Read Online The Hardie Inheritance by Anne Melville - Free Book Online
Authors: Anne Melville
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she was merely ignorant.
âI donât know â I never have ââ How difficult it was to say â the words. But it seemed that he understood at once. He drew a little way away, swallowing the lump in his throat as he looked into her eyes and then pulled her by the hands away from the boulders and down on to the mossy ground. Stroking each inch of her skin as he exposed it, he was for a little while gentle again; but before long his body once again began to beat against hers. Grace felt herself being battered, pierced. It should have hurt, but instead only took her breath away.
âI love you, Andy,â she panted. âLove you, love you.â They were moving together and then lay still together.
Afterwards came a sense of anti-climax. As Andy helped Grace to her feet she could not help staring at him. She had often enough noticed Philip stripped to the waist as he worked in the sun, but this was the first time that she had seen a man without his trousers. His vulnerability should have increased her love, but instead she found the sight interesting butsomehow ridiculous. No doubt she looked equally absurd to him, with the skirt of her dress rucked up around her waist. Tugging it down, she saw with dismay that her petticoat was stained with blood and her dress with streaks of green from the moss. Her skin was sticky and she found herself walking awkwardly. Anyone who saw her would guess at once what had happened.
There was an awkwardness, too, in wondering what she should say to Andy. She put out a hand to touch him in a gentle gesture of love and thanks, but almost at once picked up her stockings and knickers and hurried away through the wood â because already, as the excitement faded, she knew that this was something which ought not to have happened.
Philip would be back at work in the walled garden while Mrs Hardie prepared supper in the kitchen. Grace made for the stable yard and wrapped herself in the rarely-washed overall which she wore when making up glazes for her pottery. If her appearance caused raised eyebrows now, it would only be because she normally stripped off such a covering before going into the house.
Nor would it come as any surprise that she should take a bath before the evening meal, for this was her usual habit whenever she had been carving stone. And only a few hours earlier she had indeed been carving stone, with no possible way of guessing that so many visitors were on their way. What an ordinary start it had been to such an extraordinary day!
Chapter Six
Grace was dreaming of Castlemere. Rupert Beverley was driving her round and round the house in his Lagonda whilst Ellis Faraday dodged out of the way, doing his best to take a photograph of a blonde six-year-old who was waving from a window. A peacock perched in a tree with its long tail dangling, emitting a raucous shriek every time the car passed.
It was the shriek which aroused her at last, for of course it came from the roof of the henhouse at Greystones, where the cock was announcing the start of a new day. As a rule Grace was quick to rise as soon as the sun touched the east window of her tower bedroom. But it had taken her a long time to get to sleep on the previous evening as questions and doubts and excitements swirled through her mind; and now, in a half-waking state, her uncertainties returned.
She felt little guilt about what had happened. Andy, who was a married man, had behaved reprehensibly, but she herself had not. She had not deliberately excited him: indeed, the events of the evening had taken her by surprise. If she were to be honest with herself she must admit that she had hoped for some expression of regret and love â a word, a look â but her very inexperience had made it impossible for her to foresee what might happen.
Was she glad that she had lost her virginity? Had she enjoyed it? Odd, how difficult it was to answer what should have been simple questions. There was a
âI donât know â I never have ââ How difficult it was to say â the words. But it seemed that he understood at once. He drew a little way away, swallowing the lump in his throat as he looked into her eyes and then pulled her by the hands away from the boulders and down on to the mossy ground. Stroking each inch of her skin as he exposed it, he was for a little while gentle again; but before long his body once again began to beat against hers. Grace felt herself being battered, pierced. It should have hurt, but instead only took her breath away.
âI love you, Andy,â she panted. âLove you, love you.â They were moving together and then lay still together.
Afterwards came a sense of anti-climax. As Andy helped Grace to her feet she could not help staring at him. She had often enough noticed Philip stripped to the waist as he worked in the sun, but this was the first time that she had seen a man without his trousers. His vulnerability should have increased her love, but instead she found the sight interesting butsomehow ridiculous. No doubt she looked equally absurd to him, with the skirt of her dress rucked up around her waist. Tugging it down, she saw with dismay that her petticoat was stained with blood and her dress with streaks of green from the moss. Her skin was sticky and she found herself walking awkwardly. Anyone who saw her would guess at once what had happened.
There was an awkwardness, too, in wondering what she should say to Andy. She put out a hand to touch him in a gentle gesture of love and thanks, but almost at once picked up her stockings and knickers and hurried away through the wood â because already, as the excitement faded, she knew that this was something which ought not to have happened.
Philip would be back at work in the walled garden while Mrs Hardie prepared supper in the kitchen. Grace made for the stable yard and wrapped herself in the rarely-washed overall which she wore when making up glazes for her pottery. If her appearance caused raised eyebrows now, it would only be because she normally stripped off such a covering before going into the house.
Nor would it come as any surprise that she should take a bath before the evening meal, for this was her usual habit whenever she had been carving stone. And only a few hours earlier she had indeed been carving stone, with no possible way of guessing that so many visitors were on their way. What an ordinary start it had been to such an extraordinary day!
Chapter Six
Grace was dreaming of Castlemere. Rupert Beverley was driving her round and round the house in his Lagonda whilst Ellis Faraday dodged out of the way, doing his best to take a photograph of a blonde six-year-old who was waving from a window. A peacock perched in a tree with its long tail dangling, emitting a raucous shriek every time the car passed.
It was the shriek which aroused her at last, for of course it came from the roof of the henhouse at Greystones, where the cock was announcing the start of a new day. As a rule Grace was quick to rise as soon as the sun touched the east window of her tower bedroom. But it had taken her a long time to get to sleep on the previous evening as questions and doubts and excitements swirled through her mind; and now, in a half-waking state, her uncertainties returned.
She felt little guilt about what had happened. Andy, who was a married man, had behaved reprehensibly, but she herself had not. She had not deliberately excited him: indeed, the events of the evening had taken her by surprise. If she were to be honest with herself she must admit that she had hoped for some expression of regret and love â a word, a look â but her very inexperience had made it impossible for her to foresee what might happen.
Was she glad that she had lost her virginity? Had she enjoyed it? Odd, how difficult it was to answer what should have been simple questions. There was a
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