Straw in the Wind by Janet Woods

Author:Janet Woods [Woods, Janet]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Romance
Publisher: Severn House
Published: 2010-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Eleven

Christmas and New Year had come and gone quickly. Gifts had been exchanged and Serafina had been the recipient of a warm coat with a shawl collar and a matching bonnet and muff.

‘I heard your teeth chattering in church, and Maggie told me that Frederick’s dogs had ruined your cape,’ Mr Leighton said by way of explanation for such a handsome gift.

Mr Leighton went to London to attend a wedding in January. He was due to return in April. Then the skies were wreathed in sunshine one minute and weeping all over the landscape the next. The daffodils were a moving ocean of lambent yellow and the trees newly born in tender shades of green. Catkins swung in the breeze like velvety golden tassels buzzing with bees – and in the eaves, house martins were busy with their nests and offspring.

Serafina allowed the spring air to circulate through the windows.

It was to be a month of wedding announcements. First Giles and Jassy. ‘We’re getting married next month,’ he’d said, and had turned a bright red. ‘Jassy’s got a young’un inside her, she reckons. Anyway, I’m going to live at the farm and work for her pa, because the farm will be ours one day and I’ve got to learn how to run it, like.’

‘You’ll have to give Mr Leighton proper notice, mind,’ Maggie said. ‘He’s been good to you, giving you a job when you was down and out and didn’t have a roof over your head.’

‘I’m not daft. I knows that, don’t I, Maggie? Now I can write I reckon I’ll put it down on paper, so it’s legal, and private from the likes of you. I’ll give it to him next time he comes down from London and I’ll stay until he finds someone else.

‘In the meantime you can mind your own business and stop being so bossy.’

Maggie retorted, ‘You might have learned to write, but you’re still a cider sucker if you think he can read it. He’ll need someone else to tell him what’s in your legal note.’

‘Cider sucker yourself,’ he said triumphantly. ‘I’ll read it to him mesself, won’t I?’

Finch Leighton arrived unannounced at the beginning of May. His face was wreathed with smiles as he gathered the staff together and said, ‘Miss Celia Chapman has accepted my proposal of marriage. We’re to be wed in July, and will travel to Italy for a month before returning here to Leighton Manor in August to live.’

After accepting the congratulations he headed off to the morning room. ‘Serafina, I’d like to talk to you. Bring coffee for us both, please.’

Her employer was in his usual chair when she went in. She placed his coffee on the table and took the seat opposite.

He said, ‘What’s that perfume? It’s making my throat a little husky.’

‘It’s blackthorn blossom. Is the fragrance too strong?’

‘It is a little, but it’s lovely . . . move it to the mantelpiece if you would.’

She did as she was told and seated herself again. He cleared his throat.

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