As Blane did not once come into the kitchen, although he must have heard sounds of activity, she felt he was back to being in a black mood. And the worst thing about that was that because it was she who had reminded him of his recent traumatic past, she was the cause of him being in a black mood. And as she still felt a fool to have charged past him like she had, Arden could think of no good excuse to go into the sitting room and try to help him.
'Dinner!' she called sunnily when that excuse did present itself.
Putting down his book, Blane followed her to the kitchen. But though he was not talkative, she fancied when she felt his eyes on her a time or two, that he seemed on the point of saying something.
Unable to help, since it seemed to her that every time she opened her mouth she got shot down in flames, when, placing a portion of apricot pie in front of him, she could not resist a glance in his direction. To find his eyes fixed on her—Blane did not attempt to look away—had her more unable than ever to find her voice.
'I didn't mean…' he began. And suddenly Arden felt such a beautiful empathy flowing from him to her that she knew exactly what he was trying to say.
'I know,' she broke in quietly before he could finish. 'I'm—a bit edgy today,' she added to explain why she had stormed off when she had thought he had meant that he had found all she told him boring.
'It's time you had a turn,' he remarked wryly.
Arden had no answer to make. She was happy. That beautiful empathy was still there. And it was to remain while he helped her with the washing up. She sensed a quietness in him when he seemed not to want to talk. But it was a quietness that was not, she felt, stemming from any black mood.
Though when everything in the kitchen was shipshape and he looked ready to take himself back to the sitting room, much as she wanted nothing more than to be with him, instead she said:
'I could do with an early night—I think I'll go to bed.' And having gained his attention, a feeling of something else needing to be tacked on to what she had said, Arden found herself offering the advice, 'Don't read too late.'
For a panicky second she thought she had gone too far, for he was not smiling as he looked into her eyes. Then, 'Yes, nurse,' he answered, and turned away. Arden went to bed with a quiet happiness in her. If Blane hadn't smiled, he hadn't been scowling either, had he!
Hoping to again find that empathy she had thought of as beautiful, Arden arrived in the kitchen the next morning to see that Blane was once more busy with the frying pan.
'Good morning,' she greeted him lightly, her eyes swift to note that he looked as though he had slept well, that the lines of strain and sleeplessness were looking far less deeply etched than they had been.
'Good morning,' he replied evenly. But she did not mind that he had no battery of charm to sink her with that morning. For as he busied himself at the stove, his glance at her no more than a cursory one, she could see no sign of any black clouds.
But black clouds were forming. And thunder was in the air when, after a morning spent in doing any job her experienced eye saw needed attention, Arden set about making the midday meal.
That Blane didn't appear hungry when she had thought he must be ravenous from his wood chopping exertions outside was a second intimation that a day that had started out fairly pleasantly was not going well for him. The first indication had been to see that the dark brooding expression was back in his face. That dark expression telling her that whatever thoughts had gone through his head while he had been tossing logs around, they had not been happy thoughts.
'I thought cheese and biscuits might be a change from pastry for afters,' she said, keeping her voice determinedly easy as she carried his barely touched plate to the draining board.
'I don't want anything else,' he snarled, just as though challenging her to retaliate.
He very nearly succeeded. How she bit back the snappy, 'Good—all the more for me' that rose to her lips, she didn't know. 'There's a nice fire in the sitting room,' she managed to amend quietly. 'I'll bring you coffee in there if you'd…'
'For God's sake stop fussing!' he barked at her as his chair grated back from the table, and he strode from the room.
Minutes after he had gone, after she had heard the sitting room door slam shut, Arden was still fighting a battle between tears and indignant anger.
Then with half of her saying he could jolly well starve before she would cook him another morsel, and the other half of her arguing that he wasn't yet recovered and that she should make allowances for him, she caught herself staring sullenly at the pile of washing up waiting to be done, and realised then that she would be as bad as him if she didn't watch it.
That thought brought her up short as she left her chair and put the cheese and biscuits away—she had no further appetite either. Though she did not see why she should deprive herself of a cup of coffee, so she made herself a cup, not seeing either why she should feel a pang of guilt as hurt pride refused to have her take Blane one.
But by the time she had finished her coffee, the rebellion in her had reached a fine peak that she should feel guilty about anything where he was concerned. Damn it, this was supposed to be her holiday! She hadn't asked him to come with her.
Though her love for him was to have her hesitating when on a spurt of anger she marched into the hall to get her jacket prior to taking herself off for a long walk. Damn him, she thought, as with reluctant feet she went to the sitting room door.
'I'm going for a walk,' she announced shortly, her tone as cold as the look she received from the scowling man who looked up, impatient at the interruption. Wondering at this love she bore him that had her hoping his tongue was just hanging out for a cup of coffee, she found she just couldn't resist the parting comment as he rose to his feet, 'You know where the kitchen is—I've left you the washing up.'
How's that for fussing? she thought, immensely proud of herself. If Blane Hunter suspected she felt anything for him, then assuredly he would think it was hate.
The sound of footsteps striding out behind told her that she had company, and that she would find the washing up waiting for her when she got back. Not that she'd expected him to take being bossed about by a mere woman, she thought, ignoring Blane as he fell silently into step with her.
She tried hard to hate him that he didn't trust her to take a walk on her own, but her quickened heartbeat, the joy she felt to have him there, even if he wasn't saying one word as they tramped on, could not be denied.
Nor could she deny the thrill that came when crossing the stream she had seen, thinking to explore the wood that lay beyond, she missed her footing and nearly came a cropper—Blane's hand was there in an instant to stop her coming to grief.
That he had forgotten he was still holding her hand as, without a word passing between them, they entered the wood, had her feeling all soft inside towards him.
That he suddenly seemed to realise that he still had hold of her, and dropped her hand as though it was a hot brick, found her still with nothing to say.
So why, on their return journey, when, sensing again that he wanted to be quiet, she had refrained from 'prattling', she should suddenly feel a sense of companionship with him, she couldn't have said. For all she knew, she mused as they reached the cottage and she preceded him into the hall to hang up her jacket, he could be sending violent hate rays her way—but strangely, she did not think so.
She left him in the hall hanging up his jacket, and went into the kitchen ready to tackle the washing up. But when she felt two firm hands come to lift her bodily away from the sink, the first sound between them in an age came from her in her squeak of surprise.
'Who am I to flout the orders from head office?' Blane shrugged gruffly.
Her startled eyes took in that he had taken her place at the sink and was pushing back his sleeves, feeling weak from the feel of his hands at her waist, and all Arden could find to say was a faint:
'Who indeed?'
Needing to get herself together, she too
k herself off to the sitting room. It was there, as she was pretending to read, that Blane later joined her. But because she was afraid she had got it all wrong, that she had mistaken that feeling of companionship, she was no more talkative than she had been on their walk.
The walk, though, she thought, when following her ritual of making an afternoon cup of tea she left him briefly, had done him good. For there was none of the sourness she thought might still be in him in his, 'Thanks, Arden,' when she passed him his cup.
Having not forgotten his wounding charge of 'fussing', she deliberated on and off for the rest of the afternoon about what to do about dinner. Mentally she phrased the enquiry she meant to put to him a hundred different ways. But when the time came and went which usually saw her busy in the kitchen, she was still dealing with fears that she might get a sharp answer if she didn't phrase it right.
'I'm hungry,' she said at last, getting to her feet. 'Are you interested?'
To see him smile, to see first one corner of his mouth pick up and then the other, made her heart flip. And all was right with her world again when he said simply:
'So fuss me.'
'Wretch,' she said agreeably, and left him.
Dinner was a meal which again saw Arden being sunk by his charm. By the time he was tucking into the biscuits and cheese he had spurned at lunchtime, she was ready to forgive him anything.
As he became chatty, after barely speaking a word in the previous hours, she was more and more under his spell as he spoke on any subject that came up. But if she had been thinking that she might go to bed with a light heart, then Arden was to discover that she had never been more wrong.
It was at the end of their meal, when having drawn her out to tell him more of her life—proving, she thought happily, that he hadn't been bored before—she found the subject of her aunt coming into anything she had to tell him, and, unable to hold anything back, she told him how she thought that Louise was more fond of Colonel Meredith than she was aware.
'But she won't agree to marry him?' he asked, reminding her that she had told him about the Colonel's wish.
'He's working on it,' said Arden, smiling much as she had for most of the last fifteen minutes. 'But Aunt Louise, although she doesn't see them very often, has some very dominant in-laws.' And at his encouraging look, she went on, 'They would never forgive her if she married again. They'd think it a slight on Uncle Tam. Which it wouldn't be,' she added quickly. 'Because if they remembered him as well as they thought they did, they'd know that nothing would please him more than that his dear Louise should be happy.'
'You're a relation too, a closer relative to Mrs Browning,' Blane pointed out. 'And while I can see you want her happiness too, are you, like the depressing-sounding in-laws, also against second marriages?'
Her smile gone, Arden's heart started to beat erratically. Just looking at him she knew she would leap at any chance to marry him. But that was not what he was asking—nor would he. Her smile less natural than it had been, she made herself concentrate on the subject under discussion.
'I think it's important to be happy,' she replied. 'Aunt Louise has been a widow for six years now,' she added, not forgetting that Blane had been without a wife for ten years. 'Colonel Meredith is a good man, and, like I said, I think my aunt is very fond of him. I would like to see them married,' she ended.
'Which means you're not against second marriages.'
Arden nodded, but foolishly then, encouraged by the way he had drawn her out, she went rushing in where angels fear to tread. 'How about you?' she asked, wondering if the reason he had not married a second time was because he held some prejudice. 'Have you never thought of marrying again?' Feeling hot under the collar suddenly because her question was such a personal one, a question he might see she had more than a little interest in, she blundered on, 'I mean, you were—divorced—a good many years before— before…' she stumbled to a halt.
'Before Delcine was killed,' he finished for her. And it was just as if the sound of his ex-wife's name on his lips had brought to the surface all that had been behind him since they had come in from their walk. 'One experience of marriage,' he told her savagely, 'was enough.'
She felt flattened that the companionship she had been soft enough to think they'd shared had gone— flattened by what he said, by that look of wanting to hurt as he was hurting. It came to her, as she tried to surface, that with Blane at last talking of the dead Delcine, bringing out her name as he had, it might be of some therapeutic value to get him to talk of her.
But as a psychologist, she was quickly to learn, she just hadn't got the first idea. For as her need to know for sure got mixed up with her need to help, she was rash enough not to see that Blane seemed to be sinking into a foul mood.
'You still feel something for her?' she dared to ask. 'You still love—Delcine?'
His chair flew back from the table, and Blane crashed to his feet, ignoring the clatter his chair made as it fell over—it was amply sufficient to tell her that she had gone too far! And looking as though he could no longer stand the sight of Arden, he had only one stinging comment to make before he slammed out.
'What my feelings are for my dead ex-wife,' he blasted her eardrums thunderously, 'is none of your damned business!'
CHAPTER EIGHT
Staring gloomily out from her bedroom window on an afternoon ten days later, Arden was again wondering why she had bothered to remain at Brynmoel.
Blane's moods ever since that ghastly night when he had as good as told her to mind her own damn business had, to put it mildly, been variable.
Things had not been exactly brilliant before, she recalled. But after that night when she had gone to bed and howled her eyes out, things had gone rapidly downhill. That look of strain had been back with him the following morning to tell her that, if she had slept badly, then he had slept barely at all.
How crass she had been to hope that, if nothing else, the following weeks might see her somehow getting closer to him. Blane had made it abundantly clear that he did not want anyone close to him. He was a loner, and he liked it that way.
Sighing, she recalled how, as she had watched him going more and more into himself, her love for him had seen her putting aside her own feelings. Her thoughts were only for him, for the torment that was in his head, his horror that he had driven someone he loved to their death, and she had once more tried to get him to talk. She had hoped that, once talking, he might well spend some time outside the tormented thoughts that possessed him.
It had been one lunchtime, about the only time this last few days when they were in each other's company for more than two minutes, that she had begun regaling him with the antics Uncle Tam had got up to in the past to make her laugh.
'You were ten when you went to live with them, you said,' he remarked, sending a glow through her that he wasn't grunting a reply.
And a very solemn-looking ten-year-old, I think,' she said, that glow turning into burning as, sensing he was remembering he had once called her leggy, in the absence of her legs under the table being visible, she saw his eyes flick to her bustline where all the evidence was there that she had filled out.
Then delight had been hers that he came away from the blackness of his thoughts, that sensitivity in him showing through as he said, 'You had recently, and tragically, just lost your parents—you had every reason to look solemn.' And it was softly that he had added, 'Poor little scrap.'
Was it any wonder that she loved him? When he was sensitive like that, it made her heart melt. But the object of the exercise was not to win his sympathy.
'I wasn't solemn for long, I don't think,' she had said. 'Uncle Tam soon had me laughing again.' And, striking while the iron was hot, 'I soon learned, even at that age,' she'd added quickly, 'that although I thought my world had come to an end, it had not. It…'
Blane thrusting his plate away had had her breaking off, the expression on his face telling her he had seen straight through her homily.
'Oh, my G
od,' he had said, tossing her a look of disgust, 'spare me the rest!'
Hurt again as only he had the power to hurt, left to herself as he went from the room, Arden had seen that she had not been so very clever.
Sleepless in bed that night, she had despaired of ever getting through to him, and again she had had serious thoughts of making tracks back to Chalmers Hollow. From what she could make of it, she was doing Blane not the slightest good by staying. She'd had it with trying to get him outside himself anyway—he didn't want to know. Since all she ever seemed to accomplish was to make him angry, she thought, her mind had suddenly been made up. She had to go.
But it was the following morning during breakfast when, still of the same mind, she realised that because Blane still did not want anyone to know where he was, he was just stubborn enough to let himself starve if she didn't go and stock up for him before she left.
Breakfast eaten, as usual in silence, when she heard his chair scrape back indicating he had eaten all he was going to eat, she had halted him before he went through the door, and told him that she was going to the village to shop.
But it had been she who had been stopped in her tracks, when, looking up to see he was unsmilingly studying her, she had heard him ask grittily:
'You do intend to come back?'
He seemed tense as he waited for her answer, and all the hours of spadework she had put in through the long night to harden her heart went for nothing. But she had had the rough end of his tongue before— she wasn't going to be chopped down to size again in a hurry.
'Can't bear me out of your sight, can you?' she had answered flippantly.
He did not smile, but oh, that charm in him! Arden could have sworn there was warmth there when, one eyebrow ascending, he had asked:
'Fishing for me to confirm what your mirror tells you?'
'I'm all agog,' she managed, wishing her heart would behave.
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