The Keepsake. Sheelagh Kelly

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      But lo and behold it was a kiss which greeted him first! Spotting him from her lonely seat by the window as she dressed for luncheon, Etta shoved aside her startled maid, rushed headlong down the staircase and across the hall, and before he even had a chance to ring the bell she had thrown herself into his arms and was pressing her lips to every sweating part of his face in joy and relief.

      ‘I knew it! I knew you’d come!’ And she grabbed his arm and hurriedly led him around the back of the house to a more secluded spot near the potting shed, with an anxious Blanche giving chase.

      Unrestrained kisses were to follow, the maid averting her eyes, until Etta suddenly commented on the results of his previous beating. ‘Oh, your poor face! Have I hurt you?’

      ‘No, no! You make everything better.’ A rapturous Marty enfolded her, moulding his body into her soft, hot flesh, breathing in her scent along with the flowers, kissing and caressing erotically.

      ‘You shouldn’t have come to the front door!’ Her protestations interspersed more breathless kissing.

      ‘Are you saying I’m not good enough?’

      Her face scolded him between kisses. ‘I meant why did you risk it? Father will be even more furious, I dread to think what he’ll do this time!’

      ‘Miss Etta!’ Blanche hissed a warning, but was ignored.

      ‘I won’t be cowed.’ Marty nuzzled the silky white neck. ‘I’ve decided to face him man to man, tell him I’ve got the licence for our wedding and he’ll have to kill me to prevent it!’

      ‘That is a distinct possibility!’ interjected another. They whirled to see her enraged father bearing down on them. Informed by a servant, Ibbetson had had no time to grab a weapon but his clenched fists promised retribution. Blanche immediately backed away.

      Forewarned, Marty was prepared and squared up to his opponent – at least there was only the one this time – but Etta went to meet her father. ‘Please discuss this sensibly!’

      However, Ibbetson had never been an articulate man.

      ‘Mother, stop him!’

      Along with a gaggle of servants, Mrs Ibbetson had pursued her husband but, afraid of his fury, did no more than hover in the background wringing her hands.

      Etta found herself swiped to the ground, much to Marty’s disgust, but before he could avenge her honour she was up again and yelling into her father’s face. ‘Oh, that’s right, cast me aside like the dirt you hold me to be!’

      Ibbetson wrestled with her, at the same time grappling with Marty. ‘You behave like a guttersnipe, and you’ll be treated as such!’

      Mrs Ibbetson moaned. Blanche burst into tears. The tranquil garden was rent by angry grunts and squeals.

      ‘Call yourself a gentleman!’ countered a furious Marty, trying to avoid hitting Etta, who insisted on sandwiching herself between the men. ‘You look down on me but I’d never spurn a lady in such a fashion!’

      ‘No, you’d just defile her so no other man’ll take her!’ yelled Ibbetson, managing to elbow past his daughter and grab hold of the young upstart, tussling with him, trying to aim a good punch, their struggle invading the flowerbeds where geraniums were trampled underfoot.

      ‘I’ve done nothing to be ashamed of!’ Face livid, Marty grasped the bigger man around the waist, hanging on grimly and pulling him in close to prevent Ibbetson landing a blow. ‘If you’d granted me the chance I would have asked politely to marry Etta, but you’re not a man for reason, are ye?’

      Striving with effort, her nostrils tweaked by the anomalous perfume of crushed geranium, Etta heaved on her father’s tailcoat, trying to haul him off Marty, whilst her mother merely whimpered and hopped ineffectively from foot to foot. ‘Father, why in pity’s name won’t you allow me to marry the man I love?’

      ‘Because you can’t be trusted to make an intelligent decision! You’d sooner bring disgrace on this family – a boot boy, for deuce’s sake!’ Ibbetson staggered as his daughter almost succeeded in pulling him off balance, Marty still clinging on for grim death, both almost ankle-deep in soil.

      ‘Boot boy no more since you kindly had me dismissed!’ panted Marty, grimacing with the effort of trying to hang on and reassuring Etta at the same time as informing her father, ‘But I didn’t stay down for long – I’m to be my own boss!’

      Etta might be impressed, but her father sneered. ‘If you think that entitles you to marry my daughter then think again! Now will someone remove this parasite from my land!’ With the assistance of footmen, a rebellious Marty was manipulated towards the exit.

      Jerked back and forth by the violent jig performed by the men, Etta felt his jacket ripped out of her hands and threw them up in a gesture of exasperation, declaring stubbornly, ‘You can forbid it all you like, but Martin will be back for me! Lock me in chains, but I’ll get out somehow!’

      ‘Like a bitch on heat!’ Spittle flew from her father’s lips to his beard, showing just how deranged she had made him and causing her mother to reel in shock, the servants too. ‘I wager he doesn’t know how many more there’ve been, queuing up for your favours. He wouldn’t be so keen then!’

      Etta gasped, could hardly speak from outrage. ‘And you’ve turned every one of them away! How dare you humiliate me in such a vile manner? What chance have I had to do such things of which you accuse me when I’m forever in thrall to you? I have no value to you other than to be bartered to some rich man, no matter how charmless or ugly, just so long as the union brings you more power!’

      This pulled him up slightly, but only to offer derision. ‘I don’t need some flibbertigibbet to imbue me with power! I’ve worked damned hard to build all this and I don’t intend to lose it to some Tom, Dick or Harry on whom you’ve conveyed your favours!’

      ‘Pybus, this is intolerable, I beg you, desist!’ entreated Mrs Ibbetson, a more genteel person altogether than her husband, braving his wrath to snatch at his arm and condemn him with a whisper. ‘It’s unforgivable that you address Henrietta like some common…she’s our daughter.’

      ‘And how many times I’ve wished she wasn’t!’ retorted Ibbetson, but his wife’s quiet rebuke had acted as a turning point. Wrenching himself free of Marty, he thrust the hapless youth into the arms of the servants who awaited the order to eject him. But their master signalled them to linger. Brushing and tugging his clothes into some semblance of order, only just able to control his fury, he issued his daughter with an ultimatum. ‘One last chance – and I’m being more than generous in the face of such wilful provocation. But first I shall have an honest answer: did this scoundrel at any time take advantage of you?’

      Etta toyed with the idea of saying yes – which would, in effect, mean that no other man would want her and she would be of no further use as a bargaining tool – but it would also spell another beating for Marty and she could not bear that. ‘You asked me once before. I told you that I intend to guard my honour until I marry. But, let me inform you, Father, I would die before I wed a man of your choosing. This man here, whom you have so cruelly handled, he is the only one I shall marry!’ She went to Marty’s side and clung to him.

      Driven to distraction by this girl who, since babyhood, had never СКАЧАТЬ