Читать книгу Valentine's Night - Пенни Джордан, Penny Jordan - Страница 6

‘WHAT on earth are we going to do? We simply can’t ask her not to come—not when she’s been to such trouble to find us. She’d be hurt. But she can’t stay here … not at the moment. The house is full to bursting point as it is.’

Sympathetically Sorrel watched the anxiety darken her mother’s eyes. It was true that the unscheduled visit could not have come at a worse time. With the twins home from university, and her newly married elder brother and his wife taking up temporary accommodation with her parents, and Uncle Giles more or less a permanent house guest, the farm was already bursting at the seams.

Add to that the fact that her father’s prize ewes were lambing ahead of time and he was consequently a little short-tempered with concern, and it was obvious that now was not precisely an ideal time for the family to receive into its bosom an unknown second cousin, heaven only knew how many times removed, from Australia. A cousin, moreover, whom none of them knew anything about, other than that her typed letter was written with such a breezy, not to say slightly overpowering, bonhomie, that made it very difficult for her mother to write back, and say no, they could not accommodate her as a guest.

‘Normally I’d have loved to have her staying here,’ her mother continued unhappily. ‘But …’

‘Why don’t you write and explain the situation?’ Sorrel suggested practically. They were sitting in the farmhouse kitchen, their conversation interrupted by the increasingly noisy protests of the orphaned lambs her mother was hand-rearing. ‘Suggest that she delays her visit until later in the year.’

‘I can’t,’ came the worried response. ‘The letter went to the old farm, instead of coming here. Val obviously doesn’t realise that we’ve moved and that the old farmhouse has been empty since Uncle Giles moved out. The letter would be lying up there yet if Simon hadn’t driven over to show Fiona the house.’

‘Oh, he’s shown it to her, then,’ Sorrel asked interestedly. ‘What did she think? It’s very remote, I know, and not exactly equipped with all mod cons …’

‘Oh, she came back bubbling over with enthusiasm, and I can understand why. It’s very hard to start off your married life living with your in-laws.’

‘Mum, you’ve bent over backwards to make her feel at home,’ Sorrel protested loyally.

‘Oh, she isn’t complaining—far from it, but I remember how I felt when I had to move in with Gran and Gramps. Of course, it was different for me. Unlike Fiona, I didn’t come from farming stock. She’s adapted marvellously well. She goes out in all weathers helping Simon and your dad with the stock, and she didn’t seem a bit put off by the old farm’s remoteness. I warned her that there are times when the snow closes off the road, and of course there’s no gas or electricity up there at the moment, but your dad was saying it would be worth while having them installed, because if Simon and Fiona did move up there it would mean they could make far more use of the high pastures than he’s been able to do.’

Sorrel was familiar enough with the complex family relationship which had led to her father inheriting not just his parents’ farm, but his maternal uncle’s as well. Since this latter farm was situated in the richer pastures of Shropshire, as opposed to his parents’ farm in the Welsh mountains, he had moved his family down into Shropshire when Sorrel was a little girl, leaving his uncle Giles to take over the running of the Welsh land. Two years ago, following a bad bout of pneumonia, Giles had finally admitted that the rugged life of a hill farmer was getting too much for him, and since then the farmhouse had remained untenanted other than during the summer months when Simon lived up there, watching over their sheep flocks.

They were an odd mixture, her parents: her father came from a long, long line of men who had been Welsh farmers; her mother had been a city girl who had fallen madly and illogically in love with the young countryman while he was visiting the Royal Show at Smithfield one year looking for a new pedigree ram; and their four children mirrored the quixotic blend of their parents. Simon, the eldest, whose feel for the land he had inherited fully from his father and who had never wanted to do anything other than follow in his footsteps. The twins: James the would-be scientist, who had always been irked by the constraining enclosure of the life his father and elder brother lived, who made no bones about his own desire to travel, to experience a wider knowledge of the world. Mark, the younger twin’s expertise with anything mechanical had led to him training for a career in the computer industry, and yet he had retained that same deep love of the land that was so strong in their father and Simon.

And as for herself—well, she loved the land as well, but her mother claimed that the artistic talent which had led to her starting her own small, successful business designing and selling exclusive knitwear came from her side of the family. Like the colouring which had given Sorrel her name—her mane of russet hair was considered a little flamboyant by her father’s family, as was her height and elegance of limb. Sorrel was not a Welsh Llewellyn, and yet—and yet she had a deep awareness of the richness of her heritage, of how lucky she had been born the child of two people each in their own way dedicated to bringing up their family in the kind of emotionally secure background that few of her peers had been privileged to experience.

Did the strength of her parents’ marriage mean that she was more or less well-equipped to deal with the problems that seemed to destroy modern relationships? she wondered—more so since she had become engaged to Andrew.

Andrew did not come from farming stock. His father had been a solicitor in Ludlow. He was now dead, and Andrew’s mother lived alone in their old family home. Andrew had an increasingly successful business in Ludlow buying and selling old books.

They had known one another since their schooldays, and if their relationship lacked a certain sparkle—a certain intensity—Sorrel knew she didn’t mind, and that it wasn’t possible to have everything in life. And besides, she had her own reasons for welcoming Andrew’s calm courtship.

She knew that her family weren’t entirely happy about her engagement to Andrew, but she was twenty-four, after all, and old enough to make up her own mind. If he sometimes niggled her with his pedantic, slightly old-fashioned ways—well, she reminded herself that she was far from perfect. But increasingly recently she had known that there was something vital lacking in their relationship … that their engagement was meandering towards no very certain conclusion, that Andrew’s reserve and surely too old-fashioned decision that they should not be lovers until they were married was not romantic as she had first assumed, but indicative of some very problematic areas within their relationship. As was her own reluctance to pressure him into making love to her.

Surely she ought to feel differently? Surely she ought to want him more on a physical level? Was there something wrong with her that made her different from other young women her age? Did she have a much lower sexual drive than her peers?

She didn’t have enough close female friends to know the answer. Those she had made at art college did not live locally, and the girls she had been at school with were now in the main married with families.

She knew the cause of her present dissatisfaction lay with her brother and his wife. No one seeing them together could doubt how they felt. Those looks they exchanged, those sneaked little touches … that flush that sometimes darkened Fiona’s skin when she looked at Simon. No one could observe them together and not know how they felt. It was not like that with her and Andrew.

She really ought not to be sitting here in the kitchen with her mother, but working in the outbuilding her father had converted for her when she’d first set up in business on her own. However, her mother was still frowning over the problem of this unknown Australian female, who had written to them announcing that she had traced a relationship with their family and that, since she had business in the UK, she was coming over early so that she could spend a few days getting to know her relatives.

‘So what are you going to do about her visit?’ Sorrel asked her mother, who was expertly finishing feeding one lamb and starting on another.

‘Well, it’s too late to put her off. She’s arriving the day after tomorrow. She says in her letter that she’s hiring a car and that she’ll drive straight here. Well, not here, of course, but to the old farmhouse.’

‘We’ll have to arrange to leave a message for her at the airport … explaining the position,’ Sorrel suggested practically, but for some reason her mother didn’t seem to find her suggestion acceptable.

‘Oh, we can’t do that!’ she exclaimed. ‘It would be so—so inhospitable. Think, darling, how you’d feel if you’d travelled all that way—’

‘Uninvited,’ Sorrel interrupted her drily, but her mother made no comment, saying instead,

‘And we can’t let her just arrive at the farm, driving all that way to find the place completely deserted. As you know, it’s barely even furnished. Just that one bedroom that Simon uses, and the kitchen. I wish there was some way we could put her up here, but it’s impossible—what with the twins at home and Uncle Giles and now Simon and Fiona, and it isn’t even as though we could get a spare bed in your room, and I won’t have the poor thing sleeping on a settee. What would she think of us? Of course, your uncle Giles is going to visit cousin Martha in Cardiff next week, and the twins are due back at university in three days, so it won’t be for very long.’

‘What won’t?’ Sorrel asked suspiciously, suddenly alerted to potential danger by the way her mother was deliberately avoiding looking at her.

‘Well, your father and I talked it over, and there’s really no reason why the two of you … Valerie and you … shouldn’t stay up at the hill farm for a few days. Simon could drive up there with plenty of supplies. The house is dry enough. The Aga still works, and there are the oil lamps.’

‘Mother, it’s impossible! There’s only one bed up there …’

‘Yes, but it’s a double bed, not like that tiny thing in your room. And besides, Valerie specifically said how much she was looking forward to seeing the farm. Did you know that her ancestor was born there? Imagine that—and then to travel all the way out to Australia.’

‘Mm. Willingly? Or was he one of the family’s black sheep?’ Sorrel asked wryly. ‘Mother, think, what if we don’t get on? We’ll be stuck up there for three whole days.’

‘Well, you could always come here for your meals.’

‘Mum, it’s a one-and-a-half-hour drive,’ Sorrel pointed out firmly. ‘I understand how you feel, but surely we could arrange for her to stay at one of the hotels in Ludlow for a few days?’

‘Impossible. I’ve already tried that. They’re booked up already with people getting ready for the festival.’

‘But that’s months away,’ Sorrel protested, and then, as she saw the tiredness and anxiety in her mother’s eyes, she suddenly relented. ‘Well, I suppose there’s no reason why I shouldn’t spend a few days up there.’

‘You used to love staying up there with Gran and Gramps,’ her mother reminded her eagerly.

‘Yes, during the summer, not in the middle of March, and in those days I think the main attraction was that I was madly in love with the history of the place, and spent most of my time daydreaming of border skirmishes and valiant Welshmen pitting their meagre forces against the might of their English overlords.’

‘And that’s another thing,’ her mother said brightly. ‘Your cousin says in her letter how much she’s looking forward to learning more about the area. She’ll love hearing all about its history, and you’ve always taken far more of an interest in that than the others. Not that I could send one of the twins up there to stay with her …’

‘Why not?’ Sorrel questioned mock-innocently. ‘She’s as much their cousin as she is mine.’

‘Sorrel, you know exactly what I mean. She’s a girl. It wouldn’t … it wouldn’t be proper. Not with only that one double bed up there,’ she said severely, breaking off as she heard Sorrel laughing. ‘Oh, you knew exactly what I meant all along! I …’

She stopped talking as her eldest son walked into the kitchen; Simon paused to remove his filthy wellington boots before turning round and saying to Fiona, who was standing behind him, ‘Give me the lambs and I’ll take them over to the Aga.’

‘Oh, not more,’ Sorrel complained, her heart stirred to pity, nevertheless, by the sight of the two tiny, immobile creatures.

‘Twins,’ Simon told her grimly. ‘We’ve lost the ewe, and by the looks of it we might lose these two as well. Dad’s going berserk. None of them should have lambed so early, and he can’t get hold of the vet.’

Expertly ministering to the two small creatures, Sorrel was relieved to see that they were still alive. Fiona came into the kitchen on the heels of her husband.

‘Simon, you’re going to have to drive up to the old farm when you can. Sorrel’s agreed to stay there a few days with Valerie, just until the boys are back at university and we can find room for her down here.’

‘Ma conned you into it, then, did she?’ Simon muttered sotto voce to his sister, and then, turning to his wife, said calmly, ‘Come on, cough up, that’s fifty pence you owe me.’

‘What? Oh, I might have known!’ Sorrel grimaced. Her mother was a great strategist, a compulsive plotter and planner.

‘Now, Simon, that’s enough,’ she told her eldest son firmly, but when he winked at Sorrel behind his mother’s bent back Sorrel had no doubts at all that she had well and truly been caught. And it was too late to back out now. Too late to protest as she ought to have done, that she was far too busy to spend three days with a completely unknown female with whom she most probably had nothing whatsoever in common, apart from their family name.

‘IT WON’T BE so bad,’ her mother consoled her over supper later on that day. ‘You’ll be able to show her the diaries. I’m sure she’ll love those.’ ‘Are they still up there?’ Sorrel asked her.

‘Mmm … packed away in the attic. I’ll ask Simon to bring them down for you when he goes up there.’

‘It’s a lovely old house,’ Fiona chipped in.

‘But very remote,’ Sorrel reminded her, adding with a grin, ‘but you won’t mind that, will you?’

And the whole family laughed at the look Simon and his new wife exchanged, although it was Simon’s turn to laugh when he told them smugly, ‘We may not be on our own for very long.’

‘Oh, Simon, it’s too soon yet to be sure,’ Fiona protested. Watching them, Sorrel felt an unfamiliar and unwanted sensation of envy clamp her heart.

What would it be like to love someone the way Fiona loved Simon? To want nothing other than to be a part of his life, to conceive his children …

Her relationship with Andrew wasn’t like that. She loved him, of course she did. He would make her an excellent husband, but when she didn’t see him for a few days, for instance, she had no yearning to do so. No sense of loss when he went away to one of his frequent conferences or sales. He was away at the moment; she hadn’t seen him for over a week, and yet she was quite content. She didn’t go to bed at night hungering for his unexciting kisses, wishing time would speed past so that they could be married, so that she could lie in his arms at night as Fiona undoubtedly lay in Simon’s. She felt none of the things so very evident in her sister-in-law’s rosy face, and until recently it hadn’t bothered her; but now for some reason it did, and illogically she decided that the root cause of all this dissatisfaction was the unplanned and unwanted visit of this Australian relative who was thrusting herself into their lives, claiming a kinship with them which might or might not exist. And now she had agreed to spend three days with her. How on earth was she going to keep her entertained?

Plas Gwynd was ten miles from the nearest farm and over fifteen from the nearest village. It clung to the hillside, gaunt and grey, weathered by over five hundred years of storms, a long, rambling collection of outbuildings and farmhouse which had housed her family for generation upon generation.

In the spring and summer, the garden bloomed so profusely that it took one’s breath away, and it was true that the lee of the hill gave the house some degree of protection, but there was nothing to protect the sheep from the winter snows, no one with whom to share the weather’s fierceness, and it was no wonder that her father had preferred to farm the much richer Shropshire pastures left to him by his maternal uncle rather than remain living in the remote Welsh farmhouse.

Hill farming was backbreaking, grinding work. No hill farmer was ever rich, and her father was fortunate in his fertile English pastures.

After supper, Sorrel went out to the barn which housed her knitting machine and design studio. She often worked best late at night when her thoughts became miraculously clear and concise, free of the clutter of the day.

Some of her inspiration came from what she saw around her, or what she had experienced as a child. Once she had realised how fascinating she found the design and execution of knitwear, she had spent several holidays in Scotland, studying the traditional knitting patterns and stitches they had used there for generations. Some of her designs, though, were very modern, incorporating innovative ideas and vibrant modern colours.

In her bedroom, thrown across her bed, was the woollen rug which she had designed herself at art school, and which she had kept for sentiment’s sake. She still designed such rugs and they sold well … as did the tapestry cushions she had started as a sideline two years ago and which were increasingly in demand.

Her glance fell on a tapestry frame holding the beginnings of a new design she was trying out. She could take that to the farm with her. It would give her something to do if her cousin’s company became too much.

The hill farm wasn’t even equipped with a telephone. There was no gas, no electricity, although apparently her father planned to have these services installed for Simon and Fiona. Sighing faintly, Sorrel switched off the lights and headed back to the house.

‘YOU’VE GOT everything, then? Blankets, sheets, towels, soap, the boxes of food? Simon says there’s paraffin and oil up there for the lamps, and he’s putting some bags of logs and fuel in the back of the Land Rover for the Aga.’

‘Ma, we’ll be there for three days, not three months,’ Sorrel reminded her mother patiently.

‘Yes, I know, but Giles said this morning that he fancied there was bad weather on the way.’

‘Well, if there is, there wasn’t anything about it on the farming forecast,’ Simon told his mother cheerfully.

‘Maybe not, but your uncle lived in the mountains for most of his life.’

‘He’s an old man, Ma,’ Simon said gently. ‘Sometimes he gets confused. Don’t start looking for problems. Ready, Sorrel?’ he asked his sister.

‘Just about,’ Sorrel agreed. She wasn’t looking forward to the next three days one little bit, but her mother was so relieved, so pleased, that she hadn’t the heart to back out. After all, they would probably pass quickly enough, and she had to admit that her mother did have a point. It did seem a little inhospitable after this Valerie had come such a long way to tell her that they didn’t have room for her. And who could tell … it might be rather nice having another female in the family; her bad mood of the previous evening was lightening. How old was she? Sorrel wondered, as Simon finished loading the Land Rover, and climbed into the driver’s seat.

‘Let’s hope she’s going to be able to find the place,’ she commented to her brother an hour and a half later as they turned off the country road and into the muddy, rutted lane that led to the farm.

‘Well, it’s well signposted enough, although she only needs to miss the turning in the village … What time is she due?’

‘I don’t know. Mum said her flight got into Heathrow at midday, so I expect it will be some time later this afternoon. Will you stay and meet her?’

‘Can’t,’ Simon told her, shaking his head. ‘Half a dozen more ewes are showing signs of starting with their lambs.’

He pulled up abruptly in the cobbled yard and opened the door. Sorrel shivered as she felt the drop in temperature. It was far colder here than it had been at home; the winter landscape bare of trees, rawly bleak. The mountains in the distance were snow-covered, as was the peak of the one behind the house, the ground underfoot frozen.

‘Let’s get this stuff inside,’ Simon announced, heaving down the sacks of fuel and carrying it into the lean-to porch that sheltered the back door.

The door opened straight into the stone-flagged kitchen, the stone floor striking chill through the thin soles of Sorrel’s boots and making her shiver.

‘It’s summer now in Australia, isn’t it?’ she asked through chattering teeth. ‘I wonder if this Val realises how cold it is here.’

‘It just feels it because the house has been empty. Wait until we’ve got the range lit.’

‘I’ll do that,’ Sorrel told him, knowing he was anxious to start back. ‘You bring the rest of the stuff in.’

She filled a small kettle and had just set it to boil on the emergency gas ring she had brought with her when Simon came in with the last load. The range was now lit and the chill just beginning to ease off the kitchen.

‘I’ll fill the lamps with oil,’ Simon told her. ‘I checked upstairs when I came with Fiona. The bedroom isn’t damp, so you should be OK. Remember to keep the range in, though, otherwise you’ll have no hot water.’

‘Don’t even mention it,’ Sorrel groaned.

‘Why don’t you light a fire upstairs?’

Sorrel had forgotten that the main bedroom had a working fireplace. In view of the unexpected iciness of the wind and the frozen ground outside, it seemed a good idea.

She made Simon a cup of tea while he checked that there was nothing left in the Land Rover and that she would be comfortable and safe.

Once he had gone, Sorrel didn’t feel alone, as she had expected. Perhaps because there was so much still to do.

The bedroom, as he had said, was dry but very cold. She lit the fire, and once she had assured herself that it was going properly, mentally thanking heaven for the convenience of modern firelighters, she set about making up the old-fashioned double bed with its wooden footboard and headboard. It had to be polished first, and the faint smell of beeswax that hovered in the air after she had finished this task reminded her very much of her childhood visits to her grandparents.

Her mother had wisely sent up a very large duck-down duvet and, a little to Sorrel’s surprise, the patchwork cover which had originally covered the bed and which had been made by her grandmother as part of her trousseau.

Once that was on the bed, the fire casting dancing shadows on the plain white walls, the room suddenly took on a cosy, homely look. Unlike the old-fashioned bathroom, which felt as though it was refrigerated, Sorrel reflected, her teeth starting to chatter before she had been in it for more than five minutes.

It needed, as her mother had forecast, cleaning, and by the time she had performed this chore she was beginning to feel a bit warmer. Even so, she did not envy her grandparents having to leave the warmth of their bedroom on a cold winter morning to come in here.

Downstairs the range was now thoroughly warming the kitchen, and Sorrel polished the large oak dresser which was set into one wall, unpacking the crockery from home and putting it on the shelves. It looked rather lost on a dresser designed to show off an entire family dinner service.

At first she was so busy that the sudden change in the quality of the light from outside didn’t strike her, and then a certain betraying silence, a certain inborn instinct, made her lift her head and go to the window. Her heart sank as she saw the snow swirling down outside.

Uncle Giles had been right, after all. She only hoped that it wasn’t snowing in Ludlow. If it was, her mother would be having forty fits of anxiety.

What time was it? She looked at her watch. Just gone four. Too early yet for the appearance of Valerie, if indeed she could still appear. If the weather deteriorated as dramatically as it could do at this height, the hill pass would soon be blocked and the farm would be cut off. It happened almost every winter.

Everything was ready now and there was nothing she could do other than wait … and hope that Cousin Val did not get stuck somewhere in the snow.

She lived in Perth, the beautiful town on the Swan River where Sorrel, whose knowledge of Australia’s weather was only sketchy, suspected they did not have the winters suffered by the Welsh hills. She wondered how Val’s parents felt about their daughter going half-way across the world to visit unknown relatives. What would she be like?

Sorrel filled the kettle and placed it on the hob of the old-fashioned range and then went to the window.

Already the landscape had turned white, the low stone walls thickly covered in snow. The wind had increased, driving the flakes into a frenzy of blizzarding white violence that eddied and whirled in front of the farm, changing the landscape as she watched.

Sorrel shivered. She was safe enough here inside the old farmhouse, and Simon would be back in three days, but she would hate to be driving in this weather. How far had her cousin got? To Ludlow perhaps, with its historic castle, now merely a ruin, but even in its destruction impressive, giving to the imaginative a strong sense of what its power must once have been. The redstone fortress on the River Teme conjured up to Sorrel’s eyes vivid impressions of all that it had once been.

Or had Val already driven through Ludlow and into the Welsh hills?

The kettle sang and Sorrel shivered. She felt restless and ill at ease in a way that was unfamiliar to her, alien to her normal placidity and calmness. Her placid nature was one of the things Andrew admired most about her. For some reason or other, that seemed to amuse her family. It was true that as a child she had often been driven to quick-tempered outbursts against her brothers, but she had outgrown such childishness long ago. She sat down in front of her tapestry, trying to concentrate on the stitches. It was an ambitious project, unlike any of her previous work—something she was doing purely for the creative pleasure it gave her; something along the lines of a medieval wall-covering, depicting the four seasons in relation to the traditional work of the farmer’s wife. She was doing it as a special gift for her mother, who had often remarked that the bare galleried landing of the old farmhouse cried out for some kind of tapestry.

The Shropshire farmhouse was even older than the Welsh one, but its Tudor-style beams and wattle and daub walls gave it a soft prettiness that the more sturdy stone Welsh building lacked.

The light was fading rapidly, and Sorrel had to get up to light the lamps and to go upstairs and check on the fire. The bedroom felt deliciously warm now, although the bathroom was still icy cold. She hadn’t investigated the other bedrooms, which she knew would be bare of their furniture and very cold.

Simon had brought down a box from the attic which contained the old diaries, and on impulse Sorrel kneeled down on the floor beside it and lifted one out.

It had been a tradition that the women of the Llewellyn family kept diaries, originally merely to record the events of their working year: to record details of their produce from the kitchen gardens, to list the ingredients of herbal remedies and the money paid out for those household necessities which could not be made at home.

Their farm had been a productive one compared with many, but even so it made Sorrel wince to realise how hard their lives must have been.

She was so deeply engrossed that it was gone six o’clock before she lifted her head from the book. She went to the window and could see nothing in the dark, so, picking up one of the lanterns, she opened the door.

The moment she opened the outer porch door, the wind blew in fierce eddies of snow, the lamp flickering wildly as she held it up.

Beyond the farmyard lay a sea of white. Deep drifts blocked the drive. No car could possibly get through them, and even a Land Rover would have had problems. There was no way Cousin Val was going to be able to make it to the farmhouse now and, mingled with Sorrel’s feeling of relief that she had been spared the three days’ intimate company of a woman she had no idea how she was going to get on with, she had a prickling sensation of apprehension as she wondered where on earth her cousin was.

And it wasn’t even as though the farm had a telephone and she could alert her family to the situation.

If anything, the temperature had dropped even lower, and just those few minutes’ exposure to the cold had turned her fingers numb and was making her shiver. Sorrel was glad to get back inside.

The remoteness of the farm caused her no fear, and neither did she find the thought of her own company disturbing. It struck her that by rights she ought to be yearning for Andrew to be with her, but when she thought of her fiancé it was in the knowledge that, if he were here, he would be alternately complaining and worrying.

Andrew was devoted to his business, fussy to the point of irritation about his appearance and that of the small flat above the bookshop. He would hate the farmhouse with its lack of amenities.

When they got married they planned to find a house in Ludlow, and she would then use Andrew’s present flat as her workshop; at least, that was what she had suggested, and Andrew had seemed to go along with her idea. It was odd, when she thought about it, how they had got engaged. They had been dating casually for a few months, and then Andrew had taken her to see his great-aunt, and it had been while they were there that the subject of an engagement had first come up.

The old lady had been extremely forthright in her views and speech, and she had commented that it was high time Andrew settled down and produced his family; he was too old to remain single any longer without becoming eccentric.

And then it had been on the way home that he had proposed to her … stumbling over the words a little, making her aware of both how much she liked him and how vulnerable he was. He had wanted to buy her a ring, but in the end they had decided to save the money instead. At twenty-four, she felt she was too mature to need the visible trappings of their commitment to one another. Only, recently that commitment hadn’t seemed quite so strong, on either of their parts.

The sudden sound of someone banging on the outer door made her jump. She got up uncertainly and hurried towards the kitchen door, opening it and stepping into the porch.

As she reached for the outer door, the knock sounded again, demanding impatiently that she hurry.

She fumbled with the lock and then turned the handle. The wind caught the door, pushing it back so hard it almost knocked her over, and a very Australian and irritable male voice proclaimed ‘At last! Thank heaven for that.’

Cousin Val … it had to be. But by no strength of the imagination was Cousin Val what she had expected … what any of them had expected.

‘This is the Llewellyn farm, isn’t it?’ the Australian voice demanded, and Sorrel nodded. Her own voice seemed to have deserted her for some reason. Temporary paralysis caused by shock, she told herself, as she stepped back into the kitchen. The shock of discovering that Cousin Val was not, as they had all supposed, a woman, but a man … Very much a man, Sorrel acknowledged as he followed her inside the kitchen, shrugging off a snow-covered sheepskin jacket as he did so, and then bending to tug off his wellingtons.

‘I thought I wasn’t going to make it,’ he told her calmly. ‘I had to abandon my car way down the bottom of the lane. Fact is, I had no idea there was going to be this kind of weather.’ He looked round the kitchen and frowned, picking up her tension.

‘Is something wrong? You did get my letter?’

‘Oh, yes, we got your letter,’ Sorrel told him bitterly. ‘But we assumed, because you signed it Val, that the Val was short for Valerie.’

‘Valerie?’ He stared at her. The snow had melted on his head, revealing thick black hair, well-cut and clinging damply now to his skull.

As he stood up, she realised how tall he was, how very broad-shouldered, even without the enveloping sheepskin.

‘We thought you were a girl,’ Sorrel told him tensely.

He gave her a slow look. His eyes, she realised, were grey—cool and hard as granite.

‘Did you, now?’ He seemed faintly amused. ‘I suppose I should have thought of that. The Val is short for Valentine … a family name on my mother’s side. She was part Russian. So you thought I was a girl. Well, as you can see, I’m not. It doesn’t matter, does it?’

Doesn’t matter? she thought! Just wait until he knew!

‘As a matter of fact, it does,’ she said as calmly as she could. ‘You see, this farmhouse is no longer occupied and we didn’t realise you were planning to visit us until it was too late to let you know what a bad time you’d picked—’

‘What do you mean, it isn’t occupied? You’re living here, aren’t you?’

He seemed more annoyed than concerned, and for some reason that annoyed her.

He had walked past her without so much as a ‘by your leave’, and was standing in front of the range. The small canvas bag he had brought in with him was still on the floor, snow melting on it.

‘I left the rest of my stuff in the car. How long is this snow likely to last?’

‘I don’t know!’ Sorrel told him grittily. She had seldom experienced the antagonism towards anyone that she was experiencing now, and never without undue provocation. So what was it about this man, with his air of easy self-assurance, that so rubbed her up the wrong way? She could feel herself bristling like a defensive cat confronted by a large dog. She didn’t want him invading her space. She didn’t want him anywhere near her, she realised.

‘Mm … Well, someone must know. Where’s the rest of the family?’

‘Not here,’ Sorrel told him succinctly, and had the pleasure of seeing him momentarily disconcerted.