The City-Girl Bride

Why should she want to or need to anyway? Need to? The appalled expression that crossed her face as she slipped off the coat and handed it back to the assistant had the latter misguidedly assuming that it was caused by the cost of the coat, which she quickly explained was an exclusive designer model.

‘It’s fine. I love it,’ Maggie assured her, and then winced at her own casual use of a word which had caused her so much anguish when it was applied to Finn.

Finn. Finn. Why on earth couldn’t she stop thinking about him? Why was she driven by this self-destructive urge to link everything she was doing with him? Maggie berated herself an hour later as she left the shop, wearing not just the cashmere coat but the suit she had bought as well.

For once a self-indulgent bout of retail therapy had failed to have its normal recuperative effect on her senses, and despite the warmth of the shop, and the restorative powers of the delicious cappuccino the assistant had produced for her, there was a cold emptiness inside Maggie, a feeling of misery and deprivation that reminded her unwantedly of the child she had once been, an outsider envying her peers who had all seemed to belong to happy loving families.

But that had been before she had gone to live permanently with her grandparents and become secure in their love, before she had taught herself that solitude and independence, both financial and emotional, were of far more value to her than an emotion which, like those who claimed to give it, could never be totally relied on. Now, back in the security of her own personal space, she couldn’t understand why on earth she had behaved in the way she had And as for believing that she had fallen in love. She just didn’t know how she could have thought such a thing. Love was far too unstable, untrustworthy and volatile to ever form part of her life-plan.

Firmly she congratulated herself on having come to her senses. What had happened was regrettable, and had revealed a previously unsuspected weakness within herself, but at least no lasting harm had been done. No doubt to Finn, undeniably good-looking and possessed of such sexual dynamism and power, she was simply another foolish woman who had made a fool of herself over him. Her face burned as she forced herself to remember just how much of a fool and how explicitly. Thank goodness she was never likely to see him again, she told herself as she checked her watch and hurried down the windswept street towards the car park where she had left her car.

It would only take her half an hour or so to drive back to the hotel in Lampton. She had arrived there the previous afternoon, dropped off by the taxi which had collected her from Finn’s farmhouse. It had taken a considerable amount of patience and all of her many business skills before she had been able to persuade the manager of the hotel to lend her the money to pay her taxi fare—that and a telephone call to Gayle, who had not only vouched for her but also given the hotel manager her own credit card number to cover both the fare and a small cash loan to Maggie, to tide her over until the new cards Gayle had ordered for her arrived. Much to Maggie’s relief, these had been delivered by hand to the hotel this morning.

Momentarily her footsteps faltered. She could still see and feel Finn’s angry hostility towards her as he had watched her leave. Finn. What had happened between them had been an aberration, a totally inexplicable act completely contrary to her nature, and she was just thankful that reality had brought things to an end when it had.

Despite the warmth of her newly acquired cashmere coat Maggie gave a little shiver, so totally engrossed in her own thoughts that it was a handful of heart-stopping seconds before her brain registered what her body had already recognised: namely that the man standing in the middle of the street, as immobile as any statue, less than five metres away from her, was none other than Finn himself.

‘Finn.’ As she whispered his name Maggie could feel the physical reaction overwhelming her body, a cold drenching icy sense of shock as potentially dangerous as any floodwater could ever be, and an equally devastating blast of hot searing yearning as uncontrollable as a forest fire

‘Maggie!’ Caught off guard, Finn felt the shock of seeing her crash through his defences. The urge to wrap her in his arms and carry her away somewhere private, where he could show her in all the ways that his rebellious body wanted to show her just what they could have together, was so strong that he had taken a step towards her before he realised what he was doing.

The sight of Finn striding purposefully towards her sent a wave of panic over Maggie. Immediately she looked for some means of escape. She just wasn’t up to any kind of conversation with him right now, not with her emotions in such chaotic disarray. There was a narrow street to the side of her. Quickly she dived into it, her heart hammering against her ribs as she heard Finn calling out to her to wait.

After Maggie’s departure from the farm Finn had told himself that he was glad she had gone, reminding himself of all the reasons why a relationship between them could never work. But last night he had dreamed of her, ached for her, woken at six o’clock in the morning not just physically hungry for her but emotionally bereft without her—and furiously, bitterly contemptuous of himself for being so.

Finn could not possibly have known that she was in Shrewsbury; Maggie knew that. But nevertheless there was a sense of fatefulness in the fact that she had seen him, a sense of intensity that made her feel both frightened and angry, as though somehow she herself was to blame for his appearance, having conjured him up by her own thoughts. And even as she hurried away from him a certain part of her was feeling hectically excited at the thought that he might pursue her, catch up with her, and…

And what? Take her in his arms and swear that he was never going to let her go? Somehow magically turn back time so that…? Was she going completely mad? He was a farmer, not a wizard, she reminded herself sternly.

Ignoring the inner voice that warned him that nothing could be gained by prolonging his own agony, Finn made for the narrow lane Maggie had hurried down. But just as he was about to enter it he heard the familiar voice of his closest neighbour, an elderly farmer, who blocked Finn’s access to the lane as he proceeded to complain to him about current farming conditions. Knowing that beneath the older man’s complaints lay loneliness, Finn felt obliged to listen, even whilst he was inwardly cursing his appearance for preventing him from following Maggie.

What was she doing in Shrewsbury? Why hadn’t she gone straight back to London? She had never told him exactly what it was that had brought her to Shropshire—they had been engrossed in discoveries about one another of a far more intimate and exciting nature than any mere mundane exchanges concerning their day-to-day lives.

Maggie…Finn closed his eyes as his ache for her throbbed through every single one of his senses.

As she reached out to unlock her car, Maggie gave a swift look over her shoulder. There was no sign of Finn anywhere in the car park. She told herself that she was glad he hadn’t followed her. And if he had done she would naturally have told him that he was wasting his time. Wouldn’t she? She started the car, then paused, giving the car park a final sweeping visual search before slowly driving away.

The auction wasn’t due to take place until the following morning, but the agent for the sale of the estate had agreed to see her, and Maggie was still hoping that she might be able to pe

rsuade him to allow her to buy the Dower House before it went to auction. She was prepared to pay over and above its reserve price if necessary. She had to buy the house for her grandmother, who had sounded even more quietly unhappy than before when Maggie had rung her from the hotel.

Lambton was only small, a traditional country town with a mixture of various styles of architecture showing it had grown and developed over the centuries, and as she parked outside the agent’s office Maggie realised that she could probably have walked there from the hotel faster than she had driven. Or at least in theory, she reflected with a rueful look down at the ravishingly pretty and impossibly high-heeled shoes she was wearing.

Finn would have taken one look at them and immediately rejected them as ridiculous and impractical—which no doubt meant that in his eyes at least she and the shoes were a good match.

Finn. Why on earth was she allowing herself to think about him—again? Had she forgotten already what he had said to her? Had she forgotten too that he had actually expected her to move into that remote farmhouse? A clever ruse, of course; he must have known that what he was suggesting was totally impossible, and would no doubt have been caught totally off guard if she had agreed. Still, from what she heard from her girlfriends, as being dumped went it had at least been original.

As she pushed open the door to the agent’s office she had to battle against a dangerous feeling of loss that had somehow insidiously and unwarrantedly found its way into her thoughts, and she warned herself that she should be thinking about the reality of the situation instead of grieving for some foolish fantasy that she was very fortunate to have walked away from.

‘I really am sorry,’ Philip Crabtree, the agent, told Maggie ruefully, ‘but we have strict instructions that the estate is to be auctioned and not sold prior to auction,’

‘But why?’ Maggie protested. ‘Especially when I’m prepared to pay well over the reserve price.’

The agent sympathised with her. It was plain how important it was to her to acquire the Dower House, but as he had already explained there really was nothing he could do.

‘I can’t give you an answer to that other than to say that those are the instructions of the present owner.’

‘Who is the present owner?’ Maggie asked him—perhaps if she were to approach him or her direct she might be able to persuade them to sell outright to her.