The Runaway Heart

by Barbara Cartland

  Miss Weston looked round in surprise.

  “No, of course not. Mr. Holt is leaving for India, that’s all.”

  “For India!”

  Karina thought her voice sounded almost shrill in her astonishment.

  “Yes, he had a cable this morning and decided to fly out right away. I shall be with him until he leaves, of course. Now, what I want you to do is to telephone all those people and say that Mr. Holt will be away for a week, but will be in touch with them immediately on his return. Is that clear?”

  “Yes,” Karina said, “quite clear.”

  She took her notebook into the outer office and, picking up Miss Weston’s address book, sat down at her own desk. But somehow she could not find the numbers she sought. They seemed to swim before her eyes.

  She could think of only one thing – Garland was going away. He was going to India and she would not see him today.

  She felt suddenly flat, as if all the energy and spirit had been taken from her body. She had been keyed up to meet him, buoyed up by her pride and her determination not to run away. And now it was all unnecessary.

  Miss Weston came out of the inner office, closed the door and said,

  “Get through to those people as soon as you can. If you cannot speak to them personally, speak to their private secretaries and say, of course, that Mr. Holt regrets very much to have to postpone his engagement. There is no need for me to tell you that.”

  “No, of course not,” Karina murmured.

  But Miss Weston had not waited to hear her reply. She had gone and Karina was alone in the office. She sat for some moments staring ahead of her.

  She was conscious of feeling strange in some manner that she had never felt before.

  Then, with an effort, she picked up the telephone and began her task of working through the names on her list.

  It took her over an hour and she had just finished when the telephone rang.

  She picked it up.

  “Good morning, my dear”

  “Oh, it’s you, Cousin Felix.”

  “Whom did you expect?”

  “Nobody. I was just surprised when I recognised your voice.”

  “Will you come and lunch with me today? I want to talk to you.”

  “Thank you. I would like to very much.”

  Even as she spoke she knew that she did not really want to lunch with Cousin Felix and then chided herself for being ungrateful and ridiculous.

  “I will pick you up at one o’clock.”

  “Thank you.”

  There seemed to be nothing else for her to do now that Miss Weston had gone and she was waiting on the steps downstairs when Felix drove up in a taxi.

  “Cars are too much of a nuisance in these crowded streets,” he said. “Come along, I have booked a table in a new place that has just opened. I am told that the food is delicious.”

  The restaurant was only a few minutes’ drive from the office and as they went Karina thanked Felix for the dress and told him whom they had dined with the night before.

  After they had arrived and Felix had ordered what seemed to Karina a very large meal, he leant back against the red plush sofa and said,

  “Now tell me about the office. How are you getting on?”

  “I have not had very much to do yet,” Karina said. “And this morning everything was upset because Mr. Holt is going to India.”

  “To India?” Felix enquired almost sharply.

  Karina nodded.

  “Yes, it was quite unexpected. Miss Weston arrived late and said that he had received a cable that necessitated him flying out this afternoon. So the only thing I had to do was to put off all his appointments for next week.”

  Felix did not answer for a moment and then he said,

  “There must have been quite a number of them.”

  “It took me over an hour.”

  “And who were they?”

  Karina was just going to tell him when suddenly she stopped. Surely, she thought, it would be a breach of confidence to relate details of your employer’s engagements to someone outside the firm.

  “Oh, they were just business people,” she said vaguely.

  “Of course, but what business people?” Felix enquired. “I am interested.”

  There was something in the way he spoke, although his words were light enough, that made Karina feel quite certain that he was really anxious to know the answer to his question.

  She felt her heart give a little frightened throb as she answered,

  “I don’t think, Cousin Felix, that I ought to tell you.”

  “Why not?”

  She had not expected him to challenge her and she answered, faltering a little,

  “Well, I-I was doing something that – only concerned Mr. Holt and Miss Weston, his private secretary – ”

  Her voice trailed away.

  Felix was looking at her in a manner that seemed to take the very words from her lips.

  “Listen, Karina,” he said and his voice was smooth and low but with steel beneath it. “You and I are in this together. I have helped you in a dangerous and difficult moment of your life. Had I not come to Letchfield Park, have you thought what you would be doing at this moment?”

  He paused to let his words sink in and then he added,

  “You would be married to your cousin Cyril, a man who is mental! A marriage that would certainly not have brought you happiness but only revulsion and horror.”

  “Yes, yes, I know,” Karina said quickly, “and I am grateful, you know I am grateful.”

  “Then I am suggesting that you should prove your gratitude,” Felix went on, “by not arguing with me when I ask you a trivial and ordinary question. There is nothing fundamentally wrong in telling me who Garland would be lunching and dining with this next week. Indeed, I am sure that he would be the last person to keep it a secret. But I am interested in what would have been his movements and I wish you to tell me exactly whom you telephoned to this morning.”

  Karina felt almost faint. This was wrong!

  She knew it was wrong and yet how could she refuse to answer Felix?

  And then before she could reply he went on,

  “Have you forgotten, my dear, that you are not yet twenty-one? If you regret my knight-errantry, if you prefer to return home, then I am sure that you will find Cyril waiting for you with open arms.”

  It was a threat and Karina knew it.

  “Please, Cousin Felix! Please don’t frighten me. It’s – quite unnecessary. I will tell you – what you want to know.”

  “Good!”

  There was a glint of triumph in Felix’s eyes, but there was too a cruel twist at the corners of his mouth as if in some way he enjoyed torturing her. He took a shiny gold pencil from his pocket and a neat leather notebook with gold edges.

  Slowly he took down the names, one by one, while Karina felt with every one she uttered that she was soiled and tarnished.

  “Is that all?” Felix asked.

  “That is all,” she answered.

  “Thank you, my dear. Don’t look so tragic about it. You have not betrayed the secrets of the nation of a foreign power. You have only told me what Garland himself would have told me had I asked him.”

  Karina doubted this, but there was nothing she could say. Miserably she drank her coffee and, glancing at her watch, said that it was time for her to return to the office.

  “Thank you for my lunch,” she murmured to Felix.

  He made no offer to take her back to her office, but watched her walk away while he stood on the steps of the restaurant waiting for a taxi.

  Alone in the office, Karina saw the list of names lying on her desk and wondered why she had felt so guilty in giving them to Felix. After all, as he had said, there was nothing particularly secret about them. There was no reason why Garland should not lunch with a businessman without it involving in any way high finance or special secret negotiations.

  Why, why, should she feel so upset? Why did she know inst
inctively that something was wrong? Restlessly and, because she had nothing to do, she rose and opened the door of the inner office and went in.

  It was furnished very simply with a grey carpet, deep maroon-coloured chairs and grey curtains over wide modern windows. There was nothing very individual, nothing very distinctive about it and yet it seemed to Karina in that moment to be redolent with the dynamic personality of Garland Holt.

  It was then, as she stood there in the door, seeming to see him seated at the desk, his hand stretching out towards the telephone, that she knew that she loved him.

  It came to her in a sudden flash almost like a clap of thunder.

  She felt too as if a streak of lightning passed through her body, making her quiver and tremble so that she went forward a few steps to hold blindly onto the back of a chair.

  She loved him? It was not possible. It was incredible, absurd and ridiculous – and yet she realised that it was the truth!

  She knew now why the hard pressure of his lips was still on hers, why all day she had felt her heart beating strangely and in a turbulent manner beneath her breast and why the thought that she would not see him had sent her suddenly into the depths of despair.

  “I love him! I love him!”

  She said it aloud and hoped that it was not true, but her body quivered and she knew that it was indeed the truth.

  She must have loved him even while she had been protesting to his grandmother that he was the last man in the world she would marry.

  She must have loved him when he carried her up the stairs to her bedroom and she had felt safe and secure because of his strength and the hard pressure of his arms.

  She had loved him while she defied him. She had loved him even while she hated him. It was mad, crazy, ridiculous! she told herself and then knew that nothing altered the fact that she still loved him.

  And now, in her love, she knew why she had resented Felix’s curiosity. It was for fear that Felix, with his hard cruel lips and shrewd eyes, could hurt Garland.

  It was a ridiculous thought. How could anyone hurt the great, all-conquering, invincible Garland Holt?

  And yet, because of her love, she wanted to protect him.

  ‘I must go away,’ Karina said to herself. ‘If I stay here, I shall make a fool of myself.’

  She thought of all the other women who had loved Garland and from whom he had fled, sneering at them and laughing at them, all too conscious that they pursued him.

  Karina vowed that she would never be like one of them.

  She could see Lady Carol, with her beautiful much-photographed face and exquisite expensive clothes. If Garland did not love her, was it likely he would be interested in a rather boring little typist who had been foisted on him by a man he did not like?

  Karina gave a little sob because it was all so hopeless – to love a man who was pursued by every woman in the land because he was so rich and who had already made it quite clear that he was interested in none of them.

  And yet, she thought, he had asked her out last night.

  That, of course, was to spite Jim, who, for some reason, had incurred his anger.

  But he had kissed her good night. For a moment she closed her eyes, feeling again that kiss, that rough, possessive, passionate kiss, which had left her breathless and shaky.

  She knew now that her love for him, smouldering secretly within her, had burst into flame the very moment that he had touched her.

  She knew now that the sudden arrow that had seemed to pierce her had been, in fact, an awakening to the realisation of her love, although she had not known it at the time.

  All night long she had lain awake trying to feel angry, trying to feel incensed at what had occurred and all the time denying the truth.

  ‘I love him! I love him!’

  She went across to the window and rested her head against the softness of the curtains. The sunshine was on her eyes, blinding them. She was glad of it.

  She did not want to see anything but Garland’s face, Garland’s smile, Garland looking angry, Garland being sarcastic and sneering, Garland bitter and vindictive, Garland being gentle, kind and understanding.

  At his best or at his worst she still loved him.

  How long she stood there she had no idea. Time must have gone by on silent feet, for she suddenly awoke to the fact that the sun had disappeared behind the clouds and early darkness was beginning to seep into the streets.

  It was then that the door opened and Beth said,

  “Miss Weston wants to speak to you. Did you not hear your telephone ring?”

  Karina came back to reality from a world that contained only Garland Holt.

  “N-no, no, I’m a-afraid I didn’t,” she stammered.

  “Well, you must be deaf,” Beth said cheerily. “You had better speak to her, and hurry, she will be in an awful bat otherwise.”

  Karina ran to her own desk and picked up the telephone.

  “Is that you, Miss Burke?” Miss Weston’s voice asked. “Where have you been?”

  “I am so sorry,” Karina said. “I was tidying some papers”

  “Well, I rang to tell you that I am not coming back to the office this afternoon. I have just seen Mr. Holt off and I can do what he wants done today at home, so if you have nothing to do you can go early. We shall very likely have to work late tomorrow.”

  “Thank you, Miss Weston.”

  She was trying to take in what Miss Weston was telling her, but all the time she was conscious of only one piece of information – Garland had gone.

  She imagined him flying away in the Comet, up into the skies, away from England – away from her!

  “Please be punctual in the morning,” Miss Weston was saying.

  “Yes, of course,” Karina replied.

  The line went dead. Automatically she covered her typewriter and, putting on her hat and coat, went from the office with only a brief word of farewell to Beth.

  She took a bus part of the way and walked the rest, but all the time she was hardly conscious of the people around her, jostling, hurrying and struggling to go home.

  She was lost in her own thoughts and in her own feelings.

  She was just passing through one of the larger squares North of Marble Arch when suddenly she heard an exclamation and her name called out.

  “Karina!”

  Awakening from her reverie, she turned her head and saw with a sudden sense of panic that, blindly engrossed in her own thoughts, she had walked slap into Uncle Simon!

  He was standing there, looking, she thought, extraordinarily fierce, his bushy eyebrows bristling under his bowler hat, his rolled umbrella held almost like a weapon.

  “Karina,” he said again and the very name seemed to her an accusation. “You nearly bumped into me.”

  “I am – I am so sorry,” she said, her eyes wide with fright, wondering whether she should run or stay.

  “Well, it’s dangerous to go about like that,” Uncle Simon said. “You might get run over.”

  “Yes – yes, I know,” Karina replied.

  “Well, how are you getting on?”

  She stared at him in utter astonishment.

  She had expected many things but not this.

  “Getting on?” she echoed, feeling almost like a village idiot as she repeated his words.

  “Yes, Felix told us that he had arranged a job for you in an office. How do you like it?”‘

  “Felix told you?”

  Karina could hardly get the words out.

  “Yes, yes, of course,” Uncle Simon said testily. He had always disliked people who were slow-brained. “Felix told, us that you were with – er – er – Holt, yes, that was the name. I have heard of him, of course. Is he a decent sort of chap?”

  “Yes, q-quite decent.”

  “Good, and you like the work? Your Aunt Margaret was convinced that you would want to give it up at the end of a week.”

  “No, I-I like it very much,” Karina stammered.

  “That’s go
od,” Uncle Simon remarked.

  He seemed to hesitate and suddenly, to Karina’s surprise, she realised that he was embarrassed.

  “Glad you are all right,” he said at length a little gruffly. “Sorry you had to take the bit between your teeth and bolt as you did. Had no idea until you had gone that you did not want to marry the boy. Daresay we took too much for granted, eh?”

  He was making an apology. Karina knew that and impulsively she put out her hands towards him.

  “Oh, Uncle Simon, you are not angry?”

  “Angry? Of course not,” he said quickly. “Taken aback when you disappeared! When Felix explained things, we realised that you were far too young! Hadn’t seen enough of the world. Well, let’s know how you get on. Your aunt would appreciate a letter from you now and again.”

  As if he felt that he had said too much, or perhaps too little, he raised his hat and stumped off down the road, leaving her staring after him, hardly able to comprehend what he had said.

  Felix had told them all the time! They had not been looking for her. She need not have been afraid.

  Yet only today at lunch she could see Felix’s eyes and the sharp line of his mouth as he threatened her. She could hear her own voice saying,

  “Please, Cousin Felix, please don’t frighten me.”

  Uncle Simon was almost out of sight. She had an impulse to run after him and to tell him just how treacherous Cousin Felix had been. And then she checked herself. If she said too much, he would obviously press her to return home.

  That was one thing she could never do. She could not face Cyril again and she had the feeling that Aunt Margaret might not be as amenable as Uncle Simon.

  But why the lies? Why the continual hints and innuendoes that she must be careful, that she must keep out of sight and that she was not yet twenty-one? What was Felix doing? What was his point in behaving in this extraordinary way?

  She walked home, bemused and worried, to hear Mrs. Carter calling her even as she opened the door.

  “Is that you, Miss Burke? There’s a gentleman rung up three times. He said he missed you at the office.”

  “What’s his name?” Karina asked.

  “Mr. Holt.”

  Just for a moment her heart gave a silly jump and then she knew that it was Jim who had called her, just as she had expected he would.