Friendship's Bond by Meg Hutchinson Read Free Book Online Page B

its senses?’
     
    Maybe she should have stayed in Darlaston, tried to find a home for herself and Alec there, but how would she have found a place without money to pay for it?
    That had been the final straw, the blow which at that moment had drained her will, swept away the determination that had kept her going despite all the trials and tribulation of getting back to England.
    ‘ Eh wench, your gran be gone these many months, ’ er died but a few weeks after y’self ’ad left to be wi’ y’ parents along o’ that foreign country. Weren’t aught could be done, there be no cure for tumour o’ the stomach. With you gone an’ no other kin a’bidin’ wi’   ’er the house were given over to another family. ’
    She had longed for her grandmother, the one person in the world she thought remained to her, who would take her in her arms, welcome her home. But there had been no grandmother, no home.
    With no more deliveries to make, with nothing to hold her concentration, memories crept like wraiths into Ann’s mind.
     
    ‘ ’Er be laid along o’ St Lawrence churchyard.’ The voice of the neighbour went on relentlessly. ‘There were naught but what the penny a week insurance policy paid an’ that barely saw ’er decent into the ground so there be no ’eadstone to mark where ’er lies but there do be a wooden cross wi’ ’er name, my ’usband seen to the mekin’ o’ that. ’
    She had thanked the woman for having overseen the burying of her grandmother, asked that those same thanks be passed to all of the houses in the street because the folk would have contributed halfpennies and pennies in order to purchase a wreath; then she had walked to the churchyard.
    There, kneeling beside a patch of earth bereft of any enclosing stone border, of any gift of flowers beneath the rough wooden cross with its name traced in white paint, the last of her resistance had crumbled leaving her crushed beneath the weight of guilt for not having been there when she was needed.
    ‘ I should have known. ’
    The words had sobbed from her.
    ‘ I should have stayed here with you . . . Oh Gran, I should have known. ’
    ‘ You can’t blame yourself. ’
    Alec had knelt alongside her, his arm about her shoulders, his whisper gentle against her ear.
    ‘ If your grandmother had told you she was ill you would not have left her. That much I know of you, Ann, and hearing you speak of her it is my belief it was her love for you made her insist upon your going, a love so strong it wanted to protect you from her pain. ’
    ‘ Was it that, Gran? Was that the true reason? Is Alec right in what he said? ’
    ‘I don’t know about Alec being right in whatever it was he said, but I was certainly right in thinking to find you here; really, you should vary your route if not the days of making your deliveries.’
    Dragged from the darkness of sorrow to the deeper dark of the fear to which she still woke in the blackness of night, Ann felt the blood chill in her veins.
    ‘I see from your expression you welcome my company as much as on previous occasions but I shall not let that deter me, in fact it increases my determination we become . . . how to put it nicely . . . we become intimate friends . . . very intimate friends.’
    The unwelcome encounter was enough to snap the invisible bond holding Ann in darkness. Blood which seconds before had been stilled by fear now raced hot with revulsion as she stared at the figure blocking her path.
    ‘Mr Thorpe.’ She paused, swallowing the distaste for that name on her tongue, then went on icily, ‘I have no desire for friendship with you.’
    ‘Friendship.’ He laughed. ‘That does not appeal to you therefore I forgo that aspect of our association, but as for that other word you used – desire – that I cannot forgo; you see, Miss Spencer, I desire you and what Thomas Thorpe desires he makes very sure he gets!’
    He pulled her hard against him, the force of it pushing the breath from her