do the same, Robert. Promise me!’
‘Lyddy…’ Robert tried to soothe her.
‘Promise me!’
Shaking his head, unable either to calm her or accede to what she was demanding, Robert stepped back from the chair.
Immediately Lydia got up and turned to confront him. ‘I want your promise, Robert,’ she began, and then stopped, giving a sharp gasp and clutching her body.
‘Lydia, what is it?’ Robert demanded.
Lydia shook her head. ‘Nothing,’ she denied stubbornly, but the sickly pallor of her face betrayed her.
The truth was that she had been having slow labour pains for several hours, but she had stubbornly refused to acknowledge them, suffering in an increasingly terrified silence as she fought against them and against what lay ahead.
‘The baby?’ Robert guessed immediately. ‘Lydia, come and lie down. Shall I send for the midwife?’
‘No, not yet,’ she gasped, as a fierce pang of pain gripped her. ‘Send to Winckley Square, though, Robert, for my sister…’
As the pains rose and fell, searing her, savaging her, she was dimly aware of Robert opening the door and calling for Jenny.
‘Sit here with your mistress, and don’t leave her,’ she heard him telling the maid tersely. ‘I am gone to Winckley Square for her sister.’
‘I don’t want today to ever end,’ Connie declared passionately, pouting as Gideon began to steer their hired boat back to Mr John Crook’s premises on Ribbleside.
‘Neither do I,’ Gideon murmured to Ellie, the soft warmth of his breath tickling her ear and sending a rush of sweet pleasure through her.
Whether by accident or design, Gideon had managed things so that both John and Connie were seated facing away from them in the boat, leaving Gideon free to indulge in all manner of lover’s secret looks and whispered words to Ellie without her younger siblings knowing.
Only Rex the dog had threatened to spoil things, by suddenly jumping into the river to swim after a duck, and then having to be hauled back in to the boat again, whereupon he had shaken himself, covering them all in Ribble water. But even that incident Gideon had managed to turn to his own advantage, solicitously offering Ellie his brand-new handkerchief to dry off her dampened gown and arms.
‘I shall keep this for ever,’ he had whispered passionately to her when she had handed it back to him, causing her eyes to sparkle with the feelings she couldn’t manage to hide.
‘We must not forget to call at Miller’s Arcade for Mother’s sweets,’ she reminded Gideon now as they reached the shore.
‘No indeed, and I must not forget that I have some special news to share with you,’ Gideon responded.
‘You have found a shop?’ Ellie demanded excitedly. ‘Oh, Gideon…’
‘No, not that, I’m afraid, although I hope that I soon shall do so, especially now that I may be about to receive a new commission.’
‘A commission?’
‘Yes. There was a note waiting for me at my lodgings from a Miss Isherwood of Winckley Square. She has requested me to call on her so that she may discuss her requirements regarding some work.’
‘Miss Isherwood?’ Ellie frowned. ‘Oh, but she –’
‘You know her?’ Gideon was frowning himself now as he saw the discomfort on Ellie’s face.
‘Well, I do not exactly know her, no, but I know of her. My mother and my aunt were talking about her some weeks ago. She has recently returned to the town to take up her inheritance.’
‘And that causes you to frown?’ Gideon teased her.
‘No, of course not! It is just that my aunt said that…that Miss Isherwood – well, it seems that she quarrelled with her late father and then left home to go and live in London. Very little is known about what she did when she lived there.’
‘A mystery! I shall have to do my best to unravel it for you,’ Gideon laughed.
‘I wonder how she comes to know of you?’ Ellie mused.
‘I don’t know. Her note simply asked me to call.’ Gideon shrugged. ‘I dare say I shall know more once I have spoken with her. Perhaps someone recommended me to her. If so, I hope it was not the railway magnate who cheated me out of my fee.’ He paused and looked at her before revealing diffidently, ‘Had it been possible I should have liked to have studied to become an architect.’
He waited tensely for Ellie’s reaction. If she were to laugh and deride him for being foolish enough to have cherished such an impossible ambition he knew it would damage for ever that secret vulnerable part of himself he had learned to hide away from others.
‘An architect!’ Ellie’s eyes rounded in awe. ‘Oh Gideon!’
‘It’s not possible, of course. But, oh, Ellie, if it had been I would have built such buildings, and the most wonderful of all of them would have been the house I would have built for you.’
The passion in his voice sent a quiver of fiercely protective emotion shivering through Ellie, the brilliance of her eyes and the tenderness of her expression revealing to him what she was feeling.
‘I am just a foolish man with even more foolish dreams,’ Gideon mocked himself.
‘No, you are anything but foolish,’ Ellie told him sturdily, ‘and as for your dreams –’
‘Ah, but I have another dream now,’ Gideon whispered softly to her, looking deep into her eyes. ‘You are my dream now, Ellie. You and the future I hope we shall share together.’
‘As you are mine,’ Ellie responded shyly.
‘I shall be a good husband to you, Ellie. I shall work hard for you. A cabinet-maker may not be as grand as an architect, but he can still make a good living for himself. There is wealth in Preston,’ he told her enthusiastically, ‘and I aim to make sure that my name gets known in all the right quarters, and that I am the first choice of those wealthy residents looking for the best craftsman. And I shall be the best, Ellie.’
Just listening to him made Ellie’s heart swell with love and excitement, and a sharp sweet longing for the future he was drawing for her.
They had reached land, and Gideon busied himself helping his charges out of the boat, deliberately making sure that he placed the two younger ones, and the wretched Rex, on dry land first.
‘No, Gideon!’ Ellie protested breathlessly when he finally turned to take hold of her carefully, swinging her into his arms. ‘I can manage. You do not need…’
‘Oh, but I do need. Have you any idea just how much I want to kiss you, Ellie Pride?’ he demanded huskily.
His lips were only inches from hers and Ellie couldn’t stop herself from looking betrayingly at his mouth, her own lips parting slightly, her pretty pink tongue unknowingly revealing her feelings as she touched it against them.
She heard Gideon make a strangled sound, and saw his eyes darken, his grip on her tightening as he lowered her slightly.
‘Ellie…Ellie…I want you so much!’
Ellie shuddered excitedly at the passionate words.
‘If only I had you to myself right now…’ Gideon continued.
Silently they looked at one another in mutual longing, their rapt concentration broken only when John, tired of waiting for them, called out to them to hurry up.
With Connie, John and Rex walking ahead of them, Gideon surreptitiously took Ellie’s hand in his own. Flush-cheeked, Ellie looked at him, but made no attempt to pull away.
‘John! Connie!’
Ellie jumped a little as Gideon called her brother and sister. As they turned round and came over, Gideon released Ellie’s hand.
‘Ellie is feeling rather tired, so if I give you a penny each, can you run to Miller’s Arcade and buy some chocolate-covered ginger for your mother, and, of course, a treat each for yourselves? We will meet you back at Friargate.’
‘Gideon, you should not have done that,’ Ellie reproached him, as John and Connie sped off, clutching their money.
‘Perhaps not,’ Gideon agreed, ‘but they will come to no harm, and it was the only way I could think of to get you to myself.’
Very gently he led her towards a secluded part of the shrubbery, and then took her into his arms.
Helplessly Ellie allowed him to do so, blindly raising her face to his, her eyes closing, her body quivering with excitement and longing.
‘Ellie, Ellie…you are the most beautiful girl in the world. I think I fell in love with you the moment I saw you.’
‘Fell in love with me?’ Ellie managed to challenge him breathlessly. ‘You certainly looked at me very boldly.’
‘Boldly?’ Gideon laughed. ‘Is that what you thought? No, I felt anything but bold when I looked up at your window and saw you standing there, Ellie.’
‘So what did you feel?’ Like any woman newly and deeply in love she wanted to possess herself of every single small detail of her lover’s reaction to her.
‘I felt…’ Gideon paused, looking away from her, his eyes narrowed against the sun, ‘I felt that I had met my fate. I looked at you, Ellie, and I knew that my life could never be the same again. That I could never be the same again. That that one single look had changed everything. I love you, Ellie.’
In between each passionate word Gideon paused to kiss her, each kiss taking them both a little further away from the calm waters of sedate courtship and into the much deeper and dangerous ones of intense desire.
Protected from prying eyes by the shrubbery, Ellie pressed ever closer to Gideon, shuddering fiercely when she felt the tentative touch of his hand on her breast. She could feel the heat of his hand right through the fine fabric of her summer dress.
‘Ellie…’
A thrill of female satisfaction shocked through her when she heard the taut male agony in Gideon’s voice. The kisses he pressed on the soft skin of her throat, and then along the neckline of her dress, set off a fierce ache deep down inside her body.
‘I want you, Ellie! I want you now!’ Gideon muttered as he started to push the neckline of her dress out of the way.
The feel of his hand against her almost bare breast made Ellie cry out in awed pleasure. But instead of encouraging him to press her to further intimacy, her helpless sound of arousal made Gideon tense and then gently put her away from him, reminding himself that it was his duty to protect and be responsible for them both, even though that meant denying himself. She was his love, his life, his Ellie. His!
‘Come on. It’s time I took you home,’ he told her huskily, ‘before I truly forget myself.’
SEVEN (#ulink_1e093a28-5b3d-5562-b8b2-aaf9255fea73)
