Luckpenny Land by Freda Lightfoot Read Free Book Online

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.
    ‘You do respect me, don’t you, Jack?’ she asked, a touch of uncertainty in her voice, in case she had lost him by such wanton behaviour, but he only chuckled.
    ‘Course I do, Meg. I’ve told you. I wouldn’t be here else.’
    Her mother had told her long ago that a boy never respected you if you let him go “all the way”. Yet if she stayed here much longer, gazing into his violet blue eyes with their long curling lashes, she’d throw respect to the four winds and let him do what he would with her.
    ‘I must go.’ She got quickly to her feet, and was delighted when he did the same, putting his arms about her once more as if he couldn’t bear to let her go.
    ‘You’re not angry with me, are you?’ There’ll be another time, he thought, plucking a piece of grass from her hair.
    ‘`No, course not. Why should I be?’ They kissed again, softly now, with no urgency in it, and she knew it was all right. Life was suddenly wonderful and her heart was racing with happiness. Meg’s only experience of love and romance came from her rare visits to the cinema, or flea pit as Kath called it. A diet of glossy sentimentality and cultivated passion filled with vows of undying love lightened by jokey wisecracks, always with a happy ending in the final reel.
    ‘Will I see you tomorrow?’ he asked, and when she hesitated he persisted. ‘I must see you, Meg. I’m not made of stone, love.’ He’d called her his love. The delight of being wanted as those screen goddesses were wanted, was so delicious that Meg, as many a woman before her, felt suddenly heady with a sense of her own power. Reaching up, she wrapped her arms about his neck and kissed him good and hard.
    ‘Will that keep you happy till I can get away again?’ she asked, and turning from him, started to run down the hill.
    Her feet flew over the coarse grass, slipping and sliding down the hillside with the wind in her hair and exhilaration in her heart. Her father was waiting for her when she got home, complaining that his supper wasn’t ready. He said nothing more but his silence was heavy and accusing as he riddled the coals in the grate and then banked it up for the night. He sent her up early to bed just as if she were a child and not a grown woman. But Joe Turner’s disapproval couldn’t touch her now, and she was glad to escape.
    Meg undressed slowly and running her hands over her breasts before pulling on the flannel nightgown, she wondered if she was beautiful.
    That night, in the secret darkness of her bed, she relived those moments over and over in her mind and knew with a shaming weakness that she hadn’t wanted Jack to stop, not at all. Would she have let him go further if there’d been anywhere more suitable than a copse of ash trees by a small mountain tarn? She didn’t know, but curiosity was strong in her and the thought did not go away that life with Jack Lawson would be a good deal more exciting than waiting on her crabby old father and brothers.
     
    They met regularly after that. In the mornings Meg would race through her work, humming happily to herself. Most afternoons found her slipping out the back door and striding off up to Brockbarrow Wood, heart pumping as she waited for Jack.
    She knew Joe watched her, often with dark brows drawn into a dour frown, but he never spoke about her change of humour and she never enlightened him. In her view, it was none of his business who she went out with. Besides, it was too soon to have their growing friendship examined by her grasping father. Joe would be sure to put the very worst connotation on it and start asking what Jack could offer as a prospective son-in-law.
    Meg knew he