Free A Stranger's Kiss by Rosemary Smith Page B

I’m all ears.’
    ‘It’s very difficult,’ I began toying with blades of grass while I spoke. ‘So I’ll ask you directly. What happened to your mother?’
    He turned away from me at my question and threw a stray pebble over the cliff, and for some moments I was afraid the question had upset him and spoilt his opinion of me, but he turned back to look at me.
    ‘Why do you ask?’ he asked quietly.
    ‘Because Rosalind said she died of a broken heart,’ I replied honestly.
    ‘She did,’ he murmured. ‘She walked into the sea at Moll’s Bay, intent on drowning herself because of my father’s betrayal.’ Here he stopped.
    ‘And did she ...?’ I commenced.
    ‘Yes, she did die. Her body turned up at Lizard Point a few days later.’
    I could see it pained him to talk of it, but I had to know. ‘What exactly did your father do to warrant your mother taking her own life?’ As I asked the question I could more or less guess the answer.
    ‘He fell in love with a gypsy and she had his child,’ he told me. I touched his shoulder.
    ‘And that child is ...?’ I began.
    ‘Violet.’ Michael finished the sentence for me.
    ‘And what of Violet’s mother?’ I asked him, for I felt that I needed to know.
    ‘Let us talk no more of it,’ he said, playfully pushing me back on the rug, his laughter returning. I felt quite vulnerable lying on the cliff as Michael tickled my face and throat with a blade of grass, but I trusted him implicitly and when he bent over to kiss me I closed my eyes, a delicious feeling of fire running through my body as his lips met mine for the first time.
    The kiss was gentle and I responded with the gentleness that was given, and I realised that my thoughts when I walked down the staircase last evening of Michael being dark and gentle was uncannily true. He kissed my cheek, my neck and stroked my face and suddenly I sat up a thought coming to me.
    ‘What’s the matter, dear heart?’ he enquired with concern and I laughed.
    ‘I was wondering what my father and mother would think of this,’ I told him, looking him in the eye. ‘Their only daughter in the middle of nowhere, sharing a picnic and an intimate moment with a man who is almost a stranger.’
    ‘Is that how you view me?’ Michael asked seriously. ‘A stranger? For I feel I have known you for a lifetime.’
    ‘And I you, believe me,’ I soothed. ‘But living here it is so easy to forget that other people exist.’
    ‘And you could live here for always?’ he asked taking hold of my hand.
    ‘Yes I think I could.’
    ‘Then marry me?’ he asked suddenly, so suddenly that I was taken totally by surprise.
    ‘Do you ask me because you are caught up on the moment?’ I asked him anxiously.
    ‘No indeed not, I would have asked you that first night in the garden,’ he strove to reassure me.
    ‘Ask me again after I have found Amelia.’ I said the words without thinking and knew that this tiny sentence had spoiled our time together, and wished with all my heart that my answer had been yes, but pride would not let me alter it and the precious moment was gone.
    We packed up the picnic basket and stood up, me smoothing my skirt and brushing grass from the hem.
    ‘Sara,’ he said suddenly pulling me to him, ‘do love me? Or indeed, think you could love me?’
    ‘Yes I do,’ I told him sincerely.
    ‘Then we will leave this in abeyance until Amelia is found,’ he told me giving me a glimmer of hope and lightening my mood again.
    ‘Very well, so be it,’ I agreed. ‘What will happen with the basket and the rug?’
    ‘Simkins will fetch it,’ he told me.
    ‘Who the devil is Simkins?’ I said, laughing.
    ‘He is the cook’s husband, a fine fellow and very discreet. None of this will go any further I assure you.’
    We walked back to house, my arm through his, like a married couple on a Sunday afternoon outing. Maybe this is how it would be in future years and I knew that not only in heart, but mind I wished this to be