Chapter Eleven

‘What do you think is wrong with Sunday and Tom?’ Kitty asked Ben two days later as he helped her to saddle her horse in the stable. ‘I don’t know if you’ve noticed but they’re still being very cool towards one another. It isn’t like them, is it?’

‘Yes, I have noticed and no, it isn’t like them.’ Ben tightened the straps on the saddle. ‘Perhaps they’ve had a tiff?’

‘Sunday and Tom?’ Kitty snorted. ‘I shouldn’t think so. I’ve never known them to argue before. Still, I suppose there’s a first time for everything. If that’s the case, it’s a matter of least said soonest mended.’

Ben cupped his hands then and when Kitty placed her foot onto them he hoisted her up into the saddle, thinking how beautiful she looked in her dark green riding habit. But then Kitty looked beautiful in anything. She had turned into a remarkably pretty young woman and he and Tom regularly had to fight off would-be suitors, much to Kitty’s amusement. He felt colour stain his cheeks and quickly lowered his head as she edged her mount out into the stableyard. When had his feelings for her developed? he wondered. They just seemed to have crept up on him all of a sudden and now, instead of seeing her as a nuisance little sister, he found himself looking at her through the eyes of a would-be lover. As she rode out into the bright early morning, the sun caught her hair and it gleamed like spun copper, making his heart do funny little cartwheels. But then she gently dug her heels into the horse’s flank and was off, galloping away down the drive with the wind in her hair, as free as a bird.

‘Ben.’

He turned to see Tom crossing the yard towards him.

‘Could I have a word … in private?’

Ben tensed. Tom looked very solemn and he wondered if he had done something wrong.

‘Perhaps we could go into the library. We won’t be disturbed in there,’ Tom said, and with a nod, Ben followed him back to the house. As they entered the hall they almost bumped into Sunday who had her arms full of clean bedlinen that she was taking upstairs. She gave Ben a polite smile, but hurried on without even glancing at Tom. The young man felt apprehensive. He sensed that Tom was about to tell him something he wouldn’t like to hear.

With the library door firmly closed, Tom joined his arms behind his back and began to pace to and fro as Ben looked on bewildered. And then Tom suddenly stopped and delved in his pocket to withdraw a rather wrinkled envelope.

‘This came for me very recently,’ he told Ben. ‘I think you should read it.’

Ben had no idea why Tom should wish him to see his private mail, but he obediently took it and began to read the letter in front of him.

‘Phew!’ he muttered when he was done. ‘So you had a child that you never even knew about by another girl. It must have come as a real shock! No wonder Sunday’s been looking a bit preoccupied. And what a coincidence that the child’s name was Ben, eh?’ And then as comprehension suddenly dawned he gripped the back of the nearest chair until his knuckles bled white.