An Endless Song by Author

Author:Author
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-02-01T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Three

By five o’clock next morning, Rowenna was back in her bed, but the curtains were drawn open and she lay gazing wide-eyed at the summer dawn. She felt curiously lightheaded, exhausted from lack of sleep yet quite unable to close her eyes. Her mind was filled with images, of words and ideas – and, most of all, the sense of having found at last someone who could take Haddon’s place.

No, she thought sharply, not Haddon’s place. I shan’t fall into the trap my father has done, nor set such a trap for Kester. No one can take Haddon’s place, and Kester is the last man who would want to. Only his own place is good enough for him. He’s too proud to want someone else’s.

In fact, she thought, he is the only man I have ever met who is really proud. Not conceited or vain or self-important – just naturally proud to be himself. Happy to be himself, without any pretence, without any need to act a part. Just to be Kester, and glad of it.

And yet . . . how much did she know about him, even now? After a night spent in his company, he was still a stranger to her. A stranger to whom she had poured out her heart.

Outside in the garden, the birds were singing. The blackbird, always the first to break the silence of the night, had woken the rest with his liquid melody and now they were all busy – the chaffinches, the tits, the robin and, above them all, the songthrush, the blackbird’s closest rival. In a little while they would be quiet again, occupied with their nests, but for this hour the air was loud with their music.

Rowenna sat up in bed. If she had been found with Kester . . . She shuddered. That was why she had not allowed him to come all the way to the house with her; why, half a mile away through the fields, she had said goodbye and sent him back to the shepherd’s hut upon the fell road.

‘There’s nothing to hurt me here,’ she had said as he stood by the stile, still half inclined to cross it. ‘There’s no one about at this hour, and if there were they would probably be just as anxious to keep out of my sight. I’ll be home in ten minutes.’

He looked at her. Under the shadow of a tall ash tree, in the last shreds of night, his expression was once more hidden, but she could feel the warmth of his hand over hers on top of the stile. Warmth radiated from his body too, though Rowenna was shivering a little in the cool air, and she remembered how she had rested against him only a few hours before, comforted by his strength. But those moments were past, and in spite of all that had passed between them they were apart once more, two separate beings.

She felt a sudden bleak loneliness. Standing there at

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