A Week in Winter: A Novel by Marcia Willett Read Free Book Online

happily.
    Sitting there, with the hot, heavy child in her arms, Maudie had felt an extraordinary sensation: warmth radiating from her heart; a breathless wonder; a nameless longing. Carefully she’d drawn the child closer and, bending her head, kissed Posy’s cheek. The child had chuckled delightfully, showing two tiny white teeth.
    ‘Hello,’ Maudie had said, feeling foolish. ‘I’m Maudie. Hello, Posy. You are beautiful and I wish you were mine.’
    ‘Any chance of tea, darling?’ Hector had suddenly appeared, Patrick behind him. ‘I’ll look after Posy, won’t I, my poppet?’
    ‘No,’ Maudie had insisted, holding on firmly. ‘
I’m
looking after Posy.
You
make the tea’—and so it had started.
    Maudie stretched herself, shaking off thoughts of the past, easing her shoulders, glancing at her watch; nearly half-past four. She’d made good time and was looking forward to a cup of tea. It was a long drive to Moorgate, but worth the effort. Rob had made a splendid job of the old place. Settling herself more comfortably, switching on the radio, Maudie found herself wondering what could have happened to those keys.
    Rob finished clearing up in the yard and looked about him. The morning had deteriorated into a dank afternoon, the mizzle settling into a steady rain. Soon it would be getting dark. He went into the house and passedthrough each room, pausing to look carefully about him. In the sitting room he stood for a moment, gazing down into the fireplace, frowning thoughtfully. On a sudden impulse he stepped across to the window and closed the heavy wooden shutters, making them fast. He crossed the hall and went into the smaller living room. It was empty except for the wood-burning stove in the granite fireplace. Here, too, he closed the shutters before returning to the kitchen. He pottered for a while, clearing away the tea things, washing the mugs, and presently he locked the back door and drove away in the pick-up.
    Fog rolled down upon the moor, filling the valleys, creeping amongst the trees. It muffled sound and covered the low-lying ground with a thick grey blanket of cloud. No one saw the figure emerge from the darker shadow of the thorn hedge below the house, slip round to the side door and disappear inside.

Chapter Five
    Patrick Stone sat at the kitchen table, arms folded, staring at a mug of cooling coffee, listening to his wife talking on the telephone in the room beyond the arch. He’d guessed at once to whom she was speaking. Only to Maudie did Selina use that brittle, cool voice; the almost insolent tone which made him feel strangely uncomfortable, nervous. It was many years now since he’d realised that Maudie was not the cruel, selfish stepmother, the manipulative schemer, described to him by Selina. Well, he’d been young, then; young and passionately in love. They’d met in Winchester when she was nineteen, and at Miss Sprules’ Secretarial College, and he, at twenty-four, had just embarked upon his first teaching post at a local school. He’d noticed her first at Evensong at the cathedral and a few days later at the Wykeham Arms. Selina was with a group of young people, one of whom he knew slightly, and soon he’d been integrated into the cheerful crowd. They’d paired off very quickly and before long she’d begun to confide in him: how unhappy she was; the terrible loss of her mother; the arrival of Maudie. How moved he’d been by her plight; how touched by her unhappiness.
    Patrick snorted derisively and picked up his mug of coffee. How easy it had been, under the blinding influence of passion, to be moved, shocked by her stories; to long to rescue her. How assured and confident he’d been in convincing her that they were born for each other; how eloquent in persuading her father that he could make her happy. Oh, Young Lochinvar could have taken his correspondence course and learned a trick or two,no doubt about it. How long had it been before he’d learned that Selina was as