‘Yes, although today I should be at home.’ She felt the need to explain. ‘I should be doing the accounts for the family business.’
The men took over the conversation from that point, slipping into the safe topics of business, marketing and Kellow Dairy products. Grace tried to take an interest in their discussion, but had the distinct feeling of being excluded. In the end, she found herself being nothing more than an observer and feeling a little resentful how easily this stranger was able to ingratiate himself with her father.
The two men had a lot in common and appeared to like each other. Although he’d not courted her father’s favour, Mr Talek Danning had qualities that she knew her father would respect in a man. He was straight talking and had a business mind. He could also carry a conversation well, something her father was not so good at. Was this man intuitive enough to have noticed this? Certainly his interest in Kellow Dairy, whether planned or by accident, gave her father a topic he could speak on with ease. Grace’s jaw tightened. This man certainly knew how to charm a person, although she had yet to see his charm offensive aimed at her.
To her surprise, the thought unsettled her. Suddenly, she found it difficult to concentrate on the conversation or look at him. On several occasions she glanced at Amelia, seeking a female ally, only to find her watching her, with a curious expression on her face and a slight smile on her lips. Grace quietly cleared her throat and tried to focus on her father. It did no good so she looked to the view for solace. This time it did not come to her rescue, so she found a sudden interest in her sleeve and a loose thread. She toyed with it, ignored it, then toyed with it again — all to no avail. She could not ignore the sound of Talek Danning’s serious, calm voice, which was far too near to her and stroked her flushed skin like soft velvet. Would this encounter ever end? Thankfully, it eventually did.
* * *
Talek nodded to the driver and braced himself against the lurch of the trap as it pulled away. He was relieved that they were finally leaving Bodmin Moor, with its isolation, deceptively rough ground and breathtaking views. However, he had to admit, since Mr Kellow and his daughter had left them to make their way home, the fine views no longer held such an appeal. Instead, he had grown increasingly concerned for his sister’s comfort as he could swear that the temperature had dropped. It had not helped that the driver was also late returning for them. A few curt words to the man, as they took their seats, were enough to make his feelings known. The driver would not be late again.
Talek observed his sister as she sat opposite him. She wore his coat and had a thick, woven blanket tucked snuggly about her legs, yet her hands had begun to tremor slightly.
‘Are you cold?’ he asked. Amelia shook her head, confirming what he already knew. It was not the drop in the temperature that made her tremble, but her fear of the horse. Her desire to go on an outing must have been very strong to override her dread of the unpredictable beast.
‘I like Grace,’ said Amelia.
‘You like everyone,’ replied Talek, glad she was trying to take her mind from the ride. It would help calm her.
‘Do you like her?’
The question caught him off guard, although he didn’t know why it should. ‘I do not know the woman, nor do I particularly want to get to know her.’
His sister ignored the curtness of his reply. ‘I think she is nice. She is very pretty.’
Grace Kellow, with her wayward auburn curls dancing wildly in the breeze, came easily to his mind. The movement of his sister beside him, as she turned in her seat to look at the tor for the last time, was a welcome distraction. He followed her gaze. The tor resembled a sleeping monster, clothed in rock, moss and bracken.
Amelia must have thought so too, as she said, ‘If one suspended reality, one could almost see it breathing.’ They stared at it in silence, daring it to breathe. Eventually Talek heard his sister sigh and relax back into her seat. ‘Thank you for bringing me here, Talek. I know you have so much on your mind right now.’ She smiled sadly at him. ‘I feel your time could be better spent elsewhere, rather than pandering to my wishes.’
Talek didn’t reply. He would not deny what was the truth as it was not in his nature to lie. He looked towards home. It would take an hour to get there. He felt his chest tighten. Too much time where worries and concerns could invade one’s mind, or even worse, leave him vulnerable to a memory of a woman from his past, with hair the colour of ebony and a pair of passionate dark eyes. Suddenly he realised Amelia was speaking again.
‘Grace is lucky to have all this on her doorstep,’ Amelia said, lifting a hand to feel the breeze touch her fingers. ‘This place is truly beautiful. I wish we had a view like this one from our home, Talek.’ She stretched her fingers towards a point where the hills met the sky. ‘One that stretches all the way to the horizon,’ she added, dreamily.
Talek watched her fingers dancing against the sky, before dragging his gaze away to focus on the narrow road ahead. ‘We have a view,’ he said, non-committally. ‘We can see trees.’
‘But not a view that goes on for miles, like this one.’
‘And what would you do with such a view?’ he asked, glancing at her.
Amelia tucked her chilled fingers beneath her blanket as she settled back into her seat. ‘I would happily spend the day sitting by the window watching the world go by.’
Talek smiled to himself as he shook his head. ‘Happily? All day?’
‘It’s true! I would!’
Talek threw her a disbelieving look, before returning his concentration on the horses ahead. It was some moments before Talek realised Amelia had fallen silent beside him. He glanced at her expecting, or rather hoping, to find her daydreaming with a smile on her lips. Sadly it was not the case, her arms were tightly folded and a pretty frown creased her pale, delicate forehead. He realised he had missed something, but was unsure what it was. His sense of failure was all the more acute for not knowing where he had failed her.
‘Amelia?’
Amelia stared ahead with sad, shining eyes. To his horror he realised they were tears.
‘Amelia? Is having a view so important to you?’
She looked at him and smiled. ‘I can wish, can I not?’
Talek studied her for a moment. She was not crying. She was smiling. It must have been a trick of the light or the wind causing the unshed sheen, he told himself. Or at least he hoped it was.
‘What other wishes do you have?’ he asked, gently. It was a fruitless game, but he knew she would enjoy playing it. His sister looked doubtful so he smiled to confirm his interest. ‘Tell me,’ he coaxed. ‘I want to hear them all. We have a long journey ahead and it will help fill our time.’
Chapter Three
‘I hope I never see him again.’
Grace’s declaration caused her mother to look over her spectacles at her as she bit her sewing thread in two. It made a reassuring snapping sound which instantly transported Grace back to her childhood; when she spent cosy evenings by a warm fire listening to her mother tell stories as she sewed. Back then her mother had no need for spectacles for close work. She had resisted wearing them for years, until it became impossible to thread a needle. Finally, Grace’s father had persuaded her to try them and she had relented. Vanity hadn’t been the cause of her refusal, Grace later learnt from her father, but a fear that she was going blind. She had once been a lady’s maid to a blind woman and the deterioration of her own vision had ignited a fear in her that she never knew she had. These days she donned her spectacles for close work without a second thought and, at moments like this, she used them to her advantage by effectively making a point. The point today being that she wasn’t convinced by what Grace was saying. Her mother didn’t need distorted glass for her to see right through her.
Grace tried to refocus on the job in hand. Bills and invoices littered the table in front of her and in the centre lay Kellow Dairy’s account book. It lay open, its spine creaking under the weight of the tightly bound pages so that the book never really lay flat. It made it difficult to write close to the margin and required Grace’s full concentration, at least that is what she told herself. After a full minute, Grace glanced up to find her mother still watching her.
‘We left them to admire the view, although why they chose such an out of the way place is beyond me.’ Grace selected a sheet of paper to study it. ‘Charling is charging more than last month. If he increases his prices again we should go elsewhere.’
Her mother returned to her sewing. ‘It’s the first rise in two years. He’s reliable, but he has had some bad luck recently and been forced to raise his prices. I would rather pay a fair price then buy cheaper elsewhere and suffer shoddy workmanship or unreliability.’
Grace knew her mother was right. Everyone thought her father ran the business. He did, but behind the scenes it was her mother’s acumen that had turned it into the success it was. ‘She has sound judgement,’ her father often said, and he was right. No wonder he valued her opinion above all others. Together, they made a formidable team.
Grace returned her attention to the account book. ‘I hope I never see him again,’ she mumbled again.
Her mother rested her sewing on her lap and took off her spectacles to examine the glass in the firelight. ‘You tell me that you dislike Mr Danning,’ she said, tilting them slightly before polishing one lens with a handkerchief, ‘but his name is never far from your lips.’ She glanced up at her daughter. ‘Don’t look so surprised. It’s been two weeks now, yet you have mentioned him, or at least moaned about him, every day since.’
Grace felt affronted. ‘I have not.’
