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CHAPTER ONE
JESSICA heard the grandfather clock striking eleven She lifted her head frorandfather clock had been acquired through the ancient custoe and barter still very definitely alive in this quiet part of the Avon countryside
At first she had been very pleased with her ‘payer tapestries; she had even continued to be pleased when the thing had virtually had to be dismantled in order to be installed in the se, and had then required the services of an extrehly individualistic clock mender
In fact, it was only when she realised what the clock was going to mean in terms of interruptions to her concentration on her work that she began to doubt the wisdo it
Mind you, she allowed fair-es For instance today, if it had not interrupted her, she would doubtless have worked on until it was far too late to go to the post office Today, Wednesday, was half-day closing, and she had a tapestry finished and ready to post to the exclusive shop in Bath which sold her work for her
She had always loved e quite small She remembered how amused and then irritated her parents had been with her interest in it
Her interest in tapestry had come later, when she knew more about her subject She had spent a wonderful su at the Royal School of Needlehich had confirmed her conviction that her love of the craft meant that she wanted it to be far more than merely a hobby
Now, five years after that fateful su for the National Trust on the conservation and repair of their tapestries or designing and h the shop in Bath, and others on direct commissions from people who had seen her work and fallen in love with it
The tapestry she orking on today was one such coe had a largeto let in the light she needed for her work It overlooked the countryside to the rear of the ses of which hers was one This view had inspired ed, sometimes subtly, someti at it
She loved this part of the country with its quiet peace—just as she loved the solitude of her work and life-style Both s she needed desperately
She shivered a little How long was it going to be before she succeeded in wiping herto be before she woke up in theof sick fear tensing her body?
She still had nightmares about it…Still re day
It had started so nor her parents’fashionable London house for work Her father was the chairman of the élite merchant bank which had been founded one hundred and fifty years previously by his ancestor
All her life, Jessica had been conscious of her parents’ disappoint was ever said, but all the tiood results, she had known of her parents’ real feelings She ought to have been a boy; a boy to follow in her father’s footsteps, to head the bank and follow tradition But she wasn’t—she was a girl…
Every time she heard her father say that it made no difference, that these days women were equally as capable as men, that there was no reason at all why she should not eventually take his place, she had sensed his real feelings—had known that sheshe could to make up to her parents for the disappointment of her sex
She had known fro what fate held in store for her She would go to university, get a degree and then join her father in the bank, where she would be trained for the important role that would one day be hers
‘And, of course, it isn’t the end of the world,’ she had once heard her father saying to her randsons…’
But by the tiree, she had known that she didn’t want to
Every ti Victorian edifice that housed the bank she had felt as though a heavy weight descended on her shoulders, as though so
Her father’s plan was that she would follow in his footsteps, learning their business fro from department to department
Everyone had been kind to her, but she had felt suffocated by the weight of her responsibility, by the bank itself and its solidity Whenever she could she escaped to Avon to stay with her godmother, an old schoolfriend of her mother’s
She knew that she was disappointing her parents—that they could not understand the malaise that affected her
And then came the event that was to have such a cataclysmic effect on her life…
Warningly, the clock chimed the quarter hour She mustn’t miss the post
Sighing softly, she got up, a tall, al worey eyes Her hair was that shade sohtened it in places, giving its shted effect
As it swung forwards to obscure her profile she pushed it back off her face with a surprisingly strong and supple hand Her wrists looked too fragile to support such strength, but her long hours spent working on her tapestries had strengthened the muscles
This particular co couple who had recently e house just outside Bath He was predictably sohtly pretentious They had two children, both as yet under five, but both boys were down to attend prestigious boarding-schools
The tapestry, a ular, galleried hallway and was to be hung so that it was the first thing that caught the visitor’s eye upon entering the house Jessica had given a good deal of thought to its subject matter
Arabella Moore had said vaguely that she was quite happy to leave everything to her; she had apparently seen some of her work in the shop in Bath, and had additionally read the very good report that had appeared in a prestigious glossyJessica’s innovative skills
‘So and witty,’ was the only specification Arabella had made, and Jessica only hoped th
at her client would be happy with her design As yet she had not started work on the tapestry itself The design was still verycompletion then approval from Arabella
As alhen she was engrossed in a project, Jessica resented anything that took her away from it
As she went to open her workroori what trophy Cluny her cat had brought back for her to adht, when she had found hirown, he was sleek and black, and full of his own importance
She opened the door and looked outside, giving a faint sigh of relief at the lack of any s she could say to him seemed to make any difference, so she had had to learn to live with his uncivilised habit of bringing her back gifts of small, pathetic, lifeless bodies