‘A schoolteacher?’
Laurel looked up at the young man somewhat defiantly. ‘Why not?’
‘You don’t look like a schoolteacher,’ he countered, as if that was an irrefutable argument. ‘You’re too young, and you look more like a pupil yourself.’
‘There are plenty of things she still has to learn,’ Stephen’s drawl agreed from the background.
Laurel took a firm grip on herself and would not look round at him. Instead she followed Anthea’s example and sat down sedately on one of the wicker chairs, scooping up a Siamese kitten that had wandered around from the other part of the terrace. With the little animal curled up in her lap and purring she had an excuse for her attention to be wholly taken up whenever she felt it necessary.
The young maid came out with the drinks Anthea had ordered and. then was sent away again to get drinks for the men. Stephen took up a stance, leaning against the balustrade, that enabled him to watch all of them, but Peter took a chair opposite Laurel, shaking his head with a faint, disbelieving smile.
T)id you really teach school in England?’
‘Of course I did.’ She smiled because, after all, his amazement was nothing at all like Stephen’s mocking jeers. ‘It was only a small school, though. In the larger ones the teachers are usually more experienced.’ She dared not look at Stephen as that slipped out, and she went on quickly, ‘Mine was a private school and it only had three classes. I took the most junior one of the lot.’
Out of the corner of her eye she was conscious of Stephen’s grin at the formality of her words; nevertheless the subject of her work was a comparatively safe one, if she managed to prevent him from getting in any of his too pointed and personal remarks.
‘She won’t be doing that any more, though,’ Anthea chimed in gaily. ‘Our Laurel will be getting married quite soon now.’
Peter showed a very flattering disappointment, but he smiled as he spoke.
‘Congratulations, Miss Shannon.’
‘I don’t know that they’re in order,’ Laurel corrected, with a dry glance at Anthea. ‘I rather think it’s just Anthea’s idea of trying her hand at matchmaking.’
‘I don’t think that should be too difficult.’
His eyes implied more than he put into words and Laurel felt the warm colour stain her cheeks, but she could not be offended. All she was concerned with at the moment was avoiding Stephen’s glance.
‘Thank you,’ she managed with smiling friendliness. ‘However, I don’t intend to inflict myself on some unfortunate man yet awhile. I’m hoping to be able to form some sort of a kindergarten school here, as Ned doesn’t want me to go back to England.’
‘Are you now?’ Stephen murmured, and brought upon himself a glance of sharp dislike.
‘Yes, I am,’ Laurel retorted with some asperity. ‘I’ve already discussed it with Mrs. Dalkeith and she thinks it an excellent idea. During school vacation I can also arrange to help them with the older children.’
Just work that out whichever way you like, Stephen Barrington! she added to herself.
The slim, dark girl who had brought the drinks before created a welcome diversion by bringing out those ordered for the men and Laurel was glad that the conversation passed from herself on to more general topics.
They talked about the climate and the rainfall—when it rained—about crops, about everything and anything, until Laurel realized that Anthea had somehow manoeuvred Peter apart and had drifted away with him, after some gaily inconsequential remark to the two left behind. Laurel, quite aware of her reasons for so doing, could have slapped her. She had no desire to have Peter removed from her vicinity so that he could not, in effect, stray into pastures that Anthea had determined should be reserved for Stephen. She had no particular interest in Peter Marshall, except for finding him a pleasant young man only a few years older than herself, but she firmly objected to the Barrington attitude of taking it for granted that they were quite at liberty to manoeuvre whoever they chose in whatever manner suited them.
‘So Anthea is determined to marry you off,’ Stephen commented thoughtfully.
Laurel had expected something of the sort, so she was able to shrug with comparative indifference.
‘So she informed me.’
That was noncommittal enough, betraying nothing of her own feelings and, she hoped, giving Stephen nothing he could seize on.
‘Has she anyone in particular in mind?’
She gave him a suspicious glance, but his grin did not suggest that he knew what Anthea was up to.
‘Not that she mentioned,’ she said carefully. Heaven forbid that he found out just who Miss Barrington did have in mind!
‘That surprises me,’ Stephen murmured. ‘When Anthea gets ideas she usually has the full plan of campaign up her sleeve.’ He slanted a rather speculative grin at her, so that for one moment she thought he actually had guessed the horrible truth. ‘Sure she didn’t mention anybody?’
Laurel gave him a glance that was positively arctic and hoped that it covered the sudden thudding of her heart. She felt that she would want to sink right through the beautiful mosaic of the terrace if he had the least idea of who the man was Anthea apparently intended for her—a man who, incidentally, was the last she would have chosen herself.
‘Quite sure,’ she said firmly, hoping that would keep him quiet. ‘In any case,’ she added, ‘I don’t like having my mind made up for me on a matter like that.’
Stephen nodded. ‘You would probably refuse out of sheer perversity,’ he agreed, but in such a way that she once again had the desire to hit him. Her fingers actually itched, but she knew quite well that it was something she would not give way to. Not only would it make her look like an angry fishwife, but it would probably bring quite unwelcome retribution on her unsophisticated but by no means completely ignorant head.
She shrugged and gently stroked the kitten’s glossy fur. ‘Anyway, Anthea will probably forget all about the idea before long,’ she said with apparent carelessness.
‘Probably.’ Stephen straightened up off the wall with a negligent shrug, but she was quite aware that he was still watching her, losing no bit of her not too well hidden antagonism. ‘You’re a prickly little thing, aren’t you?’ he commented tolerantly after a moment, as he had once before.
‘I wasn’t aware of it,’ Laurel retorted coldly. ‘Perhaps it’s just with me that you have your hackles up, then.’
He surveyed her with that careless mockery she found so exasperating, one white-shod toe idly tracing a mosaic pattern. ‘I wonder if you would truthfully answer me a question,’ he added after a moment.
‘I don’t know. I suppose it depends on the question,’ she said guardedly.
‘Very correct and careful,’ he jibed. ‘You’ll go far.’
‘Thank you,’ Laurel retorted, with what she hoped was biting sarcasm. ‘Suppose you ask the question.’
His glance at her was swift, sharp and just a little unkind as well as speculative. Since the kitten chose that moment to jump off her lap and go off on pursuits of its own, she had no chance of evading that exceedingly unwelcome glance.
‘I was wondering just why it is you’ve taken such an intense dislike to me.’
She gave him a look that clearly expressed her astonishment. £Do you really expect me to answer that truthfully?’
‘I do.’
A slow smile spread over her face. Since he had deliberately invited it and told her to answer him truthfully, it was a chance she could not stop herself accepting, to express some of her accumulated dislike, especially when there was such a lot of it mounting up—and he had only himself to blame if his vanity was injured.
‘I think you’re rude, overbearing and quite insufferably cynical about everything,’ she stated clearly and deliberately, with every appearance of enjoying what she said. ‘Also, you take a delight in twisting whatever anybody says and jeering at them.’
The words gave her a vast amount of satisfaction and a releas
e of some of the pent-up dislike, but she nevertheless felt a little afraid when he leaned forward to stub out his cigarette. He made no move to touch her, though, merely leaned back against the same pillar that had supported him a short while ago.
‘Hasn’t it ever occurred to you, my child, that the cynic may envy those who still wear their rose-coloured spectacles?’ he asked quietly.
She felt an odd little tremor go through her. Whatever reply she might have expected, it had not been anything like this, and she felt strangely unsure of herself now. The knowledge suddenly came to her with complete certainty that at some time in the past Stephen Barrington had been very badly hurt.
Involuntarily, her hand went out to him. ‘Stephen...?’
‘Yes, my child?’ he drawled.
By imperceptible degrees the old mockery had come back over his face and she let her hand fall to her side, regretting the unthinking impulse that had sent it out to him in a swift sympathy she was now quite sure he would not appreciate.
‘Nothing,’ she said rather crossly. ‘Nothing at all.’
It was useless trying to sympathize with him. For one moment she had actually felt an odd little pain on his behalf—which he had speedily dissipated in time to stop her saying or doing anything really foolish.
‘You disappoint me. I was expecting some pearl of wisdom to fall from your lips.’
His voice was only mildly teasing this time, probably because he guessed he had successfully diverted her from a train of thought he had no intention she should follow.
‘Hardly that,’ she retorted. ‘I’m inclined to believe now that what I was thinking was a stone of stupidity, rather than a pearl of wisdom.’
‘Never that, my child.’
‘And stop calling me a child!’ she snapped, as a sudden rush of irritation managed to get the better of her.
Stephen grinned infuriatingly. ‘That, of course, could be taken two ways.’ He eyed her speculatively, his dark head a little on one side. ‘One of course does not apply, as you’re not a middle-aged neurotic...’
‘Thank you,’ Laurel murmured with acid sweetness.
‘... but the other might imply that, even though a child, you don’t wish me to treat you as such,’ he finished, calmly ignoring her interruption.
Just for a moment, she felt a sharp retort quivering on her lips, but she bit it back in time. Innocent of double meaning as it might appear to her, there was no way of knowing just how he might be able to twist it to get a further laugh at her expense.
‘Frankly, Stephen, I couldn’t care less which way you take it,’ she said with a cool indifference she hoped was well assumed.
‘Really?’
How on earth did he manage to put such a wealth of inflection into a single word, yet at the same time make it completely enigmatic, so that she did not have the least idea what he might be thinking, except that he was still, behind the amused grin, laughing at her youth and inexperience?
‘Yes, really,’ she said with a faint snap in her voice, ‘and don’t you think we might change the subject? I’m beginning to find it rather boring.’
‘Conversation getting out of hand?’
He was jibing at her again, but this time she refused to allow herself to be goaded into retorting. She was already beginning to discover that the best way to deal with him was to let his jibes and laughing derision pass unanswered, or with a show of indifference, but it was too hard sometimes to keep a rein on her tongue in answer to the dictates of caution rather than a perfectly justified indignation.
Heaven help the girl who was unwise enough to fall in love with him! He would be able to rip her heart to shreds, yet she would always come back to be hurt again, drawn helplessly by a sharp, virile personality allied to a subtle, physical magnetism that was all the more dangerous because it was not of the more obvious kind.
For no reason at all, she shivered suddenly in the warm sunlight.
CHAPTER THREE
Ned, on the way down the stairs in his small, neat house, came to a dead halt at the sound of music coming from the lounge. More slowly, he continued his interrupted journey, with a curious expression on his tanned face.
It was strange music, with an odd ethereal quality about it he could not place. Some flutelike instrument was playing a slow, plaintive melody, interspersed with the deep, booming note of a gong at regular intervals. As he opened the door and peered cautiously round the edge, Laurel was standing poised on one foot and, as her astonished and somewhat intrigued brother watched, she raised the other foot slowly, stretching and pointing it with classical grace, at the same time as she, in some incredible manner, bent over backwards with a fluidity that seemed to suggest that she was completely boneless. In that somewhat unconventional position she caught sight of her spellbound audience and flipped herself upright with swift, assured ease.
Ned came out of his trance and clapped boisterously, calling for an encore, but Laurel shook her head and went over to switch off the record. She was wearing a black leotard that left her long, slender legs and finely shaped arms bare, and Ned, more himself after the first shock of finding what he took to be a nymph dancing in his sitting-room, whistled admiringly.
‘So that’s what you were getting up to in England!’
Laurel smiled at his expression, which still showed some lingering surprise.
‘I was just keeping in practice.’ She sat down in one of the deep, comfortable armchairs, seemingly quite unaffected by the subtle exertion the slow, exquisite movements must have demanded.
‘Mrs. Dalkeith was talking about arranging something for the older children during the school vacation. I thought classical dancing might interest them,’ she explained as he sat down in a chair opposite her and stretched out his long legs towards the empty fireplace.
Ned slanted her a sideways, satisfied glance. ‘Made your mind up about staying, then?’
Laurel hesitated for a moment, not quite knowing how to put what she had in mind, but he settled the matter for her.
‘I’m quite able to support you and give you an allowance,’ he said calmly, ‘and to be frank, I would prefer it that way—but knowing what a prickly and independent little squib you can be, I don’t mind if you want to earn yourself some pocket money, if that’s the only way to keep you here—unless of course you would prefer to live in England.’
‘Don’t be such an idiot. You know I would rather stay here with you.’ She bit her lips and gave him an uneasy glance. ‘Ned, am I really prickly?’
Ned grinned and shook his head. ‘Not really. You just like to stand firmly on your own two feet, I suppose.’ He leaned forward with his hands clasped loosely between his knees. ‘There’s nobody in England for you to go back to, is there?’
Laurel blushed faintly. ‘No, there’s nobody there.’
‘Then, if you like Ladrana, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t stay, unless the life here becomes too monotonous for you.’ He saw her surprised, inquiring glance and added, ‘It’s not like living in a city, although there’s still plenty of social life.’
‘Ned!’ she shook her head in laughing protest. ‘Do you actually think my life consisted of painting the town red?’ When she thought of the grubby, inkstained exercise books she laughed again. ‘From what I’ve seen of life here already, it’s far more gay than Dorminster and the annual tennis club dance.’
The inhabitants were also somewhat different. She remembered the last tennis club dance, not that they were the only social events in Dorminster, where her partner had been a slight, fair young man who left her on her doorstep with no more than a decorous and rather shy handshake, as if he would have liked to be more intimate, but did not dare to—not in the least like Stephen Barrington, who was too assured by far.
‘Then I can’t see any reason why you shouldn’t stay here until you get married,’ Ned interrupted her thoughts and his sister gave him an amused glance.
‘You seem to take it for granted that I will get married.’ Ned
grinned again. ‘Inevitable, my pet. But until then...’ He made a grandiose gesture. ‘My house is yours.’
Laurel rose to her feet quickly and crossed to his side to hug him with swift affection.
‘I’d love to stay, Ned—and I’ll try not to be too prickly and independent, if that’s the way you want it.’
Both of them straightened up, a little embarrassed by the unaccustomed display of emotion, then Ned ran a hand through his fair thatch of hair with a return of his habitual grin.
‘If it makes you feel any better you can designate yourself as my official housekeeper, with full union privileges,’ he said with a chuckle. Another thought occurred to him. ‘Or you could teach me Greek dancing.’ He made an absurd and completely ungainly hop across the room. ‘I think I would make a rather good nymph.’
Laurel shook her head in helpless laughter. ‘Be careful! I might take you up on that.’
She half suspected that Ned, in his irrepressible mood of the moment, might have been contemplating another of those dreadful, ungraceful hops, but Pepita appeared in the doorway with her shy, old-fashioned curtsey.
‘The Senhora Dalkeith, she is here.’
‘Show her in,’ Ned said easily, and then caught his sister’s startled and faintly protesting expression, but by then Pepita had gone, in her quick, silent fashion. ‘Anything wrong, pet?’
Laurel made a quick gesture towards her somewhat unconventional attire. ‘I can’t see visitors like this.’
Ned scratched his head. ‘I don’t see why not.’ He could not see anything wrong with the leotard, and even though he was her brother, he was quite aware of the attractive picture she presented. He also knew that Marian Dalkeith was not in the least narrow-minded and was sure not to be shocked by the sight of slender, suntanned limbs. The lady herself settled the problem by coming into the room at that moment, ushered in by the attentive Pepita.
Marian Dalkeith smiled warmly at the two Shannons. Her greeting was pleasant and unaffected and then she added:
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