The Daughters Of Red Hill Hall. Kathleen McGurl

OK then, seven years. Gem, they’ve been the best years of my life. But, it’s not enough for me any more.’

      Oh God, he was going to say he didn’t want their relationship to be exclusive, wasn’t he? Gemma felt a pang of dread course through her.

      Suddenly he dropped to his knees in front of her. ‘Gemma, darling, will you marry me?’

      ‘Marry you?’

      ‘Yes, you know, I mean, like, put rings on each other’s fingers, walk up the aisle of a church together, all that stuff. Live together. Have kids. Grow old together. The works.’ He looked up at her, his deep brown eyes beseeching her to say yes. Relief flooded through her like a tsunami. Well of course she was going to say yes! She’d been making up her mind to propose to him, next leap year, hadn’t she?

      She slipped off the bench to kneel in front of him, and put her hands on his shoulders. ‘Darling Ben. Of course I would be absolutely delighted to marry you! I’ve been hoping you’d ask me for the last six years!’

      ‘And now I have! Oh wow, you said yes! Really? You’ll marry me? Wahey!’ He pulled her to her feet and enveloped her in a huge hug. Gemma couldn’t help herself – she began bouncing up and down with joy and Ben joined in, his arms still wrapped tightly around her, the two of them jumping up and down together, squealing with laughter.

      A late-night dog walker passed by, staring at them. ‘We’re getting married, we’re getting married!’ Gemma squealed. The dog walker grinned and gave them the thumbs up. When he was out of sight, Ben pulled Gemma still closer and kissed her, deep and lingering.

      ‘Mmm,’ said Gemma. ‘You are the best, and soon you will be mine.’ She sighed happily. ‘I can’t wait to tell Nat that we’re engaged! And Mum and Dad, and your parents! And Anna and Jake!’

      She skipped, clinging on to Ben’s arm and stopping every few steps for another kiss, all the way back to her flat, which occupied the top floor of a converted Victorian terraced house. A sweet elderly gent named Alan lived downstairs, and it was all Gemma could do to stop herself from banging on his door to tell him she’d got engaged. But it was too late in the evening, and Alan would be tucked up in bed by now.

      When to tell Nat was Gemma’s first thought the following morning. She wasn’t working but sadly Ben was, so although he’d spent the night at her flat he’d had to get up early to go to work. Gemma got up at the same time, then spent a couple of hours mooching around the flat, waiting until it was a decent enough time to call Nat on a Saturday morning. She knew her friend loved her weekend lie-ins, followed by long bubble-filled baths. She waited till nine-thirty then couldn’t stand to wait a moment longer.

      The sound of gentle splashing warned her she’d called too soon and Nat was still in the bath, hopefully gripping the phone tightly so she didn’t drop it in the water.

      ‘Nat, hey, good morning!’

      ‘Hey, Gemma. Bit early, isn’t it?’

      ‘Sorry. I was just desperate to talk to you. You’ll never guess…’

      ‘We’re meeting up later, aren’t we? To start the hunt for outfits for Anna and Jake’s wedding. We’ll be talking all day, Gemma.’ Nat sounded weary. Possibly hung-over.

      ‘Yes, sorry. Did you have a heavy night?’

      There was a huge sigh and the sound of gentle splashing, as though Nat had shifted position in the bath, before she answered. ‘Yeah. Met a hot bloke in a nightclub, tried to pull him, but he went off with another fella in the end, who was equally hot. So I drowned my sorrows in vodka.’

      ‘Oh, Nat. You don’t half pick ’em.’ Gemma suppressed a giggle. That was the trouble with the phone – if they were together in a coffee shop or something she’d be able to judge whether to laugh or not by Nat’s body language. But on the phone she didn’t dare. If Nat was still feeling fragile and rejected she wouldn’t appreciate Gemma having a laugh at her expense.

      ‘I do, don’t I?’ Nat replied, and Gemma was relieved to hear a note of humour in her voice. ‘Thing is, Gemma, I need to find a bloke. My invitation from Anna and Jake was for “Natalie plus one”. I need to find that plus one. It’s bad enough they had to write that on the invite – I hate being the single friend everyone’s trying to pair off – but it’ll be even worse if I end up going to the wedding on my own. I need a man and I need one now – one who’ll last at least till after the wedding. Come clubbing with me, Gem? Then if you pull and I don’t, you can shove him in my direction.’

      Gemma couldn’t help herself but laugh this time. The idea of her pulling a bloke when Nat couldn’t was crazy. And the last time she’d been clubbing was years ago. In fact she couldn’t remember if she’d been at all since she got together with Ben. Before then, she and Nat had gone to nightclubs every couple of weeks – when it was Nat’s turn to choose the night out. When it was Gemma’s turn they’d usually spent the evening chatting in the Men At Arms.

      ‘Well, it’s all very fine for you to laugh, Gem. You’ve got Ben; you’re all smugly coupled up. But a bit of sympathy wouldn’t go amiss. I’m getting on. I’ll be thirty soon – and no boyfriend.’

      ‘Ah, Nat. Thirty’s no age. I’ll be thirty before you in any case. And you’ll find the right person eventually. I know you will.’ Gemma mentally ran through her male friends, trying to think if any were single and worth introducing to Nat. But she could only think of shy, sweet Roger, and Nat would have him for breakfast.

      ‘Yeah, right. When I’m old and shrivelled. Anyway, what did you ring me for? We’re still meeting at twelve in the usual café, aren’t we? You’re not going to let me down are you?’

      ‘No, still on to meet you there.’ Gemma grimaced. After the way this conversation had gone so far, how could she tell Nat she and Ben had got engaged? But if she didn’t say anything now, Nat would be furious that she hadn’t told her at the earliest opportunity. She was kicking herself for having made the phone call. But if she had waited to meet Nat to tell her, she’d have been in trouble for not phoning. Talk about being between a rock and a hard place.

      She took a deep breath. ‘Right, the thing I couldn’t wait to tell you about is that, well, Ben popped the question last night and I accepted.’ There. It was out.

      There was silence at the other end. ‘You still there, Nat? I’m over the moon – been longing for him to propose for the last six years! And finally – squeee! – he has!’

      ‘Erm, wow, yeah, that’s great. Really pleased for you, mate. So, erm, see you later, right? Fuck.’

      Gemma was left staring at her phone. Nat had hung up. She wondered whether she’d heard that last word properly. It really hadn’t been the kind of reaction to her news she’d expected from Nat. Well, she’d timed her call wrongly, and it seemed Nat’d had a disastrous night out, so maybe it was all because of that. When they met later in town she was sure Nat would be delighted for her. She hoped so – otherwise, well, otherwise she had no idea what was going on.

       Chapter 4

      November 1834

      ‘I am so bored,’ Sarah grumbled. ‘I wish something would happen. Anything. Or at least if it stopped raining we could go out riding.’

      Rebecca gazed out of the window. They were each sitting on a window seat in their old schoolroom, on the second floor of Red Hill Hall. Their governess Miss Albarn had been dismissed a couple of months previously – now that they had both turned fifteen the girls were deemed to have learned all that she could teach them. They now used the old schoolroom as a kind of sitting room. Rebecca didn’t mind the rain as much as Sarah. Sarah always seemed to become stressed and fretful if she had to stay indoors, whereas Rebecca was quite happy to sit with a book or in front of the piano, for hours on end. In fact a rainy day was sometimes