Wideacre (Wideacre Trilogy) by Philippa Gregory Read Free Book Online Page B

clumsy fingers, and opened his shirt so I could press my forehead to his chest and rub my burning face against him.
    Somewhere in the back of my mind a voice said: ‘Fever. I must have a fever.’ For my legs were too weak to rise and somehow I was trembling, trembling all over. In the core of my body, under my ribcage, was a fluttering, painful feeling. Downmy spine was a long, long shiver. Ralph’s smallest move made me shudder. When his forefinger drew a line from under my ear to the base of my neck, he could feel me tremble all over. ‘I must be ill,’ said my drowning consciousness. ‘I must be very, very ill.’
    Ralph eased back from me and leaned on an elbow looking down into my face. ‘You should go,’ he said. ‘It’s getting late.’
    ‘Not yet,’ I said. ‘It can’t be two o’clock yet.’
    I fumbled in my pocket for my silver watch, a miniature copy of my father’s, and opened it.
    ‘Three!’ I exclaimed. ‘I shall be late!’ I jumped to my feet, reaching for my hat and shaking the straw from my skirt. Ralph made no effort to help me, but leaned back against an old stook of straw. I buttoned the front of my gown, watching him covertly under my eyelashes. He pulled a straw from the stook and chewed on it, watching me, impassive. His dark eyes showed nothing. He seemed as content to be left as to be visited, as still as a secret pagan god left neglected in old woods.
    I was ready to go and should have been hurrying away, yet the flutter under my ribcage had become some sort of ache. I did not want to leave just yet. I sat down again beside him and laid my head prettily on his shoulder.
    ‘Say you love me before I go,’ I whispered.
    ‘Oh, no,’ he said without heat. ‘I’ll have none of that.’
    In surprise I jerked my head back to stare at him.
    ‘You don’t love me?’ I asked, astounded.
    ‘No,’ said Ralph. ‘You don’t love me, do you?’
    I paused, a cry of outrage on my lips. But I could not say I did love him. I liked the kissing very much, oh, so very much, and I would like to meet him again, here in the darkness of the old mill. Perhaps the next time I would slide my dress off and feel his hands and lips all over me. But he was, after all, Meg’s son. And he lived in such a dirty little cottage. And he was only the gamekeeper’s lad and one of our people. And we let him and Meg live in the cottage for practically nothing; it was almost charity.
    ‘No,’ I said slowly. ‘I don’t suppose I do.’
    ‘There are those who love and there are those who are loved,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘I’ve seen grown men weep like babies formy mother, and she never look at them. Gentlemen, too. I’ll never be like that for a woman. I’ll never love and pine and fall sick for someone. I shall be the one who is loved, and gets the presents and the loving and the pleasure … and then moves on.’
    I thought swiftly of my father, bluff and heart — whole, and of my mother’s stifled sighs and pining for the love of her son. Then I thought of the girls I had seen in the village follow a lad with their eyes and blush scarlet and grow pale. Of the village girl who drowned herself in Fenny pool when her lover went into service in Kent. Of the constant pain there is for a woman in loving, and wedding, and childbirth and the loss of looks and then the loss of love.
    ‘I shan’t be the one who loves either,’ I said firmly.
    He laughed aloud.
    ‘You!’ he said. ‘Oh, you are like all the Quality. All you care for is your own pleasure and owning the land.’
    Our pleasure and owning the land.
It is true. His kisses had been pleasure; wonderful swoony pleasure. Good food, a taste of wine, hunting on a frosty morning; these things are pleasure. But to own Wideacre is not pleasure; it is the only way to be alive. I smiled at the thought. He smiled kindly in return.
    ‘Oh,’ he said longingly, ‘you’ll be a proper little heartbreaker when you are ready. With those slanty green eyes