Free Some Old Lover's Ghost by Judith Lennox

doing her hair. Time lengthened and intensified with Jossy’s feverish anticipation. She thought of names for him: Charles or Leo or David or Rupert …
    When she came home from a walk one day, a letter was waiting for her on the hall table. Jossy did not recognize the handwriting. Opening the envelope, she stared, bewildered, at the signature at the foot of the page. Then she began to read.
    Since I saw you that day, I have been able to think of no-one else. I long to see you again, to speak to you …
    Daragh. Such a beautiful and unusual name. He was called Daragh.
    He had found a boat nestling in the reeds; he slid the painter from the post and the rowing boat glided slowly into the river. Tilda lay in the prow, one hand trailing in the water. WhenDaragh knelt beside her, the boat rocked a little. First he kissed her, and then he undid, one by one, the buttons of her blouse. To begin with, she let him kiss her throat and her breasts, but then she wriggled out of his arms and sat up, and the boat lurched wildly, sending up spray.
    ‘You’ll have us both in the water, darlin’ girl.’
    ‘Give me the oars, Daragh.’
    He shook his head. ‘No. Sit down, Tilda Greenlees.’
    She stood up, so he ran his fingertips from her ankle along her bare calf to her thigh. Her heart was hammering. She could see her reflection in the water: her hair tangled from his caresses, her blouse open.
    Daragh lay in the boat, looking up at her. His eyes were narrowed by the sun. ‘I’ve hardly seen you these last few weeks.’
    ‘I haven’t been able to get away, Daragh. Aunt Sarah came into town with me again yesterday.’
    He searched in his pocket for his cigarettes, flicking open the packet one-handed. ‘Do you think she knows about us?’
    Tilda looked down at him. ‘She’d have said something. And we’ve been very careful.’
    He struck a match on the side of the boat. ‘I’ll come and see you tonight after work,’ he said. ‘There’s an old ladder in that barn where I cut the wood. I’ll throw a few stones at your window—’
    ‘Daragh,’ said Tilda. ‘Aunt Sarah has ears like a bat’s.’
    He lay back in the boat, smoking. His exploring fingers had reached the elasticated leg of Tilda’s bloomers. She stepped over him and seized the oars. The boat swayed, throwing Daragh’s matches and cigarettes, balanced on the gunwale, into the river. ‘Mary, Mother of God, Tilda!’ cried Daragh, and sat up.
    ‘I have to get home.’ She turned the boat rapidly, heading back to the bank. ‘Aunt Sarah will wonder where I am.’ Tilda knew that her face was red, and that a fire burned inside her.
    Daragh, too, burned. He had wanted her for months; he had never waited so long for a girl. He had been prepared to wait because shewas so young – six years younger than he – and because there was something different, something slightly daunting, about her. If anyone had told him that he would one day be a little in awe of an eighteen-year-old girl, he would have laughed in their face, but it was so.
    The landlord of the Fox and Hounds gave Daragh the note as he swept out the cellar the following morning. His mood, already uncertain, worsened as he glanced at the single folded piece of paper and saw that it was an invitation to tea from someone called Joscelin de Paveley. Daragh crumpled up the note and flung it to the floor. He slammed empty bottles into crates, and hurled barrels across the flags. His need for Tilda, which he had thought he could control, had become a torment. It was easier for her; women didn’t have the same desires.
    As he hacked at the cobwebs, disturbing spiders that had slept peacefully for decades, Daragh knew that he was not being fair. There were, after all, two sorts of women. There were the easy ones, and there were the ones a man could respect. Tilda, like his sister Caitlin, belonged in the second category. He had not wanted Caitlin to give herself to that great lug of a farmhand who courted her