The Inward Storm by Penny Jordan

Author:Penny Jordan [Jordan, Penny]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2012-01-24T23:45:45+00:00

CHAPTER SIX

'YOU'RE looking peaky, Kate, is something wrong?'

'No, probably just the normal pre-Christmas rush. These trips to London get me down a bit. I'll be okay.' Kate gave Meg a weak smile, hoping that her friend wouldn't probe any further. 'Umm, talking of Christmas, it's high time we did something about getting organised. Matt's asked me to go up to the farm, and you're included too.'

'Thanks, Meg, but Christmas is essentially a family time. I'll be quite happy on my own. I've been invited to several parties... .'

'But Kate, what about Christmas Day.' Meg was plainly concerned.

'You can't have Christmas dinner on your own!'

'I'm not going to. I thought I'd ask Sarah to have dinner with me. She misses her family very much and she's all on her own.'

'Oh, Kate, an old woman? I'm not saying she's not good company, but you should be spending Christmas with -'

'With a man?' Kate suggested dryly. 'Oh, Meg, you're a hopeless romantic—you know that, don't you?'

'Kate.. ..' Kate turned, frowning slightly as she saw the worried look on her friend's face. 'Look, I know it's none of my business,' Meg began uneasily, 'but it's all over the village. About you and Jake Harvey, I mean,' she added hastily. 'Now, please don't get upset.

After all, I know we're in the nineteen-eighties, but some of the people round here ... well....'

'What are you trying to say, Meg?' Kate asked evenly. A strange tension was building inside her, a presentiment of what her friend was about to say. 'Well, it's all over the village that you and Jake are lovers and .. . and ... and you've been running after him, but that he doesn't intend to offer you anything more than an affair.' Meg looked at her unhappily. 'I'm so sorry, Kate, and I can guess who's responsible.'

'Yes, so can I,' Kate agreed in a low voice, remembering Rita's face when she had found her with Jake. 'I suppose that explains the sudden influx of customers we've had lately,' she said in a tightly bitter voice. 'Silly me, I thought they'd come to buy Christmas presents when in reality all they wanted to do was to get a good look at a real live fallen woman. I'm surprised the vicar hasn't been round to lecture me on being a bad influence.'

'Oh, Kate,' Meg protested sympathetically, 'I am sorry, but Woolerton is a small village, and you were seen....'

'In Jake's bedroom, wearing little more than Jake's shirt,' Kate agreed savagely. 'Yes, pretty damning evidence, I suppose, especially when it's been embellished the way Rita will no doubt have embellished it.'

'She's claiming that you stole Jake from her . ., that you gave him what she wouldn't,' Meg admitted. 'Oh, look, I know it isn't like that, that you ... that if anyone was likely to behave like that it would be her but... '

'Mud clings,' Kate offered for her. 'Oh yes, I know.

No wonder I've been getting so many strange looks recently.'

It left a bitter taste

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