Enemy Lover

by Pamela Kent

  She looked slightly appalled.

  “You don’t think I got you to drive me there in order to—to—”

  “Act the part of Lady Bountiful, and show off the car?” He shrugged. “Well, it might have been that, but I wouldn’t swear to it that it was. I’m inclined to the belief that you’d grown rather attached to those kids—particularly that small freak with the gap in his teeth—but the sentiment doesn’t seem to have been returned as strongly as it might. However, I wouldn’t let that upset you ... Children have notoriously short memories, and it’s their policy to take rather than give. They improve in this respect as they grow older.”

  She felt almost humiliated as he sat looking at her with almost a thoughtful gleam in his hard eyes.

  “I give you my word that I never wanted to impress them for one single moment,” she declared rather hotly, “and as to acting the part of Lady Bountiful... well, that’s absolute rubbish, too! I merely wanted to give them all something in the nature of a treat—a change—a little variety! They don’t get much of it in this part of the world, where everything’s so bleak in the winter months.”

  He nodded his head as if he believed her.

  “Well, I’ve no doubt you succeeded in making one or two of them sick ... as a result of eating too many sweets! But you’ll have to adjust yourself, you know, now that you are in a position to be Lady Bountiful if you wish. You’ll have to become less vulnerable, unless you decide to take a companion or get married all in a hurry, more attached to your own company.” She realised that there was a mildly derisive note in his voice, but it was only very mild. At the same time she was certain that there was little point in trying to deceive him about anything.

  “I came over here tonight because—because I felt I was going mad over there in the big house,” she confessed a trifle breathlessly.

  He smiled. “Poor little rich girl! I ought to sympathise, but somehow I don’t feel I can. You really will have to think seriously of matrimony.”

  “You must have thought very seriously about it,” she heard herself say rather jerkily, “to be willing to take a job like this in order to convince Miss Gaylord’s father you’d make a worthwhile son-in-

  law.” Once again he shrugged, lightly. “When you’re in love . . .” he replied. “Well, it’s love that makes the world go round, and love makes one do the most extraordinary things . . . obviously! ” “One doesn’t marry without love,” she heard

  herself say, as if she was repeating a lesson. “Doesn’t one?” He stood up, and started to wander about the room, picking up books and the odd, definitely ungainly, ornaments, and examining them intently. “And does that mean you won’t be marrying for some time, because you’re not in love?”

  He stood looking across the room at her, his eyes very dark and searching, one corner of his mouth twisting a little peculiarly. She felt her cheeks burning under the slight cruelty—like an unkind electric light—of his gaze, and then admitted with a strange sort of dignity that sat well upon her:

  “I’ve never really given any serious thought to love or marriage. I suppose it was because it never once occurred to me

  that anyone would want to marry me.”

  “Yet you’re pretty enough—very pretty!” he told her.

  Her eyelashes fluttered, and she looked down at her hands.

  “Are looks enough?” she enquired. “To tempt a man?”

  “In your case you have a thriving bank-balance.” “And you think that, sooner or later, some man will want to mary me for my money ?”

  “Your money and—that new, rather fetching way you have of doing your hair, and the fact that you’re rather a dainty person who would look quite well at the head of a dinner-table. Some man might fancy you as a hostess for his friends, a mother for his children... You look healthy enough!”

  “Thank you,” she returned, with deceptive quietness.

  “And of course, there could be other reasons why a man might suddenly find himself attracted to you ...” He directed at her one of his slightly distorted, flashing white smiles. “Possibly even a number of reasons! But the money will be the biggest draw.” “You’re cruel, aren’t you ?” she said, her eyes very large and studying him almost wonderingly.

  “Am I?” He reclined in his favourite attitude against the mantelpiece, smoking a cigarette. “Well, someone’s got to warn you. And I’m the type who can do it without making you dislike me even more than you did before.”

  “How do you know I dislike you?”

  “I started off by giving you very good cause, but nowadays I think you’ve softened a little towards me.” Suddenly he straightened, and looked hard at her. “What about Alaine? You like him, don’t you?”

  “He has been very kind to me.” “And if he asked you to marry him you’d probably get on very well together. But I wouldn’t marry Alaine, if I were you. He’s not, strictly speaking the marrying kind.”

  “I know. He told me so himself.”

  “Oh! So you’ve got as far as discussing marriage? You and Alaine! That proves he’s a slightly faster worker than I thought.” He ground out his cigarette in an ash-tray, took a few steps towards her and pulled her deliberately out of her chair. “Let’s find out how much you know about men ” he said, “before you think seriously of marrying one of them! Otherwise you might make a horrible mistake! ” and to her complete surprise and utter and unbounded astonishment she felt his mouth pressing hard and persistently against her own.

  He might have let her go immediately following that purely experimental kiss, but something about the curious, soft gasp she uttered when he partially released her—the way her extraordinarily limpid, violet-blue eyes looked up at him, and her flower-pink mouth parted—affected him in a way he would never have believed possible. He said something that sounded like, “You’re a witch!” and snatched her back into his arms again. He kissed her so thoroughly this time that there was every excuse for the bemused look in her eyes when he finally released her; and as he strode away from her to the window and stood looking down into the shadowy darkness of the stable courtyard she could have sworn that he was breathing unevenly, although she was not exactly in a condition to be sure of anything just then.

  “You’d better go,” he said, and he sounded almost rude. “Next time you feel the urge to find out whether I’m comfortable or not wait until it’s daylight, and then if anyone sees you making your way over here it won’t look so odd. But this kind of inspection is not necessary. If I want anything, I’ll ask for it!”

  Feeling herself dismissed, and not yet quite capable of taking in anything very clearly—although the one thing she did gather was that he wanted to be rid of her in an extraordinary hurry—she retied her headscarf over her hair and made for the door. Her mouth was burning, and it felt slightly bruised. Never in her life had she been kissed like that before, and she put her fingers up to her lips and touched then tentatively as he followed her to the door.

  At the head of the short, steep staircase he spoke harshly.

  “You’d better let me go first, otherwise you might fall and break your neck. If you fall on me I shan’t notice it, since you’re not much heavier than a bundle of feathers!”

  Just before he let her out at the door he apologised roughly.

  “I oughtn’t to have done that, I know .. . But you asked for it! You oughtn’t to be let out at night alone! There’s something waiflike and elf-like about you. And you invite trouble just by looking so detached! Yes, you are detached ... I’m beginning to understand what old Angus meant when he had that will of his drawn up.” “Goodnight, Sir Angus,” she said quietly.

  “And for goodness’ sake stop calling me Sir Angus if we’re to keep up this charade,” he urged. “You make the whole position impossible when you will remember who I am.”

  “And you make the situation impossible when you forget that I’m your employer,” she retorted with a hint of latent spirit, her clear eyes upturned to his in the darkness. “Y
ou’d better go back to London, Sir Angus, and I’d better get myself another chauffeur...

  And I mean that!” she added between her teeth, and then ran off into the darkness before he could even offer to see her back to the house.

  He swore as he stood at the foot of the stable steps in the darkness. He had meant to see her back to the house...

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN THE next day Tina sent for him and told him that she wanted to be driven into Stoke Moreton to do some shopping. It was a delightful, early spring day, she wore a spring-green suit under a coat of nylon fur, and her attitude was very much the attitude of an employer addressing someone who was on her payroll.

  She said briskly:

  “If you want to stay we’ll re-furnish the flat for you. You can’t possibly go on living in a hovel like the place I saw last night... And you must have a radio and a television set, and anything else you need. We’ll call at Snaithby’s.”

  “And if I don’t want to stay?” quietly, watching her composed face.

  “Then,” drawing on her gloves, “We’d drive to the station and find out about the times of trains. Or you can borrow the car and drive yourself to London. You might do one small service for me, and go to the agency where I originally intended to get someone to drive me. I’m sure you could engage a suitable man, and he could bring the car back to Giffard’s Prior.”

  Sir Angus smiled with his lips, although the expression of his eyes remained somewhat peculiar

  “I’ll stay,” he said “You knew I would, didn’t you?”

  “No.” She glanced at him coolly. “Why should I assume anything of the kind?”

  For a moment his expression struck her as slightly baffled. Standing there in his extremely smart uniform he looked handsome and arrogant, but he also looked a little less sure of himself—in her presence, that is—than he normally did.

  “Did you sleep well last night?” he asked casually, as she gathered up her handbag and a few letters for the post and moved to the door.

  She shot him a quick look over her shoulder. “Beautifully. Why? Should I have had a sleepless night, or something? Did you have a sleepless night?” “Touche!” he exclaimed, grinning, and held open the door for her. “So we drive straight to Snaithby’s, do we?” “We do, unless you want to change your mind,” she replied.

  “I assure you I have no intention of changing my mind.”

  “That will be good news for Miss Gaylord,” she murmured, as he put her into the car.

  When they returned it was to find a car standing before the entrance. It was not a particularly new car, but it was slim and rakish, and violently coloured —a bright letter-box red, in fact.

  “Who would have believed it,” Angus murmured. “Juliet is here! I wonder whether Aunt Clare is here, too?”

  But when he entered the house after his employer was to discover that Miss Gaylord had accompanied his cousin on her journey north, and there was no one else with them apart from a tall and rather lanky young man who looked a little uncomfortable on being presented as Miss Giffard’s fiance, Mr. Justin Forbes.

  “Of course, it isn’t official yet,” Juliet said, talking hurriedly and quite ignoring Tina, who was the mistress of the house. “In fact, it can’t possibly be official until we’ve had a chance to talk to you. And Kathryn thought you were the one person we ought to talk to! You might have some ideas! She said you almost certainly would have some ideas.”

  “What about?” Angus enquired, and his voice sounded a little curt—perhaps because he was aware of Tina, in her slim fur coat, standing on the fringe of the group, and not attempting to break it up, although Mrs. Appleby was looking rather tight about the lips as she took up a kind of defensive position at the foot of the stairs.

  So far and no farther, her attitude seemed to say . . . She had allowed the callers to get so far, but they were not penetrating the recesses of the house without the permission of Miss Andrews, to whom she now owed allegiance.

  “Oh, darling, it’s such a long story—” Juliet was beginning to wail, when Miss Gaylord interrupted her.

  “Angus, you can’t possibly hear all about it while we stand about in a group like this in the hall. Can’t we go somewhere and talk? Besides,” slipping her hand through his arm, “I need a drink.”

  “If Miss Andrews says you can come in and have a drink, then you can,” Angus replied, to her complete astonishment, “but the first thing I must do is put the car away. And you had better say ‘How do you do?’ to the owner of Giffard’s Prior!”

  Kathryn, who was looking exquisitely beautiful in a real mink coat, with her much richer fair hair than Tina’s swinging on her shoulders, giggled as if she thought he was making a joke.

  “Oh, yes, of course, I forgot! She’s virtually mistress here now, isn’t she?”

  “She is mistress here,” Angus snapped back at her. “And unless

  you’ve completely forgotten your manners will you recognise the fact? Miss Andrews,” he said in a taut voice to his employer, “you must forgive my friends intruding like this—that is to say, two friends and one relative—”

  “But how ridiculous!” Miss Gaylord exclaimed, colour flaming in her face, and staining the whiteness of her beautifully moulded throat. “A joke’s a joke, and I know you’re playing the part of her chauffeur, but do you have to behave as if it’s really true? Why, she’s just a little outsider, in any case—a school- marm—and hasn’t the least little bit of right to be here. You said so yourself!”

  “If I said that I must have been drunk at the time,” Sir Angus stated coldly.

  Kathryn Gaylord gaped at him.

  “Such a change of tone! . . .” she was beginning, when Justin Forbes stepped forward. He made a rather elegant bow in front of Tina, and then held out his hand to her.

  “Miss Andrews, my party are a little bit agitated just now, so you must forgive them,” he purred. “But of course we all recognise that this is your house, and I for one was very much against just barging in here as if it still belonged to the old chappie who died, and, incidentally, cut poor Angus right out of his will! ” He grinned sideways at the baronet, without any real commiseration. “That must have been a bit of a shock, old boy. Nasty shock, too!”

  “If it was, I’ve long since recovered from it,” Angus replied. Juliet Giffard stepped forward.

  “Miss Andrews,” she said stiffly, “I’m sorry we overlooked the fact that you’re mistress here now, but we’ve come all this way to see Angus, and I’m sure you’ll let us have a few words with him in the drawing-room, or somewhere like that? Perhaps the library would be better—”

  “Of course,” Tina answered, and turned away as if she fully understood that anything they had to discuss could not include her. “You know the plan of the house. Go wherever you want to go.” Miss Gaylord pouted.

  “But I thought we’d all go off somewhere and have lunch. The Bull in Stoke Moreton, or somewhere like that. Angus, surely you don’t have to keep up this, farce and pretend that you really take orders from this—this woman ?”

  “Oh, I say!” Mr. Forbes exclaimed, apologising for her. “That doesn’t sound to me a very fair description of Miss Andrews. She looks to me very young and attractive, and not in the least like a woman? Besides, it sounds rude.” He smiled at Tina. “Forgive her,

  Miss Andrews. She doesn’t mean to be as objectionable as she sounds.”

  Once again Juliet stepped forward.

  “She doesn’t. But we’ve some business to discuss—” she was looking rather pale and strained, Tina realised—“and we’re a bit on edge. At least I am—and Justin ought to be! Kathryn didn’t have to come with us, but we needed her influence with Angus.” She glanced round at him appealingly. “Oh, Angus, you’ve got to help us!” Angus looked as if he was keeping his temper with a certain amount of difficulty, and he responded to her appeal with a glance

  of distaste.

  “All right! Come in here—” leading the way to the library. “If Miss A
ndrews says we have her permission?”

  “You have,” Tina replied, and met the look in his blue eyes with a slightly puzzled one in her own.

  All four of them left her standing alone in the hall, and they disappeared into the library without a backward glance. That is to say, three of them did. Mr. Forbes glanced round at her and smiled ruefully. The glance seemed to say, ‘Sorry about this! But it is a kind of family conclave! ’

  And then the door of the library shut fast, and Tina suspected that it was Miss Gaylord’s, hand that caused it to click so decisively as the stout oak barrier was interposed between her and her uninvited guests . . ; to say nothing of her chauffeur! Since that only other occasion on which she and Kathryn Gaylord had met, the golden beauty had almost certainly devoted a fair amount of her time to

  thinking about her, and as a result there was no longer even a pretence of affability in her face. The teasing friendliness had gone, the amusement that had caused her eyes to dance ... It was obvious she was not amused by the knowledge that the man she intended to marry had put himself in the position of being ordered about by another woman, even though that other woman was, in a sense, aiding and abetting them in a plan to deceive her father, the owner of the chain of supermarkets.

  Tina did not wait for them to emerge from the library, following upon the discussion which was apparently so all-important, but went upstairs to her room and removed her outdoor things and got ready for lunch, which she imagined she would be consuming, as usual, on her own. But when she returned to the hall she found Justin Forbes pacing up and down it and looking a bit agitated. He greeted her with an awkward:

  “I say, I do apologise for bursting in on you like this, but Juliet’s

  a bit upset and I don’t think she feels like facing a crowd of strangers in a pub for lunch.” If he was thinking of the pub in the village Tina didn’t think they would have to face a crowd of strangers. But she realised what was coming even before the words left his lips. “Would it be asking too much of you to let us have a scrap of something to eat here? And perhaps a drink beforehand? I’m dying for one myself . . .” His eyes wandered to the door of the dining-room, behind which, on the sideboard, he was certain there was some liquid refreshment. “Devil of a check, I know, but we’ve just had a long drive!”