by Lucy Gillen
It was an uncalled-for jibe, Louise felt, and one which was typical of him. She glared at his turned back only a few feet in front of her and impulsively bent and grabbed a handful of soft snow, squeezing it into a harder ball before she threw it.
At that distance she could scarcely miss and she had the satisfaction of seeing it burst with considerable accuracy right on the back of his head, scattering over his shoulders before running wetly down his back and into his collar.
Robert laughed uproariously, his gloved hands clasped together delightedly, while Jonathan stood stock still for a moment. When he turned round, slowly, his brown eyes were glowing, as Robert’s were, but with something besides laughter and he moved swiftly towards her, too swiftly for her to evade him.
Her eyes were sparkling with a depth of laughter she had almost forgotten, triumph and apprehension mingled in one gesture as she clasped her hands in front of her like a child, half afraid of the consequences.
‘Why, you little—’ He held her arms tightly, pulling her close to him, the straight line of his mouth set tight, and she could feel the warm throb of his heart even through the thickness of winter clothing, as he held her there. Then suddenly he smiled. ‘Touché,’ he said softly, and bent his head towards her.
She held her breath for a dizzying moment, knowing she should have done more than simply stand so passively still, then she heard Stephen’s voice and saw the sudden glitter of amusement in the gaze that held hers. ‘Damn!’ he said mildly, and released her so that she stood, a little uncertain, her mind still spinning crazily with possibilities.
‘Louise!’ Stephen’s frown gave evidence of his opinion as he came down the hill towards them, the collar of his coat turned up against the bitter wind, his fair skin already reddened by it. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked as he drew level, and Louise turned, a little dazedly.
‘Yes, Stephen, of course I’m all right.’ She smiled at him and saw the brief, black look he sent Jonathan Darrell.
‘We’re only playing snowballs,’ Jonathan explained with deceptive mildness. ‘Nothing worse, Mr. Kincaid.’
Louise wondered if Stephen could possibly miss the edge of sarcasm on the title he was given and knew he had not when a moment later his frown deepened. ‘Snowballs?’ He raised a brow to lend emphasis to his doubt. ‘I never knew a game of snowballs required the contestants to be in such close proximity.’
‘You’d be surprised,’ Jonathan informed him blandly. ‘Louise just scored a direct hit on my head and she’s rather proud of it.’ Stephen looked pokerfaced at the achievement and did not even smile. ‘Depending on how you look at it,’ Jonathan went on, as if he did not realise he was making things worse, ‘she was about to be punished or rewarded, she hadn’t quite decided which when you arrived.’
It was near enough to the truth to be discomfiting and Louise bit her lip. ‘You were—’ Stephen began, and she interrupted hastily.
‘Stephen, please don’t fuss so.’
‘But—’
‘Please, Stephen!’ For a moment he evidently considered that discretion should be the better part of valour, for he made no further comment, only his eyes conveying his dislike of the situation.
‘Is it a good idea?’ he asked a few moments later, when Jonathan and Robert had resumed hostilities. ‘All this horse-play, I mean? Robert’s not used to such rough usage, is he?’
‘He’s all right,’ Louise told him, unwilling to be instrumental in spoiling Robert’s fun. ‘I don’t share his taste in friends, but he’s coming to no harm with a little rough-house now and then. Incidentally,’ she added, before he could reply, ‘you’ll be surprised to learn that you have a champion in Jonathan Darrell. He shares your opinion that I should leave Berren before Robert starts school.’
He raised critical brows at the opinion and she wondered why she had been so rash as to tell him about it. ‘You’ve discussed it with Darrell?’ he asked.
‘No, I didn’t exactly discuss it,’ Louise denied. ‘The opinion was offered.’
‘Blessed cheek!’ Stephen glared down the hill at the man he disliked so much. ‘He takes too much on himself, Louise. Just because Great-grandmama flatters him a bit, he imagines he has the right to interfere in purely family matters, it’s time he was put in his place—or better still, sent packing.’
This was the moment, Louise thought, to break the news to him that Emma Kincaid had invited Jonathan Darrell to stay on for the birthday party, but somehow she could not bring herself to do it, and instead bit her lip anxiously as she watched her son romp with the man who had aroused both her own and Stephen’s worst instincts. It would not be easy telling Stephen and she would rather wait until some more opportune moment.
The next day, still snowless, Jonathan eventually managed to put through the telephone call he had been talking about and Louise was surprised, as she passed him in the hall, to hear him conversing in rapid French. He still had his back to her when she returned to the old lady’s sitting-room a few moments later, and he was still busily talking.
She closed the sitting-room door with careful deliberation so that he would not hear her and turn round. ‘Who’s that on the telephone?’ old Emma asked as Louise tucked a shawl round her legs. ‘I know someone is, because I could just see an elbow from here.’
‘It’s Mr. Darrell,’ Louise told her, anticipating questions. ‘He’s been trying to put through a call for several days now and apparently he’s managed it at last.’
‘Who’s he ringing?’ the old lady demanded, and Louise sighed resignedly.
‘I don’t know, Great-gran, he didn’t say who he was trying to get, but he was talking in French just now when I passed him.’
‘French?’ The shrewd old eyes narrowed and she looked up at Louise’s carefully composed features. ‘You couldn’t hear any of it?’
‘I didn’t listen,’ Louise told her indignantly.
‘Well, you should have.’ The old lady mused for a moment. ‘Something to do with that Dupont fellow,’ she decided at last. ‘He’s checking up.’
‘Oh, now what can he be checking up on?’ Louise asked reasonably. ‘His passport proves he’s Henri Dupont as he claims. You’re making things up, Great-gran.’
‘No, I’m not,’ Emma objected indignantly. ‘Jon has a bee in his bonnet about something, I know the signs.’
‘Quite possibly,’ Louise admitted. ‘I wouldn’t put anything past him.’ She turned her head as the faint ping of the bell told her the call had ended, curious despite her professed lack of interest.
‘Can’t you go and listen?’ the old lady suggested baldly, and Louise shook her head.
‘No, I can’t, Great-gran. Anyway,’ she added, ‘he’s just finished, I heard him hang up.’
Jonathan’s footsteps sounded across the uncarpeted hallway and her own curiosity gave her an absent air as she tidied the cushions round the old lady’s chair.
‘Go and find out about it,’ Emma Kincaid told her shortly. ‘Go on, girl, and then come back and tell me.’
‘No, Great-gran, I can’t.’
‘Of course you can! Go on!’ The thin hands waved her away and she left the room, full of misgivings, wondering how on earth she was going to satisfy the old lady without sounding downright rude and inquisitive.
She went into the big sitting-room, horribly uncertain of what she should do for the best, and saw that he had been cornered by Diamond who eyed her approach with the beginnings of a pout, suspecting she was about to interrupt their tête-à-tête.
Jonathan himself looked up as she came nearer, almost as if he knew her errand concerned him and she hesitated briefly, still too unsure of herself to speak. An arched brow questioned her and she took a deep breath.
‘Mr. Darrell,’ she began, her heart pounding uneasily as she prepared to bend the truth a little for the sake of her own reputation, ‘Great-gran would like to see you when you have a moment.’
He rose at once, ignoring Diamond’s frown of disappointmen
t. ‘Is she still in the little room?’ he asked, and Louise nodded, feeling slightly panicky now that he had answered her summons so quickly. There was no telling what the old lady’s reaction would be to her ruse in making her ask him herself about the call he had made.
He followed her from the room and across the hall, and just outside the door of the little sitting-room, he touched her arm bringing her to a halt. ‘Louise, did the old lady really ask for me?’
She hesitated, juggling with the truth. ‘Why—yes, yes, of course she did. I mean,’ she amended hastily when she saw his look of doubt, ‘that is, she didn’t exactly ask for you, but—’
‘But you took pity on me and rescued me from Diamond?’ he guessed, and laughed.
‘I didn’t,’ she denied, ‘if you get cornered by Diamond you have only yourself to blame, you shouldn’t flirt with her.’
‘Flirt with her?’ He looked at her as if the suggestion shocked him. ‘Are you suggesting that one needs to flirt with your cousin?’
‘Diamond isn’t my cousin,’ she declared, and flushed at the way he spoke of the girl. ‘And please don’t speak about members of my family like that, you haven’t the right.’
‘Defence for Diamond?’ he teased, laughing again. ‘She doesn’t need your help, you know, Diamond is perfectly able to take care of herself.’
‘I—I happen to be very fond of Colin,’ she confessed. ‘And Diamond is a Kincaid even if it’s only by marriage.’
He sighed. ‘So you didn’t rescue me? Oh well, I suppose it was too much to hope for. Anyway,’ he added, ‘does the old lady want to see me or not?’ She bit her lip, hesitating a moment longer, then raised her head and looked at him almost appealingly. ‘Not exactly,’ she confessed. ‘Great-gran—Great-gran wanted to know who you were calling on the phone just now.’ She sounded a little breathless and unwillingly honest. ‘I—I was supposed to find out for her, but I’m not very good at playing Mata Hari.’ His quiet laugh did crazy things to her pulse, which was ridiculous in the circumstances, but she refused to lower her gaze. ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ he said softly. ‘Face, figure, you have all the necessary qualifications. Except temperament, of course,’ he added. ‘You’d need to be a little more—smoochy and a little less fiery to prise some men’s secrets out of them.’
The stress on the ‘some’ added to her embarrassment and she shook her head hastily. ‘I’m not sufficiently interested in anyone’s secrets to try and prise anything from them,’ she retorted, ‘least of all you. It’s Great-gran who’s curious, not me.’
‘I believe you,’ he grinned, not in the least put out by her shortness, ‘but this particular intelligence really concerns you, so you’d better hear it too.’
‘Me?’ She frowned. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘You will,’ he told her, ‘if you come in and hear what I have to say.’
The invitation was irresistible and she followed him into the small sitting-room. Emma Kincaid looked up when they came in, her smile wide with satisfaction when she saw Jonathan. ‘What did she tell you,’ she demanded with a dry chuckle, ‘that I was a nosey old woman who wanted to know all your business?’
‘Not exactly in those words,’ he told her, sitting beside her, ‘‘but you are, aren’t you?’
‘Dear Jon.’ She leaned across and p it a hand on his arm. ‘I’m going slowly deaf and blind and I’m nearly a full century old, but I still like to know what’s going on around me. I haven’t the time to be diplomatic, though in truth I never was.’
‘Then don’t try on my account,’ Jonathan told her with a smile. He flicked a glance over his shoulder at Louise. ‘I’ve told Louise that she’d better hear what I have to say as well, since it concerns her. I was waiting for an opportune moment to see both of you, as a matter of fact. Being summoned to the presence solves it for me, so here goes.’ He sat forward in his chair, his face more sober suddenly as he spoke. ‘I rang a friend of mine who runs a little local newspaper in a village in Brittany. A small town, actually, but it’s all very rural and gossipy. I met him some years ago when I was covering some festival or other for the magazine. It’s fortunate that it happens to be the same place that Henri Dupont had as his home address on his passport, the name struck a note when I saw it the other night.’ Louise sat down quietly, her eyes curious and a little apprehensive. ‘I played a long shot,’ he confessed, ‘but it paid off—Plebin knows the Dupont family, or more accurately he knows of them.’
‘Go on,’ the old lady encouraged impatiently when he paused.
‘The boy he spoke of exists all right,’ Jonathan said. ‘Simon Dupont married the girl who was the mother only weeks before the boy was born and she died when she was only seventeen. He used to go off for months at a time, apparently, leaving the boy with his mother.’ He hesitated again, looking at Louise’s set face. ‘I’m sorry about this,’ he apologised, with what seemed like genuine regret. ‘Shall I go on?’
Louise half-smiled. ‘Yes, yes, please do, let me hear the worst.’
‘There’s not so much more,’ he went on, as if relieved on his own account as well as hers. ‘For years the boy had his grandmother as his legal guardian, ever since his father died, then two months ago the old woman died and Henri, the boy’s uncle, became his legal guardian in her place. Henri plans to marry next month and it’s well known locally that the old woman left far less money than was expected. Now you know why he waited four and a half years before he made any claim on you.’
‘But why should he think that—’
‘The boy’s family,’ Jonathan interrupted, ‘that’s his point, don’t you see? Now that Henri is boss of the family he intends to get what he considers should have been his brother’s when he was alive.’
‘He felt Simon had been cheated, that they’d all been cheated, I suppose, so now he comes to me for money.’ She wrinkled her nose fastidiously. ‘It’s monstrous!’
‘It’s human nature,’ Emma Kincaid retorted, and Louise looked at her startled. ‘The Scots have nothing on the French when it comes to good old-fashioned thrift, and this feller sees you as a good source of supply. He’s only acting according to type.’
‘Great-gran!’ Louise stared at her for a moment and the old lady smiled, unabashed.
‘Oh, don’t act so shocked, girl,’ the old lady told her. ‘You should know what sort of a family you married into by now.’ She leaned forward and patted her hand gently, her eyes belying the brusqueness of her words. ‘Don’t take it too much to heart, Louise. At least you have Robert, and he’s credit enough to any family, isn’t he?’
‘Yes,’ Louise agreed thoughtfully, ‘he is.’ She looked up suddenly and met the full force of that slow attractive smile and for a moment shared some of her son’s liking for the man behind it.
CHAPTER NINE
‘THERE’LL be a boat tomorrow,’ Louise announced during dinner that night. ‘I rang Mac just before dinner and he said he’s coming out tomorrow if it’s no worse than it’s been today.’
Stephen glanced down the table at Jonathan, a gleam of satisfaction in his eyes. ‘You’ll be able to leave now, Darrell. That should please you.’
‘Mr. Darrell isn’t leaving, Stephen,’ Louise told him hastily, and he stared at her for a moment.
‘That’s right,’ Jonathan confirmed before he could find words. ‘Mrs. Kincaid asked me to stay on for the party.’
Stephen stared as if he found it too much to believe. ‘And you’ve agreed?’
‘I accepted the invitation with thanks,’ Jonathan told him gravely.
Stephen seemed to be already considering another possibility. ‘Are you staying on too, Miss Nostrum?’ he asked Essie, and she shook her head regretfully. ° ‘Unfortunately I can’t, although Mrs. Kincaid did ask me to.’
‘It’s so near the party,’ Louise told her with genuine regret, ‘it’s a pity you couldn’t have stayed, Essie.’
Essie smiled wryly. ‘It’s out of the question, I’m afraid. I’m a working girl
and my boss expects me back on the first available boat. Jon’s a freelance, he can do as he likes.’ It was one of the rare times, Louise thought, detecting a note of reproach, when Essie grudged Jonathan’s freedom of choice.
‘Not quite as I like, love,’ Jonathan told her quietly, ‘but I can take the holidays due to me over the last two years, without having a conscience about it.’
‘Yes, yes, of course you can,’ Essie agreed hastily. ‘Do you mean you have no conscience about letting Essie—Miss Nostrum travel back alone?’ Stephen asked, apparently appalled at the idea, and Louise saw the half smile that recognised the criticism in the question, and relished yet another argument.
‘Oh, Essie’s a big girl now,’ he said quietly. ‘She’s been knocking about the world long enough to be able to cope with the journey from here to London without having the vapours, I think.’
Stephen flushed angrily, as much annoyed, Louise realised, by the fact that Jonathan was staying on as by his apparent indifference to Essie’s fate. ‘Very gallant!’ he jeered, then looked at Essie with embarrassed politeness. ‘If I may, Miss Nostrum, I’ll see you on to your train at least.’
Essie looked gratified with the offer and smiled acceptance. ‘That’s very sweet of you,’ she told him, ‘thank you, Mr. Kincaid.’ She wrinkled her nose at Jonathan and sent a look down the table at Louise that could have been triumph, setting Louise wondering again just how jealous Essie was regarding her colleague. It seemed she could be taking Stephen’s offer to escort her as a chance to score off both Jonathan mid Louise.