The pretty witch

by Lucy Gillen

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  NIGEL stared at her blankly for a moment when Isobel told him about her sudden change of plan. 'He must be out of his mind,' he said. His reaction was not at all what she expected, in fact he seemed rather more outraged than pleased that she was coming with him after all. 'But isn't this what you wanted?' she said. 'It was only the other day that you were urging me to come with you.''I was also urging you to marry me,' Nigel retorted^ 'but quite frankly I didn't expect either thing to happen.' He eyed her for a few moments speculatively. 'I suppose it's too much to hope that that could materialize out of the blue as well, isn't it?' he asked hopefully. Isobel smiled slowly. 'I'm afraid it is,' she said. 'I have rather a lot on my mind at the moment.' She sat thoughtfully quiet for a while, then looked up at him curiously. 'Did you know that Lucifer's going to Italy?' she asked. 'Is he? It's the first I've heard of it,' he said. 'Gran doesn't know either, I'm sure, or she'd have said something.' 'He says he needs the break.''Oh, nonsense,' Nigel snorted. 'He's as tough as old boots, he never needs a break, and I doubt very much if Papa Bennetti will extend much of a welcome in the circs.' .Isobel pursed her lips. "You mean the young wife? she asked, and Nigel nodded, a malicious smile on his face. The beautiful young Gontessa,' he said. 'She's too young by all accounts for it to be safe to have Luke around in the place.' 182 Ts she so much younger than her husband?' Nigel laughed. 'She's only about thirty, according to Gran, and that's several years younger than Luke, let alone his father.' 'I see.' She thought about it for a while. 'He - he seems to be a man who likes younger women, doesn't he? Didn't you say your mother was only young when she married him?' 'She was seventeen and he was thirty,' Nigel said, his opinion of the match evident in his voice. 'No wonder it didn't last.' 'Oh, I don't think that's a likely reason for a marriage breaking up,' Isobel argued, without thinking of the consequences for the moment. 'Quite a few well-known people have married women much younger than themselves and it seems to work perfectly well.' I Nigel eyed her dubiously, obviously not liking her opinion. 'I'll take your word for it,' he told her shortly. Tve never studied the statistics.' Time had never passed so quickly as the last week at Kanderby Lodge did, and Isobel found it more and more difficult each day to adjust to the idea of leaving not only her job with Lucifer, but also her little cottage in the garden. Even the weather seemed to have turned sympathetically gloomy and huge, dark clouds sat ominously on the hills, threatening rain or worse. Lucifer remained quietly polite, even aloof by comparison with his former manner and Isobel told herself she should be glad to be leaving tomorrow. Only Nigel seemed really pleased that she was leaving, although he was still a bit annoyed that Lucifer had had the temerity to dismiss her so abruptly. On her last evening, she thought, Lucifer might perhaps be a little regretful because she was going, he 183 might even offer to take her to dinner as a sort of farewell present, but she was rather shattered to discover that he was leaving early to go out for the evening. She was still busy typing the last pages of the manuscript and he paused by her desk on his way out. 'I don't suppose I shall see you again,' he told her, his black eyes almost hidden under lowered lids as he towered above her. 'Unless,' he added with a wry smile, 'I meet you one of these days as my sister-in-law.' Isobel swallowed hard on the lump that rose in her throat and threatened to choke her words, or at least make her voice horribly husky and trembly. 'It's - it's possible,' she said. 'Nigel's very. persistent.' 'He's a good man, Isobel.' 'I know.' At one time, she thought, she would have been surprised at both the words and the seriousness with which he said them, now she merely accepted that he knew his brother possibly better than anyone did, and was. far more fond of him than he would have anyone believe. He proffered a hand and she put her own into it after only a brief hesitation. 'Addio, bella mia,' he said softly, and raised her fingers to his lips. 'Piccolo: 'Lucifer ' She looked up, but he was gone, and for several minutes she sat quite still all alone in die big room, her vision blurred by the big, warm tears that trembled on her lashes and rolled slowly down her cheeks.' Isobel went to her cottage quite early that night, she had little heart for the company of anyone and, as she told Nigel, she had to pack ready for leaving on Sunday. In reality she wanted to be alone, to think and to sort out the thoughts thaf tumbled chaotically over each other until her head spun with them. 184 The air was sultry, heavy with a threatened storm, and it was pitch dark once she had walked along the gravel path and the light from the house porch was hidden by the shrubbery, but she scarcely noticed. She knew her way along that piece of drive blindfold and needed no lights. .A faint distant rumble distracted her briefly and she pulled a wry face, shivering at the prospect of a storm before night was through. A thunderstorm was all she needed right now, she thought ruefully, and immediately remembered the last time there had been a thunderstorm. It seemed incredible that it was barely a month ago that she had crouched like a coward on the settee in the tiny sitting-room, hiding her head from the storm, but drawn to the door by the plaintive mewing of Vanessa Law's cat. Not only the cat had found its way into the cottage that night, but Lucifer as well, and she shook her head impatiently as she hurried down the last few feet of path to her cottage. Lucifer was a thing of the past and it was no use getting maudlin about things that were best forgotten. She finished her packing in a very short time, and wandered back into the sitting-room and sat down, shivering in a sudden chill as a distant rumble growled over the hills in warning. It would not be easy to settle down again to rooms in London after having had her own cottage, nor would the air smell as sweet through the open windows. She got up again, made restless by the storm as well as her own uneasy spirit. She opened the window wider and admitted the first heavy drops of rain that plopped on to.her hand that held the catch, cool and big as shillings, rattling like small pebbles on the leaves of the shrubs. Beyond the trees and bushes she glimpsed the first sear185 ing flash of lightning in the distant sky and felt die inevitable grip oi fear in the pit of her stomach. It -was still early enough for her to go back across to the house if she chose to, and sit in company with Nigel and Mrs. Grayson until the storm was over, but somehow she still preferred to be alone. She made coffee and found a magazine to read, and by the time she was on her second cup the storm was much closer and Nigel had still not come across to her. It had been rather a vain hope that he would, and she was even unsure if she wanted him to come, but it would have been a welcome gesture of understanding. By just after eleven o'clock the little cottage was shaking with the fury of the storm and by some miracle she had managed not to hide her head in the cushions. She felt her knees trembling as she got to her feet, and gasped aloud when the streaming windows were suddenly brilliantly lit by a vivid slash of light that crackled and cracked, and for a brief second illuminated the path outside and the shining wet shrubs. Tense and holding her breath for fear, she waited for the roll of thunder to follow, but not only for that. In that split second of illumination she had seen something move against the shining wet background of leaves, some dark shape that vanished when darkness fell again. The shuddering roar of thunder and some other sound, barely heard above the racket, sounded almost as one as she swiftly put her hands to her ears, then lowered them slowly when the thunder died and left the other, sharper sound still rat-tatting impatiently on her door. For a moment her legs refused to carry her even that short distance, and then suddenly, some heart-stopping skip of elation ran through her body and she found herself running to the door. The catch at first behaved clumsily in her fingers and she wrestled with it im186 patiently, then at last it opened and she flung the door wide to admit the man on the step. His black hair flopped wetly over his forehead and his jacket was soaked across the shoulders, the dark face glistening in the light of the hall. Isobel closed the door carefully after him and followed him into the sittingroom, her heart hammering unbearably against her ribs and the blood singing through her veins until her whole body glowed with it. He turned when he reached the fireplace, and looked at her. 'I couldn't leave you alone in this,-'
he said, and Isobel felt the tears blind her for a second before they rolled warmly down her cheeks. 'I - I'm glad you came.' It sounded so ridiculously formal saying it like that, but he knew how much she meant it and his arms reached out for her, pulling her close against the dampness of his coat. His lips brushed gently against her forehead and he laughed softly above her head. 'Did you use your powers of witchcraft to lure me here?' he asked. 'Yes.' She snuggled closer to him as an angry roar shook the cottage. 'I called up the storm devils and told them to bring you to me.' He held her away from him, his black eyes glowing like coals in the yellow light, and Isobel felt the pulse in her temple racing wildly as she looked up at him. 'I have no right here, carissma: He was suddenly very serious, and she feared he might have second thoughts and leave again, so that she clung to him tightly, her huge eyes wide and anxious. 'I have no right here at all. If Nigel had been here I'd have turned back and never seen you again, but he wasn't.' She shook her head. 'He didn't come,' she said. f! thought he might, now that he knows I don't like storms, but he didn't come.' 187 He looked at her for a while in silence, then a hand gently touclied her face, and she leaned her clieek against it. 'You're very beautiful,' he said softly, 'and very, very young.' Isobel shook her head, her eyes shining darkly grey, quite sure of her own feelings now. 'I'm old enough to know my own mind,' she told him, and he smiled. 'Are you, carissima7' 'Quite old enough,' she insisted firmly, and he pulled her close again and kissed her mouth lightly. 'I've been quite sure how I felt ever since I ' She stopped short and he cocked a curious brow at her. When?' he asked quietly. 'Ever since you saw that drawing of yourself in my bedroom?' He laughed when she stared at him wide-eyed. 'How on earth did you know about that?' she asked. 'Easy.' His eyes teased her gently. 'Firstly Beppo saw you walking away from the open door, and secondly I knew you'd been up to something when you asked me so pointedly about having lost the drawing.' ^ 'Oh, you ' She pouted her mouth at him reproachfully. He was sober again suddenly, looking at her in a way that made her heart do crazy things. 'It was the hardest thing I ever did in my life saying good-bye to you,' he told her. 'But I should have kept to my vow and gone away without seeing you again. It would have been easier.' She stared up at him. 'You - you're not going now?' He sighed. 'I should, bella mia. I'm not a very desirable character, you know.' 'You are to me!' She held on to him tightly. 'I don't care how many - how many girl-friends you've had in the past.' It sounded rather childishly prissy put like that and she was not at all surprised when he smiled in something i88 of the old, familiar way, mocking her reticence. 'Oh, you do make it sound so very polite, my darling,' he told her, and she looked at him reproachfully. 'Lucifer, will you stop treating me like a child?' she said firmly. 'I'm not a child, you know.' He said nothing, but pulled her so close to him that she could feel his heartbeat as plainly as her own, and his mouth was warm and strong, and as gentle as she remembered it from what seemed like a lifetime ago. Then he put her from him, shaking his head slowly. 'Oh, Isobel, bella mia, you can so easily make me forget what I should do.' His hands caressed her cheeks softly, the black eyes unbelievably gentle as he looked down at her. 'I swore I wouldn't let this happen, and now ' He shrugged lightly. 'I told myself there were so many reasons why I had no right to love you, and that I'm old enough not to reform easily.' 'Do- you want to reform?' she asked softly, and he nodded. 'I think I do, car a mia. For you I'd try very hard.' Isobel lifted her face and kissed the firm strong mouth gently. 'Don't change too much, darling Lucifer,' she said. She understood nothing of the soft, lyrical words that were whispered softly against her ear, but their meaning was plain enough and she raised her head at last to smile up at him. 'You must teach me Italian,' she told him, 'then I can understand all those beautiful words you say.' 'Of course I shall teach you.' He kissed her mouth, and her throat, closing her eyes with the gentle pressure of his lips before he held her against him tightly. It would never do if the Contessa Bennetti couldn't speak at least some oFher husband's language, would it?' 189 'Gontessa?' She looked up again hastily. 'Oh, yes, of course I'd forgotten about you being your father's only son.' She considered the idea for a moment, uncertain suddenly of her own capabilities as a countess. 'Oh, Lucifer, suppose ' 'Suppose you .say you'll marry me?' he said, kissing the tip of her nose. 'I love you. God help me, but I shall probably hate myself in the morning for being so selfish as to ask you to marry me, so please say you will before you have second thoughts too. Will you marry me, piccola?' 'Of course I will,' Isobel told him calmly. 'I love you.' He looked down at her, at the huge, shiny grey eyes and the slightly dishevelled golden head that barely reached his chest. 'You're a witch,' he informed her solemnly. 'A pretty little grey-eyed witch, and you brew such powerful magic that I never really had a chance.' Strong gentle fingers lifted her. face to him and as he kissed her again, neither of them noticed that the storm had passed them by overhead. tQO