Jonathan might have dropped off the planet. A week had passed without her seeing him. She was tempted to go to Derwent and seek him out but told herself not to be stupid. Instead she went for a walk and met him, he on horseback, she standing at the roadside.
What had happened had not diminished her but made her more stalwart in her self-respect. They had shared something precious – both giving, both receiving – and she spoke to Jonathan as an equal.
‘I wondered if you were dead. Or maybe dying. You want me to send for the undertaker? Or will the doctor do?’
‘After what happened I wondered whether you would want to see me again,’ he said.
Heaven help us.
‘I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. It was the most wonderful moment of my life.’
Not the way a lady would talk but Bec had never pretended to be one of those.
He dismounted and took her hands in his. ‘You mean it?’
‘Every word.’
Bec marvelled at the plain way she had spoken to him. Well, she had said it. Now it was up to him.
Jonathan knew that Grandma would be livid when she discovered he had no plans to marry Judith Hargreaves. When she discovered he had chosen Bec Hampton over the daughter of a senior official. Bec Hampton, the daughter of the disreputable Conan Hampton, a former servant without a bean to his name? She would not let that happen without a fight.
Well, let the game play out as it would.
He took his horse and rode to Blackman’s Head, to the patch of ground where they had made love. He wanted to relive every moment of that wonderful afternoon, to revisit the emotion that had so meaningfully enriched and changed his life.
He sat quietly in the shade and was one with all that had happened here. One of the moments he remembered best was not the actual lovemaking but afterwards, when Bec had unwound herself from his arms and, getting up, had picked some wild flowers before coming back and sitting with legs crossed at his feet. She had sat and arranged the flowers in neat piles of yellow and white blossom on the warm ground, her neck bent to watch the quiet movement of her hands, and he had known that in this way, without a word being spoken, she had been laying claim to him and to the future.
It was lunchtime the following day. From her position at the head of the table Grandma Bessie twinkled at Jonathan.
‘Have you made any arrangements about your next visit to the Hargreaves?’
Jonathan was tucking into soup, with a rack of lamb waiting. ‘No.’
‘Don’t leave it too long, will you?’ Her smile would have frightened a regiment of heroes. ‘It is impolite to keep a lady waiting too long.’
Now we come to it, he thought. ‘I shall keep her waiting indefinitely, Grandma. Judith has no place in my plans.’
Grandma’s lips tightened. ‘I wish you could see how unattractive it is to carry such resentment. I have told you, you must ignore Judith’s earlier behaviour. I don’t condone it but it means nothing, nothing! She will settle down when she has a ring on her finger.’
A plate of lamb, pink and delicious, was put in front of him. He helped himself to carrots and potatoes.
‘Maybe she will,’ he said. ‘But it won’t be my ring.’
Now Grandma’s smile was quite extinguished. ‘Surely you can see the advantages –’
Jonathan chewed on the tender lamb and swallowed. ‘I shall not marry her. I don’t trust her. I am not even sure I like her.’
Confrontation.
‘I should warn you,’ Grandma said. ‘If you are thinking of forming another attachment –’
‘I have already done so. Someone I am fond of. But I am over twenty-one, Grandma. My private life is my business, nobody else’s.’
‘It is not only your business where Derwent is concerned,’ Grandma said.
A moment’s icy silence.
‘Who is the girl?’
‘A friend.’
‘Does this friend have a name?’
‘She does.’
‘And what is it?’
‘You will be the first to know. When I am ready to tell you.’
‘This is not a game,’ Grandma said. ‘Derwent is your heritage.’
‘Nothing I am planning to do will have any impact on Derwent,’ Jonathan said.
‘But you refuse to tell me who she is?’
‘For the moment, yes.’
‘Then let me say this. You have rejected Judith Hargreaves. Very well. I regret it, I think it is a foolish and wrong-headed decision, but if you have made up your mind –’
‘I have.’
‘Then I must accept it. But if you intend to become entangled with someone whose name you are ashamed to tell me –’
‘Shame has nothing to do with it.’
Grandma’s voice overrode him. ‘– someone clearly unsuitable, I have to warn you there will be consequences.’
‘And who is to decide whether this person is unsuitable or not?’
‘I control the trust and its assets. I will decide what happens to them on my death.’
‘Are you saying that if I choose someone you disapprove of you will disinherit me?’
‘I have faith in your intelligence so do not believe it will come to that. But you have a clear choice. You can make an unsuitable alliance, Jonathan, or you can have Derwent. I will not permit you to have both.’
Jonathan put down his knife and fork. Deliberately he wiped his mouth with his napkin. He stood. He said, ‘What sort of man do you think I am?’
Shoulders squared, he left the room. He left behind his grandmother ready to hurl plates in her fury. She sat rock hard and unmoving in her chair. Later she heard the clatter of hooves as Jonathan rode out and down the hill.
The blacksmith’s forge was built low to the ground, its walls strong and hunched, like the shoulders of its owner. Who emerged from the fiery interior, hearing the arrival of what might be business.
Conan’s scowl deepened when he saw who the horseman was.
‘My daughter don’t live here no more.’
‘It was you I wanted to see.’
Conan folded brawny arms across his chest. ‘Just so long as you know. What is it you’re wanting?’
Truculence came with the territory where Conan Hampton was concerned.
‘I want your permission to marry her.’
A derisive grin. ‘Marry my Bec? What’s your gran gunna say about that, eh?’
‘Never mind that. She’s only sixteen. I need your permission.’
‘You think I don’t know me own daughter’s age?’
Jonathan waited. Conan’s glare darkened. ‘Do what you want. She walked out on me. I reckon that means I don’t have no say what she does. Nor want to, neither.’
He went back into the gusting heat and slammed the door.
Jonathan thought, At least I tried.
He mounted and pointed the bay to Waldren’s Corner.
When Mrs Painter saw her visitor she was turmoil on legs.
‘She’s out the back somewhere. Collecting eggs, I think. Come in. I’ll see if I can find her.’
Jonathan waited and presently the constable arrived. He nodded, man to man, but had nothing to say and later, hair in a tangle, cheeks flushed, Bec Hampton came also.
‘Step outside with me,’ said Jonathan, his fingers touching hers. ‘I want to ask you something.’
Starlight; bird song; the bright flames of dawn. Disbelief followed by joy filled Bec to the brim.
‘You mean it?’
‘I would never say such a thing unless I meant it.’
‘But won’t your grandmother be angry?’
‘Probably.’
‘What about Derwent?’
‘She’s already told me she’ll disinherit me if I don’t marry the woman she wants.’
‘But you can’t give up Derwent.’
‘She’s left me no choice. I’m not going to let her run my life.’
‘Is that why you asked me to marry you? To defy your grandmother?’
‘I asked you because I love you. Because I want you to be my wife. Because I am yours. Derwent has nothing to do with it.’
Bec knew Derwent had everything to do with it. If he lost Derwent because of her he would end up hating her. She couldn’t let him do it. But it would break her heart to turn him down.
‘If you give me up to keep Derwent your grandma will have won,’ she said. ‘But if you give up Derwent for me won’t she still have won?’
‘How do you work that out?’
‘Because you should inherit it, Jonathan! She’s no right to stop you.’
‘Of course she has. It’s hers; she can do what she likes with it.’ ‘You told me she’s always saying how important the family is.
You’re family. She’ll be punishing you for not letting her get her own way. That’s putting her first, not the family. What is she, your gaoler?’
‘Of course not.’
‘Then we mustn’t let her do it.’
Not you mustn’t. We.
She remembered sitting in the shadow of Blackman’s Head, looking across the rolling land that was Derwent and thinking how her feelings for Jonathan gave her feelings also for the land that would one day be his.
At the time that idea had been so huge that she had been unable to get her head around it. Now she could.
Jonathan was hers. He had said so. Did that not mean Derwent was hers also?
She would fight to make it so.
The genius that had lain dormant in Bec Hampton stirred into life, filling every vein with heat. She took his hands in hers. Unrehearsed, the words flowed from her heart and her heart, suddenly, was larger than herself or Jonathan, larger even than Derwent itself.
‘You are so strong. I’ve known you and loved you all my life and I know you won’t let anyone beat you. Not me or my dad or your grandma. No one. Because that is the man you are.’
She believed what she was saying absolutely and in that certainty discovered a power she never knew she had, making her conscious as never before of her strength and beauty.
She tightened her hands on his. ‘Did you mean it? You really want to marry me?’
‘I did mean it and I do.’
‘Then I will tell you what you must do.’