“If I owned a crumbling tower I’d rather keep it as it is than share it with someone for the sake of their money.”
“Oh, come now!” he exclaimed, wagging a lean brown finger at her. “Who said anything about ‘for the sake of their money’? I’ve just given you quite clearly to understand that if Miss Macrae was not so excessively personable I don’t think that even I could put Ure before the extreme unpleasantness of facing a woman at breakfast who filled me with anything in the nature of repugnance. I want my cake, but I’d also like to eat it occasionally, and by great good fortune Miss Macrae really is a piece of cake ... speaking in the vulgar vernacular. With icing on the top!”
Amanda averted her eyes from him. She started to walk back along the path through the woods to the Tower, and he fell in at her side and accompanied her.
“I’m not at all sure I oughtn’t to warn Judy,” she said, staring up at the distant tree-tops above her head. Her expression was full of distaste. “In fact, I think I’ll have to warn her!”
“What of?” Alaine enquired, with some dryness.
“A man who proposes to marry her for her money, when she proposes to marry me for my tower?”
She turned to glance at him to see if he was joking, but he was gravely regarding the ground beneath his feet.
“That would be a silly thing for you to do,” he said quietly. “For one thing I don’t think it would i have the effect of putting your friend off, would it?”
This was so true that Amanda couldn’t deny it. Once Judy’s mind was made up not even the fact that she was being used would either upset or deter her. She was too confident of her looks, for one thing, too confident of her power to charm completely in the end.
“No, I suppose it wouldn’t,” she agreed a little emptily.
Alaine put his hand below her elbow and squeezed it.
“Poor child,” he commiserated. “You look as if you’ve been rather badly shocked. But that’s life, you know... life in the raw! One of these days you might even contemplate marrying a rich man yourself, if you can find one.”
“Never!” Amanda returned, so fiercely and so emphatically that one of his dark eyebrows lifted, and he whistled softly.
“So sure?” he asked.
“Absolutely certain.”
“Then what will you marry for when the time comes? If it does come, which seems to me reasonably certain as you’re such an attractive little thing.”
“Thank you,” she replied stiffly, averting her face once more. “It’s gratifying to be told I’m attractive by a man who wouldn’t touch me with a ten-foot pole with a pin at the end of it unless I had a fortune in the bank that went with me. And even then it would have to be a very considerable fortune, I imagine, since I’m not an acknowledged beauty like my friend Judith.”
At that he put back his sleek dark head and laughed, so heartily and so naturally that she very nearly joined in after permitting herself to glance at him again for a moment. His white teeth were gleaming like blanched almonds in the shadows of the wood, and his hair was so dark it was like a blackbird’s plumage. He had no right to have such well-cut features, strong mouth and clean jaw when his values were all wrong ... as, apparently, were the values of his aunt.
“Come along,” he said, catching her by the arm and holding it strongly as he walked her through the wood. “It doesn’t matter what you’ll marry for when the time comes, and it doesn’t matter if I’m about to be launched on the sea of wedlock. What does matter is that I want my tea, and Jean was making girdle cakes and scones when I left the kitchen. I popped in to tell her what an excellent lunch she served to my guests, and she was delighted.”
“You can take it from me Jean wasn’t trying to please your guests,” Amanda said, with her air of shrewd candour. “And I don’t think your compliment delighted her, either.”
“Too true,” he agreed. “She was looking particularly sour, and I’m very much afraid the girdle cakes will be heavy as a result. But then Jean is a little like you,” smiling at her with gentle derision. “She prides herself on being able to read people like a book, and she reads Miss Macrae like a book. She probably reads you, too ... and me!”
There was something faintly whimsical in his tone that brought her head round and turned her eyes up to his face.
“That’s because she knows you,” she said.
CHAPTER VII
JUDY was stretching herself on the settee when they entered the room that was dignified by the title of drawing-room, although it was so seldom used that it had a slightly moth-eaten appearance, and much of the elegant furniture badly needed treatment for woodworm and repairs to the tapestry-covered seats and chair backs.
Judy wished it to appear that she had been dozing quietly all afternoon, whereas in actual fact she had seized the opportunity when there was no one about—Jean being safely incarcerated in the kitchen—to dash up to her room and restore the make-up on her face, as well as add a light application of fresh varnish to her elegant fingertips.
Only anyone who was very easily taken in would have believed that she had not moved from the settee, and someone who was very easily taken in might have marvelled at the matt perfection of her looks. Not a hair out of place under the headband, complexion like the inside of a delicate pink shell, eyelashes and eyebrows silken and gleaming with jetty attractiveness, just the merest hint of turquoise shadow on her white lids.
She stretched herself when she heard Amanda and her escort cross the hall, and she stretched herself again when they entered the room. She looked round at them languidly, and sighed a little.
“How lucky you are,” she exclaimed. “This gorgeous place, and I’ve got to remain chained to a couch!”
“Like Elizabeth Barrett,” Amanda remarked, and walked over to the couch. Judy’s eyes grew a little more alert, and she lifted them to Amanda’s face and studied it with just a trace of apprehension. Amanda decided to reassure her. “Let’s hope you’ll make as good a recovery as she did,” she added amiably. “By the way, how is the foot? It looks to me a little swollen still above the instep,” and her fingers probed for an instant.
Judy uttered a theatrical yell.
“That hurt!”
Amanda smiled at her.
“Don’t you think we ought to get a doctor to look at it? After all, you could have broken a bone, you know.”
“I’m quite sure I haven’t broken a bone.” Judy looked appealingly at Alaine for confirmation. “Have I?”
He shook his head, and bent over the ankle that looked perfectly normal to any strictly normal eye with much tenderness. When he touched it she did not yell, and she even seemed to sink lower on to her cushions with a kind of cat-like gratification.
“Your touch is so soothing,” she declared. “You ought to have been a doctor, Alaine. You have wonderful surgeon’s fingers.”
He glanced at them as if mildly surprised, and then smiled at her and seated himself on the end of the couch. Whether by design or accident one hand continued to hover above her ankle.
“That’s the first time I’ve been complimented on my hands,” he told her. “And as for your needing a doctor, I’m quite sure you don’t. All you need is a sufficient amount of rest and no strain at all to be put upon that foot until it’s stronger. Although you may hate lying about and being dependent on me for transport—” his teeth gleaming whimsically—“I’m afraid you’ll have to submit yourself to discipline for a few days. And after that we’ll build you up gradually and allow you a little latitude. A week from now we’ll probably have you walking round the garden.”
“A week from now?”
He nodded his head gravely.
“Mustn’t rush things. I remember I once sprained my ankle myself, and because I insisted on walking on it too soon the thing played up and practically incapacitated me. We can’t have that happening to you.”
Judy stole a glance at Amanda, who was examining a portrait on the wall above the fireplace.
; “What do you think, Amanda?” she asked. “Can we trespass on Mr. Urquhart’s kindness for that length of time? Even if his aunt consents to come here and chaperon us I still think it’s a bit of an imposition—”
“You can stay here,” Amanda replied slowly, turning from the portrait. “Why don’t I go back to the Three Goats? Or I could go to London and wait for you there, if you like? There’s no reason why Mr. Urquhart, especially with another visitor in the shape of his aunt arriving almost immediately, should extend his hospitality to me as well as you. That’s rather like an imposition, I think.”
“Nonsense!” Alaine spoke brusquely, getting up and pressing the bell for Jean to bring in the tea. “I wouldn’t think of separating the two of you, especially when one’s a temporary invalid and the other must feel the urge to keep an eye on her. Jean’s no personal maid, and my aunt, I’m afraid, will demand a lot of attention for herself while she’s here. Miss Amanda’s the only one who can make herself useful, and I understand she’s already helped Jean in the kitchen.”
“I helped her wipe up the lunch things,” Amanda agreed. “But she was perfectly ready to dispense with my assistance.”
“I could manage without you,” Judy contributed, regarding her speculatively. “I’m not all that of an invalid, and it is another mouth for Jean to feed ... and that means extra potatoes to peel, and things like that.”
“If it would help Jean I could decline to eat potatoes,” Amanda declared with dryness.
Her host spoke almost softly.
“Don’t be silly.”
Judy lifted herself gracefully on her cushions and surveyed her beneath fluttering eyelashes.
“I was merely thinking that it would be simpler. You could wait for me in London. You could do some shopping for me in London. There’s a hotel that was recommended to me, and we could telephone and make you a reservation—”
“We’re not on the telephone,” Urquhart reminded her.
“No, but they are over at the hotel.”
“Forget it,” Urquhart advised her.
Later, when he had left the room, Judy spoke thoughtfully to Amanda, returning to the subject they I had discussed earlier. It seemed to be on her mind ... or else she was developing a conscience about the inconvenience her own presence was causing in the household. Jean had looked very far from pleased when she carried in the tea-tray, and Duncan apparently was protesting because they were using so much wood for the stove he had had to go out to chop and saw up some more.
“There’s no reason at all why you shouldn’t go to London ahead of me,” Judy remarked unexpectedly. “After all, London was our next stop, and the only reason we’re here is because I’ve sprained my ankle. It’s creating a lot of trouble.”
“Then why not cast aside the role of interesting invalid and get up and walk?” Amanda suggested.
Judy gazed at her reproachfully, and then shook her head.
“You won’t play, will you? Well, that’s one reason why I want to get rid of you, why I feel I should be happier here without you. You are,” bending her slim brows in a frown, “too distressingly honest, and I even think you embarrass our host. He knows I could get up and walk if I wanted to do so ... or at least I could limp. But he’s fighting hard to keep us here ... to keep me here! I don’t suppose he really wants you, too, although he’s too nice to say so.”
“Thanks,” Amanda returned quietly.
Judy made a little gesture.
“Oh, don’t be so touchy! You know it’s the truth. How could it be otherwise?” her great brown eyes regarding Amanda almost commiseratingly. “I’ve got everything ... looks, money, the right to come back to this island. You’re my friend and companion, and no one would ever mistake you for anything else. I don’t really want to let you go, because you’re so useful, but I think I must ... And that’s why I’m going to write to that hotel in London and make a reservation for you. When I join you again we’ll have fun and I’ll buy you something nice. That’s a promise!”
“I don’t want you to buy me anything nice.” Amanda moved over to the window, and although she strove to make her tone sound entirely normal she knew there was a certain amount of cattiness in it. “You’ve been awfully good to me, and I’m grateful. I—I feel I owe you a good deal that I can never repay, but I can’t agree that you have any more right than I have to stay here and take advantage of what you’ve just called Mr. Urquhart’s kindness. And I’m not really thinking about him so much as Jean and Duncan—”
“Spare your pity for them. I shall tip them well before I leave.”
“How soon do you think you’ll leave?”
“I haven’t an idea, honey. Probably never!” She laughed softly. “At least, never’s a long time, but only when I know I’m coming back to the island again. I’ve already indicated to you that I mean to come back. Before we came here on the ferry I was prepared to have a good look at the place and then turn around and go home, if I tired of seeing any more of the world. But after seeing Alaine ... well,” settling back amongst her cushions with a sensuous movement, “he is unbelievably good-looking, isn’t he? And I think he’s a charmer! I’m even prepared to go so far as to assert he could charm a bird off a bough if he wanted to.” She laughed again, a happy little bubble of sound. “I think I’m falling for him!”
Amanda gazed at her.
“You mean you’re falling in love with him?”
“Yes,” turning her head to meet the other girl’s eyes. “And what’s so wrong with falling in love?”
Amanda hesitated.
“N-nothing.”
“You must try it yourself some time.” She extended her arms above her head, and her eyes were dreamy all at once. “I’ve had affairs before, of course, but I don’t believe I’ve ever felt as I’ve felt since meeting Alaine. I even find myself dwelling on the thought of him rather than his tower.”
“Well, you can hardly fall in love with a tower,” Amanda reminded her.
“No. But you can become obsessed with a notion, and I’ve become obsessed with the notion of owning Ure one day.” Her eyes grew more alert. “What were you doing in the woods this afternoon with Alaine? If you’re getting ideas about him yourself the sooner you go to London the better.”
Amanda was not really surprised that she knew how she had passed her afternoon.
“You followed us,” she accused. “You didn’t spend the afternoon on that couch, did you?”
Judy had the grace to look very faintly abashed.
“I didn’t spend the afternoon on the couch ... not the entire afternoon, because I’m not used to so much inactivity, and there were things I wanted to do upstairs. But I didn’t follow you, or Alaine. I’d have looked pretty silly if he’d turned and caught me in the act of spying on him, wouldn’t I?” with reason. “No,” studying her friend with interest, “it was simply that you gave yourself away.”
“How?”
“When you came in together there were stars in your eyes as well as roses in your cheeks, and it was pretty obvious you’d spent some part of the afternoon together. But I wouldn’t advise you to repeat the experiment ... at any rate, not too often,” the lightness of her tone belied by the cool glint in her eyes. “When I play a game I play it—alone!”
“Don’t worry,” Amanda returned, with a stiffness that made it appear she had actually straightened her back. “The kind of games you play I’m not interested in ... And on this occasion I’m really not interested!”
“Good girl,” Judy said softly; but although she sounded relieved she also sounded amused. And distinctly sceptical.
That night she spent a great deal of time selecting a dress to wear for the evening meal in the candlelit semi-baronial dining-room; and when she was ready to be carried downstairs she could hardly have appeared to better advantage. On the way down the stone stairs she clutched at Alaine and hid her face against him for a moment, declaring that she suffered from vertigo and apologising because she was suddenly nervous. Alai
ne merely looked a little amused and assured her, in a low tone—which Amanda, who came behind, scarcely caught—that she was perfectly safe in his arms, and whatever happened he wouldn’t drop her. He gave her his word, with ridiculous solemnity, that even if she was ten times heavier than she was he wouldn’t drop her.
The dinner, as on the previous night, was well cooked and well served, but Duncan’s face in the shadows behind the visitor’s chairs was not particularly reassuring. Jean contented herself with remaining in the kitchen, and the dishes were borne in solemnly by Duncan, who traversed the stone passage between the dining-room and the kitchen with slow dignity as if by no means concerned with keeping them piping hot. The fact that they were hot when they actually reached the table reflected credit on Jean herself.
After dinner the farce continued and Judy was carried back to the drawing-room and made comfortable on her couch. There was an old-fashioned spinet in a corner of the room, and Amanda crossed over to it and tested the yellowed keys. The tinkling harmony that resulted was very pleasant—rather like the subdued tinkling of bells in that great, hollow chamber—and Alaine, lying back comfortably in his chair with his sleek head turned a little in her direction, begged her to continue.
“That piano hasn’t been played for years,” he said, his pipe held absently between his fingers as if he had forgotten it. “My mother used to play it, but I can’t remember anyone else who did. Please don’t stop!” Instantly Amanda stopped playing, and for a few seconds her hands remained idle in her lap. Then, after she had met his eyes across the dimness of the room, and it seemed to her that they were extraordinarily gentle and encouraging, as well as perfectly serious, she once more allowed her fingers to caress the faulty keyboard. She played for about an hour, running through a repertoire that included Jeannie with the Light Brown Hair and The Lass with the Delicate Air, as well as a few snatches of Chopin and some Beethoven—that certainly sounded a trifle peculiar as one or two of the notes were actually missing, and she had to improvise a little in order to cover up the defects—while Judy, on her settee, grew frankly bored and yawned openly, the logs on the hearth turned white as the fierce heat consumed them and hissed as they dropped ash and shifted slightly, and finally Alaine applauded approvingly as Amanda recollected where she was and stopped amusing herself.
Bride of Alaine Page 6