Faith - Lesley Pearse [158]
‘It’s New Year and a time for new beginnings,’ she said, reaching out and smoothing Laura’s hair back from her face. ‘Roger and I are going to have one last attempt at saving our marriage, so I won’t be coming up here so much this year. Will you promise me you’ll behave yourself?’
There was so much affection and anxiety in her voice that a lump came up in Laura’s throat. ‘Of course I will,’ she replied. ‘Don’t worry about me, I’m a big girl now.’
‘You could come back to London,’ Jackie suggested. ‘I could let you have one of my flats. You’d soon get a good job there and we could all help out with Barney. Mum and Belle both adore him.’
‘I belong here now,’ Laura said, though she wasn’t sure that was strictly true. She did love Scotland, especially away from the cities, and she often daydreamed of living by a loch in the Highlands, or on a river miles from anywhere. But it was only a daydream, there was no work in such places and maybe she was too much of a city girl to live anywhere else.
‘I feel I belong here too,’ Jackie said sadly. ‘Once I get all the guest rooms finished I’m going to try to get Roger to agree we live here all the time. But if he won’t agree, and I doubt that he will, how about you running everything up here for me? When Barney’s eleven he could go to that really good school in St Andrews. As long as I still had my room here to come up for holidays, you and Barney could have the rest of the house to yourselves.’
Laura had a sudden pang of conscience that she’d made one of her films here. Back then she hadn’t really seen why Jackie had been so set on buying the farm. But in the last few days she had come to understand. There was a feeling of utter peace here, you could stand outside the farmhouse and see for miles around, and the magnificence of such a huge landscape made her problems seem insignificant. Jackie had made the farmhouse so pretty and homely that no doubt the guest rooms in the stables would be equally lovely. Laura felt she could be the happiest woman in the world living here.
‘I’d like that,’ she said, and took Jackie’s hand and squeezed it. ‘I would look after it too. I’d treat your guests like royalty.’
‘Well, let’s keep that plan in our minds,’ Jackie said with a smile. ‘I’ll be back at Easter, and we’ll talk about it again when I come to get Barney. Who knows, I might even be pregnant by then!’
She made that last remark with such longing that Laura sat up straight in bed and reached out to hug her friend. ‘I hope so too. You’d make a wonderful mother. And if you are, I give you my word of honour I’ll give up what I’m doing for good.’
‘Would you?’ Jackie asked, her voice muffled in Laura’s shoulder.
‘Yes, of course I will. Aunts have to be above reproach, just like you are to Barney.’
Jackie disengaged herself from Laura. ‘In that case I’ll make sure Roger and I are at it like rabbits,’ she laughed. ‘I won’t lie there and think of England, but imagine you going straight.’
13
As David filled in his home address in the visitors’ book at Kirkmay House, he glanced sideways into the drawing room off the hall and noted the opulent furnishings.
‘What brings you to Fife, Mr Stoyle?’ Belle asked from just behind him.
David straightened up and turned to the attractive blonde. ‘I’ve got some business in St Andrews and I expect it will take a couple of days to wind up. May I let you know tomorrow if I’ll need to stay longer than two nights?’
Belle Howell was every bit as glamorous as Stuart had said. Her pale blue silk dress rustled seductively as she moved, diamonds twinkled in her ears, and she wore a heady, musky perfume. But her smile didn’t meet her beautiful blue eyes, and he’d got the distinct impression when he rang earlier and asked if she had a room free that she was reluctant to have any guests. It was only when he said he was alone that she agreed