Bellman & Black Read Free Page B

with bags of gold, nor love and beauty that came empty-handed. Ann had been wise and good-hearted—and her dowry had just stretched to the building of the dye house. By being sensible and choosing the middle path, he had ended up with a harmonious domestic life, cordial companionship, and a dye house. But for all his good sense and solid reason he chided himself. He did not grieve his wife’s passing as a loving husband ought and in painfully honest moments he admitted in his heart that he thought more of his sister-in-law than was proper.
    Dora and William went home.
    The rook on the church roof gave an unhurried flap, lifted effortlessly from the roof, and soared away.
    ·  ·  ·
    “I’d like to do it,” Will told his mother in the small kitchen. “You won’t mind?”
    “And if I do?”
    He grinned and put an easy arm about her shoulders. At seventeen, there was still novelty in the pleasure of being so much taller than his mother. “You know I wouldn’t hurt you if I could help it.”
    “And there’s the rub.”
    ·  ·  ·
    A while later, in a secluded spot screened by sedges and rushes, Will’s easy arm was around another shoulder. His other hand was invisible beneath a mass of petticoat, and the girl sometimes placed her hand over his to indicate slower, quicker, a change of pressure. Clearly he was making progress, he thought. At the start she had kept her hand over his all the time. The girl’s white legs were whiter still against the moss, and she had kept her boots on: they would have to make a run for it if they were disturbed. Her breath came in sharp gasps. It still surprised Will that pleasure should sound so like pain.
    She fell abruptly silent and a small frown of concentration appeared on her face. Her hand pressed so hard over his it was almost painful and her white legs clamped together. He watched closely, fascinated. The flush on her cheeks and chest, the quiver of her eyelids. Then she relaxed, eyes still closed, and a small pulse beat in her neck. After a minute she opened her eyes.
    “Your turn.”
    He laid back, arms behind his head. No need for his hand to teach her. Jeannie knew what she was about.
    “Don’t you ever think you’d like to come and sit on top of me and do it properly?” he asked.
    She stopped and wagged a playful finger at him. “William Bellman, I mean to be an honest married woman one day. A Bellman baby is not going to get in my way!”
    She returned to her task.
    “Who do you take me for? Do you think I wouldn’t marry you if there was a baby coming?”
    “Don’t be daft. Course you would.”
    She caressed him, gently enough, firmly enough. It was just right.
    “Well, then?”
    “You’re a good boy, Will. I’m not saying you’re not.”
    He took her hand and stopped it, propped himself up on his elbows to see her face properly.
    “But?”
    “Will!” Seeing he would not be satisfied without an answer, she spoke, hesitant and tentative, the words born straight from her thoughts. “I know the kind of life I want. Steady. Regular.” He nodded her to go on. “What would my life be if I were to marry you? There’s no way of knowing. Anything might happen. You’re not a bad man, Will. You’re just . . .”
    He laid back down. Something occurred to him, and he looked at her again.
    “You’ve got someone in mind!”
    “No!” But her alarm and her blush gave her away.
    “Who is it? Who? Tell me!” He grabbed her, tickled her, and for a minute they were children again, shrieking, laughing, and play fighting. Just as quickly adulthood repossessed them and they set to finishing the business they were there for.
    By the time the leaves and the sky came back into focus above his head, he discovered his brain had worked it out for him. It was respectability she wanted. She was a worker, unimpressed by the easy life. And if she was killing time with him, while waiting, it meant it was someone who hadn’t noticed her yet. There were not so