Читать книгу A Rekindled Passion - Пенни Джордан, Penny Jordan - Страница 6

‘ALL READY FOR the wedding tomorrow, are you? What time is she getting married?’

Kate shook her head wryly in answer to the first part of the postman’s question and offered, ‘Half-past three,’ to the second.

As she collected the unusually thick pile of envelopes from him with the warm smile that transformed the serious repose of her small, heart-shaped face, she wondered how long it would take her daughter to drive up from London. Sophy had promised to set off early so that they would have at least a couple of hours to catch up on one another’s news before they started going through all the arrangements for tomorrow.

It hadn’t been easy: organising the wedding for her daughter and her son-in-law-to-be, with both of them so busy in their careers that she hadn’t even seen Sophy since the announcement of her engagement at Christmas, apart from one brief occasion just after Easter when she had gone to spend a few days with Sophy at John’s family home in the south of England, at their invitation.

She had been dreading the visit, even though Sophy had assured her that John’s parents were looking forward to meeting her, and had confirmed that she had told them everything.

That had been a hard decision for her to make, but she had felt that she owed it to Sophy to permit her to tell her in-laws-to-be the truth.

After the visit she was glad she had done so. John’s parents had turned out to be a very pleasant and understanding couple in their late fifties. John was the youngest of their brood of four children, and Mary Broderick had had the same kind of briskly maternal warmth that Kate remembered from her own mother…and still missed.

How her mother would have enjoyed tomorrow. She had adored her only granddaughter…both her parents had, and she still missed them dreadfully, even though it was now nearly eight years since the plane crash that had taken their lives.

They had been marvellous parents, so understanding, so loving and protective of both her and Sophy. As she stood in her comfortable if rather shabby kitchen, she felt the hot burn of tears stinging the back of her eyes and grimaced to herself. She was thirty-seven years old, for heaven’s sake…far too old to indulge in a silly bout of weeping, even if tomorrow she was going to have to close the door on a very precious period of her life.

Sophy, married…She grinned a little to herself, her mood changing. At nineteen Sophy had been a dedicated career woman, swearing that marriage for her was something she would not even contemplate until she was close to thirty, and yet here she was at twenty, going on twenty-one, fathoms deep in love; insisting that she was married traditionally from her childhood home in the small village church, surrounded by the people she had grown up among in an environment totally different from the fast pace of her London life.

Sophy was a thoroughly modern young woman, highly qualified and skilled, independent, ambitious and very mature. Kate loved her dearly, but from the day that Sophy left home to go to university she had fought desperately to give her her freedom…not to cling or be possessive about her, even though at first she had missed her desperately.

They had always been so close, and had stayed close despite the fact that Sophy now lived and worked in London, but from now on their relationship would be different…must be different. From now on, Sophy’s first loyalty must be to the man she was marrying tomorrow.

Kate liked John, and would have liked him as a person even if he had not been deeply in love with her precious daughter.

She liked his family, too…liked their warmth and closeness, liked the way they were making Sophy welcome into that family…and she was grateful to them for their compassion in so calmly accepting the history of Sophy’s conception and birth.

It must have come as quite a shock to them to learn that their son was marrying Sophy, a girl whose mother had conceived her when she was barely sixteen and unmarried; she knew, had their positions been reversed and she been the one to discover that her child was marrying someone whose mother had been sixteen and unmarried when she conceived, that she would have had serious doubts as to both the emotional and moral stability of the parenting that child had received.

Perhaps because of her own bitterly painful experience, she was very much aware that it took more to lay the foundations for a marriage that would hopefully be both loving and lasting than the exciting but sometimes short-lived intensity of physical and emotional desire. Things like mutual trust and respect…backgrounds and beliefs that meshed and sat easily within one another…a shared sense of humour and purpose.

Sophy was a very sensible young woman, everything any mother could want in a daughter, and Kate considered herself to have been unfairly blessed in the gift of a daughter who had brought her so much joy-as though fate had relented of its earlier cruelty.

From the kitchen window she could see the men hard at work in the garden erecting the marquee which was to hold tomorrow’s wedding guests, and she reminded herself that now was not the time to stand around daydreaming.

She flicked through the post…most of it was cards for Sophy and John. She put these to one side, on the old pine dresser which her parents had inherited from her grandmother and she from them.

Its wood gleamed softly with the polish of generations, the thick willow-patterned pottery setting off both the dark wood and the sunny yellow décor of her kitchen.

She had lived in this house all her life, had grown up here in this small Dales village where the people, despite the outward apparent dourness, had, as she had good reason to know, a warmth of heart and spirit that they gave generously to those they called their own.

There were Setons scattered all over this part of the world, the name originally belonging to a border family who had gradually spread southwards into the Dales.

Her grandfather had been a hill farmer, farming a land which had been in their family for generations. After his death, her father had sold the farm. It was small and unproductive and, as a lecturer at York University, he had not been in a position to concentrate on his career and to run the farm.

Kate hadn’t gone to university. She had intended to do so…had had her career all mapped out: university, a degree and then a job teaching. Only it hadn’t worked out like that. At sixteen, having just completed her O levels, she had gone south to Cornwall to spend a month’s holiday with an aunt of her mother’s who had just retired from nursing on the south coast, and it had been while she was there…

A battered Range Rover pulled up in front of the kitchen window, scattering gravel. Its driver, a tall, lithe redhead, got out as quickly and impulsively as she did everything else and came hurrying towards the back door.

‘Hi…how’s it going?’ she demanded breathlessly, as she came in. ‘What time does Sophy arrive?’

‘I’m not sure. She said she’d try and make an early start. Coffee?’ Kate invited, smiling at her best friend and business partner.

Lucy Grainger and her accountant husband had moved to the village ten years ago. Kate had met Lucy initially when both she and Lucy had literally bumped into one another outside the Post Office.

On first seeing Kate and Sophy together, Lucy had made the mistake that strangers inevitably made of thinking that she and Sophy were sisters and not mother and daughter. With only sixteen years between them, and with Kate being petite and so very youthful for her thirty-seven years that people thought she was in her late twenties and not her mid-thirties, it was a natural enough mistake, but one that still made Kate wince a little.

When Sophy had innocently called her Mummy she had braced herself for the familiar speculative look, but instead Lucy had simply said ruefully, ‘Oh, dear, trust me…I’ve put my foot in it again.’ And with the self-critical comment had come a look not of pity but of compassion and such understanding that Kate had found herself uncurling from her protective shell and responding to the warm friendship that Lucy offered her.

It had been just over seven years ago, soon after her parents’ death, that Lucy had suggested that they combine their culinary talents and set up a small business catering for everything from weddings to dinner parties.

Egged on by Sophy, Kate had reluctantly agreed. The business had been a greater success than she had ever imagined, giving her not just more financial independence than she had ever expected to have, but also a new and thriving interest in life.

All through her pregnancy and Sophy’s growing years she had deliberately kept to the quiet backwater of life, deliberately seeking its protective camouflage, and now, with Sophy’s and Lucy’s combined exhortations, she was finding that more exhilarating waters were nothing like so threatening as she had imagined.

Sophy, who knew her well, had challenged her initially when she had flatly refused to countenance Lucy’s suggestion, saying firmly, ‘Oh come on, Mama. Don’t think I don’t know what’s behind this. You’re out of date,’ she told her ruthlessly. ‘Or rather in the height of fashion,’ she had added mischievously, watching with a compassion she had learned to conceal as her mother winced. Kate had known quite well what she meant.

‘No one cares any more that I was illegitimate. I certainly don’t,’ Sophy had told her, leaning forward and hugging her warmly. ‘You’re the best mother anyone could ever want. You and Gran and Gramps gave me a far more secure world than most kids get, you know. I don’t care that I don’t have a father…that you weren’t married.’

Maybe not, but Kate did…she always had, and part of her always would, Kate reflected sadly as she poured her friend’s coffee now.

‘Everything’s well under control with the buffet,’ Lucy told her, suddenly practical. ‘I’ve got the girls organised, so they’ll be here first thing tomorrow morning, and I’ve also told them that you aren’t to so much as lift a finger,’ she added severely. ‘Tomorrow you are going to concentrate on being the most beautiful, stunning mother of the bride there ever was, and not on being a partner in “Removable Feasts”.’ The name of their catering company was a play on the common phrase ‘movable feast’ that had occurred to them in a flash of inspiration.

Mother of the bride…There was a huge lump in her throat, an aching tight pain in her chest…a loneliness that never really went away, as something deep inside her cried, but what about the father of the bride? What about the father Sophy had never had and should have had?

‘I’ve called at the Fleece and checked up on the rooms. Mrs Graves is looking forward to the influx, I suspect.’ Lucy looked appreciatively out of the window at the summer perfection of the lawns and flowerbeds which had been Kate’s parents’ pride and joy.

Kate’s parents’ unexpected death in the plane crash had left her bereft emotionally, but secure financially, just so long as she was careful.

With the money coming in from ‘Removable Feasts’ both Sophy and Lucy had urged her to give herself a few treats—to take a holiday, or splash out on new clothes—but Kate had ignored their advice. Jeans and T-shirts were her normal wear in summer, and jeans and sweaters in winter; she did not live the kind of life that called for expensive fashionable clothes, and as for a holiday…She was happiest here in her natural habitat, where she blended into its protective camouflage. She had no desire to seek out other surroundings, surroundings against which she might stand out as being different, drawing attention to herself.

Sophy often bemoaned the fact that she had not inherited her mother’s silver-fair hair and perfect oval features, but to Kate her daughter, who had inherited from her father his raven-black hair and distinctive bone-structure softened into femininity, had a vigour and appeal that was far more powerful than her own pale delicacy.

Sophy had even inherited her father’s height, at five feet nine standing inches above her tiny mother, who was barely five feet two; those who witnessed the daughter’s protective attitude towards the mother almost always reflected rather enviously on the rapport that existed between them, despite their physical dissimilarities.

Only Kate knew how very painful she had found it at first to look at her tiny daughter and see mirrored in her infant features the features of the man she had loved and who had deserted her.

It made no difference telling herself that she had asked for what happened…that she had been a complete fool and that she deserved what had happened to her. Sophy had not deserved it, and neither had her parents, who had stood by her so wonderfully and caringly, cherishing both her and Sophy, helping her, counselling her…supporting both emotionally and financially.

Right from the start she had been determined about two things. One was that she was going to have her child, and the second was that she was never, ever going to try and seek out its father…not after she had learned the truth about him.

‘Hey, come back, daydreamer,’ Lucy admonished, grinning at her.

‘Sorry, I missed that,’ Kate apologised, flushing a little. This was no time to be thinking about the past. In another couple of hours Sophy would be here, and she wanted to devote these last precious hours with her to Sophy alone.

She liked John very much and had no doubts at all that he would make Sophy a good husband, but their lives and careers lay in London where they both had high-powered and demanding jobs, and from now on those visits that Sophy did manage to make home would of necessity include John.

‘Well…soon it will all be over,’ Lucy told her cheerfully. ‘The culmination of six months’ hard work. I’ve still got this to go through,’ she added ruefully. ‘And with Louise only sixteen and Joe ten, it’s going to be a good few years before I have to start planning weddings. What time’s the florist arriving?’

‘Some time this afternoon,’ Kate told her. She glanced up at the kitchen clock. ‘Which reminds me, I’ve got to go and collect the strawberries. I’d better get a move on.’

‘I’ll be over later this afternoon with the salmon and the rest of the stuff,’ Lucy promised, finishing her coffee and giving a wry sigh. ‘How on earth do you manage to stay so calm and organised? If I were you, I’d be falling to pieces…’

Kate smiled at her, but said nothing. She could have told her friend that having gone through the crucible of fire into its heart, long, long ago, there were now very few situations which could test her self-control to its limits. She had learned long ago to conceal her feelings…to protect herself and others, and it had been a deeply painful lesson.

The morning flew by. Despite all her careful arrangements there were still small hitches…things to be done. She was running half an hour late by the time she collected the strawberries. On the way back, driving the hatchback estate car which she had had specially fitted with stable trays for carrying food, she slipped a favourite Bruce Springsteen tape into the machine, trying to relax as the familiar voice and music filled the inside of the car.

She was just turning into her own drive, when he started to sing ‘If you’re looking for love’, and her heart somersaulted with idiotic pain, her mouth compressing as she reminded herself that at thirty-seven she should be long past the stage of being affected by a pop song. And it wasn’t even as though she were looking for love. After Sophy’s birth, she had determinedly and resolutely turned her back on the idea of love and marriage.

When her mother had tried to talk to her gently about her attitude, she had said bitterly that she could never expect anyone else to take on both her and her baby, declaring flatly that she was second-hand and used. Her mother had protested vigorously at her claim, telling her gently that she had nothing to feel ashamed about, and that no man who loved her would ever blame her for what had happened…that men these days did not expect their wives to come to them without having had any previous sexual experience. But she had shaken her head and said it was not the lack of her virginity she had meant, but the loss and destruction of her self-worth and trust…the fact that she would never be able to give to anyone else all that she had given so trustingly and eagerly to Joss…and that it was because of that that she, and her emotions, would be second-hand.

She had stuck resolutely to her decision and, over the years, as her first initial terrible shock and grief had softened, she had wondered if perhaps her life was not after all more surrounded by love, more filled with contentment than many a woman’s who did have a husband and a father for her children. She thought of that woman who was so closely linked to her and yet who knew nothing of her existence, and wondered what her life had been. What must it be like to be married to a man who cheated…who lied and deceived. How very much more destructive that must be…a festering, poisonous wound as opposed to the clean, almost killing one she had received—and survived!

She stopped the car and got out, and as she did so the kitchen door opened and she saw Sophy standing there, grinning at her.

Her heart flooded with love and pleasure. She ran towards her and they hugged one another.

‘Hello, little mama,’ Sophy whispered tremulously, reverting to the silly pet name which had evolved when she was tiny and people had confused Kate’s role in her life. She had then started calling Kate ‘my little mama’ and the nickname had stuck, especially when Sophy had started shooting up above her mother.

Once she had released her, Kate stepped back to look at her daughter. This incredibly special and beautiful child who she still could not entirely believe was hers.

Every bit of her gleamed with vitality and happiness, right from the crown of her silky bobbed hair to the polished nails of her toes, peeping through the high-heeled sandals she was wearing.

Looking at them, Kate remarked absently, ‘It’s just as well John is so tall.’

‘Mm.’ The dark grey, black-lashed eyes that Sophy had inherited from her father gave Kate a laughing look, as the girl said irrepressively, ‘We fit very well together…’

She had never been able to resist teasing, and she laughed again as she saw the faint surge of colour sting her mother’s face. ‘Don’t worry, little mama,’ she added chidingly. ‘I’m not about to repeat your mistake. I am most definitely not pregnant. At least, not yet,’ she added thoughtfully.

There was a small silence, and then Kate said emotionally, ‘You, my love, are most definitely the best mistake I ever made.’

It was true. Nearly twenty-one years ago, terrified, pregnant…she had just made the discovery that the man she thought loved her was in fact married to someone else…had had a child with that someone else. She had thought then that her whole world had come to an end, and so it might have done if her parents hadn’t been so wonderful…

If…so many ifs, which had brought her to this day and this place, surely one of the proudest women alive.

She had achieved so much, this daughter of hers…done so much in her short life. A first-class degree from Oxford…holidays spent working abroad, so that she could be self-supporting, a wide circle of friends, leisure activities that ranged from skiing to abseiling…A job that promised to sustain her intellectually all through her life…and now marriage to a man who would genuinely be a true partner to her; moreover, a man whose family had opened its arms to welcome her.

With fervent gratitude she acknowledged that, whatever her own feelings about the circumstances of Sophy’s birth, her daughter had never betrayed a moment’s chagrin or resentment over them. She was a girl who was naturally likeable, who was open and friendly with others, who met life on its own terms. Sophy had grown so much into being the woman she herself had always wanted to be and never could be, and now here she was, adult, confident, in love, with the whole world spread out in front of her for the taking.

Kate felt her heart swell with maternal pride…a pride that was tinged with sadness. It was an intrinsic part of Kate’s personality that she took no credit herself for Sophy’s well-adjusted attitude to life.

Today marked the start of a new life for Sophy…and the end of an old life for her.

‘Well, come on,’ Sophy demanded. ‘Let me see what you’re planning to wear tomorrow…I can’t wait to see the guests’ faces when they realise that you are my mother.’

Tears stung Kate’s eyes. It was an added gift, this one—that Sophy should always have been so proud and supportive of her…almost as though from a young age she had known how vulnerable she was.

She touched her arm now and smiled through her tears.

‘You are the one everyone will be focusing on,’ she chided her maternally, and then a frown touched her forehead and she said quietly, ‘Sophy, I’m sorry that your father won’t be here to give you away. I…’

Sophy hugged her swiftly. ‘Don’t be,’ she told her promptly. ‘Any man who could do what he did to you is a rat and, quite honestly, I wouldn’t want him in my life. I mean it,’ she assured her firmly, and then added, ‘John’s mother was asking me the last time I saw her if I ever wondered about him, or was curious about him.’

‘What did you tell her?’ Kate asked her quietly. It had always hounded her, this fear that one day Sophy would naturally want to seek out the man who had fathered her. Her fear had not been for herself but for her child…that Sophy would be rejected as she had been rejected.

‘The truth. That you explained to me when I was old enough to understand what had happened…That you had fallen in love with someone who you thought was free to love you in return…and that you had then discovered that he was in fact already married with a child. That on the advice and counselling of Gran and Gramps you had decided not to get in touch with him and tell him about me because, as they had pointed out to you, he had already made it plain that he didn’t want anything to do with you, and that anyway, a man who had already betrayed his marriage vows and his child was only going to cause us both a great deal of unhappiness.

‘I’ve always agreed with what Gran and Gramps told you,’ she added calmly. ‘He couldn’t have been much of a man, to hurt you the way he did. You and Gran and Gramps have always given me so much love…been so honest and truthful with me.’ She looked steadily at her mother. ‘I admire you tremendously for not giving in to the temptation to confront him with your pregnancy, especially when you loved him so much. He has no place in my life or in my heart. How could he have? If I had one wish it would not be for my father, but that Gran and Gramps were still alive and that Gramps was here to walk down the aisle with me.’

They hugged one another silently for a moment, both of them acknowledging the huge emotional debt they owed to Kate’s parents, who had always been so wise and caring, never reproaching her for what she had done but instead gently helping her to understand that for her own sake and her child’s she must put the past behind her.

‘I think what you and I need right now is a bottle of champagne and a weepy movie,’ Sophy said shakily.

Kate laughed.

‘Maybe, but what we have is a potential strawberry mountain waiting to be hulled and washed.’ She saw Sophy’s grimace and reminded her, mock-severely, ‘You were the one who wanted the June wedding…the country setting…the fresh strawberries and cream…’

‘Don’t remind me,’ Sophy protested as they went together to the car to bring in the fruit.