`No risk whatsoever,' she said, her words spirited, only her choky voice betraying her. To prove her words she took the tablets into the bathroom, unscrewing the cap as she went, then flushed every last one of them away.
She knew Slade had followed her in, had watched her action, when even before she turned to see him idly resting against the doorpost, she heard his sardonic drawl:
`And her without a doctor too!'
She brushed past him, went to slam the empty bottle down on her dressing table as she fought for control. `You're asking for a punch in the eye!' she said hotly.
And then she had to wonder what was happening to her, when witnessing Slade's broad grin at her comment, she could do no other than grin in reply.
Then there was nothing of a grin about either of them. The air was charged as his mouth straightened, his eyes on her mouth, on her face—it was the first time he had seen her grin impishly. She saw his jaw move, saw his hands clench. Then; if he had been searching for control, control was his.
`You do choose your moments, wife,' he said, then growled, 'Let's get out of here.'
Because lunch-cum-breakfast had been early, Kimberley decided dinner would have to be early too. For herself she wouldn't have bothered, a meal like the one she had eaten at lunchtime was more than enough to last her a full day. But Slade wouldn't hesitate to demand food when he became hungry. And anyway, since he had cooked lunch, it seemed only fair she should attend to dinner.
He came into the kitchen just as she was putting potatoes to boil. 'How long before dinner?' he enquired, making her glad she had started on the meal without waiting for a nudge from him, since from his remark she guessed he was starving.
`About half an hour.'
`Good. That gives me time to go into the village for a paper. Anything you'd like?'
`No, thanks,' she threw over her shoulder, but watched from the kitchen window his confident stride as he went up the path to the gate.
He was soon back, a paper in one hand, a box of chocolates which he gave to her in the other.
She took them, thanking him, not sure she wanted him buying her presents. The food he had purchased that day she had found excuses for accepting in that it was mainly for him, likewise the freezer he had ordered, though she would make sure he arranged for that to go when he went.
`You shouldn't have,' she said, her face showing she wasn't too happy at his gift.
`Don't make a production of it,' he told her easily, `or you'll make me regret the impulse. Mind if I sit in here and read until dinner is ready?'
He was actually asking permission about something! Mischief flickered into life. 'You'd be more useful if you laid the dining room table,' she said, not looking at him;
There was silence, and she knew he was looking at her, though she hoped he wasn't aware she was about
to laugh. 'I married a shrew,' he said, and Kimberley came very near to collapsing in giggles when he dropped his paper on to the kitchen chair and headed for the dining room.
`Okay, so you're right-handed,' Slade said, when as they sat down to their meal he observed the way she changed over the place setting he had laid.
A smile tugged. She was sure he knew that. 'You can't be perfect at everything,' she said—and had to let the smile out when he said on an exaggerated sigh:
`I know, but I do try.'
The meal progressed fairly amicably, though Kimberley had long moments of being silent. She found herself wondering why, when up until recently she had seemed to spend so much time in crying, her smile should suddenly be so much freer. Perhaps that initial pain of losing her father was easing, she thought.
But her smile was nowhere to be seen when on leaving the dining room, without waiting for Slade to offer with the washing up she told him she would see to it.
`I know you're dying to get to your paper,' she said.
`I can wait,' he said, following her into the kitchen. `I've ordered newspapers to be delivered morning and evening, by the way,' he told her.
Abruptly Kimberley halted so that he very nearly walked into her. 'What name did you give at that paper shop?' she asked, moving away, hopeful that he had given her maiden name.
`My own, naturally,' he replied, holding the glance she flicked at him. That grin she had seen in the bedroom was there again as he told her, knowing full well, she thought, that she didn't want anyone to know she had married him, 'No need to worry about your reputation. I told them Miss Kimberley Adams was now my wife.'
His grin didn't have the same effect of flushing out hers as it had previously. 'You're too good for me,' she retorted sourly.
III
`True,' he replied unabashed. 'But you're improving.'
Once the washing up was done they went into the living room, Slade taking with him the paper he had bought. Kimberley picked up a book, but couldn't settle. Without a word or excuse, she left the room. It had stopped raining now, and she had her fingers crossed as she went upstairs that the leaks had stopped dripping.
She emptied bowls, but placed them back in position again just in case it came on to rain during the night. Then stood looking up at the ceiling, a despairing feeling coming over her that it might cost a thousand or more to put the roof in any sort of order.
A thousand pounds, she thought dejectedly. She hadn't got that sort of money. They were heading in for winter too. There had been times last year when they had had over a foot of snow. Would the roof take that sort of weight?
If she thought her figures would have come out differently she would have gone in search of paper and pencil and done her sums again. But they wouldn't. And what she could scrape together wouldn't be enough. Slade had known that just by looking over her shoulder.
It was all right for him, she thought, aggrieved all at once that he had money and she didn't. A thousand pounds was neither here nor there to him. She looked at the ceiling again, wondering how long it would take to dry out. Never, if the sun didn't soon show itself, she thought, fed up.
Kimberley took her eyes from the ceiling, thinking she had better go back downstairs. She just wasn't in the mood for any of Slade Darville's sarcasm if he came looking for her. She knew she was in just the right frame of mind for all-out warfare if he said just one word that caught her on the raw.
I
He looked up from his paper as she went back into the room, but she didn't feel like looking at him She picked up the book she hadn't found any interest in earlier, and sat down holding it in front of her, but making no attempt to read, her mind still on the impossibility of having that roof repaired before winter set in.
`Something troubling you?'
The quietly voiced question made her jump, made her snappy. 'You could say that,' she replied shortly, dropping her book and all pretence of reading as she stared hostilely at him.
`Tell me about it,' Slade invited evenly. And when she just stared mulishly at him, 'I'll help if I can.'
`You don't mean that,' she said, knowing she was being disagreeable just for the sake of it, but her
worries were gigantic, and she was unable to force her-
_
self to something she wasn't feeling.
`Try me,' he suggested, unruffled.
Stubbornly Kimberley looked at him, no intention in her of telling him anything. She thought he would get fed up waiting for her answer, and go back to his paper. Then she recalled, when he didn't, that interview with him in her father's study that first morning after their marriage. He had looked then ready to wait for ever to get the answer he wanted. He had that same look to him now.
`The roof leaks,' was dragged out of her.
`I had noticed,' he remarked mildly.
She glared at him, but saw it had not the slightest effect. He was waiting again—waiting for her to say more.
`It's . . Damn him! 'I think it will cost about a thousand pounds to have it seen to,' came spilling out. `I can't afford to have it mended, let alone re-roofed as I suspect wants doing.'
He could have suggested a loan, for one thing,
Kimberley thought mutinously. And on that thought, before she could stop them, the words were falling, no chance of bringing them back:
`It wouldn't hurt you to lend me the money,' she snapped. Then, aghast at what she had just said, `Forget it,' she said quickly, hot colour of embarrassment colouring her skin.
`We won't forget it,' he said tersely, his eyes watching her fluctuating colour. 'You do too much of bottling everything inside you—that's probably half the cause that led you to the valium belt.'
`Thank you, doctor!' she flashed.
But Slade didn't rise again, except to say, 'Let your worries out, Kimberley,' he said nothing. But sat there favouring her with that steady waiting look that had her dropping her eyes. Had her wanting to scream at him to leave her alone. To leave her alone to work things out for herself.
But she had already tried that and come up without an answer—where else was there to turn? She flicked a glance at him again, saw he was still waiting, and had to admit he defeated her.
She sighed, though whether from exasperation with him she knew not. 'All right,' she said tiredly, try it your way.' But she didn't, for a moment, know where to begin. Then she caught his encouraging look. 'I don't think the roof is going to last through the winter, and that troubles me. If the roof goes, the ceilings will come down, and that worries me. But, at the rate I can save, it will take me a couple of years to pay to have it fixed, and that worries me dreadfully, b-because the roof,' her voice tailed off, 'won't last that long.'
`So the answer you think is for me to pay to have it fixed?'
His voice had sounded thoughtful, as though he wasn't dismissing the idea out of hand, and from the depths of despair Kimberley knew sudden hope. She hadn't meant it when she had first blurted out that it
I
wouldn't hurt him to lend her the money, but if he was going to take her up on it, for the sake of dear, dear Bramcote, she knew she just wasn't going to refuse.
`It would only be a loan,' she said, eagerness replacing the flat feeling that had been in her. 'I'd pay you back, every penny.'
`I'm sure you would,' he said, his look sincere, just as though he had learned something about the honesty in her despite that initial deception she had practised, then had her fighting not to go down when he added, `But you would beggar yourself to do that, and that just isn't on.'
`Why?' she objected; having felt the money for the roof within her grasp she was not ready to let go. 'Why isn't it . .
`Because apart from anything else,' Slade told her, a tough look coming to him as he denied her request, `while you were scratching around to repay me, you would have nothing in hand to cover the next lot of repairs.'
`What repairs?' It had been brought home to her that the roof was bad, but there was nothing wrong with the rest of the house, she thought, bridling that just because he didn't see Bramcote the way she did, he was sitting there unconcernedly finding fault with it.
His voice was kind, although he couldn't have missed the way she was ready to fly at him. 'You love your home,' he said. 'I have good reason to fully appreciate just how much it means to you.' Some of her . anger died at his referring to the sole reason she had married him. 'But loving the old place as you do,' fire lit her eyes again at the way he referred to Bramcote as `the old place', but Slade ignored it as he went on, `you just haven't seen it as I, a newcomer, have seen it.'
Kimberley swallowed down her anger. Slade had
I I
only ever played fair with her. He wouldn't lie to her now just for the sake of it. That acknowledgement brought with it the thought how less than fairly she had played.
`What,' she said cockily, knowing as unfair as she realised she was being, she still couldn't give him what he had married her for, 'do you, with your newcomer's eyes, see as wrong with it?'
Oh, how she wished she hadn't asked! 'Aside from several minor repairs the local odd job man could see to, the electric wiring has just about had it. Inside those two years you spoke of the house is going to need to be rewired. And leaving aside the plumbing, which is— tolerable,' he told her, 'the walls of the room I sleep in have perished . .
`Perished?'
`It's only the wallpaper that's keep the plaster up,' he said. 'The .
`Don't go on!' She was appalled. It was true nothing had been done to the house for years, but . . . She left off thinking about Bramcote, colour flushing her cheeks again as she visualised the excellent plumbing, plastering and leak-free roof in the home he had in London. And she couldn't look at him; her pride in the dust as she said huskily, 'You think the house I love is a slum, don't you?'
`No, I don't,' he told her firmly, lifting her pride up off the floor. 'I think Bramcote is a house with great potential, great charm.'
Her pride was back, and it stiffened her. 'But not charming enough for you to dip your hand into your millions to lend me a measly thousand?' she queried, hostile again.
Slade's' mouth quirked, not making her feel any better disposed to him. She might just as well have kept her worries to herself. She certainly wasn't feeling any better for having aired them. By telling her what was wrong with Bramcote, he had only added to them.
`Hardly millions,' he said casually, admitting, `Though I wouldn't miss a measly thousand, just the same But even so, Kim,' his shortening of her name didn't soften the, 'I will not lend you the money,' that followed.
Pride like a banner before her, Kimberley stood up. `Thank you, Slade,' she said bitterly, 'for giving the matter your full consideration. I assure you I feel on top of the world since I offloaded my worries and consequently discovered what a ruin I'm living in!'
She would have sailed past him then with her nose in the air—had she had the chance. But she didn't. Slade was on his feet too, commanding her to sit down. She ignored him, managed perhaps two steps to the door, then had her eardrums shattered as temper came to him at her airy disdain.
`Sit down!' he barked. And, some control returning, `My God, don't you ever stay to finish a discussion?'
Kimberley didn't like at all that at his roar she had obeyed his order. She was thoroughly disgruntled to find she had collapsed at his bellowing at her into the nearest seat at hand.
`What else is there to discuss?' she asked, loathing him for mastering her.
His voice had quietened, though it was, some moments before he spoke, his eyes still glinting with the remains of his wrath, the dark blue now navy.
`I've told you I will not lend you the money to have the roof fixed,' he said levelly, 'and I stand by that.' He broke off, looking at her as if weighing his words before he spoke them.
Kimberley found her eyes riveted to his. He seemed to be waiting. But he had the floor!
`But—but you had something to—add?' she questioned, fixed by the steady look of him, the look that said he did have something to add, but that he expected her reaction might be fairly explosive. She searched in her mind for what it could be. She thought he had told
her the worst about Bramcote. Surely he didn't have anything to add that could possibly be worse? 'What— is it?' she asked, and was nowhere near to suspecting what it was, when after another steady look at her, he said quietly:
`I will restore Bramcote, Kimberley, and see that it's maintained as it should be, on one condition.'
`Condition?' Her mind scattered in all directions, a certainty in her that she wasn't going to like it, whatever it was. 'Er—' she began, her tongue coming out to moisten suddenly dry lips, 'what condition, Slade?'
`That you,' he said slowly, enunciating every word, `sell me the place.'.
CHAPTER SEVEN
FOR an age after Slade had dropped out his condition for maintaining her home, Kimberley did not move, but just sat and stared dumbfounded. So unexpected had his words been that for long moments she couldn't believe he had actually said what he had.
But as he looked back, unflinching, just as though he could see nothing so world-shaking in what he had said, his words spoken clearly, Kimberley knew she had not misheard him.
And as that realisation burst in, she was reacting violently, was out of her chair, her eyes showing the antipathy with which she received his suggestion.
`Sell Bramcote to you?' came scorching from her, the very idea utterly preposterous. 'Never! No, never!'
In contrast to her outrage, Slade remained calm, was cool where she was ready to burst into flames 'What have you against it?' he asked, his hands relaxed on the arms of his chair, entirely unmoved that she was reeling from what he had said.
`You have the nerve to ask?' flew from her. 'I have everything against it! It's unthinkable! I wouldn't dream of parting with Bramcote, as you very well know.'
`But you wouldn't be parting with it,' he said, his tone reasonable, as unhurriedly he left his chair and came over to her. 'You would still be living here,' he pointed out, and taking hold of her arm, this time instead of snarling at her to sit down, gently he led her back to her chair.
A numbness was coming to Kimberley now the initial shock was subsiding. She sat making no attempt to
stir, but watched while Slade waited to see she was staying put. Then she saw him go back to his own chair, before, with logic she didn't want to hear, he pointed out:
`If something isn't done about the house very soon, I'm afraid you won't have a house at all.'
`It's—not as bad as that,' she said, her voice choky, as she wondered, was it? If the roof wasn't put right, if the ceilings caved in, if the plaster started to perish on the other walls . . . She shut her mind off before she got as far as plumbing and electric wiring.
`Be sensible, Kim,' he urged, seeing from her face that there was no need to stress the condition the house was in. 'You can have anyone you like to value it.'
`To hear you talk it isn't worth very much,' she muttered.
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