“All alone? Aren’t you taking an active interest in the plumbing arrangements of the house, like your friend? She’s outside looking for inlet and outlet pipes in the long grass, and talking about bathrooms. Aren’t you very sure whether or not you want a bathroom put in here? It’s never had one, you know!”
He came across the room and sat down beside her on the window-seat, and he removed a briar pipe from his pocket. It was not too dark for her to see that the old hacking-jacket appeared to have been banished for good, and his tweeds were as irreproachable as his fiancee’s. His linen looked startlingly white in the gloom, unless it was the slight swarthiness of his neck and face that threw it into prominence, and the hands that held the match to the bowl of the pipe and crammed down tobacco—with a very long little finger with a signet-ring on it—were dark and strong, also.
“Did I make you jump?” he enquired softly. “If so I’m sorry! ... I’ll admit you made me think of a little wraith in this half light, and for a few seconds I wondered whether I ought to disturb you, or whether you would prefer to go on communing with the spirits of the Dower House. And then, of course, I realised that you were my little punishment!”
One hand went out and touched hers lightly.
“You’re too small to be alone!”
She snatched away her hand.
“How did Jennifer get outside in the garden? She went upstairs to look at the bedrooms.”
“Although I warned her about the floors! . . . She must have gone down the back-staircase, and you didn’t see her slip out.”
“Is there a back staircase?”
She was making conversation, she knew, because his eyes were dwelling on her—dark, curiously soft eyes above the bowl of the pipe, that gave off such a fragrant aroma.
“Obviously! ... Or she couldn’t have gone down it, could she?” Once more his hand touched hers, gripping a little more strongly. “I thought we’d agreed to bury the hatchet? Or haven’t we? . . . Why are you keeping up this pretence of hostilities?”
“It isn’t a pretence.” She spoke through her small teeth. “You think you can behave abominably to anyone, and then—and then expect them to crawl to you! You knew very well I wouldn’t think of taking this house, and yet you tried to talk Jennifer into it! I don’t want anything to do with anything of yours, and I—I want to get as far as possible away from you!”
“Because of the short while we spent in the summerhouse last night?” His voice was still soft, and even indulgent. “But, my dear Susan, I thought that was the final cessation of hostilities! I’ll admit that, until then, we were not doing too well, and even when I’d got you more or less marooned on that little table in the summerhouse you tried very hard to hang on to your violent antipathy. But there are some things that are too strong for us, Susan, and I think you found it out!” His fingers pressed like a vice over her slim wrist. “Have you ever been kissed like that before, my sweet?”
She struggled, and wrenched away her hand.
“No, and I hope I never will be—again!” she gasped. “I think you must be the world’s biggest cad! You’re engaged, your fiancee is here staying with you at Storr,
and yet you can’t resist doing that sort of thing to------”
“My adorable little enemy Number One!”
“When we first met,” she reminded him dryly, “you thought my proper place was the back stairs, you didn’t hesitate to tear my reputation to shreds, and you told me I was not a howling beauty! I don’t want to be a howling beauty, but I’d like to know how, and by what means, I have suddenly become adorable?”
“As to that,” he answered, with tender amusement in his voice, “I’d like to know the answer, too! I think I’ve already apologised for my atrocious conduct when we met—and I admit it was atrocious! —but I must have been blind to state you are not a howling beauty! You’re much more fascinating than a howling beauty, and your eyes say things to a man that perhaps you are not aware of! They plead, and they appeal, and they make me think of an unprotected doe on a mountainside! They ought to be brown instead of grey, but their greyness is the sweetest thing about them! It’s like the greyness of mist, of wood smoke, of a flight of doves. . . . And that morning when you lay there so silently after Lady Luck had so churlishly allowed you to slip off her neck, and your little head was like a polished chestnut in the grass, and you looked so small and abandoned, I don’t quite know how I felt! I think I could have put a bullet into Lady Luck!” His voice grew strangely unsteady for him. “Susan, the others are out there talking about drains and we’re alone in here—”
“The others?” she heard herself articulate.
“Bruce came with me to look for you—we guessed you’d be here!—and Jennifer dragged him off to go into technicalities. Apparently they both know something about what should, and should not, be done when you want to get up to date with your plumbing, and I told them they needn’t bother about expense. I’ll have the whole thing done regardless of cost—even a swimming pool built for you if you want it!”
“But I don’t want a swimming pool,” foolishly, and because all at once she was bereft of commonsense words.
“No. ... But I want to kiss you again, Susan! Susan!” the note in his voice causing her to shrink away from him along the window-seat, but he put out his arms and dragged her up against him. “Susan! Don’t let’s argue, or anything of that sort! Don’t let’s waste any time! ...”
And then his mouth was once more on hers, covering it so that she could hardly breathe, and his arms strained her to him so brutally that she was sure that her ribs would crack. She found it quite impossible to resist him, not merely because of the fierceness of his hold, but because, even before he bent his head and she knew what was about to happen to her, a strange feeling as if her bones were turning to water, and resistance was a thing unknown to her, had begun to assail her; and that was why she made that frantic dive away from him along the seat.
But his arms were long enough, and strong enough, to defeat any such obstructive move, and once caught and held she wondered whether he was ever going to let her go. His lips seemed to be hungry for the very feel of hers, and with his heart beating violently against her she had the terrifying conviction within herself that henceforward there would be a kind of gnawing hunger deep down at the heart of her for the feel of these ruthless masculine arms that were determined to satisfy a need. Temporary, or not, she could not know; but with the thought of Rosalie rising like a cork to the forefront of her mind she rallied her dwindling forces, and made a desperate effort to thrust him from her.
“Let me go!... Please!”
“My darling,” he whispered to her, his voice all wooing softness and melting gentleness, as desperation passed and a dreamy contentment supervened, “I’d let you go if I could! But, how can I?”
“You had no right to follow me here,” she told him, her voice wavering. “Justin (and how easy it was to make use of his name, and forget his title), I can’t take your house!”
“My sweet one, it is already decided that you are going to take it,” he replied, rubbing his cheek caressingly against her cheek. “Jennifer and I made up our minds this morning. You are going to live here in my woods, within sight and sound of Storr, and whenever I have a free moment I will come and stand on your doorstep and beg you to invite me in! I may even take root under your window occasionally, and if it is a fine night I will serenade you, and then you will simply have to slip downstairs and let me in!”
“No, no,” she cried, conscious of revulsion—or was it simply and solely a kind of dismay? Because of the dangers of such proximity, when he was as good as married! “I couldn’t possibly live here, and let you behave like that, and you know I wouldn’t! I don’t think you realise what you’re saying!”
“Separated by only a few acres of parkland,” he murmured, so softly that she ceased striving to free herself, and gazed into his eyes. They were dark and slumbrous and hypnotic, and there were little fires leaping
in them behind the thick eyelashes, and she felt as if all the breath in her body was fluttering wildly in her throat. “Susan, you have such an adorable mouth, and after I kissed you last night I lay awake until the morning thinking about it, and wondering why I let you get away so quickly!”
She swallowed.
“The others are coming!”
“Let them come! . . . Did you by any chance lie awake thinking about me?”
She looked about her wildly.
"I tell you I hear their footsteps!...”
“Don’t panic,” he said, and let her go all but her hands, which he carried in turn up to his mouth, letting his lips lie against the soft palms. The fires were damped down in his eyes, but the slumbrous look deepened. “Bruce is obviously badly smitten by you, but I don’t approve of him spending a whole morning in your company. If you are going to allow him to escort you around I shall have to do something about it.”
He spoke so matter-of-factly, and yet with a sinister suggestion underlying the matter-of-factness that he was capable of doing all sorts of things, that Susan felt resentment spring to life in her, and she sprang several feet away from him.
“I am no concern of yours,” she said, “and you have no right whatsoever to interfere in my affairs! If you attempt to do so I will never forgive you!”
She could feel rather than see him smile in the darkness, which was now like a bat’s wing about them.
“Between you and me, my sweet, there will never be any question of forgiveness,” he said enigmatically.
There were loud clattering footsteps in the tiled entrance to the cottage, and then the door was pushed open, and Jennifer and Bruce Fairburn stood there, the light of the sunset behind them. Bruce looked a little fussed, as if he would have preferred to be where he was before, and was not pleased because he had been detained. He exclaimed at the darkness in the sitting-room, and added:
“What on earth are you two doing here in this stygian gloom! Trying to get the atmosphere of the place?”
“We’ve got it,” Justin replied, calmly. “And Susan has agreed that she could settle down here very happily! Of course, I’ve reassured her about the plumbing arrangements, and you shall have the most palatial bathroom that can be put in at short notice, Jennifer. And you must also let me know what other alterations you would like carried out. I’ll bring an architect down from Town, and he might be of some assistance to you. Although the place is sound as a bell.”
“Apart from a few odd floor-boards, apparently,” Bruce remarked dryly. “Miss Bond has been telling me about them.” He peered through the shadows at Susan. “Are you quite sure you don’t want to take your time thinking over such a proposition as this, Miss Willowfield?” Susan wondered whether it was her imagination, or whether the emphasis on the Miss Willowfield was intended for Justin. “At the moment it is hardly the most desirable residence I’ve seen in my life, and being a young woman without ties you might feel happier in London. You could always escape to the country for the week-ends. . . .”
“But I like it!” Jennifer wailed. “Oh, Susan, you’re not going to let me down, are you?”
“Of course she’s not,” Sir Justin said, lighting his pipe. During the recent interlude with Susan it had been allowed to go out. “The whole thing is completely settled. Susan’s had enough of London, and I’ve already commissioned a couple of miniatures to be painted by Jennifer as soon as she’s really settled here.” He lifted his eyes from the bowl of the pipe, and in the faint glow of it Susan saw the tiny beams of mockery that danced in them as he looked towards her. “One of Rosalie, and one of myself, of course! If they’re finished in time I can present them to her as a part of my wedding-present!”
CHAPTER NINE
So, in spite of the fact that her own inclination was strongly against taking the Dower House—and not because she disagreed with Jennifer that it had possibilities and charm, even in its derelict condition, and might in time provide them with a very comfortable little home—Susan found herself agreeing to become one of the tenants of Justin Storr, and signed a legal document to that effect. The Dower House was to be hers at a purely nominal rent (as she had feared); but no amount of argument with Justin would get him to yield the point, and let her have the satisfaction of feeling independent.
Jennifer was jubilant once the agreement was signed, and wanted to be responsible for all the soft furnishings. But here Susan was as adamant as Justin had been, and said that having taken on the thing she would see it through herself. Jennifer could keep on the London flat for a time (as a kind of insurance against the day when they would admit that the Dower House was a failure, and also for their convenience when popping up to Town).
They did a lot of popping once the agreement had been signed. But first they removed to the Red Lion, and Susan had the satisfaction of knowing that Sir Justin was not pleased with this move. They made it almost immediately after a reluctant decision to take the Dower House had been wrung out of her, and the only person who was wholeheartedly in approval of the move was Rosalie Freer. Her mother said nothing, but Susan realised that that was because she regarded the affairs of the two girls who were not of her world as of little importance. Her daughter was engaged (that really was tremendously important!) and already she was endeavouring to arouse some enthusiasm for wedding plans in the breast of her prospective son-in-law. She talked constantly of the advantages of the Bahamas over the South of France—or even southern Italy— for a long, leisurely honeymoon; and was torn between St. Margaret’s, Westminster, and St. George’s, Hanover Square, as the ideal sacred edifice for the actual ceremony.
She was also wondering how she could get around to making a delicate request for a substantial cheque that would defray all the expenses of the highly necessary trousseau, which would have to be something quite out of the way for anyone as lovely as Rosalie.
Susan did agree to equip her new home with a certain amount of unwanted furniture from Storr. She recognised that if she was to foot the bill for every piece of suitable furniture that the Dower House would need, and take, she would make serious inroads in her twenty-thousand pounds, which she looked upon as a kind of nest-egg for her old age. (To be shared with Jennifer if she never married.) And apparently Storr housed quite a lot of furniture that was eating out its heart in some of the upstairs rooms, not even seeing the light of day, because one or two of the rooms were shuttered and barred. She couldn’t repress her pleasure in it when Mrs. Hollyhead accompanied her on a tour of inspection, exclaiming with delight over a set of Elizabethan chairs that were dust-sheeted and quite perfect, and a tiny escritoire that was no longer perfect, but very elegant.
Mrs. Hollyhead opened the door of a room that had once been a retreat of Sir Justin’s mother, in the days after her husband died, when, as a very young and disconsolate widow, she had accepted the offer of her brother-in-law to make a home at Storr Hall. It had an outlook over the lake, and the woods that stole down to the water’s edge, and although it was very simply furnished the pretty wallpaper, and the very feminine ornaments, appealed to
Susan.
She stood near the window, and thought of Justin’s mother, doing precisely the same thing. The lake must have made her feel very sad at times, when there was a thinly falling rain, or when the dusk was closing down. In winter it would be coated with ice, and she must have looked at the bare trees, with their denuded arms extended to the sky, and wondered whether her own future was to be as bereft as they looked.
Then Susan remembered that she had had a small boy, and no doubt she had turned all her thoughts to him, and planned for him very happily. Susan tried to picture Justin as he must have been when he was a child, his dark eyes probably just as enigmatic then as they were now, his spirit just as rebellious. He had always rebelled, in a way, against the established order of things. He had been restless, and a roamer, and he went away from Storr at the earliest opportunity, even before his mother died. Mrs. Hollyhead had said that she lived for his le
tters, and the picture postcards that he sent her.
‘This is the Tower of Pisa, but I won’t let it fall on me! ... I dropped a coin in the Fontana di Trevi in Rome for you! . . . Wish you could see the Colosseum by moonlight!
Mrs. Hollyhead must have been allowed to read the post-cards, for she remembered them perfectly, and their light messages. Susan felt she wouldn’t be surprised if she had them stored away somewhere amongst her own possessions, probably because of their pictorial value.
“You’ve known Sir Justin all his life?” she said, as she sank down on the window-seat with a work-basket in her hands, that she examined carefully.
Mrs. Hollyhead nodded.
“My father was head gardener here when he was born, and I came to be trained as a housemaid when he was a boy at school. By the time he left school I was upper housemaid, and I’d just married my Joe and given up the job of second parlourmaid when he went up to the University. After that we didn’t see much of him.”
“Why?” Susan couldn’t resist asking.
“He got ‘sent down,’ as I think they call it.” Mrs. Hollyhead looked a bit uncomfortable, as if she was giving away secrets. “Some sort of a scrape he got in. ... I don’t know what it was, but Sir Adrian was pretty mad. Sir Adrian was never the type to get into any sort of trouble, and I don’t think he ever properly understood his nephew. They weren’t, as you might say, birds of a feather.... ”
Then she broke off.
“I shouldn’t be talking like this. The old nurseries are next door, Miss, if you’d like to see them.”
“I would,” Susan replied, still apparently absorbed in the contents of the work-basket—spools of pure silk, buttons, crewel-needles, delicate paste buckles. One of them was so exquisite that she held it up to the light. “But Sir Adrian didn’t exactly disapprove of his nephew, did he? He was fond of him, in a way.”
She was groping for information, rather than stating something that she knew to be true.
Dangerous Love Page 8