Dangerous Love

by Jane Beaufort

  Jennifer smiled at him brilliantly.

  “I can trust you,” she assured him, “and Susan isn’t really the nervous type. Besides, we’ve heard nothing against your driving.”

  “You surprise me,” he drawled.

  At Susan’s elbow Bruce Fairburn said rather eagerly:

  “If you don’t like riding, Miss Willowfield, perhaps you like country walks? I’m a good walker....”

  “And talker,” Justin amplified. “Remember that a bachelor can always find a good use for twenty thousand pounds, Susan, so don’t let him talk you out of yours!”

  Susan turned away, loathing him for his unending innuendo, and amazed that Jennifer had apparently become putty in his hands. Looking definitely petulant Rosalie dragged at his arm, clasping it with her two slender hands and impelling him away from the others.

  “You’re putting unimportant things before important ones!” she protested. “Let’s go and telephone my mother, and she can send off that announcement to The Times'”

  Sir Justin stared down at her rather strangely, one eyebrow lifting a little peculiarly, while his lips curved one-sidedly.

  “The Times?” he echoed softly, “Oh, yes, of course, the announcement in The Times! That is the one thing we mustn’t neglect to do!”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Jennifer had particularly satisfactory explanation to offer of the reason why she had practically grasped at the invitation to stay at Storr, not only for herself but for Susan; but she did repeat that she thought it absurd to pay hotel bills when one could have free board and lodging, and added rather obscurely that it was always a good thing to beard the lion in his own den.

  “If by the ‘lion’ you mean Justin Storr, then I’d be happy if I never saw him again,” Susan said, as she secured the lock of her own suit-case. (She seemed to do nothing but pack and repack these days, she thought.) “I am firmly convinced that he is a singularly unpleasant man, and having known his uncle I am sure that he thought so, too!”

  “Ah! . . . But you can’t be absolutely certain of that,” Jennifer remarked, folding a crisp navy-blue and white grosgrain suit and lowering it into her case. “Sometimes people refrain from discussing someone else for reasons that have nothing to do with disapproval. And he did leave him the bulk of his fortune. He could have let him inherit the title, and even Storr, and let someone else have the money—even an institution if he felt so strongly!”

  “But what about my experience?” Susan asked quietly. “It wasn’t pleasant, was it?”

  Jennifer shrugged her shoulders.

  “Maybe he had the wrong ideas about you, too—you rather inferred that he had.”

  “He was insulting.” Susan felt herself shaking a little at the memory. “And he hoped to make a complete fool of me on Lady Luck.”

  “But that was better than breaking your neck for you, darling,” Jennifer said soothingly. “I’m sure he didn’t really wish you to break your neck, because that would have involved him in all sorts of unpleasant repercussions. And there was no real reason why he should desire you to break your neck.”

  “Wasn’t there?” But Susan felt doubtful. A moment of sheer

  malice.... Wouldn’t that be enough?

  “For some extraordinary reason I’m simply dying to see Storr,” Jennifer admitted, and it was about four o’clock in the afternoon when she did see it. They had driven down in two cars, Sir Justin at the wheel of the one that contained his fiancee—the engagement announcement having been sent to The Times, and promptly appeared in it, they were now officially engaged—her mother, and an elderly admirer of the widowed Mrs. Freer. Bruce Fairburn drove Susan and Jennifer, and the vacant space in their car was occupied by Bruce’s sealyham, who quickly vacated it and licked Susan’s face most of the way down.

  They stopped for lunch in Newbury, and then as the last day of February was drawing to its close arrived at the gates of Storr Hall. Once more Susan found herself peeping eagerly to get a first glimpse of the house, and beside her Jennifer did the same. She murmured approvingly.

  “I don’t often get hunches, but when I do I like to obey them,” she confessed. “It was a hunch that we should come down here together, and now I know I’m going to be charmed by your enemy’s country domain. So long as he doesn’t sell it, or attempt to sell it, I’ll forgive him anything.”

  “But it’s entailed!” Susan spoke quickly. “It’s been in the Storr family for generations, and of course he couldn’t sell it!” “That’s what I mean,” Jennifer said calmly. ‘There’s a feeling of continuity about it, a feeling of solidity and security and perpetuity—and home!” she added quietly. “I shall never own anything like it, but I’d like to think that someone near and dear to me might! A kind of insurance against a lonely old age!”

  After which obscure observation—and she seemed to be addicted to obscure observations lately—she stepped out on to the drive and stretched herself. Bliss had the great front door wide open, and firelight was flickering in the hall, and the scent of the massed flowers ordered by Sir Justin seemed to steal out and greet them in the dusk. Susan looked upwards and saw that a star was shining close to one of the irregular chimney-stacks, and she knew that it was reflected in the lake, and beyond the lake there were the shadowy woods on the opposite shore. And

  she knew that spring was just around the corner....

  If only—if only she had the real right to live at Storr! ... As Jennifer had said, what a place to come home to!

  But Rosalie Freer was not even aware of a passing admiration for Storr as she, too, stepped out on to the drive. A waiter whom she had been apostrophising as horribly clumsy all the way from Newbury had dropped some soup on her lap at the hotel where they had had lunch, and both she and her mother were ready to cry with vexation because the skirt of her elegant light wool suit bore one or two unmistakable marks. Mrs. Freer was the more upset, because the suit was not yet paid for, and one could never tell whether cleaners would rise to the occasion or not. And she had such a pile of bills to settle when Rosalie married her next-door-to-a-millionaire fiance that it was a sobering thought—actually, a petrifying thought! —that in a world where nothing was ever quite decided until it was an established fact something could happen to prevent the marriage! That horrible saying about “many a slip twixt the cup and the lip” could become quite a nightmare if one allowed oneself to dwell on it!

  And, of course, nothing must happen to prevent Rosalie marrying Justin! Now that the announcement had actually appeared in The Times Mrs. Freer felt that she could breathe more easily, but not exactly freely.

  “Never mind, darling,” she said to her daughter, as she dabbed once more ineffectually at the despoiled skirt as they stood together in front of the house where Rosalie would soon be the acknowledged mistress. “Mrs. Hollyhead is very clever at such a lot of things that I’m sure she’ll be able to get it out for you. And if not we’ll send it away to London. . . . But I do wish it wasn’t quite such an expensive model!” sighing.

  Rosalie seemed to realise that Justin had heard quite enough of her skirt for one afternoon, and she could sense rather than see that his lips were a little tight as he stood beside them on the drive. She turned and clung to his arm affectionately.

  “Darling, it’s so good to be here!” she assured him, softly, sending a belatedly admiring glance up at the front of the house. “Like coming home at last! . . .” her voice growing even softer.

  Susan handed over Blobs, Bruce Fairburn’s sealyham, and followed the rest of them into the house. Justin awaited her at the foot of the stairs, and he bowed ironically.

  “Welcome to Storr, Miss Willowfield!” he said. “I hope that this time you will not find it necessary to curtail your visit!”

  Rosalie glanced down impatiently from somewhere near the head of the stairs.

  “I suppose I've been given the White Room, as usual, Justin?” she called. “And Mummy likes the outlook from the Jade Room, so she must have it! If anyone else
has been put in there I’m afraid Holly will have to do some rearranging!”

  Justin looked upwards at his fiancee, and for an instant his eyes were veiled.

  “You forget, my sweet,” he drawled, “that for the time being this house belongs to Miss Willowfield, and she—and she alone! —has the right to make dispositions where bedrooms are concerned!”

  Although still at the foot of the stairs Susan could clearly see the rush of colour that swept up into Rosalie’s cheeks.

  “What nonsense!” she scoffed. “That joke has gone far enough, and I for one am getting a bit tired of it! If Miss Willowfield wants to stay here, well I suppose she can do so.... But you said yourself it’s an impossible situation! Sir Adrian probably meant that she could have a kind of flat here, or something. . . . There must be lots of rooms you never use, which could be fitted up for her. Or what about the gardener’s cottage?”

  “At the present moment the gardener’s cottage is empty,” Justin replied very quietly. “And at the present moment,” he added, still more quietly, “Miss Willowfield is my guest!”

  Rosalie flounced round to face the housekeeper, who was endeavouring to explain the arrangements she had made.

  “Then what’s all the fuss about?” the petulant beauty demanded. “If Miss Willowfield’s a guest she’ll sleep where she’s put, and there’s no question of her telling me where I’m to sleep! And my mother can only sleep on the south-west corner of the house, Mrs. Hollyhead,” she said decisively to

  the housekeeper.

  “That’s perfectly all right, Miss Freer,” Mrs. Hollyhead returned, almost soothingly. “You are to have the room you usually occupy, and Mrs. Freer will also have the room to which she has become accustomed. I have put Miss Willowfield in the Sprigged Room once more, because she expressed a liking for it, and your friend,” turning and smiling at Susan, “is to have the room next door. I thought you might find it pleasant to be close to one another.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Hollyhead,” Susan said gratefully, but her own colour was almost painfully high as she went on up the stairs to her room. And she rigidly avoided even glancing at Sir Justin. The blood was leaping along all her veins, in a kind of futile rage, but it was on Jennifer whom she vented it when they were alone in the Sprigged Room.

  Jennifer was going round examining the furniture, and exclaiming at the beauty of the carved bed-posts. Susan sat on a kind of stool at the foot of it.

  “Why,” she demanded, “why did I allow you to bring me down here once more? This house makes me feel like an under-housemaid whom Sir Adrian has promoted to the status of a lady-of-means! Or, worse than that—like someone from the back row of a very doubtful chorus, whom nothing will ever rescue from the taint of being what I was!”

  Jennifer nodded.

  “Yes, I do see a little of what you mean! But right is might, you know, and you have a right here.”

  “I’m getting out as quickly as possible, and this time nothing will induce me to enter the place again.” She removed one of her soft suede gloves and maltreated it so severely that it was reduced to a rag-like consistency. “Sir Justin has found little difficulty in persuading his fiancee to assist him in the task of humiliating me at every turn, and it’s going to be grand fun for them—with victory at the end of it all! I wonder why Sir Adrian thought it necessary to subject me to such a humbling experience?”

  Her lower lip quivered a little, and Jennifer, who was several years older, and prided herself on avoiding the distorted view

  of most things, came across and laid a hand on her shoulder.

  “I don’t think you’re one hundred per cent right, you know,” she said slowly. “Sir Justin may have a bad reputation, but I have the feeling he wouldn’t deliberately insult a guest whom he had invited to his house. And he stated quite definitely that you are his guest!”

  Susan glanced at the wreck of her gloves without seeing it. “Whatever he stated, I’m leaving here to-morrow! Possibly the Red Lion can have us, or we’ll get taken in somewhere. I don’t want to deprive you of your stay in the country.”

  Jennifer looked slightly abstracted.

  “I wonder where this gardener’s cottage is Miss Freer mentioned? We’ll have to have a look at it . . . .” She squeezed Susan’s shoulder. “That young woman isn’t mistress here yet, and maybe she won’t always occupy the White Room. It sounds a bit colourless, anyway!” She mimicked Rosalie: “‘My mother can only sleep on the south-west corner of the house. . . ’ What a pair they are, with an over-draft at the bank that would frighten a self-respecting member of the proletariat, I’ll warrant! And I’ve no doubt Lady Freer has threatened to wash her hands of the girl if she doesn’t marry suitably soon.”

  Susan said nothing, not caring greatly just then whether anybody married anybody again, and wishing she was anywhere but where she was. But Jennifer opened one of her cases for her and told her she was to put on her best bib-and-tucker for the evening ahead of them, and look like a young woman who had a solid twenty thousand in the bank.

  “Not an over-draft, remember,” she said meaningly, and went into the glittering bathroom to run the taps for her, Mrs. Hollyhead being very fully occupied with the Freer mother and daughter.

  But Susan could not rid herself of the feeling of rebellion and depression because she had once more allowed herself to be placed in a situation that was rather like the situation of an exposed archer, with no barbs left in his quiver. And not even the white lace dress she wore to go down to dinner, simply but beautifully made as it was, and the feel of her mother’s pearls once more snugly fitting her throat, could give her any confidence.

  At dinner she had Bruce Fairburn on her left hand, and he did his utmost to lift her out of her depression. His eyes told her, every time she encountered them, that she pleased him very much indeed, but somehow it did little to boost her morale. At the head of the table the host watched her occasionally, and the expression in his eyes was rather more thoughtful than derisive—but occasionally it was derisive, especially when she hastily, and quite noticeably, averted her head from him.

  On his right hand he had Rosalie, in rose brocade with a golden thread running through it, her long, lovely fingernails rose-coloured also, her mouth like an opening rose. Susan had never seen quite such a perfect skin as she possessed, ivory pale with a lovely colour that flooded the cheekbones, and her eyes were so beautiful that even if they had been her only attribute they would have made her quite unforgettable.

  She had learned to use them—or she had practised using them—in a way that emphasised their witchery; and combined with her silky mop of black curls they created an illusion of an irresistible witch. She was much taller than Susan, although slightly less tall than Jennifer, and it was obvious she would look well in the saddle. And in spite of the beauty of her hands they were the strong hands of one who had ridden to hounds since childhood.

  Susan felt a strange desire to see her on Lady Luck, and she knew that once she had done so her own performance on that ill-fated morning when the chestnut had contemptuously flung her over her head would start to become a canker in her breast. It would make her despise herself even more than she did as she sat there at the dinner-table.

  Before dinner, in the drawing-room with its Aubusson carpet, its Chinese lacquered cabinets full of Sevres and Minton and Spode, its exquisite flower-pieces on the white-panelled walls, and its soft lighting and beautifully arranged fresh flower arrangements—such as cascades of golden mimosa and white lilac from the South of France, filling the air with an intoxicating perfume—Susan had refused an aperitif at the hands of her host. She had said primly that she didn’t wish

  anything to drink, and after dinner she refused coffee when he brought it to her.

  He offered her his cigarette-case.

  “A cigarette?”

  She shook her head.

  “No, thank you. I don’t feel like smoking now.”

  His lips twisted a little oddly.

&nb
sp; “The coffee was not poisoned, and my cigarettes are not drugged,” he observed. “Are you perhaps labouring under the delusion that I’m anxious to improve on my failure with Lady Luck by making up for it in some other direction? If you are, you ought to make certain that your door is locked to-night!”

  “I shall,” she answered, bluntly.

  He looked at her, long and thoughtfully.

  “You are perhaps sorry that your friend persuaded you to pay Storr a second visit? Storr Hall, that is, for apparently Storr village is not to be out of bounds.”

  “If I were at the Red Lion I would feel I had a right to be there,” she confessed bitterly. “Here I am a butt for you and Miss Freer whenever you feel like being rather poisonously

  rude!”

  “As on arrival,” he murmured smoothly.

  “As on arrival,” she echoed.

  He looked very tall and straight as he stood in front of her, and the fact that he had a crimson silk handkerchief tucked carelessly inside one of the beautifully fitting sleeves of his dinner-jacket, instead of the more conventional white, seemed to stamp him as rakish. But his expression was not rakish, nor his hard jaw, and when his eyes had no ugly glint in them they were almost as beautiful as Rosalie Freer’s, and his eyelashes were thicker and blacker and more striking.

  “I don’t suppose you’ll believe me if I tell you it was not my wish you should be involved in anything unpleasant when you once more set foot in Storr? And if an Arab wishes to dispose of an enemy he always waits until he’s outside his gates! It’s considered bad form to despatch him while he’s still eating his salt!”

  Susan stared down at the tiny lace handkerchief she held in her hand, and which she had already crumpled into a ball.

  “I don’t think you know anything about good or bad form,” she responded to this oblique information, her fingers tightening on the hard ball. And as if the words had been seething in her mind for days, and she had to permit them to escape her at last: “I hate you!” she said. She looked up at him and felt the tears of humiliation and dejection prick behind her eyes. “I hate you!”