The Other Brother

by Jessica Steele

  l

  'Leave that.'

  Kathryn looked up startled from what she was doing. Startled not so much that Nate had so soon followed her into her office, but that amazingly there was not an atom of aggression in his voice. He had changed in the space of a few minutes from the entirely disagreeable character he had been, and now, if appearances were to be believed, was being the most affable she had ever seen him.

  'Leave it?' she queried, not trusting him, wary too of the smile he suddenly sent her way. A smile, for her! Never had she seen him smile before. It made his good-looking face light up, showed strong even teeth, and she just couldn't believe in it. Not after the way he had been.

  'We were both a bit—uptight in there,' he explained, causing her almost to gasp as the possibility struck that he might be apologising for the brute he had been. 'Me with my thoughts centred on my brother—you with your thoughts, feelings, all wrapped up with your sister and her husband's lack of fidelity.'

  That word again! Had it been used deliberately to probe her reaction, for reacted she had in the quick shuttering of her eyes before she stared at him again. But this time the sick feeling that word awakened didn't linger as once more a smile curved Nate's well constructed mouth.

  Tt occurred to me,' he remarked, with such charm it left her blinking, 'that if we're to continue working together, and since neither of us wants to break faith with my uncle, then we must—we ought to be grown up enough to bury the bone of contention that's between us during working hours. Wouldn't you agree?'

  The pure charm of him had her forgetting she had been hoping to find the courage this weekend to ignore her promise to his uncle and give in her notice on Monday.

  'You've worked wonderfully well this week,' Nate went on. 'Come out on top no matter how hard I've pressed you.

  Will you forgive the bear I've been and start afresh with me on Monday?'

  'I. . .' Kathryn struggled. She felt flattered that her hard work had not gone unnoticed, but she just couldn't believe in this complete turn-around coming so quickly after what had so recently gone on in his office.

  T know I haven't given you an easy time,' Nate went on, his face serious now, which gave her to think either he was being very sincere or was by way of being a very good actor. 'But I hope my attitude hasn't caused you to think in terms of breaking your promise to my uncle.'

  'Good heavens, no,' Kathryn lied quickly, and was on the receiving end of that charm, that smile again, as he extended his hand.

  'Fresh start on Monday, then, Kathryn?' he asked.

  Without her being fully aware of it her hand came out. She felt it taken in his large firm hand. 'Yes, all right,' she heard herself say. Then she had to feel he was being sincere when he dropped her hand and told her:

  'I know you're anxious to get to your sister as quickly as possible. Leave everything, I'll clear up your desk for you.'

  'You'll clear . . .!'

  'Go now,' he said, part charm, part authoritative. Then, pleasantly, 'Enjoy what you can of the weekend.'

  Kathryn's head was buzzing as she reversed her car out of the car park. Had that really happened? The feel of his warm clasp as solemnly he had shaken hands was still with her—so it must have happened!

  But away from his charm, his overpowering presence^she just had to ask—why? Only a few minutes earlier he had been ready to flatten her had she uttered one word against his brother. Yet very shortly afterwards he was suggesting they forget all about Rex while they were at work in the interests of working harmoniously together!

  She negotiated traffic automatically as she puzzled on this

  latest development. Whether the atmosphere in the office was harmonious or otherwise wouldn't bother him in the slightest, she was sure about that. So why had he changed so totally—and in such a very brief space of time?

  She had seen him make a few lightning decisions this week. She knew he was capable of rapid thought, rapid and unfaltering summing up; so what thoughts had come to him that had had him rapidly changing from a man who looked so darkly threatening that her imagination had run riot, to a man who suddenly professed that harmony in the office was his first consideration—when she knew that it wasn't?

  Kathryn was nearly in Reading before she had the answer—the only answer that would fit, anyway, since Nate had spoken of their burying their bone of contention during working hours, and since she wasn't likely to be meeting him out of working hours that was all she had to worry about. It had to be, didn't it, that unnoticed by her he must have been observing her while she was contemplating the possibility of leaving before her three months were up? He was shrewd, was Nate. He must have caught some fleeting expression on her face that told him she was thinking of breaking her promise to his uncle. She had seen an honesty in him this week in his business dealings and saw then that since George was bound to ask the question when he returned of why had she left, Nate would have to confess, with that same honesty, that it had been his attitude with her that had driven her out. He had said something about keeping faith with his uncle when she had all but invited him to dismiss her, hadn't he? Wasn't driving her out tantamount to his breaking faith with his uncle?

  Almost on Sandra's doorstep, she realised she had better forget about work and concentrate on how best to help her sister. She knew from past experience that to suggest as she had after Victor's first escapade—the first one Sandra

  had found out about anyway—that advising her to call it a day with him was not the way to make her sister feel any better. Sandra had rushed to his defence then, and seeing it was she who was married to him, ever after that Kathryn had bitten her tongue on what she would like to have said, and spent her energies on being what support she could in the many times Sandra had suffered afterwards. She had the experience of the support they had both given her mother to draw on—support she had given before a bout of 'flu, neglected while she had been away from her on holiday, had turned to pneumonia and killed her. She had died the day she had returned, Kathryn remembered—and remembered also the way her father, beside himself with grief at the time, had remarried very shortly afterwards. Her teeth clenched, Kathryn didn't doubt that the second Mrs Randle was being cheated.

  'You're sooner than I expected.' Sandra rushed out to greet her, her red eyes showing that her tears hadn't ended with their telephone conversation, though Kathryn was pleased to see she appeared to be brighter than she had sounded then.

  'My boss thought he'd worked me hard enough this week,' she said lightly. 'He told me I could go early.'

  The weekend that followed was not memorable for its joy. Sandra returned to the subject of her husband whenever Marigold and Gillie were not in earshot. And Kathryn didn't have to recall how wonderful her sister had been to her a couple of weeks ago when her own world had fallen apart to listen again and again, withholding any sharp comment on hearing Sandra's hopefully declared thoughts that once the frequently erring Vic had got his womanising out of his system he would settle down to being a model husband.

  She hid, successfully she hoped, the nausea she felt when he breezed in just after eight on Sunday night and presented

  his wife with a box of chocolates. She swallowed down her feeling of wanting to be physically ill when he even had the audacity to ask his wife if she had missed him.

  Since they hadn't had any idea when he would arrive, Kathryn had been going to stay again that night and drive back in the morning. But seeing the way Sandra was so pathetically grateful that he had thought of her long enough to buy her a box of chocolates made her so cross she wasn't sure she would be able to keep from giving him a piece of her mind should she be left alone with him for very long.

  'I think I'll go home tonight,' she stated abruptly, not apologising for breaking in on the tale she could tell from his shifty-eyed look he was inventing on something one of the other 'fellows' had done yesterday.

  'You weren't going to go until the morning,' Sandra began to protest.

  'I know, lov
e. But my new boss is mustard, I told you that. I think I'll be much more on my toes if I have only a short drive to work in the morning.'

  'Fancy him, do you?' her brother-in-law had to put in his two pennyworth.

  Kathryn hadn't been going to answer him. But just then Gillie called down from upstairs and Sandra left the room to go hurrying to her. 'With some men,' she said, finding she was too human after all to resist the dig, 'you know exacdy where you are. Nate Kingersby, I have every confidence, would never let a woman think he loved her and then play her false.'

  She drove home without regretting her remark. Victor Smith could have taken it that she was referring to Rex, but that thick her sister's husband wasn't.

  Though as she drove along she couldn't help but wonder why she had drawn Nate Kingersby into it. And it irritated her too that she found herself remembering the Kingersby trait he had told her of, and wondering if he had ever told

  one particular woman that he loved her. He wasn't married, she knew that. Had he loved and lost? Or was he still waiting for that all-consuming passion he avowed so stoutly took the Kingersby men but once in a lifetime?—And why the heck should she bother her head about him and his love life anyway?

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Determined to be early that second Monday in her role as secretary to Nate Kingersby, Kathryn slept late, rushed around her flat getting ready, then found her car had chosen that particular morning to go temperamental on her.

  After much coaxing followed by a few sharp words she eventually got it going, but knew she was going to be fifteen minutes late. It would look well if Nate had changed back to the person he had been, she fretted, as hurriedly she parked the Mini and with more speed than dignity entered the Kingersby International building. He had been watching every minute last week to pounce on her for the smallest mistake. What if he reverted to being the way he had been? Oh lord, what a way to start the weekl To fall foul of him before the week began.

  Breathlessly she pushed open her office door, her eyes meeting arctic blue ones as she searched and found Nate seated in his office—and she knew the worst. Those few moments of him being amicable on Friday had been pure pretence. She knew it with certainty. For those frigid blue eyes looked back, telling her their owner hated her.

  Her heart beating hurriedly, she lowered her eyes and went forward. Well, at least she would endeavour to be civil no matter what venom he had been storing up in the fifteen minutes he had been waiting for her to put in an appearance.

  'I'm sorry I'm late,' she said, no warmth in her tones since she knew he was about to bite her head off, and having no intention of backing down before the fight began.

  'Think nothing of it,' she heard him say, the vitriol she had been expecting nowhere to be heard.

  It startled her into looking at him where before she had addressed her apology in his general direction. And she was suddenly stupefied to see that the hate she imagined she had read in his eyes was not there at all. That was what it was— pure imagination, she realised, as he smiled at her, taking in her trim figure in her hastily donned grey suit with its pink wool shirt. Imagination pure and simple, because she had been expecting a few short and to the point words. She had been several yards away when she thought she had read hate there for her, but close up there was nothing but that same bury-the-hatchet look he had given her on Friday.

  'I expect you've had a fraught weekend,' he allowed her, still a suggestion of a smile curving his warm looking mouth.

  'It—was rather,' she agreed, her own mouth starting to curve. 'Though to be honest I overslept, and then the car wouldn't start.'

  'Well, you're here now,' Nate said tolerantly. 'When you've caught your breath we'll make a start, shall we?'

  By the paper work covering his desk it looked as though he had already done half a day's work, but Kathryn didn't comment on it, feeling only relief that he had meant what he had said late on Friday afternoon.

  So charming was Nate to her all through that day, Kathryn couldn't help but think that if there wasn't the ghost of Rex between them, she would love to have been his secretary for longer than the three months she had promised George. Oh, he still kept her hard at it, but he gave the work they did life. George had been good at his job too, but with Nate there were none of those temporary vague moments when the older man occasionally lost track of what they were doing and would remark, 'Where were we, Kathryn?'

  She went home that night wondering how she had ever thought Nate Kingersby the most hateful man she had ever met, wondering why she had ever felt alarm at his threat to

  get even with her. She was even able to realise his threat had been made in temper and that people very often said things in temper that they didn't really mean. But alone in her flat, the charm of him that day not there to keep memories at bay of how vile he had been to her in the past, she was forced to pause and think again—was it all as genuine as it seemed?

  Could any man change so quickly from a man who had looked ready to step over her unconcerned if she'd fallen dead at his feet, to the man who that morning had waved away her apology for being late—even suggest an excuse for her lateness she hadn't offered in the weekend she had just spent with Sandra? And could she trust him not to return equally quickly to being the coldhearted fiend he had been?

  By Friday she knew that she could. She had just spent one of the most stimulating weeks of her working career. Not once had a sour note entered. Even working hard Nate had still found time to treat her with charm and courtesy.

  And if occasionally she looked through the door he still liked to keep open between their two offices and caught him looking at her, his eyes appearing hard, arctic and hating, she knew the moment he threw her that half curving smile before he bent to his work again that the distance that divided them, a shadow that caught his face, had created that erroneous impression. For there was no hate in his face the few times he had come to see her with a query, or the times he had called her in to take dictation or some other matter.

  'I want to leave early tonight,' he told her, and charm again warmed her. 'You've slaved for me this week, Kathryn, I don't think anyone would mind if you sloped off early too.'

  Why she should wonder where he was going that night that he should be leaving early, she couldn't think. It was no

  concern of hers if he had a heavy date. And she felt distinctly annoyed with herself that she should feel an odd sort of relief as the thought came that he probably intended to spend a longer time visiting Rex than usual.

  At four o'clock she raised her head from what she was doing, caught what looked to be hostile eyes on her, and not waiting for the smile she was sure was to come, got her smile in first—and then felt her heart set up a very definite clamouring. For her smile was noted with a frown only a brief second before the most genuine smile she had ever received from him winged its way to her, just as though he couldn't help himself. It was gone instantly as he stood up, his face hidden as he bent his head momentarily.

  Tearing her eyes from him, wondering at the clamouring inside her, Kathryn heard his voice, strangely cool coming from his room. 'We'll wrap it up for today.' And when she glanced through, she saw he was already clearing his desk ready for a fresh start on Monday.

  She was just putting the cover on her typewriter when he came from his office, the briefcase in his hand denoting that if he had any idle hours between now and then he could find something to fill them with..But his voice had returned to being the same he had used all week when he asked:

  'Anything planned for this weekend?'

  How ridiculous, she thought moments later after quieting a heart that had rushed on the oddest notion that Nate was about to ask her out. Would he be likely to, with his brother, the man he thought she had jilted without cause, still confined to his hospital bed through drinking himself senseless when she'd handed him back his ring?

  'Nothing special,' she replied, trying for a casual note. 'I shall probably go to the cinema—with a girl friend.' Why
had she added that last bit? Good grief, was she seeking his good opinion? Was it that she wanted him to know that she wasn't an 'off with the old love, on with the new'? As if he'd

  care who she went to the pictures with!

  He smiled at her, the smile she was growing used to, the smile that lightened his face that was so often gravely serious. 'I'll walk to the car park with you,' he announced, opening the door and standing back to let her go in front of him.

  Kathryn was glad to reach the car park. She had been overwhelmingly conscious of him in the lift, had searched her mind for something to say, something to break the silence she suddenly felt stifling, for all it didn't seem to be affecting him. But she could think of nothing save to ask him how Rex was getting on, and some second sense was warning her that to bring his name up now, when it hadn't been mentioned all week, might have the week ending with her seeing some of Nate's aggression that had so far been absent.

  She stumbled coming out of the lift, which didn't surprise her considering she suddenly felt as if she'd got two left feet. But Nate's hand came out swiftly, automatically, and prevented her from going headlong.

  'Thanks,' she mumbled as his hand fell away to open the plate glass doors. And never was she more glad to feel the air outside on her face.

  'Goodnight,' she called, regardless that it was still light, still afternoon, and received Nate's answering farewell as she reached her car and he walked on to his.