'It did happen rather quickly,' his aunt admitted. 'Bethan's been ill and needed a light job to give her time to recover. It was Hugo's idea that she should come to me, and I must say I'm very grateful to him for thinking of it. We get on splendidly, don't we, Bethan? Now what was it you were rushing in here to tell me, my dear?'
For a moment Bethan looked at her blankly, her senses still vibrating at Fraser's nearness, her mind still off-balance, wondering if he did know her and if he meant to tell his aunt. Finally pulling herself together she held out the book. 'I found this in Framlingham today and I thought you'd like to see it.' She found the eight page. 'Look, there's a picture of the house taken years. ago.'
Lorna gave a crow of delight as Bethan laid the book on her lap. 'Oh Fraser, do look! You must show this to Siriol; she'll be fascinated. Have you seen her since you got back, by the way?'
'Yes, I called in at the winery first to see how the bottling is going and she'd just finished showing a party around. I've asked her over for dinner if that's all right with you, Lorna?' He had glanced at the illustration in the book then directed a coldly searching look at Bethan.
'Of course it's all right. You know you don't have to
ask,' his aunt assured him. She turned to Bethan. `Siriol Miles is Fraser's fiancee, Bethan. Her father bought the old rectory a few years ago and did it up. I'm glad she's coming tonight. I'm sure you'll like her, and she'll be some young company for you.'
So he was still unmarried then, but soon to change that. Bethan refused to recognise a sudden ache.
'Do I take it she hasn't been up to the house to see you while I've been away?' Fraser asked sharply, frowning.
Lorna suddenly looked uncomfortable. 'Not for the last few days,' she admitted. 'But the tourists are starting to arrive and she's been kept busy. Siriol helps Fraser as a guide,' she explained for Bethan's benefit, 'taking visitors around the winery and showing them what goes on. You'll have to join one of her tours while you're here, Bethan.'
'I thought Miss—Steele was here to look after you, not go junketing around the district.' Again there was that unnerving hesitation as Fraser said her name, and his implication that she would be prepared to neglect her patient for her own enjoyment made her smart at the unfairness.
But before she could defend herself Lorna said sharply, 'Don't be silly, Fraser. Bethan's entitled to some free time.'
'You might feel like taking a gentle stroll over to the winery yourself one day if it's not too far,' Bethan said placatingly, not wishing to become a bone of contention between aunt and nephew. Fraser's attitude to her made her deeply uneasy. Surely if he had recognised her he would have said something by now? But if he hadn't, then why was he so hostile? After all, both Dr Fielding and Lorna herself had said he had been keen to engage a nurse for his aunt.
But there was no more time to wonder. There was the sound of the front door opening and closing and light footsteps crossing the hall. A petite girl with shoulder—
SHBEL'S PARTY
length black hair and thickly fringed dark eyes burst into the room.
`Siriol, my dear!' Lorna smiled a welcome.
The girl went at once to Fraser, linking her arm in his and hardly able to tear her eyes away from him to say, 'Hello, Aunt Lorna. Isn't it marvellous to have Fraser home early?'
'Hello, sweetheart.' There was no coldness in Fraser's grey eyes now as he looked down at the girl hanging on his arm. I understand you haven't met the new addition to the household yet, Lorna's—nurse, Bethan Steele.' Again there was that almost imperceptible hesitation that kept Bethan on tenterhooks. 'Miss Steele, this is my fiancée, Siriol Miles.' There was an unreadable expression in his eyes as he made the introduction.
Bethan's first reaction was one of shock. This was his fiancée? But she looked so young, no more than twenty, barely more than half Fraser's age. And it was something rather more than shock she had to admit to. There was a sharp pain too, deep down, and with dismay she recognised it as jealousy. Ten years ago Fraser Laurie had rejected her, leaving her in no doubt that he had no place for her in his life, and after all those years it was still painful to meet the girl who was to be his wife.
But aware of Fraser's sardonic eyes watching her, Bethan hid both the shock and the betraying jealousy. I'm very happy to meet you, Miss Miles,' she said quietly.
'Oh Siriol, please.' The other girl's smile was warm and friendly And I'll call you Bethan. It's such a pretty name, don't you think so, darling?'
I used to like it once.' Fraser's voice, like the expression in his eyes, was flat and hard, but when Siriol looked up at him in surprise his face relaxed. As you say, it's a pretty name,' he agreed indifferently.
Lorna showed Bethan's book with the old illustration
of Vine House to Siriol and the tension eased as they fell to discussing when the photograph might have been taken, but all the time Bethan was acutely aware of Fraser, and aware that his eyes often rested on her with cold speculation. It was a relief when Molly came in with the loaded dinner-trolley and Bethan jumped up to help Lorna from her chair and into the dining-area.
'I'm glad to see you take your duties seriously, Miss Steele,' Fraser said as she lowered Lorna carefully into her chair at the table. There was a sardonic twist to his mouth that belied his apparently innocuous remark.
'Indeed she does!' Lorna Ruston answered for her, smiling at her fondly. 'Hugo was quite right when he predicted she would suit me very well. But don't let her gentle manner deceive you, Fraser. Bethan has her own way of keeping me in order and persuading me to do as I should.'
Fraser took his own chair when he had seen Bethan seated and for some reason she realised he was furiously angry, and yet his question, 'You know Hugo well, Miss Steele?' sounded reasonable enough.
'I can't say I know Dr Fielding well, but we've been acquainted for quite a few years now,' she replied quietly. I've been working abroad for too long to be able to say I know anyone in England well.'
'Bin he obviously felt he knew you well enough to recommend you for this job,' Fraser said silkily. 'Do you do much private nursing?'
Bethan toyed with her soup-spoon, her appetite deserting her under his questioning because she couldn't help feeling there was some hidden purpose behind it. 'No, this is the first time.'
His dark eyebrows lifted. 'So what made you change your habits? Oh yes, you said something about having been ill and needing a less arduous job.'
'Darling, do you have to fire questions at the poor girl all through dinner?' Siriol laughingly protested. 'You're not giving her a chance to eat.'
Fraser stood up to pour out the wine, which Bethan refused with her hand over her glass, and he didn't look pleased at his fiancée's protest. 'Surely it's only natural I should want to know something of Miss Steele's background and qualifications,' he retorted stiffly. 'That is what you said, isn't it, Miss Steele?'
'I—I had an accident.' Bethan glanced at Lorna, silently begging her not to enlarge on her bald statement. Fraser was already so hostile, she was sure if he was given a full explanation he would see it only as a bid to ingratiate herself.
'What kind of accident?' he pressed.
Bethan shifted uncomfortably in her chair and shot another pleading glance at Lorna, who was frowning. 'A—a street accident,' she said, knowing her face was flooding with guilty colour.
'You walked in front of a car?' he was openly disbelieving. 'And this happened in London, I suppose.' 'No, I've already told you I was abroad.'
'Oh yes, so you said. America, wasn't it? So why come back to England for medical treatment?'
'America!' She couldn't imagine why he should think that. 'No, it wasn't in America. And my—my employers had me brought back to London.'
-Your—employers? Now who would they be?' He was like a cat pouncing on a mouse, Bethan thought wildly.
But this time it didn't need another pleading glance to bring Lorna to her rescue. 'That's quite enough, Fraser,' his aunt said firmly. 'Can't you
see Bethan doesn't wish to talk about her accident?'
She began to talk to Siriol about the stage the wine-bottling had reached and under cover of their conversation Fraser said to Bethan in a low voice, 'Oh yes, I can see all right, and I'm sure I don't need two guesses to know why you're so reluctant to talk about it.'
Bethan's startled and apprehensive green eyes clashed
with his hard grey ones. But at least Lorna had put an end to his questioning if not to her own frantic wondering. What on earth had he meant by that last remark? Had Fraser recognised her as the girl he had known and rejected all those years ago, the girl who had brought disgrace to her stepfather's name? She could think of no other explanation for his barely concealed antagonism.
The meal seemed to stretch on interminably, but though Bethan took little part in the conversation she had ample opportunity to study the man she had once been infatuated with. Because that was all it had been, she told herself distractedly. And this skin-prickling awareness of him she felt now was nothing more than the lingering threads of that infatuation, that and his all-too-obvious dislike of finding her in his home.
Ten years ago there had been a certain arrogance about him at times, but not the cynical hardness, the ruthlessness she sensed now. There was no way she could imagine this man finding time to coax a shy teenager out of her shell as the younger Fraser had. Even his face was all hard lines as if hewn from granite. She couldn't imagine the man he had become showing kindness, let alone tenderness. And yet Siriol Miles loved-him. Bethan only had to see the way she looked at him, the way she touched him to know that. And what did he feel about the girl who was his fiancée, she wondered. He must feel something, she supposed, or he wouldn't have asked her to be his wife. But he 'displayed few symptoms of a man in love. His attitude to Siriol seemed to be little more than a tolerant affection. Or was it perhaps that a man such as he didn't care to display his emotions? Maybe alone with Siriol he was very different. For just a moment she allowed herself to remember what it had been like to be in his arms, then slammed the shutters of her memory decisively.
The meal did eventually come to an end and Bethan began to stack the dirty plates on the trolley as the
others moved back to the sitting-room to take their coffee.
'Don't you bother with them now, Miss Bethan,' Molly protested. 'You go and sit yourself down and relax. That trip to Framlingham must've taken it out of you.'
Bethan was aware of the sardonic twist to Fraser's mouth but thought it best not to argue. As she passed by him to take a vacant chair he said in a jibing undertone, 'More junketing, Miss Steele?'
'Your aunt wanted to go to the hairdressers,' she said defensively. 'As I'm supposed to be looking after her, naturally I went along too.'
He merely shrugged and went to sit by Siriol on one of the sofas, and soon the two were in deep discussion about events at the winery since he had been away. Bethan still hadn't got over her surprise at finding a vineyard in the heart of the English countryside and would have found it interesting to listen and learn something about what went into turning grapes into wine. But Lorna said with a laugh, 'If those two are going to talk business all night, you and I will have to make do with the chessboard again, Bethan, for our entertainment.'
Bethan went to the cupboard to get the board out, thinking Fraser hadn't heard, but almost at once he said derisively, 'Chess!'
'Perhaps you'd like to take Bethan on, Fraser,' his aunt suggested. 'I promise you'll find her a very worthy opponent. I haven't managed to beat her yet.'
The thought of sitting across a chessboard with him put Bethan in a panic and it was with considerable relief she heard him say, 'I think not, Lorna.' He turned to Siriol, pulling her to her feet. 'I'll run you home, darling. I know it's early yet but I need to see your father anyway. He'll expect a report on the deal I struck with Herr Langer.'
They walked across the room together, his arm
I
around her shoulders, but at the door he turned. Please don't keep my aunt up too late, Miss Steele. And when you've seen her to bed I'd like you to wait for me in my study. There are things we need to discuss.'
But won't it do in the morning, Fraser?' Lorna protested. 'Bethan needs her rest as much as I do, if not more.'
`No, it will not wait till morning.' The rigid line of his jaw betrayed his annoyance. 'There are matters about her employment here that need to be straightened out without delay. I'm sure Miss Steele understands.' The look he directed at her defied her to argue.
Had he recognised her? She was almost sure of it now. And though she was grateful that the forthcoming interview with him was to be conducted in private, she was equally sure it wasn't going to be a pleasant experience.
CHAPTER THREE
'THAT nephew of mine is in a funny mood tonight,' Lorna said thoughtfully after he and Siriol had left. 'I hope he didn't upset you, Bethan. I've never known him quite so—' she paused, searching for the right word, '—astringent with a guest before. I don't know what got into him.'
But Bethan was sure she knew, and her hands were not quite steady as she set out the chessmen. If Fraser had recognised her, the fact that he hadn't acknowledged it must mean he still had no wish for either himself or his family to be associated with her. Indeed, his barely concealed hostility made it clear how much he objected to finding her installed in his aunt's home, and no doubt the interview he had demanded with her was to tell her that.
'But I'm not a guest,' she pointed out. I'm an employee.' 'Then he has even less excuse for upsetting you,' Lorna said sharply.
That evening Bethan gave Lorna her first taste of victory, her tension making it impossible for her to keep her mind on the game, and by the time she had seen her patient to bed she felt quite sick with apprehension. But it didn't occur to her to disobey Fraser's order.
She came downstairs reluctantly only to find the study empty, but she had been told to wait for him there so she switched on the light and looked around her. Molly had pointed the door out to her earlier in the week, but this was the first time she had been inside. It was a very masculine room, book-lined, with an enormous desk and several leather-upholstered chairs in front of the empty fireplace. She perched uneasily on the edge of one of these chairs.
Twenty minutes dragged past, every one of them seeming a lifetime as she worried over the outcome of this interview. If only she had been completely open from the start, if she had told Lorna she had known the Lauries when she had first discovered who her nephew was! If only she had greeted Fraser as an old acquaintance instead of pretending tonight had been their first meeting. Perhaps if she had she wouldn't be feeling so guiltily vulnerable now. But it was no good wishing, it was too late to do anything about it. She just wished he would come so she could get it over.
And yet it wasn't just apprehension that made her heart beat faster when at last she heard the rattle of the door handle. Springing to her feet she turned tremblingly to face him.
He paused in the doorway, a strangely arrested expression on his face, and again it felt to Bethan as if time had whirled back ten years, leaving her dizzy. Then even as she watched, his expression hardened, his grey eyes impaling her like rapier-pointed icicles. Closing the door with a deliberate movement he leaned back against it. 'And now, Beth Latimer, perhaps you'll tell me what you're doing here masquerading under a false name and pretending to be a nurse.'
That he had recognised her didn't shock her; she had been almost sure the recognition was there beneath his pointed jibes. It was the savagery of his accusation that made her gasp. 'I'm not masquerading under a false name,' she denied indignantly. 'Steele was the name I was born with, and I reverted to it ten years ago.'
`Ah, yes, when you kicked over the traces.' His lip curled contemptuously. 'Reverted to more than your former name, didn't you? Reverted to type too. I suppose we should all have realised that under all that wide-eyed innocence you were still your mother's daughter.'
A sick guilt rose up in
her. She wasn't like her mother—she wasn't! All right, maybe that one night ten
years ago, getting drunk and losing all sense of responsibility ... But she had never touched alcohol since, had done her best to pay for that one dreadful aberration.
The shocked repudiation in her face only seemed to infuriate him further. He pushed away from the door and advanced on her menacingly. 'My God, Bethan, don't you care that you broke Charles Latimer's heart, running out on him like that? He loved you, whatever you'd done.'
Bethan fell back a step, her eyes wide with stunned bewilderment. 'I—I don't know what you mean. I didn't run out on my stepfather.'
'What else would you call it'?' His contempt lashed her. 'Refusing to see him, to go back to your home. Taking off for America instead to your bitch of a mother, without caring what it would do to him.'
'To my mother!' She shook her head at him incredulously, unable to believe she was hearing right. 'Whatever gave you that idea? I've never been to America in my life, and you must know I've neither seen nor heard from my mother since I was thirteen years old.'
But Fraser seemed not to hear her denial or even register her incredulity. 'The only decent thing she ever did for you was to give you a loving stepfather, but you couldn't. wait to fling his love and concern back at him, could you? Oh, I can understand you being ashamed to face him after your drunken accident, but to turn your back on him, on everyone who cared for you to opt for the sleazy life your mother lives—oh yes, we've heard all about your goings-on. Your stepbrother was only too happy to spread any discreditable gossip about you.'
Bethan felt as if she had entered some fantasy world. Why was Fraser making such an unjust accusation? Surely he didn't believe what he was saying? The man who had once known her better than anyone else in the
Ishbel's Party Page 5