The Six-Month Marriage

‘Well now, and how’s my lass? Let me have a look at you.’ As he held her slightly away from him, studying her features, Sapphire studied his. Her father had always had a tall, spare frame, but now he was gaunt, almost painfully thin, the weathered ta

‘Dad, if only I’d known …’

‘Stop tormenting yourself, I wouldn’t let Blake tell you. You’re far too thin,’ he scolded. ‘Mary will have to feed you up while you’re here. Borders’ men don’t like their women ski

‘But London men do,’ Sapphire responded, withdrawing from him a little, sensing danger.

‘You’re later than we expected.’

‘Umm, I had a slight accident.’ Quickly she explained.

‘You should have stayed overnight with Blake.’

‘I’m sure neither Blake nor I would have felt comfortable if I had Dad,’ she said quietly. ‘We’re divorced now.’

‘More’s the pity.’ He frowned, the happiness fading from his eyes. ‘You should never have left him lass, but then you were so young, and young things take things so seriously.’

If anyone had asked her only days ago if her father had accepted her divorce Sapphire would have had no hesitation in saying ‘yes’ but now, suddenly, she knew he had not. She looked away from the bed, blinking back tears she wasn’t sure were for her father or herself. As she did so she saw Mary glance sympathetically at her.

‘I’ll run you a bath,’ she offered, ‘You must be exhausted.’

‘Yes, you go along to bed,’ her father agreed. ‘We’ll talk in the morning.’ He closed his eyes, his face almost waxen with exhaustion and fear pierced her. Her father was going to die. Until now she hadn’t truly accepted it, but suddenly seeing him, seeing his frailty she did. ‘Dad, who’s looking after the farm?’ she asked him trying to force back the painful knowledge.

‘Why Blake of course.’ He looked surprised that she needed to ask. ‘And a fine job he’s doing of it too.’

Mary’s hand on her arm drew her away from the bed. On the landing Sapphire turned to the older woman, unable to hold back her tears any longer. ‘Why?” she asked bitterly. ‘Why did no-one tell me? Get in touch with me, I’d no idea …’

Shaking her head Mary gestured downstairs, not speaking until Sapphire had followed her down and they were back in the kitchen. ‘Blake said not to,’ she said quietly, ‘he thought it best. At least at first.’

Blake had thought. Blake had said … Bitterness welled up inside her coupled with a fierce jealousy as she acknowledged something she had always kept hidden even from herself. Her father would have preferred a son … a male to continue the family line and although he loved her, it was to Blake that he had always confided his i

‘There, sit down and cry it all out,’ Mary said gently. ‘It must have come as a shock to you.’

‘Is it true that … that my father …’ Sapphire couldn’t go on. Tears were streaming down her face and she dug in her jeans pocket for a handkerchief. ‘He’s been a very sick man,’ Mary said compassionately, her eyes sliding away from Sapphire’s. ‘His heart isn’t too strong and this bout of pneumonia, but having you home has given him a real fillip.’

‘I never knew how he felt about the divorce until tonight.’ Sapphire almost whispered the words, saying them more to herself than Mary, but the other woman caught them and smiled sympathetically. ‘Blake means a lot to him,’ she agreed, ‘he thought that your marriage protected both you and Flaws land.’

‘He worries a lot about the land doesn’t he?’ Sapphire’s voice was unconsciously bitter.

‘And about you,’ Mary told her. ‘The land is like a sacred trust to him and he has a strong sense of duty and responsibility towards it.’

‘Strong enough to want to see Blake and me back together again?’ Sapphire asked bleakly.

Mary said nothing, but the way her eyes refused to meet Sapphire’s told her what she wanted to know.

‘You obviously know my father very well,’ she said quietly at last. ‘He confides in you far more than he ever confided in me.’

‘I’m a trained nurse,’ Mary told her, ‘and that is how I first came to know your father. When he was first ill he needed a full-time nurse. Dr Forrest recommended me, and your father asked me to stay on as his housekeeper-cum-nurse. The relationship between patient and nurse is one of trust. It has to be. I can’t deny that your father, like many people of his generation, doesn’t wholly approve of divorce, and he does feel that the land would be properly cared for by Blake, and …’

‘And that if Blake and I had a son that son would inherit Flaws Farm and would also be half Bell.’

Sapphire sighed, suddenly feeling intensely tired. Too much had happened too soon, and she couldn’t take it all in.

‘There was a phone call for you,’ Mary added, ‘an Alan. I said you’d ring back in the morning.’

Alan! Sapphire started guiltily. She had almost forgotten about him, and even more unforgivably she had forgotten about his car. The BMW was Alan’s pride and joy and he wouldn’t be too pleased to hear about her accident.

Tomorrow, she thought wearily as she climbed into bed. Tomorrow she would think about what had happened. Somehow she would have to convince her father that there was no chance of her and Blake getting together again. Selfish, Blake had called her. Was she? Her father had very little time left to live … six months or so … if she re-married Blake she would be giving her father a gift of happiness and peace of mind which surely meant more than her own pride and freedom? She wasn’t seventeen any more, held in thrall by her adoration of Blake. She could handle him now as she hadn’t been able to do then. A six-month marriage which would be quickly a

CHAPTER THREE

‘GOOD MORNING.’ Mary smiled a warm welcome at Sapphire as she walked into the kitchen. ‘I was just about to bring you up a cup of tea.’

‘Yes, I’ve overslept disgracefully,’ Sapphire said wryly. Time was when she had thought nothing of getting up at half-past five with her father.

‘You were exhausted, what with the accident and all. Oh that reminds me, Blake rang. He said not to panic about your luggage. He’s bringing it over later when he comes to see your father. He calls in most days,’ she added, plugging in the kettle. ‘Your father looks forward to his visits, Blake keeps him up to date on how the farm’s ru

‘May I go up and see my father?’ Sapphire didn’t want to think about Blake right now. He had occupied far too many of her thoughts already.

‘Of course.’ Again Mary smiled warmly. ‘Would you like to have your breakfast first?’

‘Just a cup of coffee will be fine,’ Sapphire assured her. ‘I’ll go up now.’ Before Blake arrives, she could have added, but didn’t. Somehow, quite how she didn’t know yet, but somehow she was going to have to find a way to explain to her father that she and Blake were parted for good. Even now she could still remember that agony of those first months in London, of having to come to terms with the truth about her marriage; about Blake’s feelings for her. He had tolerated her because he wanted the farm. He had never loved her, never desired her and knowing that she had not seen these truths had diminished her self-esteem to such an extent that she had felt somehow as though everyone who saw her or spoke to her, must share Blake’s opinion of her. The only way she could escape had been to shut herself off mentally from the rest of the world. There had been days when she felt like dying; days when she would have given anything simply not to wake up in the morning. But all that was past now, she reminded herself. She had overcome the trauma of Blake’s rejection; had put the past and all that it held, safely behind her. But she couldn’t forget it, she acknowledged. She still occasionally had those terrible dreams when she was forced to witness Blake making love to Miranda, when she had to endure the sound of their mocking laughter. How she had hated herself; everything about herself, from her height to the colour of her hair, torturing herself by imagining how many times Blake must have looked at her and put Miranda in her place. The only thing that surprised her was that Blake hadn’t married. Those love letters she had found had obviously been meant for Miranda.