by Susan Barrie
Glancing at her over her shoulder, Carole experienced an odd, acute pang of regret as the thought crossed her mind that, but for her own obstinacy—and perhaps stupidity!—Marty would become her sister-in-law; and the man beside her, whose appearance alone was sufficient to account for the increased pulse-rate of any female who looked at him, could become her husband if she allowed herself to forget that he was not in love with her, and wanted her as his wife simply to satisfy certain unflattering requirements of his own.
At least, yesterday he had been willing to become her husband. But she was fairly certain that his attitude of mind had changed completely since then. As she glanced at him almost furtively, and recognised the tight clamping together of his lips for what it was—an outward expression of his inner, seething resentment and cold indignation—she could have sighed bitterly over the situation that had arisen between them, and wished that at least they were back on their old footing, when they had been good friends if nothing else.
In Paris he had been more than nice to her. He had taken her about (for his own ends, it was true!) and treated her as if she was someone of importance whom he wished above all things to please, and he had actually seemed to enjoy himself in the process. They had laughed and joked and argued lightheartedly, behaved like a couple of sightseers, danced and dined in secluded places, and even walked hand-in-hand in the streets of Paris ... Not only in Montmartre, where everybody else seemed to be doing the same thing, but in the more fashionable corners of Paris, such as the Rue de Rivoli, after he had indulged her desire to go window-shopping, and bought her several highly acceptable presents!
She wondered now, as she sat gripping her hands together in her lap, whether she ought to return them to him. And she made up her mind that she would return them to him at the earliest opportunity ... Just as she fully intended to return the opal ring.
But the thing she could not return—or forget—was the memory of one night when they had walked hand in hand in the early hours, under the dripping trees of the Bois, when their taxi broke down and they had to set out to find another; and he had held her hand very strongly, and because it had turned unexpectedly cool taken off his dinner-jacket and placed it about her chiffon-clad shoulders.
That was a night—or rather, early morning—when it had seemed to her that the world was a very wonderful place indeed, and her cup of temporary contentment was well-nigh full, for she could never expect anything more of life—never would expect anything more than the sheer, undiluted happiness of those early, dawn hours. Although there had been no cocks to crow, and it had started to rain before they finally found another taxi, even James had seemed to prefer the dampness and the dawn to any idea of returning home.
He had encircled her with his arm, to protect her from the wet, in addition to lending her his coat, and he had suggested having breakfast together at some little cafe where other couples in similar circumstances might also be found having breakfast while the light grew and cocks really started to crow in the surrounding suburbs.
But even then, while he had seemed not to be acting a part—in fact, she knew very well that he was not acting a part—the remembrance that she was acting a part, and had no right to wear his ring on her finger, had prevented her agreeing to prolong their time together.
She had said breathlessly, with an undercurrent of keen regret in her voice, that she had to be back at Miss Dove’s in good time to put in a conventional appearance at the breakfast table there, and he had glanced at her whimsically as if he only half believed her.
She remembered that he had said, “Very well! If you’re tired of me! It’s been rather a long night, hasn’t it?”
A long night ... But he would have prolonged it!
Glancing at him now, on their way back from the centuries-old village church, she knew that that friendly relationship of theirs was utterly dead. And it was she who had killed it.
He had asked her to be Mrs. James Pentallon, and she had smacked his face!
She had read somewhere, at some time or other, that very few men reacted favourably to having their faces smacked by a woman, even if they happened to be in love with her. And even if they succeeded in forgiving, they never quite forgot the incident.
Carole swallowed, her gloved hands fastening on her neat purse handbag. James was not in love with her, and therefore it was quite unlikely that he would ever forgive her. His sister, Marty, had stated quite categorically that he wouldn’t.
They turned in at the gates of Ferne Abbey, and the rakish white car tunnelled smoothly up the drive. Mrs. Bennett was in the hall when they arrived, and she handed over a telegram to her master.
The Comte de Sarterre was in London, and he would be arriving at the Abbey the following day, unless advised beforehand that it was inconvenient. Venturing to assume that it would not be inconvenient, he hoped to remain for a few days.
James passed the telegram to his sister, and then nodded curtly to the housekeeper.
“Get a room ready, Mrs. Bennett,” he instructed. “You’d better make it the Rose Room in the west wing.”
“Very good, Mr. James.”
James crossed to the fireplace and the tray of drinks that awaited them, and while he was pouring a glass of sherry for Carole he looked up thoughtfully at his sister.
“Have you any idea why Armand should be visiting England? Did he say anything to you about it before we left Paris?”
Marty shook her head ... although, as Carole did not neglect to notice, she was somewhat painstakingly careful to avoid her brother’s eyes.
“Not a word. But then why should he? He was never my friend! I didn’t have any real opportunity to get to know him. It was Carole who seemed to bowl him over!”
“Carole?” James lifted his head, and then looked faintly puzzled. “But Carole only met him on one or two occasions.”
Marty smiled.
“A lot can happen on one or two occasions ... And if you’ll cast your mind back to that night when we all four had dinner together you’ll probably recall that he never stopped talking to Carole. And I believe he telephoned her the following day to make some arrangement to see her again. Wasn’t that so, Carole?”
Carole accepted her drink from James and tried to appear as if she considered such a discussion absolute nonsense.
“If he did, I was too busy to take any notice,” she replied.
Marty smiled again.
“But you do remember that he sent you roses? White ones ... Just before we left.”
Carole flushed faintly.
“Yes, I remember that.”
“And there was a card attached which indicated he was feeling a little sad at saying goodbye to you by proxy, as it were. The roses were his way of saying how much happier he would have been if your friendship had had a chance to develop.”
James, who was beginning to frown in a fashion that linked his black brows together in the middle of his forehead, paused in the process of pouring himself a drink to look up and say sharply that this was all news to him, and since he was supposed to be engaged to Carole—even although it was only a piece of deception which the three of them understood, although the rest of the world did not—why hadn’t someone informed him of the gift of roses?
It was highly incorrect, a most unusual thing to happen when the lady was officially bestowed, and a bad lapse on the part of the Comte, who was a man with a social status that demanded a stricter adherence to what was generally expected of everyone. In fact, James thought it was downright bad taste, and he looked so extraordinarily indignant that the two girls instantly exchanged looks.
And then Marty shrugged her shoulders.
“Oh, don’t be silly,” she said carelessly. “It’s not bad taste for a man to fall in love ... and probably Armand fell the least little bit in love with Carole! After all, she’s very English, and the sort of girl a lot of men with Latin temperament might fall in love with. Besides, when he met her there was no talk of an engagement between you and Ca
role, and it probably never even occurred to him that there would be. She was free—free as air, or so he believed!—and I’m certain it shook him badly when you introduced her to him and Chantal St. Clair as your fiancée at the Duchess’s cocktail party.”
“I never noticed that it shook him.” James spoke stiffly. He advanced towards the middle of the rug and took up his position with his back to the baronial fireplace, his drink untasted in his hand.
Marty shrugged again.
“That’s because you’re probably not very observant.”
“In any case,” directing a hostile gaze at Carole, “why didn’t you tell me that Armand had sent you roses?”
Carole thought the whole thing was a storm in a teacup, and she simply could not understand why James was suddenly looking so ferocious—particularly at her, whom he had been more or less ignoring all morning—and why his sister had been so indiscreet as to make such a revelation to him.
“It never even occurred to me that you would be interested,” she told him, with a calmness she was not altogether feeling—for an indifferent James was one thing, a ferocious James was quite another. “Besides,” suddenly realising that she had rights of her own, and he had no real jurisdiction over her—certainly not now that their ‘engagement’ was holding together by a mere thread—“it isn’t any business of yours, is it? I mean,” squaring her slim shoulders and looking downwards into the amber liquid that filled her glass, “whatever arrangement you and I arrived at to deceive other people we had no arrangement to discuss our personal lives with one another. And I would remind you that the roses the Comte de Sarterre sent me were my roses, and the fact that he sent them was my affair entirely!”
Marty beamed with pleasure, and applauded her enthusiastically.
“Good for you!” she said. “Oh, good for you! James is merely being awkward, and he hasn’t the smallest right. If you were really his fiancée it would be a different matter ... But you’re not, so don’t let him bully you!”
“I have no intention of allowing myself to be bullied by James, or by anyone else,” Carole assured her, with the same air of dignity, and James directed at her such a long and thoughtful look that she wondered whether the dignity didn’t quite deceive him, or whether it actually caused him to see her in a different light. A new light ... which would explain the reason why someone sent her roses.
The atmosphere during the rest of that day was definitely strained, and James took himself off in the afternoon for a long and lonely walk across country, as if he wished to be alone in order to think a matter out that was either disturbing him or confounding him.
At dinner that night he returned to the subject of the Comte.
“I thought he was making plans for going abroad again,” he said. “I thought he was leading another expedition somewhere ... So what’s he doing in London? And why does he want to stay here for a few days?” He looked hard and suspiciously at Marty. “Have you any idea?”
She helped herself to a peach from the silver bowl of fruit, and started to pare it.
“Perhaps you issued an invitation to him at some time or other,” she suggested, “and he’s taking advantage of it.”
“I don’t remember issuing any such invitation. And what is there at Ferne Abbey to interest a Frenchman with an obsession for unfrequented corners of the globe? Everything he’s excavated so far has been in either South America or Burma, or somewhere like that. I don’t flatter myself that our ancient abbey could provide him with the satisfaction that a mined Buddhist temple or a lost Amazonian city could.”
Marty addressed herself to her peach.
“Perhaps it’s a latent interest he’s developed in early British remains,” she suggested.
He looked at her even more closely. There was a tiny smile at the corners of her mouth that quite plainly increased his suspicion.
“He isn’t coming here because of you, is he?” he demanded bluntly.
She dimpled delightfully.
“Only if you think I can be classified under the heading of early British remains. I’ve already told you that it was Carole to whom he sent white roses.”
James applied himself to his main course, and he did so with so much concentration, and with such a bleak frown between his brows, that even his sister decided to leave him alone for the rest of the evening, and she was remarkably sweet to him whenever he addressed her.
As for Carole, he once more more or less ignored her, and she began to feel real indignation bubbling up inside her ... although at the same time her feeling of righteous anger provided her with little satisfaction.
Another telegram was received the following morning from Armand, requesting a car to be sent to the nearest station to meet him. James gave the necessary instructions to his chauffeur with a look of grave displeasure at the corners of his mouth, and when the car returned to the Abbey in good time for lunch he was nowhere to be seen, and it was Marty on whom the duties of receiving the guest devolved.
And even Marty received something of a shock when she glimpsed another figure sharing the back of the sleek grey Bentley with the Comte, and as soon as it stopped recognised that other figure as Chantal St. Clair. Chantal, looking particularly lovely and particularly fetching in an off-white suit and an enchanting hat, a mink stole over her arm and a wide gold bracelet inset with diamonds and emeralds enclosing her wrist over an impeccable suede glove.
The Comte assisted her to alight with all the gallantry of a Frenchman, and then he looked round almost eagerly as if searching for someone apart from Marty, who was waiting to assure him of his welcome. And while she gave him her hand and said how good it was to see him again—and at the same time dismay spread in her because Chantal had arrived without either an invitation or warning them beforehand—James came sauntering almost carelessly round an angle of the house, stood still for a moment at sight of Chantal, and then advanced along the terrace to greet them.
Chantal waited for him to come right up to her before she offered him her hand, or even smiled at him. Her lustrous dark eyes were watchful, a little wary ... and then they fairly dazzled him (or, at least, should have done) with their brilliance as her lovely lips parted in that slow, engaging smile of hers.
“Darling,” she told him throatily, “I had to come! We parted on such bad terms before you left Paris, and Armand didn’t seem to think you would object if I accompanied him. It was so good of Marty to invite him ... and perhaps there is something or someone here that caused him to jump at the invitation!” And she looked upwards at Carole, standing several feet away beside one of the stone lions on the terrace. And as Carole could not have been more simply or inexpensively clad the contrast between the two women was enormous.
But the Comte quite obviously found nothing wrong with the simplicity of the younger girl’s appearance. He fairly leapt up the steps and offered her his hand with enthusiasm.
“Mademoiselle Carole!” he exclaimed. “You are more charming than ever, and, in this extremely English setting, more English than ever. I can’t tell you what pleasure it gives me to see you again!”
James, with Chantal’s fingers fastening on his arm as if she was determined to let all of them know that he belonged to her, and not to any make-believe fiancée, ignored her, and gazed round, also, at Carole. His mouth was tight, and his brows positively overlapped one another.
“I’m sure that information will give a great deal of satisfaction to my fiancée, Armand,” he told him, in such a clipped, curt voice that it was hardly the voice of a host welcoming a guest. “But don’t allow your enthusiasm to carry you away entirely. Try and remember that she is my fiancée!”
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHANTAL laughed lightly and patted his sleeve. If she was trying to give the impression that he amused her, and she was prepared to humour him, she succeeded.
Armand, on the other hand, appeared mildly surprised, and slightly hurt. He glanced for a moment at Marty, who was trying to make up for her brother’s cool r
eception by chattering gaily as if she really welcomed the visitors—even Chantal, apparently, since her good manners prevented her displaying any personal animosity towards her—and then his brown eyes grew puzzled. They returned to Carole, and his attractive mouth curved ruefully.
“Always my enthusiasms carry me away,” he apologised. “And on that first occasion when we met you and I had such an interesting conversation that I’m afraid I formed the opinion we had much in common.” He repeated, “Much in common!” and looked directly down into her eyes as if he was seeking to convey a message.
Marty turned and led the way into the house, still talking rapidly as if it was a duty, and Chantal followed with her arm still linked in that of James. She exclaimed rapturously over the beauty of the Abbey, and in particular the splendidly preserved Great Hall. She declared that she had never seen anything quite like it in France, and she was so grateful to the Comte for allowing her to travel with him. Now at last she was to be permitted an intimate glimpse of an Englishman behaving in a truly English manner in a perfect English setting.
She glanced upwards meltingly at James.
“An Englishman in his castle,” she murmured to him softly. “Always I have suspected that this is where you really belong, James, and now I know!” Her bright eyes took in the richness of the furnishings, the flowers and the mellowed roof beams, the fluttering banners and the warlike display upon the walls, and she gave vent to a little gurgle of pleasure and appreciation. She was also impressed by the well-trained behaviour of the servants ... the chauffeur who carried in the luggage, the butler who looked as if he might melt into the background at any moment, and could never be guilty of doing or saying anything jarring; the housekeeper who was concerned because a room had not been prepared for the lady visitor.