The Six-Month Marriage

The Christmas she was seventeen he had kissed her properly for the first time in the large living room of Sefton House—the large rambling building his great-grandfather had built when a fire had gutted the old farmhouse. There had been a crowd of people there attending a Boxing Day party and someone had produced a sprig of mistletoe. Even now she could vividly remember the mixture of anticipation and dread with which she had awaited Blake’s kiss. She had known he would kiss her. He had kissed all the other girls, but the kiss he gave her was different, or so she had told herself at the time. Her first ‘grown-up’ kiss; the first time she had experienced the potency of sexual desire. His mouth had been firm and warm, his lips teasing hers, his tongue probing them apart.

Restlessly, Sapphire sat up in bed, punching her pillow. She must get some sleep if she was going to be fresh for her drive tomorrow. No doubt if Blake were to kiss her now she would discover that his kisses were nothing like as arousing as she remembered. She had been an impressionable seventeen-year-old to his twenty-five already halfway to worshipping him, and during the brief spring days he had cashed in on that adoration, until by summer he filled her every thought. He had proposed to her one hot summer’s day beside the stream that divided Sefton and Bell land. Blake had wanted to swim, she remembered, in the deep pool formed by the waterfall that cascaded into it. She had objected that she hadn’t brought her suit and Blake had laughed at her, saying that neither had he. She had trembled as revealingly as a stalk of wheat before the reaper, not troubling to hide her reaction. He had pulled her to him, kissing her; caressing her with what she had naively taken to be barely restrained passion. God how ridiculous she must have seemed. Blake’s actions couldn’t have been more calculated had they been programmed by computer, and whatever passion there had been had been for her father’s lands and nothing else.

‘DAMN BLAKE, this is all his fault,’ Sapphire muttered direfully the next morning, as she ate a hurriedly prepared breakfast. Ten o’clock already, and she had hoped to leave at eight, but she hadn’t been able to get to sleep until the early hours and then when she had done she had slept restlessly, dreaming of Blake, and of herself as they had been. Now this morning there was a strange ache in the region of her heart. She couldn’t mourn a love she had never had, she reminded herself as she had done so often during those first agonising months in London, and Blake had never loved her. It had been hard to accept that, but best in the long run. She had once suffered from the delusion that Blake loved her and the penalty she had paid for that folly had warned her against the folly of doing so again.

It was eleven o’clock before she finally managed to leave. The day was crisp and cold, a weak sun breaking through the clouds. February had always been one of her least favourite months—Christmas long forgotten and Spring still so far away, and she was looking forward to her holiday. There was something faintly decadent about going to the Caribbean in March.

A John Williams tape kept her company until she was clear of the City. Blake had had very catholic tastes in music and in books, but it was only since coming to London that her own tastes had developed. Music was a key that unlocked human emotions she thought as she slowed down to turn the tape over. Alan’s BMW was his pride and joy, and although she appreciated his thoughtfulness in lending it to her, she was slightly apprehensive with it.

She had planned to stop for lunch somewhere round Manchester, but oversleeping had altered her schedule, and she glanced at her watch as she travelled north and decided instead to press on to Carlisle and stop there.

She found a pleasant looking pub a few miles off the motorway and pulled up into the car park, easing her tired body out of the car. As she walked in the bar she felt the sudden silence descending on the room, and suppressed a wry grimace. She had forgotten how very conservative northern men were. Even now very few women up here entered pubs alone, but she shrugged aside the sudden feeling of uncertainty and instead headed for the bar, breathing in the appetising smell of cooking food.

The menu when she asked for it proved to be surprisingly varied. She ordered lasagne and retreated to a small corner table to wait for it to be served. While she waited she studied the people around her; mostly groups of men, standing by the bar while their womenfolk sat round the tables. So much for women’s lib, she thought drily, watching them. If she had stayed at home she could well have been one of these women. And yet they seemed quite happy; they were fashionably dressed and from the snatches of conversation she caught even the married ones seemed to have jobs, which to judge from their comments they enjoyed.

A chirpy barmaid brought the lasagne and the coffee she had ordered. The pasta was mouthwateringly delicious. She hadn’t realised how hungry she had been, Sapphire reflected as she drank her coffee, reluctant to leave the warmth of the pub for the raw cold of the February night outside, but she was already late. At last, reluctantly, she got up and made her way to the car, unaware of the way several pairs of male eyes followed her tall, lithe body. She had dressed comfortably for the journey, copper coloured cords toning with a coffee and copper sweater, flat-heeled ankle boots in soft suede completing her outfit. She had always worn her hair long, but in London she had found a hairdresser who cared about the condition of his clients’ hair and now hers shone with health, curving sleekly down on to her shoulders.

The BMW started first time, its powerful lights picking out the faint wisps of mist drifting down from the hills. Living in London insulated one from the elements, Sapphire thought, shivering as she drove out of the car park, and switched the car heater on to boost. She had to concentrate carefully on the road so that she didn’t miss the turning which would take her on to the ‘top road’ and she exhaled faintly with relief when she found it. The mist had grown thicker, condensation making it necessary for her to switch on the windscreen wipers, the BMW’s engine started to whine slightly as the road climbed. She had forgotten how quickly this road rose; the Cheviots were gentle hills compared with some, but they still rose to quite a height. It was an eerie sensation being completely alone on this empty stretch of road, her lights the only ones to illuminate the darkness of the bare hills. Here and there her headlights picked out patches of snow and then visibility would be obscured by the mist that seemed to waft nebulously around her.

Despite the heater she felt quite cold. Nerves, she told herself staunchly, automatically checking her speed as the mist started to thicken. Now she noticed with dismay the patches of mist were longer, and much, much, denser. In fact they weren’t mist at all, but honest-to-God fog. It was freezing as well. She had thought it might be several miles back when she felt so cold, but now she felt the BMW’s front wheels slide slightly, and tried not to panic. The BMW had automatic transmission, but there was a lower gear and she dropped into it, biting her lip as she crawled down a steep hill.

Nine o’clock! Her father would be wondering where on earth she was. Why hadn’t she rung him from the pub and told him she was likely to be late? It was useless now chastising herself for not anticipating adverse weather conditions. One of the first things she had learned as a child was not to trust the Border weather, but she had lived in London for so long that she had forgotten. She tensed as the BMW slid sickeningly round a sharp bend, blessing the fact that she had the road to herself. She ought never to have come this way. The traffic jams in Hawick would have been much preferable to this.

How many miles had she come? It felt like hundreds, but it was probably barely ten, and it was at least thirty to Flaws valley. She hadn’t reached the highest part of the road yet either.

Trying not to panic Sapphire concentrated on the road, watching the thick grey film in front of her until her eyes ached. The road had no central markings; no cat’s eyes, and on several occasions she felt the change in camber, warning her that she was veering too much to one side or the other.

It was a terrible, nightmare drive, and when the road finally peaked, and she was out above the fog, she trembled with relief. Snow still lined the road, this high up, and the tarmac surface shone dull grey with frost. She was over halfway there now.

Gradually the road started to drop down until she was back into the fog. In her relief to be over the top she had forgotten the sharpness of the bends on the downward road. Several times she felt the BMW slide as she cornered, and each time she prayed she wouldn’t panic, refusing to give in to the temptation to brake, trying to steer the car into and then out of the skid.

When she eventually saw the sign for Flaws Valley she could hardly believe her own eyes! Elation made her weak with relief as her senses relayed to her the familiarity of the straight road through the village. Everything was in darkness. People in Flaws village kept early hours. Most of them worked on the land and there was nothing in the village to keep them out late at night. And yet as she remembered it she had never suffered from boredom as a teenager; there had always been plenty to do. Harvest Festivals; Christmas parties and pantomime; summer haymaking; barbecues. Lost in her thoughts she turned instinctively into the road that ran past Blake’s farm and then on to her father’s. A wall loomed up in front of her with shocking suddenness, emerging from the mist, making her brake instinctively. She felt the car skid almost immediately, wrenching the wheel round in a desperate effort to avoid the wall. She felt the sudden lurch as the car left the road and came to rest with its front wheels in the ditch. Her head hit the windscreen, the pull of her seatbelt winding her. The shock of her accident robbed her of the ability to do anything but grasp the wheel and shiver. The front of the car had hit the wall. She had heard the dull screech of metal against stone.

She must get out of the car. Shakily she switched off the ignition and freed herself from her seatbelt. Her forehead felt cold and damp. She touched it, staring foolishly at the sticky red blood staining her fingers as she pulled them away. She had cut herself, but she could move, albeit very shakily. The car door opened easily and she stepped out on to the road, shuddering with shock and cold as the freezing air hit her. What next? She was approximately five miles from home and two from the village. Blake’s house was half a mile up the road, but she couldn’t go there. The village was her best bet. Shakily she started out, only to tense as she heard the sound of another vehicle travelling down the road. From the sound of it, it was being driven with far more assurance than she had possessed. Its driver seemed to know no fear of the fog or the ice. Instinctively Sapphire stepped back off the road, wincing slightly as she realised she must have twisted her ankle against the pedals. Bright headlights pierced the fog, and she recognised the unmistakeable shape of a Land Rover. It stopped abruptly by the BMW and the engine was cut. The driver’s door jerked open and a man jumped out. Tall and lean, his long legs were encased in worn jeans, a thick navy jumper covering the top half of his body. He walked towards the BMW and then stopped, lifting his head, listening as though he sensed something.

‘Sapphire?’

Her heart thumping, her body tense Sapphire waited. She had known him immediately, and was shaken by her childish desire to keep silent; to run from him.

“Sapphire?’ He called her name again and then cursed under his breath.

She was being stupid, Sapphire told herself, and added to that she was beginning to feel distinctly odd. Blake’s shadowy figure seemed to shift in patterns of mist, the sound of her own heartbeats one moment loud the next very faint.

‘Blake … over here.’ How weak her voice sounded but he heard it. He came towards her with the certainty of a man who knows his way blindfolded. As he got closer Sapphire could see the droplets of moisture clinging to his dark hair. His face was tanned, his eyes the same disturbing gold she remembered so vividly. He was so close to her now that she could feel his breath against her skin.

‘So you decided to come after all.’ He voice was the same; that slight mocking drawl which had once so fascinated her was still there. ‘I began to think you’d chickened out … What’s the boyfriend going to say when he knows you’ve ruined his car?’

Not one word of concern for her. Not one solicitous phrase; not one comforting touch … nothing. She knew she had to say something, but all she could manage was a pitiful sound like a weak kitten, her senses acutely attuned to everything about him. She could feel the leashed energy emanating from his body; smell the clean cold scent of his skin. She shivered feeling reality recede and darkness wash over her. As she slid forward she felt Blake’s arms catch and then lift her.

‘Well, well,’ he murmured laconically. ‘Here you are back in my arms. The last place you swore you’d ever be again. Remember?’

She tried to tell him that she had never been properly in his arms; that she had never known them as those of a lover, but it was too much effort. It was simpler by far to close her eyes and absorb the delicious warmth emanating from his body, letting her senses desert her.

CHAPTER TWO

‘COME ON SAPPHIRE, the shock can’t have been that great.’ The coolly mocking words broke against her senses like tiny darts of ice as she started to come round. She was sitting in a chair in the kitchen of Sefton House, and that chair was drawn up to the warmth of the open fire. The flames should have comforted her, but they weren’t powerful enough to penetrate the chill of Blake’s contempt. ‘Flaws Valley females don’t go round fainting at the first hint of adversity,’ he taunted, watching her with a cynical smile. ‘That’s a London trick you’ve learned. Or was your faint simply a way of avoiding the unpalatable fact of our meeting?’

She had forgotten this side of him; this dangerous cynical side that could maim and destroy.

‘I knew when I came up here that we were bound to meet, Blake.’ She was proud of her composure, of the way she was able to meet the golden eyes. ‘My faint was caused simply by shock—I hadn’t expected the weather to be so bad.’ She glanced round the kitchen, meticulously avoiding looking directly at him. She lifted her hand to touch her aching temple, relieved to discover the cut had healed. ‘Don’t worry,’ Blake tormented, ‘it’s only a scratch!’

She had either forgotten or never fully realised, the intensity of the masculine aura he carried around him. It seemed to fill the large kitchen, dominantly. Droplets of moisture clung to the thick wool of his sweater, his hair thick and dark where it met the collar. His face and hands were tanned, his face leaner than she remembered, the proud hard-boned Celtic features clearly discernible.

The gold eyes flickered and Sapphire tensed, realising that she had been staring. ‘What’s the matter?’ Blake taunted, ‘Having second thoughts? Wishing you hadn’t run out on me?’

‘No.’ Her denial came too quickly; too fervently; and she tensed beneath the anger she saw simmering in his eyes. The kitchen was immaculately clean; Blake had always been a tidy man but Sapphire sensed a woman’s presence in the room.

‘Do you live here alone?’

She cursed herself for asking the impulsive question when she saw his dark eyebrows lift.

‘Now why should that interest you? As a matter of fact I do,’ he added carelessly, ‘although sometimes Molly stays over if it’s been a particularly long day.’

‘Molly?’ She hoped her voice sounded disinterested, but she daren’t take the risk of looking at Blake. What was the matter with her? She had been the one to leave Blake; she had been the one to sue for a divorce, so why should she feel so distressed now on learning that there might possibly be someone else in his life? After all he had never loved her. Never made any pretence of loving her. But she had loved him … so much that she could still feel the echoes of that old pain, but echoes were all they were. She no longer loved Blake, she had put all that behind her when she left the valley. ‘Molly Jessop,’ Blake elucidated laconically, ‘You probably remember her as Molly Sutcliffe. She married Will Jessop, but he was killed in a car accident just after you left. Molly looks after the house for me; she also helps out with the office work.’

Molly Sutcliffe. Oh yes, Sapphire remembered her. Molly had been one of Blake’s girlfriends in the old days. Five years older than Sapphire, and far, far more worldly. She had to grit her teeth to stop herself from making any comment. It was no business of hers what Blake did with his life. As she had already told him she had known they would have to meet during her stay, but not like this, in the enforced intimacy of the kitchen of what had once been their home. Not that she had ever been allowed to spend much time in here. The kitchen had been the province of Blake’s aunt, a formidable woman who had made Sapphire feel awkward and clumsy every time she set foot in it.

‘What happened to your aunt?’ she questioned him, trying not to remember all the small humiliations she had endured here in this room, but it was too late. They all came flooding back, like the morning she had insisted on getting up early to make Blake’s breakfast. She had burned the bacon and broken the eggs while his aunt stood by in grim silence. Blake had pushed his plate away with his food only half eaten. She was barely aware of her faint sigh. The ridiculous thing had been that she had been and still was quite a good cook. Her father’s housekeeper had taught her, but being watched by Aunt Sarah had made her too nervous to concentrate on what she was doing; that and the fact that she had been trying too hard; had been far too eager to please Blake. So much so that in the end her eagerness had been her downfall.

‘Nothing. She’s living in the South of England with a cousin. I’ll tell her you’ve been enquiring about her next time I write,’ Blake mocked, glancing at the heavy watch strapped to his wrist. ‘Look I’d better ring your father and tell him you’re okay. I’ll run you over there in the morning and then see what we can do about your car.’

‘No! No, I’d rather go tonight. My father’s a sick man Blake,’ she told him. ‘I’m very anxious to see him.’

‘You don’t have to tell me how ill he is,’ Blake told her explosively, ‘I’m the one who told you—remember? Don’t expect me to believe that you’re really concerned about him Sapphire. Not when you haven’t been to see him in four years.’

‘There were reasons for that.’ Her throat was a tight band of pain, past which she managed to whisper her protest.

‘Oh yes, like you didn’t want to leave your lover?’ His lips drew back in a facsimile of a smile, the vulpine grin of a marauding wolf. ‘What’s the matter Sapphire? Did you hope to keep your little affair a secret?’

‘Affair?’ Sapphire sat bolt upright in her chair.

‘Yes … with your boss … the man you’re planning to marry, according to your father. What took you so long?’

‘It’s only five months since I got the divorce,’ Sapphire reminded him stiffly.

‘But you could have got an annulment—much, much faster … Why didn’t you? Or was it that by the time you realised that you could, that the grounds no longer existed?’

It took a physical effort not to get up and face him with the truth, but somehow she managed it.

‘My relationship with Alan is no concern of yours Blake,’ she told him coolly. ‘I’m sorry I’ve put you to all this trouble, but I’d like to get to Flaws as soon as possible.’

‘Meaning you’d like to get away from me as soon as possible,’ Blake drawled. ‘Well my dear that may not be as easy as you think. In fact I suspect that when I ring your father now and tell him you’re here, he’ll suggest you stay the night.’

‘Stay the night? Here with you, when the farm’s only five miles up the road, don’t be ridiculous.’

She glared at him, her eyes flashing angrily.

‘You know it’s probably just as well that you and I have had this opportunity to talk Sapphire. Your father’s perked up a lot since you told him you were coming back. He hopes you and I will bury our differences and get back together.’

Stunned, Sapphire could only stare at him. ‘You must be mad,’ she stammered at last. ‘We’re divorced … my father …’

‘Your father is a very sick man, still as concerned about the future of his family’s land as he was …’

‘When you married me so that you could inherit it,’ Sapphire broke in. ‘You took advantage of my naiveté once Blake, but I’m not a seventeen-year-old adolescent in the grips of her first crush now. We’re divorced and that’s the way we’re going to stay.’

‘Even if that means precipitating your father’s death?’

She went white with the cruelty of his words. ‘His death, but …’

‘Make no mistake about it, your father’s a very sick man Sapphire. Very sick indeed, and worse, he’s a man with no will left to struggle. You know that he’s always wanted to see the two farms united. That was why he wanted us to get married in the first place.’

‘If he’s so keen for you to have the land, why doesn’t he simply give it to you?’ Sapphire asked him angrily.

‘Because he wants to think some day that a child of ours—carrying his blood as well as mine—will inherit Bell land.’

‘Oh so it isn’t just marriage you want from me,’ Sapphire stormed, ‘it’s a child as well? I wonder that you dare suggest such a thing when …’

‘When?’ Blake prodded softly when she stopped abruptly. ‘When you couldn’t bring yourself to touch me when we were married,’ she had been about to say, but the pain of that time still hurt too much for her to be able to talk about it.

‘When you know that I’m planning to marry someone else,’ she told him coolly. ‘Blake, I don’t believe a word of what you’ve just said. My father must know that there isn’t a chance of you and I getting together again. For one thing, there’s simply nothing that such a relationship could offer me.’

‘No.’ His eyes fell to her breasts, and although Sapphire knew that the bulky wool of her jumper concealed them, she was acutely aware of a peculiar tension invading her body, making her face hot and her muscles ache.

‘I would have said that being able to give your father a considerable amount of peace of mind would be a powerful incentive—to most daughters, but then you aren’t like most daughters are you Sapphire?’ he asked savagely. ‘Or like most women for that matter. You don’t care who you hurt or how much as long as you get what you want. Look, I don’t want to be re-married to you any more than you want it, but I doubt it would be for very long.’

He watched her pale, and sway, with merciless eyes. ‘Your father knows already how little time he’s got, and whether you want to admit it or not he’s very concerned about the future of his land—land which has been in his family as long as this farm has been in mine. Would it hurt either of us so much to do what he wants—to remarry and stay together until …’

‘Until he dies?’ She hurled the words at him, shaking with pain and anger. ‘And for how long do you estimate we should have to play out this charade Blake? You must know, you certainly seem to know everything else.’

‘I was the closest thing to family he has left,’ Blake told her simply, ‘Naturally his doctor …’ he broke off, studying the quarry tile floor and then raised his head and it seemed to Sapphire that she had been wrong in her original estimation that he hadn’t changed. Now he looked older, harder, and she knew with an undeniable intuition that no matter what lies he might tell her about everything else, Blake did genuinely care for her father. Despair welled up inside her. Her father dying … Remorse gripped her insides, her throat tense and sore. She badly wanted to cry, but she couldn’t let Blake see her break down.