My triumph didn’t last long. The brute charged towards me in the manner of a bull, so fast I didn’t have time to step away. He head butted me in the stomach, pushed me all the way against the wall. I smacked the back of my head. A white light flashed inside my skull and I passed out.
The next think I knew, I was lying face down in the mud outside the farmhouse.
‘André, wake up!’ Ruth’s voice pierced through the pain. There were other voices too, among them Ruth’s father.
‘I’ll fetch the doctor,’ he said. ‘What a mess you’ve put us in, girl. What will Lord Ashville say when he finds out that his friend received a beating because of you? What if he turns us out of the farm?’
‘I did nothing wrong,’ Ruth whimpered.
‘Your mother said you encouraged him instead of telling him you were spoken for.’
‘That’s not true! I never encouraged him. We’re… friends. And I don’t want to marry Gideon. You know he’s a bully.’
‘Marrying Hardy is the best thing that can happen to you, and to us as a family, so you’ll do as you’re told. I don’t want to hear any more nonsense about the Frenchman. This is real life, not one of your penny novels… or that silly folk story you like so much – The Hunchback and the Swan.’
As I passed out again, an image flashed in my memory. This was the painting in my bedroom, a man looking out of his window at a swan gliding on the pond, its feathers white as snow. When I next woke up someone was probing my skull, my arms, my legs.
‘Nothing appears to be broken,’ the man decreed.
‘Are you sure he’ll be all right, doctor?’ Ruth’s father asked. ‘He got a bump on the head and he’s been out of it for a while now.’
My head hurt like hell and my mouth was parched but this time I opened my eyes and looked at Ruth’s father. ‘Tell Ruth… that I’ll look after her. Please…’
Merriweather gave me a black look, but it was the doctor who spoke next. ‘Don’t agitate yourself, young man. You need to rest, but first we must get you out of those wet clothes.’ He asked Ruth’s father to bring a shirt and a pair of long johns for me to change into.
I managed to undress and put on William Merriweather’s clothes before lying down again. How weak and pitiful I was. No wonder Ruth’s family considered me unsuitable for their daughter.
‘I shall come back to check on you tomorrow morning and if you feel better William will take you back to Belthorn. For now, you should drink this. It’ll help you sleep.’
Whatever he gave me made me fall into a deep slumber. The doctor came back as promised the day after and pronounced me fit to travel. Ruth’s mother gave me back my clothes. She had dried them and brushed the mud off so they were reasonably clean. I climbed onto William’s cart with considerable difficulty, but I was damned if I’d ask for a helping hand. A man has to hang on to whatever pride he has left even when he was beaten up and humiliated in front of the woman he loves.
I had hoped to see Ruth but she wasn’t there, and fearful of causing any more trouble between her and her parents, I didn’t ask after her. As we set off on the road to Belthorn, I was however determined to find out more about the brute she seemed destined to marry, even if she appeared against the match… even if I dared to hope that she had tender feelings for me. It was now up to me to prove that I was worthy of her.
Stefan closed the diary and put it down on the table. He needed a break from Vaillant, from the account of his hopes and broken dreams that in so many ways mirrored his own…
Chapter Eighteen
‘I’m so glad the van is ready at last. What took you so long?’
Mason looked up from the engine he was fixing and pulled a face. ‘First the supplier couldn’t get hold of any snow tyres, and then they sent me the wrong ones. In the end it turned out to be a total waste of time.’ He sighed. ‘I only wished I’d checked your old tyres before ordering new ones.’
‘Why is that?’
‘The tyres weren’t punctured but had faulty valves. I could have fixed them straight away had I realised… The thing is, I was so busy that week I got Shaz to tow your van back and take the tyres off without asking him to check what was wrong with them. I just took your word for it that they both had a puncture. Shaz assumed I knew the valves were faulty. I only realised my mistake yesterday.’
He shook his head and sighed. ‘Of course, since it’s my fault I didn’t charge you for the new tyres.’
‘Thanks… but does this valve problem happen very often?’
Mason shrugged. ‘It’s not uncommon, but it was really bad luck both failed at the same time.’
Cassie frowned. Stefan would probably insist that luck had nothing to do with it and her flat tyres were Darren Morse’s doing. Something the Frenchman had said came back to her. Darren had looked as if he was inspecting her tyres the day he came to Belthorn… what if he had been fiddling with the air valves instead? Now she was being paranoid too!
‘Thanks, Mason. I owe you one. Is Brenda in?’
‘She’s in the office,’ he replied before grabbing hold of a spanner and bending down over the engine of an old Fiesta.
Cassie pushed the door to the office, and immediately took off her hat and unbuttoned her coat.
‘Good morning, Brenda. I don’t know how you can stand having the heating on so high. Aren’t you roasting in here?’
Brenda laughed and patted her tight brown curls. ‘Nothing is ever too hot for me, darling – and that goes for radiators, curry… and men. Talking of hot men, I bumped into your Mushier Lambert in the pub the other night.’
Cassie rolled her eyes. ‘He’s not my Mushier Lambert,’ she said, mimicking Brenda’s terrible French accent. ‘It’s Monsieur Lambert, and there’s nothing “mushy” about him.’
‘I agree with you there. He may be no oil painting, but there is something very attractive, very hard, and very male about him. And those wonderful tawny eyes of his do strange things to my system.’ Brenda let out a dreamy sigh.
‘He has a short temper and a grouchy disposition,’ Cassie said.
‘There was nothing grouchy about him the other night,’ Brenda protested. ‘Sadie and I had a long chat with him. In fact, Sadie got along so well with him she was practically sitting in his lap by the end of the evening.’
Cassie felt a nip of jealousy in her chest. ‘Is that so?’
So, Stefan could be charming and communicate with words and sentences as well as grunts or monosyllables. It must be only around her that he reverted to being a caveman. That’s because he found her stupid and irritating, not to mention that he resented her for coming to Belthorn every day. He had hardly been able to hide his dislike at the pub on Saturday night. Mind you, it had been silly of her to try to tickle him with her feather duster. Even after a couple of Big Jim’s cocktails, she should have known that it wouldn’t cheer him up. She seriously wondered if anything could… Between the feather duster incident and her awful Bandanamama singing, he no doubt found her even more irritating now, if that was possible.
Brenda chuckled. ‘Well, not literally, of course, but young Sadie seemed very keen on him.’ She handed Cassie a piece of paper. ‘Here is your guarantee for the tyres. Sorry for the mix up. Mason has been a bit distracted lately, poor boy.’