Daughter of the House: The moving romance from the Queen of Storytellers by Catherine Gaskin

Author:Catherine Gaskin [Gaskin, Catherine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: romance, historical romance, romance novel, women's fiction, coming of age, forbidden romance, love story
Publisher: Wyndham Books (Historical Romance)
Published: 2022-07-29T04:00:00+00:00

Two

She found Tom at breakfast. He rose from the litter of the newspapers to greet her.

‘Maura, come in. Have you just come from the cottage?’

She nodded and dropped into the chair he drew up. ‘Yes, I left very early.’

He was unshaven, and still wearing pyjamas and dressing-gown. He sat down again, with a gesture offering her coffee. She shook her head and he poured his own. His movements, adding sugar and milk, seemed to her maddeningly deliberate when she had primed herself for what she would say. But he seemed rather to control the situation, as if he knew he would speak first, and not she. And he did.

When he had finished stirring the coffee he said, ‘I’ve been expecting you.’

‘Why?’

‘You went away rather suddenly, Maura.’ He gave the faintest shrug. ‘God knows, I’m not the sort of person who asks for explanations ‒ particularly not from you. But I felt that you would come and tell me why you went down. I wasn’t surprised to see you here this morning ‒ though I’d hardly expected you before the end of the week.’

‘Tom, I …’

He cut her short. ‘Before you say anything, I should tell you that I know Johnnie hasn’t been in London since he telephoned Hanover Terrace on Saturday evening and found you’d gone to the cottage.’

She said dully, ‘Did you think that had anything to do with me?’

‘I was almost certain it had a great deal to do with you. Johnnie is in love with you.’

She looked at him steadily. ‘You say “almost certain”. But that’s all. How did you know it was the truth? There was nothing in my life for you to discover, nothing that I had hidden for you to find out. You know as well as I do, Tom, that I never saw Johnnie outside of Hanover Terrace when there weren’t at least four other people with us.’

‘Have you never thought it was possible to fall in love in the middle of a crowd? Johnnie is in love with you all right. I’ve seen it all the winter.’

‘If you saw it why didn’t you do something about it ‒ why did you wait?’

‘I’m not a child, Maura, full of momentary jealousies. And in any case I wasn’t certain about what you felt ‒ I knew there was something there, but how strong it was, or how deeply it touched you, I didn’t know. I’ve spent the winter adding up all the pieces.’

He sipped at his coffee, and she, watching him, saw the agitation which he had brought under control, saw him gathering together his thoughts to say what he wanted, and make it clear and simple. She thought suddenly how handsome he was, with the lines that had been there since Italy, deepening each year in his dark, thin face. There was a streak of grey across his hair from the place where the wound had been. But he would go grey early, she thought, like his father. In ten years no one would be able to distinguish the present grey from the rest.

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