Born to Trouble (16 page)

‘I want a word with the men, sir. Will you wait here, and then you’re welcome to come back to the house and share our meal?’

Christopher nodded. ‘Go ahead and thanks, I’d like that if it’s no trouble for Mrs Tollett.’

‘Oh, she’ll be tickled pink and so will the bairns.’

Christopher watched Mrs Tollett approach and as he did so he reflected that Wilbert was a lucky man. As a young boy he had enjoyed the times he had sneaked away to visit the manager’s home. There had always been plenty of children to play with; Wilbert’s oldest son was twenty-nine now and the Tolletts had fifteen children in all, the youngest having been born six years ago. But it wasn’t this which had drawn him but the tangible atmosphere of warmth and laughter prevalent in the home.

From the beginning he’d sensed something between husband and wife he hadn’t been able to define as a child, never having witnessed love and friendship between a married couple before. He’d always left the farmhouse on leaden feet, wishing with all his heart he’d been born a Tollett as he’d walked back to his own home. He’d made the mistake of saying this to Nathaniel once. His brother had laughed at him, teasing him about it for weeks. He hadn’t mentioned the subject of the Tolletts to Nathaniel again, but the incident had brought home the fact that, much as he loved Nathaniel and his brother loved him, they were fundamentally different. It had made him feel even more of an outsider within his home.

His gaze returning to the gypsies, he saw they’d followed the farm hands’ lead and were now sitting down in small groups eating their lunch. One or two of the girls had poppies threaded in their dark hair. He’d picked a bunch of poppies on his way to the Tolletts’ once as a child, and although Mrs Tollett had taken them with a word of thanks, one of her children, a pert young miss called Gladys who’d been a year younger than him, had told him he shouldn’t have done it.

‘The poppy’s the protector of the crop, isn’t it, Mam?’ she’d said to her mother. ‘Da says the poppies grow to make the Corn Goddess sleep so she doesn’t wander and forget to grow the wheat. If you pick them before harvest you’ll bring down thunder and rain and flatten the crop. That’s what Da told us.’

Mrs Tollett had shushed her precocious daughter and told him it didn’t matter, but he’d later discovered that all the country folk thought the same. The following week had seen several violent thunderstorms and he had never picked the poppies again. Gladys had married the son of a local farmer at sixteen and was happily bossing him about and having a child every twelve months, according to her father.

A slight smile on his lips, Christopher came out of his reverie to find he was staring at the girl in the straw hat and she was staring back at him. He blinked, and the brim of the hat swiftly lowered, hiding her gaze, but not before he’d seen two great azure eyes set in a heart-shaped face, the beauty of which took his breath away for the second time that day.

Who was he? Pearl was glad of the hat to hide her burning cheeks. A gentleman, obviously, from his clothes and manner. And she had been staring at him. She bit into a piece of flatbread, mortified at her forwardness. It had been obvious he’d been miles away, lost in thought, and there she’d been gawping at him like a hussy.

It was another few minutes before she dared to raise her head and then it was to see Mr Tollett, the manager, and the young gentleman riding away. Her eyes followed them until they disappeared from view. The gentleman hadn’t been wearing a hat. That alone denoted his class. His hair had been beautiful, golden, like ripe wheat or perhaps just a shade or two darker. Beautiful, anyway. He had been beautiful.

Her thoughts again made her lower her head in embarrassment and she was thankful none of the girls around her could read her mind. Who was he? she asked herself again. Someone important from the way Mr Tollett had acted. Anyway, it was none of her business.

She continued to tell herself this throughout the rest of the day as she worked in the fields, but still her mind kept returning to the handsome stranger. Every little while she found her eyes scanning the distance to catch a sight of him, but although Mr Tollett returned late afternoon, he was alone.

The twilight was deepening rapidly when she arrived back at the campsite with the others. Most of the able-bodied among them had gone to help with the harvest, but Byron and his father and a couple of the other men had ridden up the coast after hearing about a horse fair further north. They were expecting to be away for a few days.

Corinda had taken on the task of cooking the evening meal for as long as the harvesting continued, but Pearl found she wasn’t hungry. She felt odd, restless – and when Halimena made a show of complimenting her daughter-in-law on the dinner, adding that it was the best food she had tasted in a long time, Pearl found she couldn’t ignore the old woman’s scarcely veiled hostility as she usually did. After saying she was going to bed and leaving the others, she suddenly balked at the thought of the hot stuffy caravan and decided to go for a walk instead, slipping silently away. This in itself was a rare treat, and something she wouldn’t have been able to do if Byron had been around. To be fair, she qualified in her mind, none of the gypsy girls were allowed to wander far without a male escort from their family accompanying them.

The daylight had all but gone as she strode along the lane leading away from Lot’s Burn. She had thought she was tired on the walk back to the campsite, in fact she had wanted nothing more than something to drink and her bed, but now she felt invigorated, even exhilarated at walking alone in the cool of the late evening. A missel thrush, its beak holding the last meal of the day for its fledglings, flew past her – and in the distance she could hear cows mooing as they settled for the night. Somewhere in the near hills a fox barked. She breathed in the air, warm and holding a hundred summer scents, and suddenly took off at a run, leaping over a low stone wall as she laughed out loud and crossing a meadow of thick grass on feet that seemed to have wings.

She reached a hill but didn’t stop, scrambling up the steep path and keeping going until she reached the top, whereupon she gave in to the stitch in her side. Throwing herself down on grass still warm from the heat of the day, she looked up into the sky where the first star was twinkling beside a crescent moon.

She hadn’t run like that in years, not since the time she had left the East End. When she had taken James and Patrick out Tunstall way she had made her brothers laugh sometimes by running up and down hills and around them while they’d clapped their hands and shrieked, infected by her joy of the moment. James and Patrick . . . She sat up, clasping her knees, the joy she’d felt draining away and the old familiar sadness taking its place. She had long since given up any thought of going back to Low Street. Her place was with the Romanies now, with Byron. She owed him her life.

She swallowed hard against the knot of fear that accompanied such thoughts. When she looked into the future she became panicky at what lay before her, but since Byron had spoken she knew deep within there would come a day when she’d have to say yes to him. She didn’t doubt that he loved her and he was kind, handsome too, in his dark swarthy way. As the eldest son of the most powerful family in the community, she was well aware it would be considered a great honour to become his wife.

She plucked a blade of grass, idly chewing at its sweetness and enjoying the warm breeze after the fierce heat of the day.

She had always known deep down that Byron was in love with her, but she had been able to pretend he merely thought of her as a sister before he’d declared himself. Now that comfortable deception was gone, and with its passing she’d had to face up to the fact that she was afraid of him, afraid of his body and what it would do to her when she became his wife. The last few weeks she had been trying to make herself love him as a woman should love a man, but instead even the warm affection and trust she’d always felt for him was dying. Which made her feel doubly wretched. But for him, she would have died curled up in that old tree like a hurt animal; he deserved her undying gratitude. And love. But how could you make yourself want someone in that way? The feeling was either there or it wasn’t, surely?

Sighing, she rose to her feet. She’d have to get back. If Halimena went to bed and found the caravan empty, she’d take great pleasure in raising the camp and causing a fuss, just to put her in a bad light. Oh, she knew Halimena’s little ways sure enough, and it would serve the old woman right if she married her precious grandson and spoiled the purity of the blood. In fact, the thought of Halimena’s outrage and fury at hearing that Byron wanted to marry her was the only bright spot on the horizon.

Telling herself she’d end up as bitter and twisted as Halimena if she wasn’t careful, Pearl began to retrace her footsteps, but slowly. At the bottom of the hill she stood for a minute or two, drinking in the solitude. For some time now she’d felt as restricted as a dog on a short leash, but the other unmarried gypsy girls didn’t seem to mind the limitations their society put on their movements. But that was it in a nutshell, she supposed. She wasn’t a gypsy, not by blood – as Halimena took great pleasure in reminding her at every opportunity.

By the time she reached the lane that led to the campsite at Lot’s Burn, she was walking more swiftly, suddenly anxious to get back before her disappearance was discovered. The fox was barking again, nearer now, the harsh sound jarring on the whispering stillness of the night. Whether it was because she was listening to the fox or thinking about how she would creep into the caravan undetected, Pearl wasn’t sure, but she didn’t hear or see the horse until she jumped over the low stone wall into the lane and landed almost under its hoofs. It reared up on its hind legs, neighing loudly and almost unseating its rider, and Pearl fell backwards in her fright, landing with a jolt on the grass verge.

‘Are you all right?’

The breath had left her body in a whoosh and she couldn’t answer for a moment. The rider had dismounted and coming to where she was, said, ‘Are you hurt?’ as he crouched down in front of her.

Blue eyes met grey. ‘You?’ The voice was deep and without any discernible accent. ‘The girl in the straw bonnet.’

She stared at the man who had featured in her thoughts all afternoon and evening and who was the reason for her earlier restlessness. Pulling herself together, she managed to say, ‘I – I’m sorry. I didn’t see you.’

‘Nor me you. In fact, you seemed to materialise straight from Jet’s hoofs.’

The voice had a touch of laughter in it and it provided the adrenaline needed for Pearl to ignore the hand he held out and scramble to her feet unassisted. The moonlight was very bright, and standing as close to him as she was, she was aware of several things all at once. He was tall and his shoulders were broad under his fine coat; there was a faint smell emanating from him – not exactly perfume but something very pleasant; he was even more handsome than she’d imagined, and there was something else she couldn’t put a name to. It wasn’t frightening and yet it was sending tremors down her spine and reminding her that she was out here alone. Again, she said, ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be sorry, I’m just relieved you’ve come to no harm.’ He looked in the direction she had come from. ‘Is there no one with you?’

She shook her head. ‘I was just taking a walk.’

After working in the fields all day? Had she been meeting a secret suitor she didn’t want her family to know about? A local? Ridiculously, Christopher found the idea rankled. His suspicions made his voice stiff when he said, ‘I was led to understand such freedom would be frowned upon in your community. For an unmarried girl, that is,’ he added, as the even more unwelcome thought hit him that she might be married.

‘It is.’ Pearl shrugged her slim shoulders. ‘But I needed some time by myself and it’s such a bonny night.’

‘So there is no lovelorn farm boy waiting in the shadows?’

She looked at him, a straight look, and her voice was as stiff as his had been when she said, ‘I told you, I wanted some time by myself.’

Oh dear, he had offended her. ‘I apologise,’ he said at once. ‘That was presumptuous of me. Will you forgive my impertinence?’

Pearl didn’t answer for a moment, as she wasn’t sure if he was making fun of her. Then she saw he was deadly serious. It flustered her and to her chagrin she knew she was blushing. ‘I must be getting back before I’m missed,’ she said weakly.

‘May I escort you home?’

‘Oh no!’
The words had left her lips before she had time to consider how such a vehement reply sounded. He had been half smiling but now his face was sombre. ‘No one knows I’m out, you see,’ she explained hastily, ‘and if they saw me with you they’d think . . .’ Her voice trailed away. It wasn’t seemly to say what they’d think.

He nodded, and to her relief the smile was back when he said, ‘Then may I suggest I walk you to the bend in the lane before the campsite? None of your family could possibly see us if I leave you there.’

Pearl hesitated. The risk was still there. What if one of the men or some of the lads were out poaching and spotted them?

‘I saw you earlier and I would have liked to speak to you then, but it wasn’t possible,’ he said softly. ‘This opportunity seems heavensent.’

It was a reflection of her own thoughts and the inflection in his voice made her shiver inside. She wasn’t doing anything wrong, she told herself silently. Just by allowing him to walk with her a little way, she wasn’t doing anything wrong.

Again he spoke quietly. ‘I don’t even know your name.’

‘Pearl. Pearl Croft.’

‘And I’m Christopher Armstrong, at your service.’

‘Armstrong? That’s funny, the owner of the country estate where we’re harvesting is . . .’ The penny dropped. This must be a member of the family.

Ignoring this, Christopher said swiftly, ‘Well, now we’ve been formally introduced, so I think it’s quite proper for me to escort you part of the way home. I’ll tell the horse to tiptoe, how about that?’