Unforgettable (Gloria Cook) - By Gloria Cook Page 0,86
the exact same wavelength; we’ve helped each other move on from the past. Agreed, Verity?’
‘Agreed, Jack. Totally.’
He released her hands and drew her up from her chair and fully into his arms, gazing smilingly and tenderly into her eyes. ‘You won’t have to worry about me going astray. That’s all out of my system and it was an empty way of running away from my woes anyway, to forget them for a while. I’m in love with you, Verity, darling. I fell for you hard and fast when I pulled up beside you in the car that day. I hope one day you’ll fall in love with me too.’
Wrapping her arms snugly and now possessively round his neck and stretching up on tiptoes to kiss his sensuous mouth, she whispered huskily, ‘You don’t have to wait for that to happen, Jack. I’ve been in love with you for a long while.’
Twenty-Eight
Finn had been back at Petherton for two weeks. He had burnt up all the rubbish from the first cellar, tending it gravely, using a rake to ensure nothing fell out of the towering blaze and escaped to create danger or mayhem elsewhere. Each time he threw on another old box of odds and ends or piece of unwanted furniture he did so with incensed relish. The day after his agonizing hangover he had shredded every picture of Belle Lawry and thrown them into the stream, also destroying the ethereal image he had forged in his mind about her.
‘I’m no longer a fool over you, woman,’ he bellowed inside his head, his face burning in the heat, his eyes full of smoke. ‘I’m no longer under your spell. I’m not a slave to your enchantment. Hate me, would you, for admiring you, for thinking I’d loved you. Offended you, did I? Not – as – much – as – you – have – offended – me.’
He had hurled a broken standard lampshade into the crackling, roaring conflagration and snarled aloud. ‘What kind of woman are you? You only had to warn me off, put me in my place. I was never any danger to you. If you love your bloody Charlie so much how could you see I was possibly a rival to him? If you’re that jealous and protective of your marriage then God help any woman who takes a fancy to him.’
Much later, when raking the embers and ash together to form a neat circle he quietly asked the world at large: ‘Is anyone really what they seem? My father certainly wasn’t. Julius Urquart wasn’t. And the woman I thought was a pleasant housewife and mother turned out to be oversensitive and two-faced, not really a friend to me and Mum at all. Anyone else would have laughed and shrugged off my infatuation. I wasn’t about to jump on her and rape her, for goodness sake!’
He grinned smugly. He had done much to put the prickly Lawrys right. During the time he had spent entirely at home illustrating Mrs R’s poems, Belle Lawry had called at Merrivale once, bringing a little basket of fruit and expressing the neighbourly sentiment of hoping Finn had recovered from the dyspepsia. Finn sketched and painted in the guest bedroom where the light was best, where no tall trees cast any shadows. Often he had Eloise in with him lying on a thick blanket chuckling and kicking her chubby legs and shaking and chewing on her toys. He heard Belle’s voice gaily calling hello and he felt sick deep in his core. His passion for the woman had turned into loathing and disgust; he did not recognize that he was deeply hurt and felt betrayed. To his bewilderment and shame he felt too embarrassed to face her yet. He didn’t want to set his eyes on the woman for a very long time, until he could meet her eye to eye and behave as if she was no more than a friend’s mother. He was glad to stay mates with Sam. He didn’t see much of him because it was the busy fruit-picking season, but Sam had popped in with Jenna, bringing Tilly with them, and Finn had fussed round Tilly as if she was the only girl ever worth knowing. Sam would no doubt tell his parents that Finn was ‘sweet on’ Tilly – a snub to the Lawrys. Tilly’s dainty oval face, with its long curling lashes and cute bow lips, was perfect for Finn to ask her to sit for