by Lucy Gillen
There was little hope of making him lose his temper, and the realisation did nothing to improve her own. ‘Oh, go and play with Robert!’ she retorted. ‘And leave me alone!’
‘O.K.’ He waved a casual hand as he walked off to join Robert further up the hill, leaving her alone with her anger.
Robert was, inevitably, hurling snowballs and welcomed his favourite antagonist with delight. It was a badly aimed snowball, with the additional hazard of the slippery ground, that combined a few minutes later to send her flying backwards into the still deep snow beside the path.
Her cry was as much astonishment as anger as she sank into the wet, clinging mass, with melting snow streaming down her neck and chillingly uncomfortable.
For a second or two she lay there, breathless and horribly wet and cold, with the sound of Robert’s laughter ringing in her ears, then struggled to free herself, succeeding only in sinking in deeper when her feet slid helplessly from under her.
Help came suddenly and unexpectedly in the form of two hands that pulled her to her feet in one swift and rather inelegant movement that ended abruptly in Jonathan’s arms. Arms that retained their hold on her even after she was standing, her cold face against the soft warmth of sheepskin that she realised, hazily, was the lining of his coat.
‘I’m wet through,’ she complained breathlessly. ‘Ugh, it’s horrible!’
‘I’m sorry.’ The words sounded half-choked and she realised he was laughing.
‘Oh, you brute, you callous, inhuman monster, you threw it deliberately!’ It was difficult to give full vent to her anger because she was still held, breathlessly tight in his arms, but she managed to raise her head sufficiently to glare at him and met the warmth of laughter as he looked down at her, trying to look apologetic.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said again, ‘but you did look funny and madly inelegant with your feet sticking out like that—you ask Robert.’
‘I’m glad you think it’s funny.’ She chose to ignore the fact that Robert had laughed longer and more loudly than he had at her predicament, trying to free herself from the arms that still held her tightly enough to make escape impossible. She put her hands against his chest and pushed. ‘Let me go!’
‘You’re sure you’re all right?’ He made no effort to release her and she was uneasily aware of Robert standing only a few feet away with an incredibly pleased expression on his face that she felt would have been more appropriate to her great-grandmother.
‘Of course I’m all right,’ she told him shortly, ‘though I’m surprised you bother to ask since you were the one that knocked me over. Now please let me go!’
For a moment she thought he would refuse and she felt her pulse racing dizzily, but then he eased his hold on her and smiled. ‘I didn’t aim at you—honest,’ he told her with schoolboy earnestness, but she merely glared at him as she brushed the clinging wetness from her coat.
‘Louise—’ She would have stalked off in dignified silence, but he turned her to face him again. ‘I really am sorry.’
For a moment she just looked at him, her eyes dark with some emotion she could not have identified, but which sent her blood pounding warmly through her body until she glowed with it. ‘You will be,’ she warned darkly, without the slightest idea of her own meaning.
She moved away and on up the hill towards Robert, facing the icy wind but conscious of the warmth that still lingered where his arms had held her.
CHAPTER TWELVE
QUITE late that night, Louise had seen Aunt Charlotte to bed and looked in on Robert and when she came downstairs, thinking to find the lower part of the house deserted, she found Jonathan standing in the hall near the bottom of the stairs.
She half-smiled. ‘Goodnight,’ she said, thinking he was on his way up to his room and only waiting for her to come down.
‘Not yet,’ he told her, and she eyed him warily when he shook his head. ‘If you don’t mind, Louise, I’d like a word with you.’
‘It’s very late.’ Her objection was almost automatic, and he grinned.
‘Not to worry,’ he told her, ‘no one’s here to think the worst of us being down here together in the still of the night.’
It was a deliberate jibe at Stephen, she knew, and frowned over it, wishing her colour had not risen at the implication he made. ‘If you have something to say, Mr. Darrell, please say it; it’s very late and I’m very tired, but if it’s important I’ll listen.’
‘I think it’s important,’ he told her. ‘I’m not sure what your opinion will be, you’re such a little cracker I never know which way you’ll jump next.’
‘You—’
‘Not now,’ he begged, and took her arm. ‘Let’s go in the big sitting-room, shall we?’ She complied with a willingness that surprised even herself. ‘I won’t keep you up long,’ he promised, ‘but I wanted to tell you something and—well, I suppose I’m too impatient to wait until morning.’ He grinned over the admission.
‘To—to do with that telephone call you had this evening?’
He looked at her for a moment, then nodded, smiling. ‘You don’t miss much, do you? I’ll have to recruit you into the ranks of the profession.’ She merely flicked him a look of reproach and he went on hastily, “I’ve already told Robert, when I took him upstairs tonight.’
‘Told him what?’
‘That I’ll be leaving in a couple of days and he’ll have to go up to bed on his own two feet, as you said.’
She had not expected to hear it so brief and blunt, or that she would experience the cold sensation that was almost panic, and she stared at him, her lips half parted as if to protest. ‘But—but why?’ It was not at all what she had meant to say and she saw a slow smile soften the expression on his dark face.
‘I’ve had the offer of an interesting assignment,’ he explained, ‘and it’s too good to miss.’
‘Oh, I see.’
The big sitting-room was now cold and deserted and she shivered as they stood by the window, wishing she did see. See why his sudden decision should dismay her so much, and not just on Robert’s behalf.
It was perfectly reasonable, of course, for his job took him all over the world and he loved it. He would not willingly stay isolated on a cold little island for long, no matter how much an old lady wanted him to, or how much a little boy would miss him. She made no attempt to examine her own feelings, in fact she seemed to have none at the moment.
‘There was something else,’ he said, and his tone made her blink hastily out of her reverie and look at him enquiringly. ‘Perhaps I should have told you before.’
There was something in his manner that set her heart beating at such a rate she could actually hear it and she gazed up at him silently for a second or two before she spoke. ‘What is it?’ she asked at last. ‘Something else I shan’t like?’ She scarcely noticed the betraying ‘else’ in the question, but he smiled as if it pleased him.
‘It may be a shock,’ he warned her, ‘and you may not like it at all.’ He eyed her steadily for a second. ‘Could you bear to have me for a very distant relative, or would it be too much for you?’
‘I—I don’t understand.’
‘Well, it’s quite simple really, and one of those coincidences that are stranger than fiction. The fact that I was sent here to cover this story was quite accidental and not planned at all. I’m Robert Kincaid’s great-great-grandson.’
‘You’re—’ She stared at him, not knowing whether to believe him or not, but almost certain that even he would not deliberately lie about such a thing.
He smiled wryly at her expression. ‘It’s true,’ he told her. ‘Alice Kincaid, old Robert’s first wife, was my great-etc.-grandmama. We’re a generation ahead of you.’
‘I—I—’ She still looked at him round-eyed and he laughed softly.
‘Stricken into silence,’ he teased her, ‘not even a retort. Is it such a shock, Louise?’
‘I—no, I suppose not really,’ she admitted slowly. ‘At least it would
account for you being so much like old Robert.’ A startling thought struck her suddenly and she widened her eyes again. ‘Does Great-gran know?’
He chuckled as if the memory of something amused him. ‘Oh yes, she knows,’ he told her. ‘In fact it was she who told me, or at least guessed. She’s a marvellous old darling, you know, and she thought it was a tremendous discovery. I offered to depart in disgrace, but she wouldn’t hear of it.’
‘No,’ Louise admitted, ‘she wouldn’t.’
‘We daren’t let Stephen know,’ he said. ‘The mood he was in I’d probably never have woken up again.’
He laughed at the idea, but Louise frowned and shook her head. ‘Jon, you shouldn’t—’ she began, and surprisingly he nodded agreement.
‘No, I shouldn’t,’ he agreed, ‘especially now.’ She made no attempt to seek his reason for saying that but went on hastily:
‘Did you tell Robert this too?’
‘No, I didn’t see much point, it’s too complicated a situation for him to grasp at the moment. We can break it to him later.’
There was, Louise thought hazily, a growing intimacy about the conversation that she should do something about. ‘I just told him I was going, that’s all,’ he went on, ‘and I thought I’d let you know I’d told him, actually I thought you’d prefer it that way. I think he’ll miss me,’ he added as if his concern needed explanation.
‘He will,’ she agreed, and hoped her voice was steady, but she had a horrible feeling it quavered badly and she bit her lip anxiously. ‘When—when did you say you’ll be going?’
‘Not for a couple of days yet.’
‘I’ve been dreading it,’ she confessed, and added hastily, ‘telling him, I mean. I did try once, but then you decided to stay on and he’s grown so fond of you, he’s bound to be very upset about it.’ She looked at him curiously for a moment, remembering Robert’s manner that night. ‘It’s odd he wasn’t upset when I put him to bed earlier,’ she mused, ‘although he did seem to be a bit giggly and secretive. I’m surprised he wasn’t more upset about you going, though.’
‘I told him I was coming back.’
She looked at him for a moment in silence. ‘Are you coming back?’ she asked, and the slow smile encompassed her again, doing strange things to her composure.
‘It’s possible,’ he allowed, ‘it’s just possible I may.’
‘But you wouldn’t make a promise and not keep it?’ She was pleading for Robert’s sake, she told herself. ‘You wouldn’t be so cruel, would you?’
‘Do you think I would?’ he asked, and she shook her head, almost certain.
‘You wouldn’t do that to Robert,’ she told him. ‘I—I’m sure you wouldn’t. How did he take it?’ she added, and he smiled, a gleam of devilment behind the smile.
‘He took it well enough,’ he told her, ‘although he’s a bit annoyed with me, I think, because—’
His pause she felt was made for effect and for a moment she felt something of the familiar impatience with him. ‘Because?’ she prompted, and looked at him curiously.
He laughed. ‘He’s a small boy with some very big ideas,’ he told her at last.
‘Oh?’ She was still puzzled and more than a little uneasy at what she saw in his eyes, so she turned round and looked out of the big window at the darkness and the patch of light that framed their reflections in the glass.
‘What haven’t you done that you should have in Robert’s estimation? I hope he hasn’t been too—too personal, if he has I’ll scold him, but you have only yourself to blame, I’m afraid, you’ve spoiled him.’ He was standing behind her slightly so that he spoke over her shoulder and although she did not look at him directly she could sense him watching her reflection in the window glass, and knew he was smiling by the tone of his voice.
‘It’s a matter he’s raised with me before,’ he told her, and so matter-of-factly that she scarcely believed what she heard. ‘He wants me to marry you so that I needn’t go away—at least that’s how he sees it.’ She felt the colour flood into her face and heard the alarmingly loud beat of her heart as she curled her fingers round the edge of the long curtains, to try and stop their trembling. ‘I’m sorry—I’m sorry if he embarrassed you,’ she said, her voice horribly unsteady. Not for anything could she have turned and looked at him, although she sensed he wanted her to, feeling the gaze of those disturbing brown eyes fixed on her steadily.
‘He might, of course,’ he went on, just as matter-of-factly, ‘have just been making sure that he didn’t get Stephen for a stepfather, but I don’t think so.’
She chanced a brief glance at the dark, reflected face in the window. ‘You’ve done your share of trying to make me marry Stephen,’ she told him a little breathlessly. ‘I didn’t realise you were only trying to avoid being shanghaied by Robert.’
‘I wasn’t,’ he admitted blandly. ‘I’m a great believer in the adage that says enough’s as good as a feast. You got so tired of being urged to marry Stephen that you finally turned him down, didn’t you?’
‘I don’t see—’ she began, and he raised a hand, grinning at her reflection.
‘I know it doesn’t concern me, but I know anyway, I’m quite sure your—our cousin couldn’t have resisted telling me if you’d said yes, so I drew my own conclusions. I also explained to Robert,’ he went on, ‘that grown-ups don’t marry one another with quite such gay abandon as he seemed to think. It takes long and careful consideration and I haven’t known you for very long—although that’s not strictly true.’
‘Not true?’ She turned then, moved by curiosity, and met the warm, dark gaze as it looked down at her. ‘I’ve never met you before, have I?’
He shook his head, trying to look solemn and betrayed by that gleam of laughter as usual. ‘Not physically,’ he allowed, ‘but I always had an uneasy feeling that you existed somewhere. My granny warned me that one day I’d get sidetracked by a girl who’d fell me with one glance of her beautiful blue eyes. Yours are blue, aren’t they?’ He bent closer and looked deep into her eyes until she hastily lowered her lashes over them. ‘She said this wonderful girl would make me forget my vows of bachelorhood and a career.’
Louise thought of Essie and how she would view this scene, and of Stephen too with his possessive jealousy, and for a moment felt a twinge of conscience, despite the way her pulse was racing as she looked at him.
‘It sounds very melodramatic put like that,’ she told him, and he shook his head, his features solemn but belied by those expressive eyes.
‘Maybe,’ he allowed. ‘It’s probably the hack journalist in me coming out, but it’s true just the same.’
‘Did you explain that to Robert too?’ She no longer pretended that she would or could take offence at anything he said, but felt the surge of excitement that filled her with the desire to laugh with him at the situation they found themselves in.
He shook his head again. ‘No, but I tried to explain that no woman would think I was much of a husband if I was always off somewhere or other at short notice like now. And I said it was unlikely that you would share his enthusiasm for me as a stepfather, because you’d made some pretty broad hints at various times that my room was very definitely preferable to my company.’
‘But—’
‘I also,’ he went one as if she had not spoken, ‘told him that you were unlikely to change your mind in such a short time to the extent of marrying me.’
‘That was very clever of you.’ His puzzlement was genuine and she knew the excitement that stirred in her made her eyes shine as she looked up at him from under her lashes.
‘Well,’ she explained, ‘it allowed you to put the blame for his disappointment firmly on to me.’
‘Oh, I see, I’m sorry about that.’ He put his two hands firmly in the middle of her back and drew her so close to him that she was obliged to tilt back her head if she was to look at him. ‘Does he have to be disappointed?’ he asked softly. ‘I know it’s a very short time and I have been ra
ther like the man who came to dinner and stayed on and on, also I’m likely to be flitting about the world for some years yet because it’s my job and I wouldn’t be happy doing anything else, but I do love you, Louise. I’ve loved you ever since I stepped off that boat and saw you standing there like some lovely little Nemesis waiting in the wilderness.’
‘You hated Berren,’ she accused, sounding a little breathless as she absorbed the full meaning of what he was saying, ‘but you should really see it in the spring, Jon, it’s beautiful then.’
‘It’s beautiful now,’ he averred solemnly as if he had never thought otherwise, ‘and stop changing the subject. Will you marry me or will you have me and Robert hating you for the rest of our lives?’
She laughed softly, still scarcely believing what was happening, her fingers absently stroking the soft wool of his sweater. ‘I can’t have you doing that,’ she told him. ‘For Robert’s sake I shall have to marry you.’
He looked down at her, suddenly sober. ‘For no other reason?’ he asked.
Louise looked up at him, seeing another face, hearing another voice for a second, then she shook her head and impulsively tip-toed to kiss him gently beside his mouth, dismissing the malicious ghost of Simon Dupont for ever.
‘No other reason, except that I love you,’ she whispered, and when his arms tightened around her and his mouth found hers, the big room seemed suddenly no longer cold and empty, but warm and full of life.