LITMIR.BIZ

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just before eleven o’clock. Outwardly very little had changed in the seven years since she had left, although the large number of German marque cars bore witness to the fact that the new motorway was making this part of the country more accessible to those who earned their living in London.

      Little Compton itself was just far away enough from the motorway to be unaffected by these changes. As she crested one of the gentle hills that surrounded it, Jenneth slowed down to look down on the untidy straggle of cottages that marked its one main road, the Feathers at one end of it, and the church at the other.

      She suppressed the memories that threatened to come storming back…long, lazy summer afternoons spent with Luke, the young Jenneth bemused and thrilled by the almost magical way he had suddenly realised that she was no longer just a friend of his cousin’s but a person in her own right. Down there where the river meandered its lazy course, a glistening, fluid ribbon shadowed by willows, Luke had kissed her for the first time. Without wanting to, Jenneth remembered how her whole body had responded to that kiss, almost vibrating with shocked pleasure like a highly tuned instrument. He had laughed tenderly against her mouth and asked her if she knew what it did to him to feel that kind of response. It had been in that same spot only three months later that he had proposed to her, saying tersely that he knew he was rushing her, but that he was leaving to work in California at the end of the summer and that he wanted to take with him her promise to wait for him.

      Later, when she had given him her breathless, almost incredulous answer, he had taken her in his arms and kissed her with a fierce passion that had set her heart pounding and made her totally unable to resist when he had laid her down on the soft grass beneath the trees and, between kisses that turned her bones to liquid, gently unfastened the shirt she was wearing to bare her breasts first to his eyes, then to his hands and, finally, shockingly and blissfully, to his mouth.

      If he had pressed her then, they would have been lovers, but he hadn’t and, once the announcement of their engagement had been made, their time alone together had seemed to diminish, mainly because Luke’s mother’s health had started to deteriorate, and Jenneth had fully understood and backed his need to put his mother first.

      Shaking her head to dispel the unwanted images shimmering just below the surface of her mind, she put her foot on the accelerator and turned firmly away, driving towards the village.

      The landlady of the Feathers welcomed her warmly, and showed her immediately to her room, a comfortably furnished attic with a dormer window, and its own private bathroom…The Feathers had once, long ago in the days of coach travel, been a posting house, and Jenneth’s bedroom overlooked the enclosed courtyard to the rear of the village street.

      ‘Louise said you’d prefer to be in here,’ the landlady told her cheerfully, and as Jenneth agreed with her calm, slightly remote smile she reflected that it was typical of Louise that she should be known to everyone in the village by her Christian name, even though her visits home were these days limited to flying half-day stays at Christmas and other anniversaries.

      The Feathers had changed hands since Jenneth’s day, and the landlady was more interested in talking about the wedding and the amazement it had caused in the village than displaying curiosity about Jenneth herself. Her indifference released some of Jenneth’s tension, and as the landlady left, promising to send someone up with a light salad lunch and a pot of coffee, Jenneth reflected ruefully that she had probably blown people’s reaction to her appearance at the wedding totally out of proportion. This realisation helped to steady her nerves, and when a shy waitress came upstairs with the promised lunch Jenneth felt relaxed enough to pick up the telephone and dial the familiar number of Louise’s family home.

      Louise’s mother answered the telephone, recognising Jenneth’s voice immediately and responding warmly to her hesitant enquiries as to the state of the bride-to-be.

      By the time Louise herself picked up the receiver, she was ready to dismiss all her fears as simply the working of her own self-indulgent imagination, and agreed readily to go straight round to the house immediately she had changed.

      She chose not to drive her car to Louise’s parents’ home, but to walk there instead, not down the main street of the village, but along the path that ran behind the cottages and then skirted the churchyard.

      Jenneth had always found it slightly surprising that her outspoken, very modern-minded friend should be the daughter of a vicar, and she knew that, to David Simmonds’ credit, he had never tried to impose his own religious beliefs on his daughter.

      He greeted Jenneth warmly as, through habit, she walked round to the back door of the vicarage and he opened it to her knock. Louise’s mother bustled into the kitchen and kissed Jenneth affectionately. A tall, dark-haired woman, she betrayed her physical relationship to Luke’s father and to Luke himself, having the same strong bone-structure and thick, dark hair. Louise, she had always insisted, was a throwback, and certainly her friend’s vivid red hair and pale, creamy skin bore no resemblance to either of her parents’ colouring.

      Jenneth was told to go straight upstairs, and found her friend sitting in front of her bedroom mirror, clad in an almost indecently feminine chemise of cream satin and lace while she peered myopically into the mirror and tried to apply mascara to her lashes.

      ‘Damn!’ she exploded as Jenneth walked in.

      ‘Let me do it for you,’ suggested Jenneth calmly, taking charge and deftly applying the necessary coats of dark grey colour to the long but sandy lashes, asking humorously, ‘What happened to the contact lenses?’

      ‘I daren’t risk them,’ Louise replied gloomily. ‘I’m bound to start howling and wash the damn things out…’

      ‘There’s always your glasses,’ Jenneth told her mischievously.

      As a schoolgirl Louise had been obliged to wear the regulation National Health corrective glasses, and now she scowled horribly into Jenneth’s laughing eyes and threatened, ‘You dare mention those…’

      The scowl disappeared as they both burst out laughing and, ignoring her perfection of her delicately made-up face and the artfully arranged tumble of red curls that brushed her naked shoulders, Louise stood up and hugged Jenneth affectionately, saying emotionally, ‘Oh, Jen, I’m so glad you’re here…’

      Listening to her, Jenneth felt guilty and ashamed of her craven impulse to renege on her promise, and hugged her back in a silent exchange of emotion that held memories of the years and times they had shared.

      ‘Isn’t this ridiculous?’ Louise sniffed as Jenneth released her. ‘I feel as weepy and emotional as a Jane Austen heroine…’

      ‘You certainly aren’t dressed like one,’ Jenneth told her forthrightly, eyeing the extremely provocative creation of satin and lace that purported to have the utilitarian purpose of sleeking her friend’s soft curves and supporting the delicate cream stockings she was wearing.

      Louise grinned at her, totally unabashed.

      ‘Like it? George chose it,’ she told Jenneth wickedly, and then drew her attention to the tiny row of satin-covered buttons that fastened down the front.

      ‘He said that thinking about me wearing this is the only thing that’s going to keep him going through the whole ordeal of the ceremony,’ she added with another grin, and Jenneth was forced to mentally review her opinion of her friend’s husband-to-be. Despite his name, he was obviously far from being the stalwart, sober, almost dull character she had envisaged.

      From downstairs, they both heard Louise’s mother call up warningly, ‘You’ve only got half an hour left, Louise…’ and, remembering her supposed role, Jenneth picked up the billowing silk and net underskirt from the bed and presented it to her friend, helping her to fasten the tapes that tied at the back, and then helping her into the frothing creation of raw silk and lace that had swung gently in the breeze from the window.

      Stupidly, once the last small button had been fastened, and she was able to walk in front of her friend and survey the finished effect, Jenneth discovered that her eyes were misty with tears and her voice choked with emotion.

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