A Fall from Grace, Maggie Ford [best english novels to read txt] 📗

such schemes merely fantasy. Her dreams would be filled with people, she and Freddy kneeling hand in hand, taking their vows. It would be beautiful but the dream would then change. Her father storming down the aisle as the ring was about to be slipped on to her finger, a scuffle, she being dragged away, Freddy pleading, calling out for her – nearly always the same dream, she waking up in tears.

Losing him had become her constant fear. August soon, they’d been seeing each other for almost three months. At first it was in the little lane where they had arranged to meet after his work. That first time, hidden by bushes he’d taken her in his arms and kissed her, a lingering kiss making her body tingle, something she’d never known before. Lost in the pleasure of it she’d not realized that he’d been gently slipping the bodice buttons of her dress until she’d felt his hand inside her clothing.

Shocked she had made to push his hand away yet the urgent tingle had lingered as he murmured, ‘Why would you come here to this secluded lane, Madeleine, if you were merely looking for a peck on the cheek?’ speaking so soothingly that her fear had changed to a strange pleasure and she had once more lifted her face to his.

After three weeks meeting in the lane, she by then delighting in the pleasure of his tender petting of her, finding herself not wanting him to stop, he had found them a derelict old barn no one ever used. There he taught her about love.

So gently persuaded that first time she’d become frightened but was soon lost in the strange joy of him, that first tiny hurt soon vanished as the sensations he’d aroused took hold. She’d never known such a feeling existed, so strange that it had worried her it might even be harmful to her. But he’d soothed her fear, telling her it was quite natural.

‘In fact it surprised me how quick it was for you,’ he’d whispered as he held her close afterwards. ‘Some girls would give anything to feel what you felt that quick.’ Although it did dawn on her to wonder how he would know that, she was in love with him and so dismissed it.

Those first kisses in the lane had had her believing the tingle she’d felt each time was the most any girl felt. Now she eagerly sought it, knowing the culmination would be to be whirled away to some great spinning height, sighing and gasping, oblivious to everything but their uniting in a passion that made them one.

It was almost an agony to have to sit beside Hamilton at dinner, weekend after weekend. Dancing together at some function or other she was only too relieved to be held at arm’s length as they moved. Very soon she would be attending her coming out ball, along with scores of other young debs, but it would be merely a formality, her father already having made up his mind that she would become Mrs Hamilton Bramwell by next year.

‘You are beginning to appear far more at ease with young Hamilton these days, Madeleine,’ her father remarked this Saturday afternoon as his chauffeur drove them towards Gerrard’s Green.

‘I admit, I very much approved of your reserve, as should become a young lady of good family towards her fiancé in those early stages, so long as it isn’t taken too far. But I am very pleased, my dear, and so is your mother.’

‘Yes indeed, dear, very much so,’ her mother echoed, leaning over to plant a quick peck on her daughter’s cheek only to move quickly back in her seat before her husband’s frown at the small display of affection.

Madeleine said nothing, throwing her father a sidelong glance which he failed to notice.

On the Board of Directors of a grammar school outside Beaconsfield, Aldous Bardolph Wyndham was a stern and overpowering man as his name seemed to imply, named after his father who’d been an equally overpowering person.

She remembered him, not as children usually remember a grandfather, with love, affection and fond memories, but with awe and trepidation, a man who had seldom if ever smiled. And neither did her father, except to confer the odd appraisal upon a person, more usually her mother, Dorothy, who almost appeared to genuflect to any approval he might bestow on her.

But if he expected his daughter to do likewise, if he ever bothered to notice, Madeleine thought silently as they drove along, he was going to have to wait a long time, especially on the matter of Hamilton. She tried not to envisage the consequences of finally refusing him when he eventually did propose formally. As that prospect and its dread consequence began to creep over her, she forced it away as best she could, trying instead to concentrate on settling back in her seat between her parents. But it wasn’t easy.

In her bedroom Madeleine sat by the window staring at the fields beyond, all bathed in the glorious sunshine of broad summer, but her mind wasn’t on the glory of summer. It was almost the end of July and she still hadn’t seen this month’s period. She hadn’t seen last month’s either. Usually she was as regular as clockwork, always had been. Something was wrong. If it was what she now cringed at the thought of, what on earth was she going to do? She would speak to Freddy. He’d calm her fear. He would maybe even propose to her.

For some time she’d yearned for him to ask for her hand, well before this predicament had come upon her. Yet in a way she had dreaded him asking. What if he did, she could never approach her father for his consent knowing he would never give it, thus complicating any hope of them ever marrying.

To put off that awful refusal she had never made any approach to Freddy and perhaps he was of the opinion that she