by Susan Barrie
‘Oh, not indefinitely, surely?’ The blue eyes sparkled with a gleam of humour as they peeped at him under her long eyelashes. ‘Indefinitely is such an indecisive term. It could mean almost any length of time!’
‘Exactly,’ he agreed, and tightened his lips still more. His car was awaiting them within a few yards of the swing door, but it was not the impressive Rolls-Royce which Dickson loved to drive. It was an almost equally impressive car with rather more of a casual air, and Dickson was not at the wheel. Apparently this was Sir Luke’s own special pet — the car he drove himself when he wanted to - and he guided Melanie towards it with the maximum amount of care despite the fact, as she rather breathlessly assured him, that she didn’t really need the support of his arm.
He looked down at her a trifle grimly as he placed her in the seat beside the driving-seat. Then he went and insinuated himself lithely behind the wheel, and inquired whether she had any special preference about places for lunch.
‘Special preference?’ She glanced at him quickly in astonishment. ‘But you’re not—?’
‘I am.’ His dark eyes were glinting antagonistically back into her own. ‘I’m giving you lunch before I take you home, and if you don’t want to have lunch with me alone you can say so ... and if you really mean it I’ll take you home!’
She looked away from him swiftly and considered her folded hands in her lap. Then she looked up at him again and smiled a little oddly.
‘I wouldn’t be so ungracious, Sir Luke,’ she told him softly, ‘and as I’m feeling a bit hollow I thankfully accept your offer to give me lunch.’
‘And where do you suggest we go?’ he asked.
‘The George is as good as anywhere,’ she answered. ‘It’s where—’
‘I know, I know!’ He smiled crookedly at her sideways. ‘It’s where Sir James used to take you when he gave you lunch and you consented to honour him with your company, but today Sir James is no longer with us and it’s his slightly dubious nephew who is offering to give you some internal support.’
‘You’re quite right,’ she agreed smilingly. ‘The George was Sir James’s favourite hotel.’
It was only a very short distance from the recently erected hospital to the centre of the town, and the car was so powerful that it was almost impossible to travel at a moderate rate of speed. But, even so, although only a few minutes actually passed from the moment they left the out-patients’ department of the hospital until they reached the George, they were such surprisingly pleasant and relaxed minutes that Melanie was almost sorry when the short journey was ended.
She supposed that it had been a bit of an ordeal in the hospital, and the fact that she had had no one to talk to had made her feel slightly sorry for herself, and there was no doubt about it, she was anxious about the result of the X-ray, because it meant mobility or immobility for her in the immediate future. And the fact that Sir Luke had taken the trouble to drive to the hospital without any necessity whatsoever and plan this luncheon break for her had actually pleased her. There were so many other far more pleasant things that he might have been doing, and yet he was devoting a certain amount of his time to her. He could have relegated her quite comfortably to Dr. Binns, and yet he had not done so.
He was, as Mrs. Edgerley had observed more than once, very kind. A little difficult to know, perhaps, and unreasonable when it came to the subject of bequests, but kind!
The George was an old-fashioned hostelry renowned for its good food, and within a short space of time Melanie found herself seated at a table somewhat removed from the rest of the tables in the room, with glittering napery and well-polished silver. There was a wine-waiter who had been there for ages and brought them an aperitif apiece while Sir Luke consulted the wine-list, and Melanie found herself tempted by the menu and ordered roast duck and orange sauce for herself, while Sir Luke was captivated by the roast beef.
‘Whenever I’m far removed from these shores I always yearn for roast beef,’ he explained, as he handed back the menu and agreed that soup beforehand would be excellent.
Melanie was wondering what he had done with Miss Larsen, and her curiosity got out of hand at last and she asked him.
He crumbled a roll with shapely long fingers and smiled at her slightly.
‘You seem to think I owe it to my guests to spend every moment of my time with them,’ he remarked.
Melanie also crumbled bread, and stared at the whiteness of the cloth.
‘But Miss Larsen is - is rather a special guest, isn’t she?’ she suggested.
‘Is she?’ Sir Luke continued to smile, and then he added with emphasis: ‘Oh, yes, Inga is a very special person indeed!’
‘She’s very lovely,’ Melanie observed a trifle flatly.
‘Quite exceptionally lovely,’ he agreed.
‘In a - in a Scandinavian way,’ his lunch guest added.
‘As you say, in a Scandinavian way.’ He watched the waiter approaching with the soup. ‘It might interest you to know that I met her in Sweden, at a Christmas party, and I thought her so delightful that I couldn’t forget her for weeks. She was wearing one of those silvery dresses that she’s particularly fond of, and she struck me as so exactly like a fairy on a Christmas tree -except that she was not, of course, on a Christmas tree! - that I had to tell her so, and I think it intrigued her. Anyway, we spent a lot of time together in the days that followed - skiing and so forth - and met again in South Africa only a few weeks ago. I think she finds the atmosphere of Wroxford Priory a pleasant atmosphere in which to settle down, don’t you?’ He was so obviously asking for her opinion that she answered him, quite truthfully, although she certainly seemed a little taken aback ... even startled.
‘Oh, yes, I’m sure she does.’
‘And her mother also thinks she fits in rather well there. Is that your opinion also?’
She nodded, toying with her soup spoon.
‘I’m quite sure she thinks she fits in perfectly.’
‘Good.’ He sampled the wine, and then nodded his approval, and their glasses were filled. ‘I sometimes wonder what my mother would think about her if she could see her. My mother married for a second time, you know - or perhaps you didn’t? -and she lives in Rome. She married into one of those Italian families of noble lineage, and she’s immensely shrewd. She’s thought up a whole succession of young women for me to marry, but I’m afraid I haven’t obliged her so far. I’ve often thought I’m not the marrying kind! But I’d be interested to know her opinion of Inga.’
Melanie was even more surprised.
‘You mean you want your mother’s opinion of your future wife before you marry her?’ she asked.
There was something provocative as well as smiling in his dark eyes as they regarded her.
‘Well, isn’t that a good thing?’ he asked.
She was so taken aback that she stammered slightly. ‘Not - not if you want to be happy.’
‘I do, of course,’ he murmured suavely.
‘And certainly not if you’re - in love!’
‘Ah, there you have it!’ he agreed, more complacently than before. ‘A man in love is a happy man, and when he’s made up his mind once and for all that he’s in love, well, he certainly doesn’t look for the approval of a parent! Not even a truly discerning mother like mine!’
The main course was arriving, and the waiter whisked away their soup plates. Melanie heard herself asking with the curiosity that refused to desert her:
‘Won’t your guests - and particularly Miss Larsen! - be upset that you’re not lunching with them today? I mean, if I’ve caused you to neglect your duties as a host. . . .’
‘Nothing of the kind,’ he assured her, as he accepted his plate of roast beef with, relish, and requested horse-radish sauce to be served with it. ‘As a matter of fact, Colonel Anstruther has taken them on a sightseeing tour of the district, and I doubt very much whether we shall see them back at Wroxford before it’s time to change for dinner. And that reminds me,’ he added
, as he leaned towards her, ‘of something important I want to say to you. In future there will be no more creeping about the house and keeping well out of sight ... for you, I mean! You will dine with us in the evenings, and if you have any difficulty in negotiating the stairs then I’ll carry you. You have only to let me know through one of the maids when you’re ready to make your appearance and I’ll present myself at the door of your room for transport duty!’
‘But I couldn’t - I couldn’t trouble you,’ she protested.
He shrugged his shoulders.
‘If you don’t trouble me I’ll trouble you! I’ll make myself a nuisance by paying you frequent visits in order to find out why you won’t join us, and if you want any peace you’ll decide that the interior of the drawing-room is every bit as attractive as the interior of the night nursery.’
She smiled a trifle wanly.
‘You’re very kind, Sir Luke,’ she murmured with sudden huskiness.
He shrugged his shapely shoulders, under the excellent
tweed that covered them.
‘Nothing of the kind,’ he repeated, as he refused a sweet and ordered cheese and biscuits instead for himself, although Melanie preferred the sweet. ‘I feel more than a little guilty because as a result of something I said - or perhaps because of the way I said it! — during one of our early interviews you took it into your head to rush out of the Priory as if it was infected by the plague, and as a result sustained an injury to your ankle which could have been avoided. I feel that it’s my fault you’ve suffered a lot of pain and inconvenience.’
‘I see.’ But she sounded a little flat again.
He put his dark head on one side and regarded her whimsically.
‘Once again I seem to have said something wrong,’ he remarked. Then he laid a hand gently over one of hers that was resting on the white cloth near to him. ‘For the pain and inconvenience I’m terribly sorry, Melanie,’ he said with a very earnest note in his voice. ‘And I’m as anxious about the result of that X-ray as you are yourself!’
She swallowed something that felt like a slight lump in her throat.
‘Dr. Binns is fairly optimistic,’ she admitted, keeping her face rather averted from him. ‘And I expect I’ll hear something soon.’
‘I expect you will.’
‘And even if it’s bad news I’ll just have to put up with
it.’
‘Good or bad news, you are not returning to Rose Cottage,’ he told her emphatically. ‘There will be no question of your returning to live in it until the whole structure has been given a careful going over and extensive repairs and alterations have been carried out on the cottage. I ordered my bailiff to see to that only yesterday morning. And as it would be just as impossible for you to go on living at the Bell you will remain at the Priory until the cottage is ready for you. Is that understood?’
She turned round swiftly to face him and the usual protest was on her lips. ‘Oh, but I couldn’t—’
He held up his hand.
‘Oh, but you will! And if the thought of accepting my benefits sticks in your throat you can work your passage if you like ... as soon as you’re fit enough, that is. You can lend a hand to Mrs. Edgerley when it is required ... nothing, menial, of course, but doing the flowers and that sort of thing. I believe you always did the flowers at Wroxford in Sir James’s time?’
She nodded.
‘He liked me to do them.’
‘Then I, too, would like you to do them . . . and I would like you to keep an eye on the maids and generally supervise things. Is that distasteful to you?’
She shook her head violently while tears pricked behind her eyelids.
‘Far from it,’ she answered him. ‘But I know perfectly well you’re simply making a job for me, and I—’
‘I’ll pay you a salary,’ he told her.
‘I couldn’t accept it.’
He ignored this.
‘One request I have to make,’ he told her, ‘is this. You will see to it that that young fellow Martin Vidal returns your horse to our stables.’ There was one instant during which she thought she detected a look of actual dislike in his eyes. ‘And you must practise on that piano of yours!’
‘I have decided that it would be most unfair to remove it from the Priory.’
‘For the moment there is no question of your removing it from the Priory,’ he returned a trifle drily.
‘Well ...’ looking down at her hands. ‘All the same—’
‘Any other doubts about falling in with my plan for your immediate future?’
Suddenly she remembered something, and it caused her to smile and the light cloud of anxiety to roll away from her face.
‘There is one thing,’ she admitted, dimpling rather delightfully. ‘Only the other day I bought a puppy, and I promised to collect it in a few days’ time. It’s a white Sealyham, and I decided to call it Sherry.’
‘You and your livestock,’ he observed. ‘I suppose you realize that a puppy chews things, and a high proportion of the contents of Wroxford is valuable.’
‘I know.’ She looked suddenly crestfallen.
‘If you’ll give me the name of the kennels I’ll explain your altered circumstances and see if some other home can’t be found for Sherry,’ Sir Luke said with a disconcerting note of finality in his voice, as if he personally had little use for white Sealyham puppies that might chew their way through his fixtures and fittings.
Not for the first time Melanie felt slightly appalled by the casual hardness she saw in his face. He could be kind - very kind. But he was basically a hard and practical man who might even demand his pound of flesh if the occasion ever arrived when he felt it was in his interests to do so.
And then she remembered Inga Larsen. Inga Larsen had to be considered, too, and the fixtures and fittings that could be so adversely affected were likely to become her fixtures and fittings as well.
Under no circumstances could Melanie see Inga, with her tinsel-like beauty, filling the role of animal-lover. She might have a weakness for puppies if they were her own, but not other people’s ... certainly not if they belonged to Melanie Grainger, whom she made no secret of disliking.
‘Of course I understand that I can’t have the puppy now,’ she said quietly, and fumbled in her handbag for a slip of pasteboard which she handed over. ‘That is the address of the kennels,’ she said to Sir Luke.
‘Good,’ he exclaimed, as if the whole matter was one that could be dismissed from the mind without further discussion, and placed the card inside his note-case. ‘Now I’ll take you back to the Priory,’ he told her.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Dr. Binns received his report from the X-ray department at the hospital within a matter of hours, and before she went to bed that night Melanie had heard that she had no fracture and the bad bruising that was the result of her fall from the step-ladder would disappear completely within the next few days, if she was careful to allow herself a large amount of rest.
She was so thankful that her relief caused her to shed a few tears in private after Mrs. Edgerley had brought her the news, and when Sir Luke looked in to congratulate her her eyes were still a trifle red, and he looked at her rather hard as he urged her to have a good night’s rest, and forget all her troubles in sleep.
She had allowed him to carry her down to the dining room for dinner, and everyone except Inga had gone out of their way to be nice to her, while Richard Culdrose and Christopher Winslow had been rather more than nice.
Mrs. Edgerley had been so delighted when she heard that Melanie was to continue living at the Priory that she had been unable to conceal it, and had gone straight downstairs to pass the intelligence on to Horton and the cook, who were almost as satisfied with the future arrangements as the housekeeper herself.
‘As soon as that Mrs. Larsen has gone I’ll get your old room ready for you again,’ she told Melanie, but the latter assured her that she had no intention whatsoever of returning to her old room, and in f
uture she would settle down in the night nursery. With the addition of one or two other items of furniture it could be turned into a very comfortable bed-sitting-room ... but that provided Mrs. Edgerley with another idea, and she approached Sir Luke and asked his permission to turn the day nursery into a sitting-room for Miss Grainger.
He looked at her a trifle oddly as he replied.
‘For the time being that arrangement will be quite satisfactory,’ he agreed. ‘But there is always the possibility, Mrs. Edgerley, that both the night nursery and the day nursery will be required and put to the use for which they were originally intended. We mustn’t overlook that.’
Mrs. Edgerley felt quite taken aback. And then she realized that he was making an oblique reference to his marriage to Miss Larsen, and the possible fruitfulness of that marriage.
The housekeeper went back upstairs to put the day nursery to purely temporary other use in a very thoughtful, and not entirely happy, mood. But she said nothing of her recent interview to Melanie, who thought the idea of turning the day nursery into a sitting-room for her own personal use was quite a good one. The pain in her ankle had faded to nothing more than a dull ache and she was able to lend a hand with the transformation that, in a matter of hours, had the day nursery looking quite charming with various items of furniture assembled from different corners of the house, new curtains that the housekeeper produced from her store-cupboard, and a couple of rugs which were Melanie’s own property, and which she had been intending to put down in the cottage.
They were half-way through their orgy of getting the room ready when Martin telephoned and offered his heartfelt congratulations on the negative result of the X-ray. Melanie was still feeling just a little sore with him for taking his leave on the day he remained to lunch without bothering to say goodbye to her, and she was somewhat short in the way she dealt with him on the telephone. He sounded hurt, and said could he take her out to dinner if she was feeling better, and she answered that she was not feeling all that much better. But she passed on to him the instruction that Lady was to be returned to the Wroxford Priory stables.