Page 18 of The Girl from the Tea Garden (The India Tea #3)

Adela laughed. ‘My parents couldn’t afford it– the tea garden has been struggling for a few years now– but I really want to stay here and keep performing at the Gaiety and maybe do some touring.

I’ve asked MrBracknall for a job in the Forest Office.

Even if it’s not much, I can live simply.

All I need is to cover my rent at Auntie’s.

I don’t mind eating in the bazaar if I have to. ’

‘Then do it,’ Sam encouraged. ‘If you can stand the pompous Bracknall as your boss. Boz says he’s a devil to work for. If he takes a dislike to you, he can make your life hell.’

‘Well, I think he quite likes me.’

‘That’s the other thing,’ warned Sam. ‘Boz says he has a roving eye.’

Adela scoffed. ‘He must be older than my father!’

‘Men like that don’t see themselves as old– they think they are still attractive to women, however young. You might be better finding somewhere else.’

‘Is this my first sermon from Missionary Jackman?’ she teased. ‘Don’t worry, I can look after myself.’

Sam gave a rueful laugh. ‘Yes, I’m sure you can. Far better than me. I’ve no right to lecture.’

She put out a hand and briefly touched his arm. ‘I’m so sorry about Nelson.’

Sam grunted. ‘I thought you’d be more concerned about my rascal monkey than me,’ he teased.

‘You brought all that on yourself,’ Adela said dryly. ‘Poor Nelson didn’t have a choice.’

He swivelled round, propping his hip against the tree trunk, and gazed down at her. ‘You’re quite right. That’s what I like about you, Adela: you say exactly what you think.’

She swivelled to face him too. ‘And what am I thinking?’

‘That you wish it was the young Guy Fellows who was here under the tree in the moonlight with you just now.’

Adela gave a short laugh. ‘Wrong. I’m glad it’s you.’

They stared at each other. Adela’s heart thumped like a bass drum.

Maybe it was the dazzling moon or the narcotic effect of the bidi, but she found herself saying, ‘I’ve thought about you a lot over the past years, wondering where you’d gone, whether you ever thought of me. Did you ever think of me, Sam?’

She held her breath. He let out a sigh. ‘Yes,’ he murmured.

‘What did you think?’ Adela’s heart quickened.

‘How brave you were.’

‘Brave?’

‘Sticking to your guns and not going back to StNinian’s.

Standing up to all the adults in your life,making things happen!

’ His voice took on that passion she had heard when he’d spoken of DrBlack’s work.

‘After I left Belgooree, I began to realise how empty my life was– my father dead; a mother who had up and left me years ago– how I got no enjoyment any more from working on the river.’ He fixed her with an intense look.

‘It was all so aimless, pointless, and it was little Adela Robson who made me see it.’

Adela swallowed down disappointment and laughed. ‘So I’m still just a plucky little girl in your eyes?’

She dropped the burning bidi and ground it underfoot. He did the same. But as she moved around him, he caught her arm.

‘Yes, you were plucky,’ he said, ‘but I’d have to be blind not to see what a beautiful young woman you’ve become.’

She shivered at his touch and at the way he stood over her, looking into her eyes.

She was sure she saw desire in his. Any moment now he was going to kiss her and her life as a woman would really begin.

She had been yearning for this moment since the day she climbed out of his car at Belgooree, impatient to be grown-up, impatient to feel his lips on hers.

He swallowed hard and then dropped his hold, turning away.

‘Better get you back into the hall before MrsHogg sends out the cavalry to rescue you from the mad missionary.’ He ushered her forward.

Adela’s eyes stung as she held herself erect and walked purposefully back into the dance hall; she didn’t want him to see how much his rejection of her hurt.

Her instincts had been wrong; his feelings for her were merely platonic.

And if for a moment in the moonlight he had let himself think otherwise, she knew that Sam Jackman the missionary would quell such feelings.

She was too young for him, and if ever he began to look for someone to marry, Adela, the would-be actress, would hardly be a suitable wife on an isolated mission.

Besides, she wasn’t ready for marriage either; she wanted a lot more fun and experience of life before that.

The world beyond school dazzled like the bright footlights of the stage, and she was impatient for it.

For the rest of the evening Adela threw herself into the dancing, accepting every invitation, even another waltz with Bracknall. She avoided Sam and wasn’t sure at what point he left the party.

‘He’s decided to travel back the night wi’ the moon being so bright,’ Boz explained. ‘Said tae thank you, but didn’t want to drag you away frae the dancing.’

Adela pretended not to care. There he was running away again, she thought in exasperation.

Perhaps he just didn’t need the company of other people in the way she did.

Sam was a puzzle. One minute he was open and friendly, the next impossible to fathom.

She gave up trying to work out what it all meant and went back to dance a military two-step with Boz.