.

alone in her desire.

       FIVE

      ‘And this year I am going to enter Rex in the agricultural show, and –’

      ‘Oh, do stop going on about your wretched dog,’ Connie commanded her brother impatiently. ‘Have you spoken to Mam yet about my new dress, Ellie? I’m old enough now to have a proper grown-up outfit. All the other girls in my class –’

      ‘Connie!’ Ellie stopped her sister angrily. ‘You know that Mother does not like us to speak like that. We are to call her Mama or Mother.’

      ‘That is because she is a snob. That’s what Jimmie Shackleton three doors down says his mam calls her. Oh, look, here is our aunt arriving.’

      As Connie made to slide off the piano seat, Ellie informed her firmly, ‘I shall see to our aunt, Connie, whilst you continue with your piano practice.’

      ‘You cannot tell me what to do, Ellie,’ Connie declared sulkily. ‘Just because you are walking out with Gideon, that does not mean –’

      ‘I am not doing any such thing,’ Ellie protested, pink-faced.

      ‘Oh, yes you are,’ Connie insisted. ‘You are sweet on him, and don’t try to pretend that you are not. Your voice goes all gooey and funny whenever you speak about him.’

      Ellie could feel her colour deepening.

      Since Gideon had declared his feelings for her, they had spent as much time together as they could, but it had not been easy, as her mother was increasingly dependent on Ellie’s help, and increasingly insistent on keeping her close at hand.

      Gideon had told Ellie that there was no way he could approach her father to ask for her hand until he had established his business and was able to provide her with a proper home.

      ‘I know that you can do it, Gideon,’ Ellie had whispered lovingly to him, her eyes warm with pride and dreams. ‘I can see it now. Everyone will want to commission you to make them furniture, including the Earl. All you need is the opportunity to prove to people how good you are.’

      ‘I hope that you are right,’ Gideon had responded.

      By taking on extra work for William Pride he was managing to save some money, but the extra work he was doing meant that he had less free time to visit Preston and see Ellie, never mind look for premises for his business.

      Ellie had urged him to seek help from her father. ‘Since he is in business himself he is bound to know if the right kind of shop premises become available,’ she had counselled Gideon practically.

      But Gideon had told her stubbornly, ‘No, Ellie, I do not want to go cap in hand to your father for help. I want to show him that I can establish myself, that I am fit to be your husband. And besides, we have plenty of time. You are still only sixteen.’

      ‘Seventeen soon,’ Ellie had reminded him.

      Putting down the nightgown she had been sewing for the expected baby, she checked Connie with a stern frown before going to greet her Aunt Gibson.

      ‘Ah, Ellie, I am come to see your mother.’

      ‘She is upstairs in her room,’ Ellie informed her aunt.

      There was something about her mother’s eldest sister that Ellie had always found slightly daunting. And now, for no reason at all, she discovered that she was fidgeting slightly as Amelia subjected her to scrutiny.

      ‘I know the way, Ellie. You do not need to accompany me,’ she informed her niece firmly, as she swept towards the stairs, obliging Ellie to stand to one side.

      Ellie waited until she had heard her mother’s bedroom door open and then close again before returning to the back parlour to oversee Connie’s piano practice.

      ‘Lyddy, my dear, I came as soon as I had your message. What has happened? Is it the baby?’ Amelia demanded anxiously as she hurried to embrace her sister.

      Lydia shook her head. ‘No.’ Her pregnancy still had some three or so weeks to run, and the enforced rest Amelia’s husband had insisted she must take was making the time hang heavily. She would much rather have been active, the chatelaine of her home as she had always been, rather than being obliged to leave so many of her duties in the hands of her elder daughter.

      Not that Ellie was not fully capable of running a home. No, Lydia had seen to it that both her daughters knew how to maintain and order a household.

      ‘Then what is amiss?’ Amelia asked her.

      In contrast to the obvious swollenness of her belly, Lydia’s face looked alarmingly thin, her eyes sunken in its paleness, her flesh stretched almost painfully over her elegant bones, but it was the look of fear in her eyes that affected her sister the most.

      Lydia was ten years Amelia’s junior, the baby of their family, the prettiest of all of them, the spoiled precious youngest child, who had been adored and fêted all her life until she had so foolishly and disastrously married Robert Pride. And now look at her!

      ‘It’s Ellie, Amelia,’ Lydia told her sister tiredly. ‘I am so concerned about her.’

      ‘Concerned? In what way?’

      ‘She has become involved with this Gideon Walker – I have told you about him. Oh, she says nothing to me, but I know what has happened. She thinks herself in love with him. I can see it in her eyes, hear it in her voice every time his name is mentioned. I have tried to talk to Robert about it, but he will not listen. He does not understand – how can he? Melia, Ellie must not do as I have done. She is worthy of so much more. But what is to be done? Robert is allowing Gideon the run of the house as though…as though he were already a member of our family. John worships him, and I am not well enough to keep a check on what is happening.’

      ‘Ellie must be sent away before any more harm can be done,’ Amelia announced grimly. ‘The best place for her to go would be to our sister in Hoylake. Lavinia and Mr Parkes live a very social life there. Mr Parkes has several wealthy shipowners as clients, and I dare say that after attending a few parties where she may meet some proper young gentlemen, Ellie will soon forget any foolishness over this…this Gideon.’

      ‘Oh, Amelia, do you think so?’ Lydia’s expression brightened. ‘But Hoylake! I don’t know…I need Ellie here and –’

      ‘You need do nothing for the present,’ Amelia assured her comfortingly. ‘I shall write to our sister, and just as soon as you have been confined and safely delivered, Ellie may be sent to stay with Lavinia in Hoylake until the danger of her fancying herself in love with Master Gideon is completely over.’

      ‘When?’ Lydia cried bitterly. ‘Oh, Amelia, I am so –’

      Hastily Amelia interrupted her. ‘Alfred says that you may expect to be confined before the end of the month.’

      ‘Yes. He has said as much to me.’

      Lydia’s lips trembled. She had not been able to bring herself to ask her brother-in-law if he still believed her life to be at risk. She had been too afraid of what he might say, and so instead she had allowed herself to believe Robert when he insisted optimistically that she had nothing to worry about. But sometimes in the dead of night, she woke sweating and trembling, her heart racing and her mouth dry, overwhelmed by fear.

      Making plans for Ellie’s future, and the ways in which she could thwart Gideon Walker’s intentions of ruining her daughter’s life, gave her a means of escaping those fears.

      ‘Cecily is to put off her wedding until next year so that you will be able to attend. She is determined to be a June bride,’ Amelia informed her sister.

      What she could not tell Lyddy was that she herself had had to suggest discreetly that her daughter plan her wedding more than twelve months hence, just in case they