by Pamela Kent
“Have I made your life in the smallest degree hazardous?” he enquired, almost as if his curiosity prompted him to find out the answer. The real answer.
She looked down at hear hands, that were clutching the belt of her dress.
“There was that occasion when we put up at the inn on the way here,” he reminded her. “If I’d wanted to provide you with a few thrills we could have gone on! I could have seen to it that you had a very unpleasant time that night. But instead we had dinner together, and it was a very enjoyable dinner! There have been occasions since, when we’ve been out in the car together . . . when I’ve seen to it that you enjoyed yourself! I don’t think you’ve ever had much enjoyment in your life, and perhaps it occurred to me that one ought to do something about it in order to make up for past deficiencies. And there was the other night, when you came over to the flat . . . I
could have been really unpleasant to you on that night!”
She lifted her eyes, and once again they were looking hard at one another.
“You kissed me,” she reminded him. “I don’t suppose you would have kissed a normal employer?” “Not unless she looked like you,” he replied.
She wondered whether he was mocking her.
“If I had been Miss Gaylord what would you have done?” “Probably kissed her, too” he said drily. She turned away.
“Because she would have expected it. It would have been rather in the nature of a routine kiss.”
“Then you don’t really want to marry her?”
“Shall we say,” with the same dryness, “she once wanted to marry me. But I’ve a kind of suspicion she’s changed her mind about that now.”
“I think that’s rather a caddish thing to say,” she said with contempt.
Unseen by her he shrugged.
“But then you’ve always been of the opinion that I’m a cad, haven’t you?”
“You behaved towards me as your cousin, Dr. Giffard, wouldn’t have dreamed of doing.”
“All the same, it’s you and I who have spent the last few weeks together, and not you and Dr. Giffard!”
He moved towards her, and she never knew what he intended at that moment because a car swept past the windows, and she recognised the red sports car which she had been given to understand was Mr. Forbes’s property. At the wheel was Miss Gaylord, handling it a trifle recklessly. Behind the red car another car came to rest, and Tina had plenty of time to associate it with Alaine Giffard before he himself alighted and handed out his aunt, Mrs. Clare Giffard. The two of them came towards the house.
“A family conference?” Angus murmured, so close to Tina’s ear that she started. “That’s bad! It means we’re going to have everything out into the daylight again, and I do dislike harsh daylight. Much better to discuss problems in a mellow atmosphere.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN BUT there was nothing mellow about Mrs. Giffard’s appearance when she came bustling into the. drawingroom with Alaine in
attendance. The housekeeper discreetly closed the door behind them, and the widow advanced on Tina.
On the only other occasion that they had met Mrs. Giffard had looked upset but dignified in a clinging gown of black satin, and with her hair beautifully piled on top of her head. Now she was dressed in a tweed suit, wore flat-heeled shoes and had a headscarf tied under her chin. She looked as if she had decided upon a journey in a hurry, and was not really prepared for it. She also looked as if she had every cause in the world to be indignant with someone.
“My daughter?” she demanded. “I’ve reason to believe you are hiding her here, and I demand to see her. She is obsessed with the idea of marrying that stupid young man, and I simply won’t allow it. Not at present, anyway!”
“So far as I know, Mrs. Giffard,” Tina returned quietly, “your daughter and Mr. Forbes are outside on the drive. Sir Angus was going to drive them to the inn in Stoke Moreton.”
“Quite right, Aunt,” Sir Angus supported her placidly. Mrs. Giffard looked slightly taken aback.
“Oh!” she exclaimed. “Then why did I fail to catch sight of them when we arrived just now? Kathryn Gaylord is out there sitting at the wheel of Justin’s disreputable car, but there is no sign of Justin.”
“If he had any sense,” Angus observed, “he would have taken refuge in the bushes when he witnessed your arrival. I know I would!”
The doctor moved round his aunt until he was in a position to shake hands with Tina. While retaining one of her small hands a little longer than was strictly necessary he looked at her a trifle rebukingly.
“Did you have to get yourself mixed up in Juliet’s affairs?” he enquired sotto voce. “She’s a featherbrained young woman, you know, and my aunt is really upset about her. Forbes is in no position to marry. I hope you haven’t been encouraging them ?”
“To the tune of a substantial sum in cash, and the settlement of all her bills,” Sir Angus disclosed with a faint note of relish in his voice, because he knew what would follow immediately.
“What!” Mrs. Giffard exclaimed, and Alaine said, “What!” even more sternly.
Aunt Clare removed her head-scarf and shook out her white hair. She also removed her jacket, because the atmosphere of the drawing-room was delightfully warm and clement after the cold outside, and having knelt down in front of the fire to warm her
hands turned her head sideways and looked hard at Tina.
“Does this mean,” she asked, in the tone of one who hoped she had not made a mistake, “that you have come to the decision after a few weeks of occupying someone else’s house that the will of my late brother-in-law, Sir Angus Giffard, was iniquitous? Because, if you have, I’ll admit you are not the adventuress I thought you were. I’ll even concede—the rest of the family being in agreement!—that you have a right to something out of the estate if you really have made up your mind to renounce it all.”
Angus’s eyebrows lifted, and then his blue eyes regarded his aunt with icy disdain. Alaine concentrated his full attention upon Tina, and ignored his aunt.
“Is this right, Tina?” he asked. “Against my advice you’re going to split the family fortunes?”
“It will be against my advice,” Angus said, between his hard white teeth, “if she doesn’t order Aunt Clare out of the house and request her never to return to it for making such an impertinent suggestion!” He wheeled on his aunt. “No wonder Uncle Angus declined to leave you anything more valuable than a few trinkets. Or was it a picture you were entitled to choose? You never did anything for him that I can remember, and if Miss Andrews was so misguided as to go against his wishes you’d fight the rest of us for this house and anything else you fancied for yourself. So far as I’m concerned you could have it. You could have the lot, provided you settled it on Justin and Juliet! But you wouldn’t do that. You’d let the girl get into more and more difficulties because you’re too mean to supplement her allowance, although even now you can well afford to do so.”
His anger was so violent that even Alaine stared at him aghast, and Tina tried to intervene. “Please! If my having the money is going to cause all this trouble, let us come to some arrangement that will put an end to the trouble. I don’t want it.” She turned to Alaine, as if appealing to him. “Honestly, I don’t want it! I was far happier when I was working as a schoolteacher, and I can return to teaching tomorrow and be happy again.” She moved wildly towards the door, but Alaine seized her by the wrist and drew her back to the fire again.
“Don’t be silly, Tina,” he urged. “My uncle meant you to have the money, and you must keep it.”
“But I don’t want it!” What with these endless accusations that implied she was nothing more than an adventuress, and Angus thinking she needed to be taught a lesson so badly that he took a job in her service just for the pure pleasure of making her regret her new position, all at once she was really upset. Or was that really and truly his only motive when he took on the job?
She didn’t know. She was unable to know. When she met his ey
es now the expression in them had altered completely, and there was queer compassion for the tears that were welling up slowly in her eyes, and beginning to roll down, her cheeks. He spoke to her roughly, moving across to her and gripping her by her arm so fiercely that it hurt
“Tina, stick to the promise you made to Juliet, and ask my aunt to leave here. She hasn’t any right to anything. None of us has! We were never very close to Angus . . . In fact, as a family he detested the lot of us!”
“Well!” Mrs. Giffard exclaimed, rising to her feet and confronting her nephew. “What a dreadful thing to say! And what a completely untrue thing! I devoted many years to your uncle, looking after his needs . . . ”
“You mean you wrote to him regularly explaining why you never seemed to be able to make ends meet, in the way you’d like them to meet! And if it wasn’t for yourself it was for Juliet. There was always something you were asking for. And it was only when he was ill and on his deathbed that you came here to take over control of the house.”
Mrs. Giffard spluttered.
“And who with a greater right than myself?” she demanded. And then, because there seemed no point in being dishonest, “I any case, he was a horrible old man . . . rude, discourteous, ungenerous and inconsiderate. He had a very poor opinion of you, too,” she told Angus in triumph.
He looked back at her with coldest of cold blue eyes.-“I don’t dispute it,” he said. “I never did anything to give him a better opinion. Only Alaine got on with him, or bothered to keep in touch with him. Yet he left him nothing when he died.”
“Because of that girl!” She pointed a rude finger at Tina.
Angus placed himself slightly in front of her.
“If you say anything more as offensive as that to Miss Andrews . . .” he began.
“Well?” said Mrs. Giffard, panting a little. “What will you do? You whom we find here pretending to be her chauffeur, and living under the same roof with her. No wonder poor Kathryn is outside sitting in Justin’s car and looking wretched. The world seems to have turned upside down since Miss Andrews came into the
picture!”
For a moment Alaine, who was watching with interest, thought the violent Angus, with his red hair and flaming blue eyes, would forget himself altogether and be really objectionable to his aunt. But he remembered in time that she was his aunt, and in answer to the last accusation took Tina’s hand firmly in his and made a statement that shook everyone in the room, including Tina.
“Miss Gaylord is at liberty to sit in any car she chooses and look wretched. She and I were never anything more than friends. Oh, I know that’s what everyone says in these circumstances, but it’s true! We were good friends while it lasted, and now I don’t imagine we’re friends any longer. But Tina—Miss Andrews—and I have never been friends! We are however, going to marry one another, and then we shall learn to be something rather better, perhaps.”
Vaguely Tina heard Alaine, who was standing close to her on her other side, utter a sound like applause.
“Splendid, splendid! I really ought to be upset, but I’m not.” He squeezed Tina’s free hand. “You two were such unnatural enemies!”
“Upon my word!” exclaimed Aunt Clare. “You must be mad, Angus! Why, you hardly know the girl.”
“I know her as well as I need to know her,” Angus returned quietly. He felt Tina trying to wriggle her hand free, but he held on to it grimly. “A short while ago I advised her not to part with any of her money to any one of you, but now I want her to get rid of the lot of it. But we’ll keep Giffard’s Prior. It will make an ideal family house, and old Angus would have approved.” He glanced up at the portrait of old Angus above the fireplace, and the two men who were so much alike exchanged knowing glances. “Thank you, Uncle, for making such an exceptionally wise and diverting will,” he said.
Tina managed to wriggle her hand free. She managed to make herself heard at last.
“Your aunt is right, Sir Angus. You’re mad! You know very well we have no intention of marrying.”
“Haven’t we ?” He looked at her sideways, and suddenly her heart leapt. She also experienced an extraordinary sensation of weakness—almost of faintness— after that exchange of glances, and when he took possession of her hand again her fingers tightened about his as if she needed support.
He spoke to her gently—very gently—this time.
“Go upstairs and pack a bag, and we’ll leave for London just as soon as you’re ready. And just as soon as I’ve got out of this uniform and put on something I’ll feel slightly more at home in. Justin can have it if he likes, but once we’ve seen the solicitor his problems will be settled. And so will Juliet’s! In future she won’t need to appeal to her mother when she runs up a few bills!”
Aunt Clare spluttered again.
“If you think I’ve been ungenerous to Juliet—”
“I do,” her nephew told her firmly, and then, with equal firmness, he half led, half guided, Tina to the doors.
“I’ll give you a quarter of an hour,” he said. He glanced at the darkening sky outside. “If we run into a storm we’ll know where to spend the night!”
“That doesn’t sound at all nice to me,” Aunt Clare said feebly, but her other nephew went after Tina and congratulated her—and Angus—in the very middle of the hall, beneath the magnificent chandelier that had sent forth such a blaze of light on the night that Tina had first arrived at the house.
“As I said before, I ought to be upset, but I’m not really.” Yet there was a wry expression round his mouth as he took Tina’s hand. “If I were a marrying man I’d probably go and commit suicide. But I’m not, and Angus is, and I do wish you both every happiness! I don’t know when you decided that the instantaneous dislike you took to one another had faded sufficiently to allow you to consider such a step as matrimony, but from an onlooker’s point of view you don’t seem to have wasted much time.”
Tina shook her head at him helplessly, but her eyes were radiant—so curiously radiant that he felt a little amazed by her. Angus was still gripping her hand in a manner that hurt, but it didn’t seem to matter in the least.
“So far as I’m concerned,” she confessed, “there never was any instantaneous dislike. And Angus doesn’t really want to marry me.
Angus looked down at her, a cat-like gleam of satisfaction in his eyes, and contradicted her flatly.
“As a matter of fact, I do! I found that out a week or so ago, and there was no one more surprised than myself. You could say it’s because she grows on one. . . Anyway, I think I know now why old Angus made that will!”
In the car, on the way to London, Tina felt as if events had moved so fast they had taken away her breath. She glanced sideways at her companion— for the first time since the acquisition of the Bentley they were both seated on the same side of the glass partition, and Angus had rid himself of his chauffeur’s uniform— and thought how well he looked in a well-cut dark suit, with his Old Etonian tie knotted with meticulous correctness. He had undoubtedly sunk the personality of the chauffeur in the personality of Sir Angus Giffard, Bart, for good and all.
He was frowning because it was the wrong end of the day to be starting off on a long journey, and they had a lot of time to make up.
“If the weather holds we could be at my flat in time for an early breakfast,” he said.
Her eyes became suddenly almost painfully shy. “I’ve never seen your flat,” she said. “I don’t even know where it is.”
“Service flat off Piccadilly,” he admitted. “Handy for the clubs and bars and things.”
“The sort of life you lead when you’re in London?” His eyes left the mad for an instant, and he glanced round at her quizzically.
“Did lead,” he amended. “A married man will have to settle for something different.”
The colour rose up under her clear skin. She swallowed hard, and then plunged in at the deep end.
“You know very well you don’t really want to marry me,” she sa
id. “You only said all that you said Giffard’s Prior as—as a sort of- challenge . . ” “To whom ?” he enquired, as if the suggestion was a novel one to him.
“Well, to all of us, I suppose! You wanted to say something that would startle us and put an end to all the argument there! Some kind of decisive action had to be taken, as they were all in such a state of confusion.”
“And you think that what I said to Alaine was part of the act, too?”
She looked down at her gloved hands, that were clasping one another for support in her lap, and suddenly he uttered an exclamation that had a mingling of impatience and resignation in it, and glanced at the lowering clouds above them. “Well, I didn’t want to waste the time . . . But I suppose we’d better stop. You seem to be still labouring under an outsize delusion, and knowing you I recognise that immediate action will have to be taken.” He slowed the car, and they drew in towards the hedge and finally came to a stop on the utterly deserted road. “Give me your hand!” he commanded.
She obeyed, and after removing the glove and examining the delicate shape of it and the shiny pink nails, he carried it almost reverently up to his lips. He kissed it several times, and then held it
for a brief moment against his cheek.
“So I don’t want to marry you, is that it?” he said. Her abashed eyes hung upon his.
“Well, why should you?” Her voice faltered. You don’t even need my money!”
“But marrying you for your money would be a good thing! Although we’ve decided, haven’t we, to give it away? That’s one of the reasons why we’re making this hasty trip to London!”
Then, before she could have the least idea of his intentions, he had bent towards her and caught her almost fiercely into his arms. He forced her head down on to his shoulder, and she could feel his long fingers stroking her hair. The scent of that hair stole up to him, and he was looking distinctly bemused when she managed to get a clear view of his eyes.
“Oh, Tina!” he exclaimed. And then, again, practically inaudibly, “Oh, Tina!”
When he kissed her before he had been experimenting, she knew ... Or couldn’t she even be certain of that now? The way his mouth found and devoured hers was such an experience that it left her without the power to assess or decide anything; and when her own left arm crept up and clung about his neck she didn’t even wonder at her temerity. She could hear him whispering to her, in a curiously derogatory and yet wholly adoring way:
