Ellie Pride (41 page)
‘I’ll find her for you, Ellie.’
Ellie looked at him. Something seemed to quiver in the air between them, something soft and sweet.
Gideon looked at Ellie. He couldn’t find the words to tell her what it had meant to him to hear her saying that she wanted to acknowledge him as Richard’s father. He was already fiercely proud of his son and wished passionately that Mary
might have lived to see him. And it wasn’t just his son who filled his heart with emotion, Gideon acknowledged.
Clearing his throat, he began, ‘I heard what you were saying to your aunt the day you went into labour with Richard. Ellie, I own that I have misjudged you – not made allowances for your youth or the pressure your family put on you. There are many wrongs between us that perhaps cannot be righted, but if they could be, is it possible…could we…You are a very special woman, Ellie Pride. Aye, and you carry that name deservedly, for if ever a woman had the right to be proud, Ellie, it is you. You are a woman it would be very easy for a man to love if he were allowed to do so, Ellie, especially this man! I know I have not always treated you as I should – indeed, I am ashamed that I –’
Ellie didn’t want to see him humble himself any further. Instinctively she knew what he was trying to say to her but, like him, she had been hurt and had grown cautious.
‘I’ll thank you to remember, Gideon Walker,’ she announced determinedly, ‘that I am not Ellie Pride any longer. I am Mrs Gideon Walker, and proud to be so. Very proud to be so. In fact, I am more proud to be your wife than I am of anything else I have ever done,’ she told him softly, whilst tears shimmered in her eyes.
‘Ellie!’ She heard Gideon’s groan and barely had time to put the baby down before she was in Gideon’s arms, held fast there whilst he rained
eager kisses on her face, before finally taking her mouth in a kiss of fierce possessive passion.
Ellie’s lips trembled beneath his, passive and soft, whilst his own hardened in pent-up demand. ‘Ellie!’
He breathed her name and suddenly she was a girl again, her body coming alive for him, wanting him, her emotions filled by him.
Her lips parted, and Gideon seized his opportunity. It was only the sudden lusty cry of their son that brought an end to their passionate kiss.
‘I love you, Ellie Walker,’ Gideon told her softly. ‘Before, I loved you with a boy’s love, and with a boy’s foolish pride, but now I love you with a man’s love, and with a man’s humble recognition of his good fortune in loving such a special woman.’
‘Oh, Gideon, you cannot know what it means to me to hear you say such words. I have been so unhappy without you, even though I would not let myself acknowledge it,’ Ellie admitted huskily.
‘You will never be unhappy again,’ Gideon said to her fiercely. ‘I promise you that.’
I would like to thank the following for their invaluable help:
Lynne Drew, who gave me the opportunity to write this book.
Maxine Hitchcock, Jo Craig and Yvonne Holland, my editors and my support system.
My brother for providing me with our family tree.
My parents who giving me so much information about Preston.
Tony without whose driving I could not have done my research in Liverpool and Preston.
And last, but certainly not least, my fellow writers and friends for supporting me through
Ellie Pride
’s birth pangs.
ELLIE PRIDE
Annie Groves lives in the North-West and has done so all of her life. This is her first saga, for which she has drawn upon her own family’s history, picked up from listening to her grandmother’s stories when she was a child. Her grandmother’s great pride in her hometown – Preston – inspired Annie when naming her heroine, who is also a butcher’s daughter, just like Annie’s grandmother was.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
HarperCollins
Publishers
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Published by HarperCollins
Publishers
2003
Copyright © Annie Groves 2003
Annie Groves asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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EPub Edition © JULY 2010 ISBN: 978-0-007-39787-7
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