The Cinderella Factor. Sophie Weston
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Warmth. Light.
Jo sighed. The summer sun filtered through the leaves and lay soft against her bare arms. It touched all her vulnerable places—under her hair, behind her ear, the base of her throat where the pulse beat. Touched then with the tiny assured kisses of a lover. When she closed her eyes it warmed her eyelids. All the locals wore sunglasses to protect them against the glare, but not Jo. For her the sun was a treasure.
Warmth, light and safety.
She opened her eyes. The fairytale landscape shimmered a little in the heat haze but it did not disappear. She breathed in the soft scents of summer: hot herbs, an elusive honeysuckle perfume on the breeze, grass.
‘I am happy,’ she said aloud. ‘I am so happy.’
She recalled the heady perfection of the roses George had brought her this morning. He had wheeled himself into the neglected rose garden to cut them himself, and had brought them to her with the dew still on their softly crowded petals.
‘Well, almost happy.’
There was a hint of wormwood in the perfect mix, of course. All her own fault, too. The lie that she had told seemed nastier every day. For the Morrisons had taken her to their hearts as if she were family.
At first Jo had followed Crispin’s advice and tried to stay away from them. But Mrs Morrison cooked her little treats and left them on the work bench in the garage. And George, tooling round the grounds in his wheelchair, showed her all the neglected walks and copses of the place that he could reach. When he said how much he loved fishing, and how sad he was that he could no longer get his chair to the river, it had only been civil to find a path and wheel him down there.
Well, that was what Jo had told herself. The truth was, of course, that she was beginning to love the Morrisons. She loved the way Nanny’s face lit up when Jo scratched shyly on the kitchen door. She loved the way George wheeled himself to meet her, full of some discovery he had made during the day. They liked her. After the superior expert from Rouen had arrived, shuddered, and left again, they had formed a sort of club. Jo basked in it as much as in the sunshine.
More and more, she wanted to tell them the truth. But how could she?
Hey, guys! Guess what? I was a girl all the time!
It was impossible, even for the sake of her conscience. She might just as well say Nanny was blind and George was stupid. So she kept quiet.
And most of the time she could forget it. She ran a grubby hand through her ragged chestnut hair, newly chopped by herself into a boyish crop. There were compensations, she reminded herself. Lots of them. A place of her own—and no shared bathroom or metered heating. Unbelievably, a job she was good at, and getting better at by the day! Even—oh, blissful thought—a library.
At the thought, Jo felt her lips stretch in a grin that was pure childish glee. A whole library to play in! This place was heaven.
She sometimes thought that the worst thing about her years as a runaway was how far it had kept her from books. She had never owned a book. Except for The Furry Purry Tiger, of course, she thought, with a choke of sudden laughter.
She said aloud, ‘Tiger said, in his furry purry voice, “Look into my eyes, my dears. How can you resist me?”’ She gave a little skip of pure delight.
No, notwithstanding her own stupidity, the lie was only a slight shadow over her bliss.
‘Blow nearly. I am completely happy,’ she said aloud.
The sound of her own voice brought her up short. She looked round, embarrassed. But the birds sang undisturbed. The cicadas scissored away. And the landscape, under its shimmer of afternoon heat haze, was deserted.
‘Still, that’s no reason to go on standing in the middle of the road,’ she scolded herself, adding with wry self-mockery, ‘You never know when life is going to zap you again.’
Laughing, she went to the elegant parapet and leaned her elbows on the warm stone. Below her, a dragonfly was skimming the gold-shot water. Jo gave a deep, delighted sigh.
‘But just at the moment I’ve got nothing left to wish for.’ She breathed in the warm, scented air. ‘Better enjoy it while it lasts.’
The little parcel Mrs Morrison had asked her to collect from the farm bumped against the stone as she moved. Jo made a face, reminded. Well, perhaps there was something to wish for.
She could wish that she knew exactly where Patrick Taylor-Harrod was—and that he would not pop up like the demon king in a pantomime and spoil everything.
Crispin made him sound very demon king-ish: casual, arrogant, and quite without heart. Even Mrs Morrison, who was as fond of him as only a former nanny could be, admitted that no woman was safe from her Mr Patrick’s charm. Though she also claimed that was largely their own fault, because they flung themselves at him.
Not that Jo would have flung herself at him. Or that arrogant elder brother Patrick would have taken her up on her offer if she had, Jo thought dryly.
At the thought, her eyes lit with sudden laughter. Maybe there were some advantages to being a sexless maypole, after all. It sounded as if arrogant Patrick was used to an altogether higher class of sexual harassment than she could offer.
She peered over the edge of the bridge at her reflection. Years of living from hand to mouth had left her with dramatic hollows under her cheekbones and a chin as pointed as a witch’s, she thought disparagingly.
The water did not do justice to the depth and expressiveness of the strange greeny-brown of her eyes, of course. Nor did it reflect the long curling eyelashes or the exquisite softness of her skin. Jo would not have noticed if it had. All she saw was what she always saw when she could not avoid looking at her reflection. A stick-thin scarecrow with shoulders like a wardrobe. Carol had been right about that, at least.
Jo surveyed the dark rippling mirror dispassionately. She could not blame anyone for thinking she was a boy, she thought. And a boy she must stay—until Crispin came back.
She shook her shoulders and leaned further over the edge of the warm stone. The water looked inviting. And the sun was like an animal, a big friendly puppy, butting gently against the bare skin of her arms, saying, Come and play.
She had no swimsuit with her. She had not even owned one since primary school. But the little river was on private land, and the landscape was deserted. Wheelchair-bound Mr Morrison was resting, Mrs Morrison was waiting indoors for a phone call. Crispin was somewhere off the coast of Spain.
And it was a day made for swimming. Jo had not swum for years. Even then it had been in a municipal pool that smelled of chlorine. She had never swum in a river, with bees humming and the air full of the scent of grass and wild flowers.
It was irresistible.
Under a tangle of hazel bushes Jo found the narrow stone steps that spiralled down from the bridge. They were old and worn, covered in moss and lichen. She took off her shoes, feeling the warm moss under her toes in delight. Then she slipped down the curved stairs to the bank.
She lodged her package between the roots of a willow in deep shade, then quickly stripped off her clothes and left them where they fell. Her body was white and thin in the dappled shade. Thin, but tough, Jo thought cheerfully, shaking out her arms and dancing her bare feet in delight on the moss. Then she took a little run at the water and dived cleanly.
The dive made hardly a sound. But it was enough to alert the man.
He was leaning up against the bark of a willow on the opposite bank, completely hidden under the umbrella of its drooping branches. He had his hands in his pockets and his head bent. He was wearing a grim, bitter expression. At the faint splash, he looked up in quick offence.
This bridge was on private land! Nobody should be here! Behind his dark glasses, annoyance flickered uncontrollably.
Jo was unaware of the watcher. She was utterly caught up in the delight of the moment. She swam and turned and somersaulted in the water, laughing aloud