Sweet Rosie Read Free Page A

tell me about the pottery, how are the new patterns coming along?’
    He stood at her side, staring down at her. ‘You are still very pale,’ he said. ‘It’s not long since you lost the baby. You’d better concentrate on getting well again and leave the potting to me.’
    Llinos rested her hand on his arm. ‘Isn’t it time you were getting married and having a brood of children of your own?’ she asked quietly. He met her gaze; he hid nothing from Llinos.
    ‘You know life is not that simple for me.’
    ‘I know. But you are like the brother I never had. I care about you, Watt, I can’t bear to see you wasting your life on a woman who can never really be yours.’
    He moved away. ‘Llinos, you’re overstepping the mark, what I do in my private life is my own business.’ His gaze softened as she lowered her head. ‘Look, I can’t help how I feel, can I? I’m in love with Maura and none of us can choose who we fall in love with, can we?’
    She nodded, accepting his point, she herself had married a man most people, including her father, had considered unsuitable.
    ‘I only want what’s best for you, Watt.’
    ‘Well try to accept that Maura is best for me, she is the only woman I’ll ever love. I didn’t know what love was before she and I . . .’ His voice trailed into silence, he was thinking of Lily, his first love, Lily the talented painter; Lily, the girl who had betrayed him, betrayed them all.
    The silence stretched on and, in the way that women have of knowing a man’s thoughts, Llinos touched his hand. ‘You are right. We must forget the past, put all of the bad things that have happened out of our minds. That’s something Joe doesn’t seem able to do. Is he acting strangely, Watt?’
    ‘He’s acting like a worried husband! He adores you and so do I.’ They smiled at each other. They had shared a great many bad times, which was why Watt could never leave Pottery House and seek a more lucrative post somewhere else.
    ‘I’d better let you rest.’ He moved to the door. ‘We can talk later if you feel up to it.’
    She looked up at him. ‘I’ll be up to it! I need to get back into the swing of things, it’s pointless sitting brooding all day. It’s time I got back into harness.’
    As Watt left the sunlit room, he sighed. Like Llinos he had had his share of problems but he was a happy man now, all thoughts of the past were well and truly behind him.
    Lily Wesley walked through the soft grass of the gardens that surrounded Portland House. The riot of roses ran over the arbour arch, drooping petals, ready to fall as though tired of their full-blown heaviness.
    She sat on the garden seat and looked back at the house. It was not a large house, just a cottage really. Its name implied a much grander establishment but Lily loved the place; she had been secure there these past three years.
    She had married a good man, a man so old she thought he would be past all the urges that seemed to rule men. She had been mistaken. Tom Wesley had been a vigorous man despite his years. But she had endured and now he was dead. And she was the new owner. She smiled to herself: she was a woman of property, as good as Llinos Mainwaring any day. Better, because she had married a respectable Englishman and Llinos had married a savage.
    Briefly, Lily thought of Saul Marks, the man who had taken her virginity. She had thought she had loved him, thought he was going to take her to the heights of society, but she had been wrong. Still that had been an unhappy time of her life; now she was the Widow Wesley, respected in the small community of Lougher. She felt happy and secure living in her own cottage that faced the might of the great estuary where wild ponies grazed on mossy banks, sometimes up to their thin flanks in water.
    She rubbed her arms; the sun was dropping away beyond the horizon, the evening was growing chill. It was time she went indoors and lit the lamps. Reluctantly, she turned her back on the