Enemy Lover
Page 13
“You little idiot! You wonderful girl! Don’t you know I’ve been obsessed by you from the moment I found you curled up on the rug like Cinderella that night old Angus passed away? You looked like a waif blown in by the storm, and your hair was like floss silk, and your eyes were so blue . . . and bewildered!” He kissed them lingeringly, obviously appreciating the way her eyelashes fluttered beneath the touch of his lips. “You were such a surprise to me that I had to lash out at you, and later, in London, I had to be just as rude. Then you were even more of an enchantment, because you’d had the sense to have all the right things done to you, and I could hardly believe it! That day I found you in the town house you looked as if you belonged there! An adorable new mistress examining her treasures!”
“I was afraid of you then,” she admitted, nestling her head into his shoulder, and clinging to him tightly. “You said something about giving me a good thrashing if I was a man—!”
“Which, no doubt, would have improved you still more!” He tilted her chin and looked deep into her eyes. “Tina, I do know what old Angus meant when he said he would have married you if he’d been younger! You do things to a man—even Alaine!— and one wants either to dominate you or get down on one’s knees and grovel at your feet. I’m not the grovelling kind, so I tried to get what I wanted in other ways. I had to remedy the unfortunate early impression I’d given you of myself, and I had to be near you. So, when I found that you needed someone to drive your car, I applied for the job! I didn’t mean to fight you. I meant to insinuate myself into your good graces gradually!”
“Hence the snowdrops when I had ’flu?”
He nodded. “Hence the snowdrops.”
Her eyes, that were like dark blue shining jewels as they gazed up at him, clouded suddenly.
“But you did say you were very much in love with Miss Gaylord! It was supposed to be the reason why you took on the job! Weren’t you—” hesitantly “—the least little bit in love with her . . . ever?” “No, my darling, not ever!” He smoothed the silken soft hair and his touch was miraculously gentle. “I used her, shamelessly, even telephoned her in the evenings to give the right sort of impression and received a lot of abuse over the wire because she was wrapped in the arms of Morpheus at the time!” He drew her passionately closer to him. “If you want the truth, I’ve never been in love with anyone, although that doesn’t mean I haven’t made love occasionally.” He was holding her chin firmly so that she couldn’t avert her eyes. “Every man has to make a little love before he discovers that he’s „in love’— as I am with you! Hopelessly in love, submerged, smothered in it! And if you can’t assure me that you’re just as much in love with me,” his voice shaking as if for once in his life it was far from under control. “I don’t quite know how I’m going to take it! I might revert to type, become violent! Force you to have some sort of feeling for me ...”
“But I love you,” she told him with soft clarity.
“Do you? Really?” His fingers, as well as his voice, were shaking now as he smoothed back the feathery tendrils from her brow. “And you’ll marry me? Immediately? Because I can’t wait--” “Not even until we’ve transferred all my money to the members of your family who need it? Juliet, for instance?”
“Certainly not!” he returned, with something of his old sharpness and arrogance. “Have you any idea, I wonder, how long lawyers take to draw up a simple thing like a Deed of Gift? Anything up to six months, I’d say, at the rate Jasper moves. And in any case, I’m not at all certain we’re handing it all over. I can certainly keep you for the rest of your life without inflicting any unnecessary hardship
on myself, but there’s Giffard’s Prior to maintain, I’ve an idea old Angus wanted it lived in. Probably by you and me together! ”
“You mean he hoped we—we might get to like one another?” He snorted.
“As did Angus knew me very well indeed he would have been quite certain I’d do something more than ‘like’ the woman I married. But yes, I think it might have crossed his mind that either Alaine or I might make you a dependable husband, and thus keep at bay the fortune-hunters. There was a time of my life when old Angus and I got on very well. It was just that we both had red hair!” She put up a hand and touched it lovingly,
“Not red, Titian,” she said, as if it mattered. “It really is Titian!” And then, reverting to the subject of Juliet: “But I did promise to settle all her bills, and make things easy for her. We must do that!” “We will,” he promised, an expression of delight crossing his face as he bent his head to kiss her. “As soon as we get to London . . . After making arrangements for getting married ourselves, that is!”
A lorry was approaching from the opposite direction, and through the gathering dusk the lorry driver watched them with interest as he sped past Angus lifted his head.
“Well, I suppose we’d better be getting on,” he said regretfully.
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“Very,” he agreed, and the dryness of his voice wa