Luckpenny Land (5 page)

She walked the pony round in a circle, aware of his eyes upon her. ‘Over Coppergill Pass. I often go there on a fine afternoon.’ Hazel eyes regarded blue for a moment in silence.

‘So long then,’ he said, sounding very like a gangster in one of those new American movies she and Meg occasionally went to see in Kendal.

Kath urged Bonnie into action and with an airy wave of a hand trotted out through the gate Jack obediently held open for her. He stood watching her go, eyes on the delightful up and down motion of her rear as rider and pony headed off up the lane. It was the neatest little bottom he’d seen in a long time and he almost regretted not offering to go with her.

It was late afternoon before Meg set out, striding away up the fields towards Brockbarrow Wood. More a copse than a wood, the stand of trees stood high on the fellside, flanking the sides of a small mountain tarn, dark and skeletal against the glistening water. It was her favourite place even when the wind cut through like a knife. But today spring was in the air and her heart felt uplifted by the freedom of an hour out alone where she could sit and think without fear of being disturbed.

No one saw her go, not that she’d have cared if they had. She was entitled to a break she told herself. Meg loved walking and was never afraid to be alone. She had often thought it would be good to have a dog at her heels, but the only dogs the farm owned were working animals that belonged to her father and her brother Dan. They were treated well as there was nothing more important to a good shepherd than his dog, but they were never allowed into the house and spent their time in the yard or barn when not working. Meg felt she would like to have a dog beside her at all times.

‘One day I shall,’ she announced to the empty landscape, mentally adding it to her list of requirements for a happy life. As soon as I have a job, whatever that might be, and a place of my own. And Jack, she added silently. How any of these dreams would be achieved she had not the faintest idea but the determination was strong in her.

Meg continued upwards, her rubber boots slipping sometimes on the sharp stones. Above her the track narrowed and split into a dozen such sheep-trails, named ‘trods’ years ago by the Vikings who first populated these fells. The Herdwicks would later lead their lambs up them to the summer grazing, allowing the youngsters not a moment’s rest in their eagerness to reach the heights. Today the fells were bare and quiet and she loved the silence, feeling it heave into her heart and push away all the unpleasant thoughts and niggling worries. A skylark soared, tearing up into a blue-grey sky in a frenzy of song, a winter migrant from a colder land. Meg called up to the small brown bird, assuring it that she would watch where she put her feet and not disturb its eggs.
 

‘I wouldn’t expect anything else from you.’

She stopped dead in her tracks, looking all about her for the source of the deep, disembodied voice.

‘Jack?’ she said, half hoping, half fearing. He stepped out from behind a rowan on the fringes of the copse above her and, leaning against it, grinned down at her, turning her stomach to water.

‘Come on, slow coach. About time. I’m bored sick with trekking up this path to wait for you.’

Her heart leaped into her throat, soaring as surely as the skylark’s song.

It no longer mattered that she’d near worn herself out with the washing all morning or that at the end of this wonderful afternoon she must return to a dour, taciturn father and two selfish brothers. He had come at last. And here, on this fellside, she felt suddenly wanted and alive.

They sat together under an old ash tree, leaning against its silver-grey bark. Meg was so overwhelmed at finding him waiting for her she could think of nothing to say. But she relished the warmth of him beside her. He smelled of tangy soap and fresh damp earth, and something she could only describe to herself as masculine.

‘Have you really? Been wanting to see me, I mean,’ she asked, unable to resist knowing the answer.

‘What do you think?’

She turned to him, half accusing. ‘You never said. How was I to know?’

‘I would have thought it was obvious. Most girls would have guessed.’

‘I’m not most girls.’ Meg had no intention of having him think her easy. She knew all about such girls and she wasn’t one of them. All the same she trembled inside when he shifted his position, moving his body closer.

‘What do you expect me to do? Call on your dad?’

‘No. I don’t blame you for being wary of Joe. And Dan!’ The words started to tumble out, covering the sudden shyness which was so ridiculous with a boy she had known all her life. ‘Maybe Dan and I might have got on better if it hadn’t been pumped into me from the moment we were old enough to toddle about that the farm was for the boys.’

‘What would you want with a farm?’

‘I’d like the chance to decide for myself,’ she said. ‘Can’t you see what will happen? Dan will marry and I’ll be the spare part around the place, the unmarried sister.’ She shivered. ‘It doesn’t appeal, thank you very much.’

Jack shrugged. ‘So leave. Do something different.’

‘How? My father won’t even let me go to town on me bike,’ she complained. ‘It’s archaic.’

Jack made sympathetic noises but he wasn’t really listening. He was watching the rise and fall of her breast beneath the pale blue blouse she wore. It strained enticingly against the buttons. A girl turning into a woman and she didn’t even seem to notice. Jack wasn’t sure whether it was Meg’s innocence or her unconscious sensuality that so appealed to him. Either way it had come as a surprise to him since he usually preferred more sophisticated meat.

But however Joe Turner might try to keep his daughter a child she was very much a woman, and the ache in Jack’s loins told him that he wanted her. And what Jack wanted, he usually got.

Chapter Three

‘Keep you short of money, does he?’ Jack considered putting his arm about Meg’s shoulders but she looked so fierce suddenly, he decided against it. He would content himself this afternoon with letting her chatter. There was plenty of time, after all.

‘Money? I’ve none at all. How can he be so against women working when he has me labouring like a slave from dawn to dusk? How can he pretend to be so pious when everyone knows he’s the biggest shark of a moneylender around these parts?’

‘He’s a fearsome character right enough, your dad. I know Sally Ann Gilpin is scared sick of him.’

‘Is she?’

‘They’ve been having their troubles lately. Her dad has been ill. Left them a bit short, I reckon.’ Jack’s eyes fastened on Meg’s mouth, small and moist, a pink tongue darting excitedly over her lower lip as she talked.

‘I see.’ Meg was sad about that since she liked the Gilpin family, and strongly disliked an old friend being scared of her father. ‘How did you hear?’ What she really meant was, when did you see Sally Ann? She felt a spurt of jealousy that Jack had talked to a pretty girl, and hated herself for it.

Jack was too busy gazing at the white column of her throat to notice the sharpness of her tone. ‘I don’t remember exactly. Her mam is having a real hard time of it, though.’

‘I can imagine.’ The women who lived in the row of cottages up by the quarry and were forced to avail themselves of Joe’s money lending service in order to survive the week, had every cause to fear him. Nobody got behind with their payments with Joe Turner, not if they wanted to avoid trouble.

‘Why do women always get the rough end of the stick? I’ve been trained to keep house since I was three years old. Not so the boys, who were somehow excused anything that smacked of woman’s work. But it’s going to change, I tell you. I can only take so much and one of these days . . .’

Meg felt the anger drain out of her, becoming intensely aware of the warm weight of Jack’s body beside hers. What was she doing wasting this precious time together talking about her father? Jack moved a little, his thigh brushing hers and it was as if she could scarcely breathe, as if her lungs were bursting, squeezing inwards, pushing a pain deep down into her groin.

She was aware too of Jack’s breathing, of its strangely uneven quality, that it became less and less pronounced. She felt him turn towards her and knew instinctively that if she looked at him he would kiss her, but she could not move. Much as she longed to feel the warmth of his lips move over hers, her body was stuck fast to the tree, her hands curled tight into the clumps of grass at her side.

‘Meg?’

That was all he said. Her name. So softly questioning it was like a caress. Then his hand came up to her neck and she turned her cheek into it, lifting her face to his as if to the warmth of the sun. She had waited for this moment for what seemed like a lifetime and Meg closed her eyes and gave herself up to the joy of it without hesitation.

The kiss roughened and deepened, and then moved on to explore the warm curve of her throat and the sensitive hollows below her earlobe. She rubbed her cheek against the roughness of his coat collar, loving the feel of it against her silky skin. Happiness burst inside her like the opening petals of a new flower.

Meg gasped when she felt his hand move to her breast. She wasn’t ignorant. Brought up on a farm, she was well versed in the mechanics of life and had filled in the gaps with Kath long since, giggling behind the barn with one of those books in plain brown wrappers Kath had sent for. But theory was one thing, practice quite another.

His fingers were growing more adventurous since she’d done nothing to stop him and were now busily engaged in unbuttoning her blouse. Did she want him to carry on further? She felt flustered, not wanting to appear silly and naive.

He had found her nipple, pert and hard beneath her hand stitched camisole, and she gasped with pain and pleasure as he took it between his lips. ‘Jack,’ she whimpered, half in protest, half drowning in sensation. Even as she spoke, her body arched, instinctively craving for more. Wanting him more than she could say.

He pulled her down so that she was lying on the grass and she could sense the excitement rising in him. Something hard and pulsing was pressing against her leg. It seemed to make the pain worse.

‘Come on, Meg, come on,’ he murmured, then eased open her mouth with his tongue so she couldn’t have answered him anyway, even if she’d known what to say. His tongue flickered between her teeth and curled about her own, thrusting, dancing, teasing, demanding. Despite herself she was catching his excitement, felt it run through her like liquid fire. She thrilled to his kisses, revelled in new sensations she’d never known before, responding to his passion without restraint.

‘You want me, don’t you?’ he asked, letting her breathe for a minute as he nuzzled into her neck.

‘Oh, Jack’, was all she could say, a tremble in her voice. She was confused, filled with a racing desire to find out what it was her young body craved, even as some small part of her preached caution and held her back. Yet how could it be wrong if she wanted him to do these things to her? She felt dazed and weak, the longing to surrender almost beyond endurance.

His hand was on her leg now, sliding softly beneath her skirt, over her bare thigh. Then with a shock of breath in her throat she felt his hand creep beneath the leg of her cami-knickers. Very quickly she caught his hand with her own.

‘Please, Jack, no.’ But he wasn’t listening, she felt him shudder against her, press the hardness of his body ever closer, and she remembered reading in the brown paper book how you shouldn’t lead a man on. Was that what she was doing? Being a tease. He was saying something, whispering in her ear.

‘It’s all right, Meg. I can use something. You’ll be quite safe.’ A warm, melting sensation flowed through her veins, making her want to let him slide right inside her. The sigh of the wind through the old ash trees above seemed to shelter them, whispering secrets still to be understood; the slip-slap of water from the tarn beyond lulled her so that she could barely drag open eyelids heavy with love. Safe?
Use
something
?
What was he talking about? And then it came to her, why her inner voice cautioned, what it was she must be kept safe from, and she began to wriggle. ‘Give over this instant,’ she cried, pulling herself free. ‘Me dad’ll kill me if I get into trouble.’

‘I wouldn’t hurt you, Meg, you can trust me,’ he crooned, still busy at her breasts. Dammit, he thought, I went too fast.

‘How do I know that?’ They broke apart to stare at each other, eyes glazed, cheeks flushed, breathing ragged, and for a moment she thought he was going to be angry with her for stopping him but then the mischievous smile came back to his face.

‘What do you look like,’ he said. And then Meg started to giggle because it was true, they must look a proper mess.

She pushed him gently away to sit up, smoothing down her skirt, fluffing out her hair, unaware just how enticing she looked with pink cheeks and lips bruised and softened by love making. ‘We should have taken a bit more care.’ Oh, but she didn’t want to take care, she didn’t!

‘I will in future, Meg. I’m sorry if I scared you.’ He kissed her nose, thinking if he could get this far the first time, a second chance should be even more interesting.

To Meg, the implication that there could be a future for herself and Jack Lawson made her gasp. She’d never known such joy in all her life: to feel so loved, so wanted. He must love her, mustn’t he? Not only because he obviously wanted her so badly, but because he hadn’t minded at all when she’d stopped him.