by Pamela Kent
“And you believe every word that old humbug says to you, is that it?” with a steel-edged glance of withering contempt. “Well, you offered to share your ill-gotten gains with me, so at least you didn’t listen to his advice. But the subject of my income—or lack of it—is not the subject under discussion. I’ve just told you I need a job. Something honest and uncomplicated and unspectacular, preferably involving the use of a pair of hands.” He extended his own for her to see, and she was struck by their virile strength and a certain obvious manly beauty that was attached to them. “I don’t” think there’s a make of car that I can’t drive, and I’ve a clean licence. So clean that I’m almost proud of it myself. Now, how much will you pay me a week, and when will you take me on ?”
If he expected her to argue the matter further, or to display symptoms of being completely overwhelmed by the thought of having anyone as distinguished-looking as himself—and a real live baronet into the bargain—for a chauffeur, he was disappointed. Her initial surprise over, she regarded him sideways with a kind of unconcealed and astonished disgust.
“And couldn’t anyone with your—advantages,” she stressed, “education, background, and the rest, do better than get himself a job as a chauffeur?”
He seemed surprised.
“I could, but I never thought of the matter before ... not seriously.” He studied her with a kind of interest, in which was a dark blue-eyed disdain. “I suppose I might have studied engineering, or become a doctor or lawyer, like old Jasper; only I hope I wouldn’t have been as unscrupulous as he is! Or I might have embraced the Army or the Navy... We’re a naval family, by the way, when we go in for anything along those lines! Or wondered how the church might have benefited if I’d considered that seriously! But somehow I just drifted ... the idle playboy, brought up short all at once by a plebeian futlire father-in-law and his uncomfortable ideas about honest toil. So you see, all I can do now is drive you, or someone like you, about for a few months—”
“At the end of which time, having gained Mr. Gaylord’s consent to your marriage, you’d revert to your previous way of life?” she demanded contemptuously.
“Precisely,” he agreed composedly. “Only it wouldn’t be exactly the same as hitherto... I’d have a wife to support, and I’d do it on the handsome allowance my father-in-law would make me. Together with the various odds and ends of income I can boast of on my own account.”
She gazed at him shrewdly.
“I suspect that those odds and ends are not inconsiderable,” she told him.
He flickered an approving, cool smile at her, and lighted another cigarette.
“You could be right, of course. You’re extraordinarily bright in some ways. For a girl like you—before my heart was involved, naturally—I might even have thought of butlering, or valeting in order to win your old man’s approval, only you haven’t got an old man, have you?”
“No,” she said quietly, as she looked down at the untouched toast on her plate.
“Here,” he said suddenly, pushing the cakes towards her, “you’re not eating anything. Don’t bother about the bill,” with dryness, “I’ll pay for this little lot. You won’t even have to deduct it out of my salary.”
She spoke suddenly and quickly.
“Sir Angus, you know very well I can’t possibly employ anyone like you to drive my car...”
“Not even although I need the job, and you need a chauffeur?” The steely blue eyes were watching her closely and the feathery gold ends of hair that caressed her cheeks, and fell softly over the fur collar of her coat. “I think you owe it to me, Miss Andrews,” he told her, the steel in his voice as well as in his eyes. “You owe it to me because but for you I could have taken my bride to Giffard’s Prior once I married her, and we could have started our married life there. You owe it to me because I was bom and brought up at Giffard’s Prior, and now it’s not even in the family...”
Suddenly she rounded on him. Her own infinitely softer and less emphatically blue eyes—they made some people think of wood violets growing in the depths of a shadowy wood, while others had been known to picture harebells growing in clusters— accused him in a straightforward manner.
“So it’s Giffard’s Prior that is upsetting you, is that it?” she said. “You resent the fact that it’s now mine? Well, you can have it!”
Instantly his eyes warned her.
“We had all this out the other day,” he reminded her, with dangerous quietness.
She turned away. Almost she turned her back on him, and then he heard her ask curtly:
“Do you really want the job?”
“Of course.”
“Have you any idea what sort of salary you ought to receive?” “I’ve a pretty shrewd idea. I’ll check up with a few of my friends, however, in order that you shan’t do me down in any way.”
He saw her bite her lip rather hard.
“I suppose you realise that I detest you? That I shall hate having you drive me?” “Oh, that doesn’t bother me in the least,” he assured her calmly.
Once again she bit her lip.
“I think you also ought to know that I despise you. I think you’re brutal, and a bully—and unscrupulous! A kind of gentlemanly cad!”
Very close to her slim shoulder his eyes gleamed dangerously ... menacingly. On the whole, it was just as well that she didn’t see them.
“Go on,” he said, with silken softness.
“And you can have the job. I shall be going up north in a-few days, and staying at Giffard’s Prior. You will drive me there. I don’t know what sort of accommodation you’ll expect, but there must be chauffeur’s quarters ...”
“There are. They’re over the old stable block. I shall be happy to occupy them.”
“I haven’t yet received my car keys, but you can collect them from Aiden, Crawley and Bentinck. As the car will be your concern you’ll handle everything connected with it.”
“Delighted, I’m sure,” the voice at her shoulder murmured. And then: “Aiden, Crawley and Bentinck? Who put you on to them?” “Dr. Giffard,” she admitted.
“I might have known it,” he murmured. "Alaine has taken you under his wing... So like Alaine! I wonder whether you’re going to have the same effect on him that you had on poor old Angus? If so, the rest of the family had better watch out, although I can’t see Aunt Clare capitulating quite so easily.” She drew on her gloves, and then deliberately opened her purse and placed a tip on the table for the waitress, and then called for the bill. After which she
turned to him and spoke decisively,
“Let us understand one another,” she said clearly and coldly. “I have agreed to employ you for some devious purpose of your own, but if you behave in such a manner that I find it impossible to continue the arrangement I shan’t hesitate to sack you and terminate the arrangement. Remarks such as the one you have just made will come beneath the heading of impossible behaviour, so I should advise you—if you really wish to convince Miss Gaylord’s father that you are capable of earning your own living should the emergency arise—to be a little more cautious in future, and remember that, in future we are employer and employee.”
“I assure you I will not forget,” he returned with the smooth insolence she hated. “Or I promise you I’ll make an effort not to forget!”
Once they were outside the tea-room he offered to call her a taxi, but she said she would prefer to walk —or even take a bus.
“As you please,” he said, his blue eyes smiling lazily. “Your word is my command—madam!”
“Sir Angus—” and then she corrected herself hastily. “I can’t possibly call you Sir Angus and have you drive me as well. You’ll have to put up with being called Angus.”
“Suits me,” he assured her, with that veiled impertinence that made her want to lash out at him.
“Well then, Angus, there’s one thing I want to know. What will Miss Gaylord think of your working for me?”
“She’ll think it’s the joke of
the ccntury,” he assured her.
She bit her lower lip and turned away.
“I’m glad you both have such an enviable sense of humour,” she remarked, and in order to get away from him quickly put up her hand and stopped a taxi. She did not offer to give him a lift, and as he watched the taxi glide away the amiable look vanished from his face, and was replaced by one of uncompromising grimness.
That night she couldn’t resist telephoning Alaine, who was dressing hurriedly to go out to dinner.
“I’d like to see you some time soon,” she told him, feeling that she had to tell him about Angus and shift the burden of what she had done from her shoulders to his broad ones. For if he thought she was quite mad he would surely think of a way to terminate the arrangement she and Sir Angus had come to—largely because she hadn’t the moral strength to utter a blunt ‘No’ to the baronet when
he put forward his unworkable proposition. Alaine might even go and see Angus and talk him out of it.
But Alaine, groping for cufflinks even while he was speaking into the mouthpiece, apologised for having absolutely no time to spare. He was already, late for his dinner engagement, and the following day he was flying to Northern Ireland to attend the funeral of his godmother, who had died suddenly.
“I’m terribly sorry, Tina,” he told her, “but I’ll let you know as soon as I’m back, and in the meantime relax as much as possible and have a good time spending your money. I’m glad you made your decision about the car. The chap I put you to telephoned me.... he seems to think you’re a valuable customer. The next thing you’ll have to do is get yourself someone who can drive you.”
“I’ve already done that,” Tina confessed, a little thinly.
“You have? Oh, good! I hope he’s got a clean licence.”
“He says he has,” Tina said.
“And is well recommended?”
“Oh, yes, I should say he’s fairly well recommended ...” “I suppose you haven’t had time yet to take up his references?” The doctor sounded puzzled.
“No, not yet.”
Well, don’t rush the matter. Take your time. “I will,” Tina promised, but she was not at all certain what she was to take her time about once she had replaced the receiver. It seemed that she had already engaged Angus, and he would most certainly hold her to the terms of the engagement—or become something more than a thorn in her side. There was apparently, no way out. She was stuck with him!
Unless he did something outrageous, and she could give him the sack!
She felt desolate and a little disconsolate. It was extraordinary how she had come to depend on Dr. Giffard in such a short time, and somehow the world seemed empty now that he was temporarily flying away out of her life... Although only, thankfully, to Northern Ireland!
She decided to skip dinner that night, and had some sandwiches on a tray in her room. Somehow its luxury oppressed hear. London was no place for a girl on her own—even a wealthy girl. She decided to go north without delay, even if it meant having Angus mocking her with his cold blue eyes, and saying deliberately unpleasant things. At the worst, she could always retaliate... And somehow she felt she was getting a little better at that sort of thing. Where Angus was concerned she was not quite so timid and long-suffering as she had been.
CHAPTER EIGHT TINA was even more confident of her ability to handle him when they met for the first time as employer and employee on the day that he was driving her to Giffard’s Prior.
She had issued her instructions to him on the telephone the day before. Alaine was still in Ireland, and she had no word from him, so she felt she had to be strong in her own right. She said clearly and concisely, from her hotel room, that she wished to be collected at ten o’clock the following morning, and if possible she wanted to reach Stoke Moreton before nightfall.
“That means four o’clock, since it’s dark around then,” Angus returned with suave affability. “You forget that it’s early February, and we’re liable to get stuck in a snowdrift if it’s snowing in the Midlands— and I believe it is at the moment. However, it’s your car, your risk. I’m completely at your service!”
“We could always stop for the night somewhere on the road,” she said rather more diffidently.
“We could. You’ll be footing the bill, and I’m in no hurry. There are one or two very comfortable hotels I can think of between here and Stoke Moreton.”
She wasn’t sure whether he was being helpful or merely mocking her. “Anyway, I want to leave tomorrow.”
“Splendid. Your wishes are my commands— madam!
“You have had a look at the new car?”
“I’ve done better than that. I’ve tried it out. A first-class job, running beautifully. I couldn’t have done better myself if I’d gone out to buy a car.
She refrained from saying anything further, and that night she collected her hotel bill and was ready to leave by ten o’clock the following morning. She felt a little embarrassed when various members of the hotel staff—one of the two small page-boys in particular—having been suitably rewarded by her for any extra attentiveness they had paid her, collected in the vestibule to watch her depart. All her new cases were stacked ready to be loaded into the Bentley when it arrived; and when it finally did arrive she received something in the nature of a shock. For Angus had got himself fitted out with a uniform, and it was so smart that it became him even better than his well-cut Savile Row clothes. It was grey like the car, and the peaked cap drew attention to his dark blue, gleaming eyes.
“I trust I’m on time, madam,” he said, as he slid easily out from his seat behind the wheel, and presented himself before her in the vestibule. He clicked his heels smartly together, and attempted some form of salute. “I was up bright and early this morning in order not to keep you waiting. I’m afraid I had rather a late night last night, which didn’t make things too easy.”
She felt herself flushing brilliantly. The pages-boy and the hall porter were goggling openly, for this wasn’t the first time they had seen Sir Angus Giffard. And Sir Angus Giffard in a uniform was still Sir Angus Giffard, very immaculate as to linen and polished as to boots.
“Why in the world have you dressed yourself up like that?” she demanded, in rather an angry whisper.
He looked almost disappointed.
“But I thought I cut rather a pleasing figure. And I’ve got the bill for the whole outfit for you here . . . I didn’t think you’d be likely to have an account at a shop that caters strictly for the requirements of the male sex, so I settled it and depended upon you to reimburse me. On the whole I think I did some very economical shopping.”
She declined to so much as glance at the bill, and thrust it instead away in her handbag. He picked up a couple of the lightest of her suitcases, and the hall porter and his underlings saw to the disposal of the rest. The boot of the Bentley was very capacious, and it took everything with ease. Inside in the car with her she had only her small dressing-case and a mysterious armful of hot-house roses that someone had had delivered to her at the hotel that morning.
She had no real idea who it was who had sent them to her, although she strongly suspected Alaine. She was wildly thrilled because, although still far away in Ireland, he had thought of doing something that would give her pleasure... He could have no idea how much pleasure.
“Nice,” Angus remarked, as he placed the roses on the seat beside her. She met his dark blue eyes fully, and they were bright and alert, and even seemed to her to be dancing a little. “Pity they’re not red roses, though... We all know what red roses mean!”
“Will you please let us get away as quickly as possible,” she requested urgently. “I feel utterly ridiculous having you drive me like this, when half the hotel must know who you are,”
He shrugged. And then he directed a quick, flashing grin up at the front of the hotel.
“Well, I would hardly say half the hotel . . . But a small minority perhaps. Do you mind if I stop and make a telephone call on the way ou
t of London ? It’s rather important.”
After he had made his telephone call he returned to the car with a quietly satisfied look on his face. There was a certain languidness about his eyes, almost a melancholy droop to his lips as he got back into his seat and made a slight pretence of closing the glass partition between them.
“Miss Gaylord,” he murmured. “I always telephone her about this hour of the morning. Helps to get the day really started for me. I don’t think I could face it if I didn’t hear her voice, still drugged with sleep, calling me ‘darling’ in those soft, drawling tones of hers. Don’t you think she has an extraordinarily attractive voice? And that she is, in fact, an extraordinarily attractive young woman? Beautiful . . . Really a sight for sore eyes! ”
“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” Tina remarked, with a stiffness she found it impossible to overcome, although somehow it made her seem raw and pretentious. “And in any case, it’s only skin deep.”
“True,” he agreed. “But the average man doesn’t bother about probing beneath the skin.... I don’t suppose that fellow who sent you roses got down to the task of trying to discover what’s going on beneath your skin. He accepted it that you’ve got a nice, schoolgirl complexion, and left it at that. In his case I think he was wise.”
Tina’s back pressed rigidly against the seat she was occupying and her gloved hands tightened on the smooth calf of her handbag. A nice, schoolgirl complexion ... Somehow it was hardly a compliment, and yet why in the world should she expect compliments from him? If he’d known that she’d pad a second visit to the beauty parlour she had already visited once before in order to acquire that matte and flawless look he so admired in Miss Gaylord he would probably have laughed aloud. The little schoolmarm dolling herself up and hoping to look like her betters!
Well, thankfully Alaine had noticed what a angularly perfect skin she had, and had commented on it. He had said something about it reminding him of pale rose-petals... The Dresden pink roses she held in her lap?
Once clear of London, Angus let the car out... not, however, omitting to remember that it was an entirely new car, and that the surface of the road was not ideal for speeding. It was, in fact, rather an icy surface, and the lowering clouds that massed above their heads threatened them with something more than ice before the day was out
