Not while he was kneeling on the ground beside her, and her hands were in his, and he was holding them up against his chest and straining them to his heart.
“Well?” he said, as confusion overcame her, and she looked everywhere but at his eyes. “Now that you know the truth about me, and that I can keep you in reasonable comfort both on Ure, and anywhere else we choose to live when we go away from it, do you think you could possibly tell me the truth about yourself, Amanda? Are you really the cool and slightly calculating young woman I first thought you? Or was Duncan right, and did you come here because the present Alaine badly needs a wife, and if that wife isn’t you it can’t be anyone else? Amanda!” He shook her. “You must answer me!”
“Duncan talks a lot of nonsense,” she said, feeling as if confusion was bearing her away on a positive flood.
Alaine smiled.
“Duncan is nobody’s fool. He swears you’re the reincarnation of the lost Bride of Alain, whose spirit is supposed to haunt the island. I’m quite sure he’s wrong, partly because I don’t believe in spirits, and partly because I couldn’t bear it if you suddenly took flight and I never saw you again. But I do think your coming here was not entirely accident. I mean, you didn’t come here with Judy just because she was curious to see the old home of the Macraes ... or one of them, since they seem to have inhabited a large number of houses around here, and Judy’s forebears were no more than domestics at Urquhart Tower. You came here because it was all previously arranged. That much I’m sure of, and now that you’re here you’ve got to stay. Do you hear me, Amanda?
She lifted her head. Very slowly, and rather more bravely, she admitted, “Yes, I hear you, Alaine.”
“Then give me your word that you’ll never disappear, and that even if Duncan’s wrong I’m right about your liking it here. You do like it here, don’t you, Amanda?... Despite the primitive conditions, and my neglect of the place. Tell me!” and he shook her again a little impatiently.
But there was something missing, and she looked at him quite coolly at last.
“Yes, I like it.”
“Then you’ll stay on here and run the place?”
“As what?”
“As my wife, of course!”
She smiled downwards at the impatient hand that was trying to force her face out into the open.
“Because you need a housekeeper?”
“Because I need a wife.”
“Any wife?”
Suddenly he realised what she was getting at, and he uttered an exclamation and dragged her into his arms.
“You little idiot!” he said. “If I needed any wife I’d have taken one long ago! I’m thirty-five, don’t forget, and I’ve had to wait all these years for a chit like you to come along. Because I love you, sweetheart,” with a sudden huskiness that thrilled her to the very core of her being. “Because I love you!”
“That’s better,” she whispered, and looked up at him with brilliant eyes. “I was beginning to be afraid the lords of Ure were not interested in love. After all, there was some mystery about that ancestress of yours, wasn’t there? ... the one who disappeared! She vanished on her wedding night, and isn’t there just a possibility that the Alaine of that time omitted to say a few things to her that might have prevented such a disaster overtaking the family?”
Alaine put one hand round her slim brown throat, and squeezed it gently.
“If this Bride of Alaine attempts to vanish on her wedding night, or any other night, I give her due warning I’ll scour the earth until I find her.” He buried his lips against the little warm hollow at the base of her throat. “Oh, Amanda, my little darling,” he breathed huskily, tenderly, “I’ve done my part, and now can’t you do yours? I’ve told you I love ... Won’t you at least give me some idea of the state of your feelings for me? I know you’ve deliberately avoided me these past few weeks, but every time you looked at me I suspected something was happening to you. You were too determinedly evasive to be indifferent.”
“I’m not indifferent,” she assured him, and turned her soft mouth up to him. “Far from being indifferent I love you so much that—that this morning I felt as if my heart would break.”
“But why, my darling?” he enquired, searching her face with anxious eyes. “Because I didn’t come back until early this morning?”
She shook her head.
“No.”
“Then why?”
She hid her face against him. Having said so much, she ought to have said more, but she couldn’t. She must leave Judy her pride. If she robbed her of her pride as well as Alaine that would be too much. So she decided to fall back on the oldest excuse in the world.
“Because I wasn’t sure of you, I suppose,” she whispered against his shoulder. “Because there was Miss Greystoke, and—and Judy.”
He chided her gently.
“I’ve already given you my opinion of Judy. She’s as pretty as a picture, but she isn’t for me. Besides, all that nonsense about her foot being injured when she first came here was too transparent, and I was on my guard against her from the first. That—” a little whimsically—“is the reason, perhaps, why I went out of my way to be nice to her. As for Miss Greystoke, she’s the sort of woman who petrifies me, even if I was strictly musical, which I’m not. But my aunt having brought her here I thought it would be a good plan to try to keep her here, at least until I’d made a little headway with you, because there were moments when your Australian friend’s ambitions were shining out of her eyes. And it seemed to me you were very much under her thumb, so I had to proceed warily. But now, once I’ve broken the news, both Miss Greystoke and Miss Macrae—to say nothing of Mr. Michael Manners, whom I detest because he tried to tempt you into the garden one night!—can take their departure, unless they’d like to remain for the wedding. As for my aunt, she’ll be delighted, of course.”
“Will she?” Amanda spoke eagerly, lifting her head. “I rather gathered last night that she was rather concerned lest you compromise yourself with Judy.”
“Were you afraid I’d compromise myself with Judy?” putting a finger under her chin and lifting it.
She nodded. And then she corrected herself.
“I think I was more afraid she might set out to compromise you,” she explained.
“Foolish one!” Alaine’s lips brushed her hair. “It would be extremely difficult for a young woman of Miss Macrae’s limited amount of experience of life to compromise me.” He smiled into the silken brown hair that brushed against his face. “Oh, I know she tried. She tried yesterday! You see,” he explained whimsically, “the reason the car wouldn’t start was because I issued instructions to the garage that it was to remain out of action for several hours, and after that, it was a simple matter for the fault to be repeated. And when Judy put in a plea for spending the night in the car, instead of returning to the Three Goats, I knew my precautions had been wise. She’s clever, that young woman. But not, my darling,” looking deep into her eyes, “clever enough to deceive me!”
“Poor Judy,” Amanda said, feeling suddenly sorry for her friend.
Alaine smiled.
“Don’t worry about her,” he said. “She’ll be on her way very soon, and it won’t be long before she finds someone else to take her fancy. Possibly he won’t own a crumbling tower, but he’ll have something to offer that will intrigue her. Judy has to be intrigued, you know. Love isn’t enough for her.”
Amanda’s eyes were gazing a trifle appealingly into his. So far he had kissed her throat, her eyes, her hair ... but not yet her mouth. And she wanted to know what it felt like to have that hard, firm mouth on hers.
She found out almost immediately. Alaine lowered his head, uttered a little sound like a choked cry of impatience, and fastened his lips to hers.
The kiss went on and on...
CHAPTER XV
THEY returned to Ure in good time to have a late breakfast, and as Jean served them with it she was the first to be informed of their news. The express
ion of relief on her face when she learned it was to be Amanda who was to be her future mistress and not Judy was almost ludicrous. And then she recovered herself with a marvellous effort and appeared as if she had suspected all along that it was to be Miss Wells.
“Duncan would have it,” she said. For the first time she gazed at Amanda with a kind of awe in her eyes. “He has done nothing but talk about the Bride o’ Alaine!”
Miss Urquhart was the next to hear the news, and she embraced Amanda with enthusiasm.
“My dear girl,” she said, “I couldn’t possibly be happier about anything. I’m absolutely delighted. Last night I was afraid—” she shook her head at Alaine—“Very afraid!”
Alaine smiled at her quizzically.
“Knowing me, you shouldn’t have been,” he said.
“That’s true,” she agreed. “You stayed single until the right girl came along, and for that I feel really grateful. It shows that you had more sense than I might sometimes have given you credit for.” She smiled at Amanda. “Under your influence he’ll probably become quite human in time, but I hope he won’t expect you to live here on Ure under the present conditions.” She waved a hand to indicate the faded drawing-room furnishings. “Why not scrap the lot, Alaine, and let Amanda choose what she wants to replace them? I’m quite sure the Tower could be made into quite a comfortable home if a little time and money was spent on it. But as it is it’s impossible ... Why, do you know, I had to wait half an hour this morning for the water to flow through my taps. You’ll have to do something about the plumbing arrangements, Alaine. You can’t have children growing up here with the kind of antiquated water system you’ve got here.”
Amanda, who felt slightly startled by the mention of children growing up on Ure, blushed vividly, and Miss Urquhart pinched her chin.
“And don’t forget to have a nursery wing built on,” she added. “The Tower itself isn’t safe.”
“It will be by the time I’ve finished with it,” Alaine assured her lazily. “As a matter of fact, I’ve already been in touch with a firm in Edinburgh who have the matter in hand. By the time Amanda and I get back from our honeymoon you won’t know Ure ... I give you my word on that!”
Miss Urquhart gazed at him incredulously.
“You must have had the whole thing worked out for weeks,” she said. “Well, ever since Amanda came, here, anyway.”
“I did,” he agreed. “From the moment Amanda, all wet and dripping, walked in here I recognised her as the lost Bride of Alaine.” But his smile was so amused that his aunt could not tell whether he was perfectly serious. “So naturally I had to take steps to secure the future, as you might say!”
Amanda looked up at him wonderingly.
“Is that really true?” she asked.
He, in his turn, pinched her chin.
“My sweet, didn’t I tell you only this morning an Urquhart never under any circumstances tells lies?”
With Judy it was not so easy. Telling her what had happened would have required a lot of courage from Amanda, and she knew she couldn’t really bear to see the dismay in Judy’s eyes. So Alaine did it for her. He waited until they all assembled in the drawing room before dinner, and then, when Judy entered the room in a gleaming new evening dress that was intended to conquer the last of his defences, he walked to a side table where the drinks were set out and picked up one of half a dozen bottles of champagne that had been arrayed prominently amongst the glasses and the usual decanter of sherry.
“It’s a celebration,” he said, walking over to Judy and putting a glass into her hand. “Would you like to drink to my future happiness?”
Judy looked up at him in swift surprise. Her eyes grew big with enquiry.
“Your future happiness?”
“Mine—and Amanda’s!” He laid his arm along Amanda’s shoulders, and then drew her protectively close to his side. “The Bride of Alaine,” he said quietly—“or she soon will be. Amanda is going to become my wife,” he added.
Judy’s colour faded for an instant, and then it rushed back vividly into her cheeks. Without any further loss of composure she walked across to Amanda and kissed her affectionately.
“Congratulations,” she said. And, for Amanda’s ear alone, she added wryly: “You win! I see now that there was never any doubt about it, really!”
Amanda looked upwards at Alaine. He was smiling a trifle ironically, but the smile became warm and tender as he met her eyes. He lifted his glass to her. “To the Bride of Alaine,” he said.
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