him his late-night run?’ He bent to pat Morgan’s head and fondle his ears and the spaniel whimpered with delight and wagged his tail so furiously that his rump wagged with it. ‘Gone out, has he?’
‘Gone out with her ladyship, and Miss Julia’s away into Holdenby for supper at the vicarage, so Cook said staff could eat cold tonight and I wasn’t needed to help out.’ She finished, aware she was blushing furiously on account of her being here, because Reuben had told her when she passed his gate that Tom was in the rearing field shutting up the coops for the night, and that if she hurried she might just catch him there.
‘Don’t know what you mean,’ she’d said, all airy-fairy as she strolled past, but she had run like the wind the moment she was out of sight of the cottage, desperate to see him. They were leaving for London early tomorrow morning, and if she didn’t see him tonight, she had thought despairingly, she didn’t know how she would live out fourteen days away from him.
‘There now. That’s the last of them done.’ He placed a board against the slats of the coop, leaning a brick against it. ‘I’ll walk you back, if you’d like.’
‘You don’t have to, Tom …’
‘No trouble. It’s on my way to the bothy.’ He smiled again. ‘Come on now, Morgan. Keep to heel,’ he said in the stern voice he kept for the dog, nodding his satisfaction as the spaniel did exactly as it was told. ‘So Lady Helen is visiting? Gone to Pendenys, so the coachman told me’
‘Mm. Sad for her, isn’t it, without Sir John? And she looked so beautiful tonight. We all stood in the hall to see her go – and so she’d know we wished her well, poor lady.
‘There was Cook and Tilda from the kitchen, and Bess. And Mary who waits at table, and me. And Miss Clitherow gave her a hand downstairs. That frock has a bit of a train on it, so she had to walk very straight, and careful.’ And proud, Alice thought, with her lovely head held high. ‘She smiled when she saw us, Tom, and we all gave her a curtsey, though she don’t ever expect it.’ Not like one she could mention who – though she wasn’t a lady and never would be, Cook said – had her servants bobbing up and down like corks in a bucket.
‘Not a lot of staff at Rowangarth,’ Tom offered his hand at the woodland stile. ‘Not for a gentleman’s house, I mean.’
‘Happen not, but we manage. After all, Sir Robert’s in India, Miss Julia’s no trouble at all and Mr Giles is as often as not shut up in the library. And with her ladyship being so long in mourning and her not going out or receiving callers or giving parties – well, we haven’t been overworked, exactly.’
‘Do you remember what it was like at Rowangarth, Alice, before Sir John was killed? I reckon there’d be some fine old shoots, here on the estate?’
Alice didn’t know about the shooting, she said, but she remembered one or two parties.
‘They’d just had their silver wedding when the master was taken. My, there was half the Riding at that do. But I’d only been here a couple of months, then the house went into mourning when Sir John was killed.’
‘A motor accident, wasn’t it?’
‘Aye, and all the fault of King Edward and his speeding.’ All because the King had driven at sixty miles an hour, would you believe, along the Brighton road. After that, every motor owner had donned cap and gloves and goggles and tried his damnedest to do the same. But the Prince of Wales – they’d hardly got used to calling him King when he died – had waited so long to get his throne, Cook said, that he lived life fast and furious as if he’d known he’d get less than ten years out of his crowning. ‘Sir John tried to drive faster than the King, you see, and skidded at a bend, and –’
‘And that’s why her ladyship won’t have a motor,’ Tom finished, matter-of-factly.
‘That’s why. And Mr Giles and Miss Julia both able to drive and desperate for motors of their own and not daring to buy one. Miss Sutton in London has a motor – it’s at Aunt Sutton’s house we’ll be staying when we’re in London. Oh, who’d have thought it? Someone like me maiding Miss Julia!’
‘And what do you mean by that?’
‘Well, someone – ordinary.’
‘But you aren’t ordinary, Alice Hawthorn.’ He stopped, resting his hands on her shoulders, turning her to face him. ‘You’re extraordinary pretty, to my way of thinking.’
‘Pretty?’ Her eyes met his and she felt trapped and excited and peculiar, all at the same time. ‘Oh, but I’m not! If you’d wanted to see what pretty is, you should have seen her ladyship tonight. So lovely she was, and all shining in satin. And no jewels at all, ’cept for her earrings. And her orchids, Tom; her own special orchids, all creamy-white, same as she carried to her wedding to Sir John.
‘They were special between them, those orchids. Oh, mustn’t it have been wonderful, them loving like that – and romantic, to be given orchids. But listen to me going all soft. No one will ever give me orchids,’ she sighed.
‘Happen not, pretty girl, but it isn’t all women are suited to orchids, and you are one of them. You, lass, are more in keeping with –’ he bent to pluck some of the flowers that grew wild in the grass at their feet, smiling as he tilted her chin – ‘to these. You’re a buttercup girl, Alice. All fresh and shining you are, so hold yourself still so I can see if you like butter.’ He held one of the flowers to her throat and smiled at the golden glow that shone from the whiteness of her skin. ‘Oh, aye, you’re a buttercup girl, and no mistake.’
‘I am?’ She closed her eyes because his mouth was only a kiss away and she had wanted so long for him to kiss her.
‘That you are. Let them keep their fine flowers, Alice. I’ll give you buttercups, my lovely lass, and they’ll be more special between us than the rarest orchid that ever grew.’
He touched her lips gently with his own and fire and ice ran through and left her shaking and afraid to open her eyes lest he should see what shone there. And when he gathered her to him it was like a homecoming, and she lifted her arms and wrapped them gently around his neck because it was the only way she knew to tell him that she would like to be kissed again.
‘You’re my girl, aren’t you, Alice?’
He had never expected it would be like this; never thought he would feel tenderness for her along with his wanting, nor once imagined he would feel like throttling with his own hands any man who threatened to harm her innocence.
‘I’m your girl, Tom …’
‘So we’re walking out steady, now, and you’ll sit by me in church?’
‘When I’m back from London.’
‘Then look at me, and tell me so.’
‘Tom?’ All at once it was easy and she looked smiling into his eyes and whispered, ‘I’m your girl, Tom Dwerryhouse, and I love you. There now, does that suit you?’
‘It does, sweetheart. It suits me very nicely.’ His eyes loved her as he handed her the buttercups. ‘Very nicely indeed.’
She closed her eyes again and sighed tremulously. In her lonely youth she had longed for this; yearned to be close to someone, and special. Not so long ago she had been so happy about London she had told the rooks she was fit to burst of it, but this was different. This was even better than happiness. Tonight, Tom had kissed her, and she was loved.
London seethed and shimmered and sang with magic: nothing but houses in streets and terraces and squares; trees in May leaf and parks pink and white with blossom; elegant ladies and elegant shops; costermongers yelling their fruit for sale; motors honking, and cab drivers shaking their whips at motors for frightening