Reluctant Wife(25)

Not many minutes later and not any too soon they were up in the safety of the house, soaked to the skin but safe from the wild, whirling world outside of white hailstones, many of them the size of golf balls.



Roz had seen hail before, but never like this—within minutes the landscape all around resembled a jagged snow scene. The noise was incredible as the deadly white missiles pounded down on the roof, and she shuddered to think of being caught outside in it, of the mare and foal out in it. Adam Milroy put his arm around her slim shoulders and she was intensely grateful to him for coming back, just for being there …



But it was ten minutes before she could say as much, before the hail passed and it was only rain drumming on the roof and they could make themselves heard. Then he only smiled and said it was the least he could have done. By which time it was almost too dark to see, so she went to put on a light, but nothing happened.



She looked helplessly at the switch and tried again, but again nothing happened. Adam Milroy remarked, ‘It’s not to be wondered at, there could be power lines down. Have you any alternative source of power?’



‘The stove and the fridge are gas,’ she told him, ‘and I have some hurricane lamps. So I won’t starve and I’ll have some light—I’ll be fine now, really I will, if you’d like to … I mean … I’m sure the worst is over and … She peered through the gloom at him.



But all he said was, ‘Got a torch?’



‘Oh yes, two, but …’



‘Then I’ll go down and check the horses. You get those hurricane lamps going in the meantime.’



‘Well …’ But perhaps, like the old mare, she sensed a will that was no match for her, because she went into the kitchen and got the torches and gave him one. While he was away, she used the other to dig out the lamps and prime them and light them. She was just wondering what was taking him so long, if the mare and foal had panicked at the noise and the unfamiliar confines and hurt themselves, when he came into the kitchen, looked around approvingly and said, ‘I’m afraid you’re going to have to put me up for the night, Roz. The reason you have no electricity is that the storm uprooted an old tree beside the gate—it brought the powerline down. It’s also completely barred the driveway.’



She stared at him in the soft light with her lips parted and her eyes wide, until he raised an eyebrow and said with his lips twisting, ‘Do you mind so very much? I’m sorry, there seems to be no help for it, but you don’t have to worry that I’d take advantage of you.’



‘No!’ She rushed into speech. ‘Oh no, I didn’t … that wasn’t… I just feel so terribly guilty … I …’



Adam looked ironically amused for a moment, then his gaze softened and he said, ‘You’re also very sweet, young Roz.’





It was a night Roz was to remember.



It rained all night, sometimes tempestuously, so that the house creaked rather alarmingly, but she could only feel safe and dry and with that awful sense of loneliness kept at bay.



She changed out of her sodden jeans into a loose pink dress and left her hair down and loose to dry. She found Adam Milroy some dry clothes and made up the bed in the spare room. Then she jointed a chicken and casseroled it with carrots, celery, bacon, onion, sherry and some tinned tomatoes and mushrooms. She set the kitchen table with one of her grandmother’s damask cloths and laid out the old-fashioned bone-handled cutlery, two matching napkins in wooden holders, and finally the fragrant casserole and a dish of fluffy white rice and some fresh beans from the garden she’d picked that morning.



Before Adam had changed into her grandfather’s clothes he had gone back down to fix up a feed bin in the garage for the mare and spread some more straw.



The clothes almost fitted him, because her grandfather had been as tall but broader around the midriff, so he had to wear an old leather belt about the waist, but the blue and white checked cotton shirt fitted well.



Surprisingly, although all through her preparations while he had been down with the horses and also checking the outside of the old house for damage she had worried about being shy and tongue-tied, they talked easily through the meal, mostly about horses, but pleasantly all the same.



And after it Adam paid her a compliment. ‘That was delicious, I think you must know a lot about cookery already, Roz.’



‘I—well, I enjoy it, and I’ve had plenty of practice.’ She pushed her hair which had dried to a tangle of curls behind her ears and couldn’t help beaming with pleasure. Then he insisted on helping her with the washing up and she made coffee and they took it into the lounge.