Master of Melincourt

by Susan Barrie

  “It’s the next best thing to having children of your own.”

  “But a girl of your age—!” He gently touched an end of her hair. “And looks! What shattering experience have you had, Edwina, that you can contemplate devoting the whole of your life to coping with other people’s children?” and as he looked full at her the hardness of his eyes disturbed her. “Instead of your own!”

  She shook her head at him, and laughed in some confusion.

  “I give you my word I haven’t had anything remotely approaching a shattering experience,” flushing and looking away from him because she realised what he meant. “But I’m a realist, and there are so many young women in the world who want to marry, and have children, and live in the kind of place where they’d love to live, that I decided to face up to the truth long ago, and the truth is that when you’re a working girl your opportunities are limited.”

  “Meaning you’ve not yet met anyone you could consider as a husband, and the prospective father of children?”

  She flushed more brilliantly than ever.

  “Put like that it sounds ... well, it sounds rather horrible,” she said.

  “But it is true? You haven’t yet met a man you’d like to marry? I remember you were horribly indignant that night when I accused you of conducting a local love affair. Not merely did you look as if you would never dream of such a thing, but you looked horrified.”

  “Perhaps I was horrified.”

  “In that case, you must really be planning to be a spinster.”

  She tried to laugh lightly.

  “That’s an old-fashioned word that is hardly ever used these days.”

  “But it still describes an unmarried woman.”

  “Yes.”

  He bent forward and peered into her eyes, and then because she sought to prevent him doing that very thing he put out a finger and lifted her chin, and swung her face round to meet his. He said, solemnly, and yet with a faint hint of a laugh in his voice:

  “Shall I tell you something, Edwina?”

  “You can if you like,” she answered, with a certain amount of difficulty.

  “Well, there is no possibility that you will not marry.” His blue eyes were not more than an inch or so away from hers. “You will marry, and you will marry a man who will adore you, and...” Abruptly he released her chin and picked up her hand. He turned it over until he could see her palm. “Shall I describe this future husband of yours to you?” he asked, the faint echo of laughter still in his voice, although there was another note in it that she found it impossible to place ... almost a note of excitement. “I told you there’s a lot of Spanish blood in me, and my great-grandmother was supposed to be a seer. Perhaps she’s passed on to me the ability to tell fortunes. At any rate, I’d like to try and tell yours.”

  “No!” she snatched her hands away. “I don’t want you to do anything of the kind!”

  “Why not?”

  “I just don’t!”

  As she gazed up into his dark blue, very quizzical eyes she felt as if every drop of blood in her body was literally pounding along her veins and causing a suffocating sensation to build up in her throat. She felt that his nearness was becoming an agony, and he must guess at it.

  She wondered whether he was deliberately taking an unfair advantage, and if so, what kind of a man he was. She remember the beautiful, blonde-headed Marsha.

  “Does Miss—Miss Fleming know that you’re going to teach me to ride?” she asked.

  He frowned quickly.

  “Marsha? What concern is it of hers?”

  She felt forced to tell him.

  “She showed me a—a ring a few days ago. It was a very beautiful ring.”

  “I see,” he said.

  He stood up, crushed out his half-smoked cigarette under the heel of his riding-boot, and then made to lift her back into the saddle.

  “This time you can go first,” he said.

  But in sudden fear she clung to him.

  “Oh, no!”

  The next moment he was astride the horse, and she was also back in the saddle. She never understood how he achieved it, but his expression as he looked down at her before they started back on their homeward ride was distinctly grim. It was so grim that it alarmed her—vaguely. And then, while she was pondering what it was that she had done to upset him, he freed one of his hands from the reins and cupped it beneath her chin. He forced her to look up at him, and while the wind blew the hair into her eyes and her heart began to pound he bent his head and kissed her ... violently.

  “You are more stupid than I thought,” he said. “You are pretty, gentle, charming, courageous—up to a point! But beyond that there is a vast, spreading sea of stupidity. I’m disappointed.”

  CHAPTER X

  THEY rode back to Melincourt in silence. Edwina’s arms were more or less pinioned, so she was unable to put a hand up to her lips to find out whether they really were on fire, or whether it was only in her imagination that they seemed actually to palpitate with heat, and felt also a trifle bruised.

  She had been kissed before ... but never in such a way. She realised that she had every right to feel indignant, but indignation was the one thing she did not feel. She felt bewildered, shaken, startled ... and she wanted so badly to look up into his face and attempt to read his expression, but the violence of his utterance before they started off deprived her of the courage. She realised that there probably was something in what he had said. She had courage up to a point, but beyond that point she had to be rescued.

  Jervis Errol’s somewhat formidable square jaw jutted immediately on a level with the top of her head, and perhaps if she had put back her head and looked him full in the eyes and asked him what he meant when he said she was stupid, the situation might have resolved itself. At least he might have explained what he meant by a vast, spreading sea of stupidity.

  During their return journey the fragrant coolness of the early morning gave place to approaching heat, and as they rode into the stable yard the sunlight was bathing it in a kind of molten splendour, and there were signs of activity with pails of water, hoses and brooms. If Bennett was surprised to see them canter into the yard he betrayed no sign of it as he touched his cap, and for Edwina he had a peculiarly pleasant smile as he went forward to assist her alight.

  “That’s right, miss,” he said. “Nothing like getting used to things in a big way. How did Marquis carry you both, sir?” he enquired, as if it was a perfectly normal thing for a horse to be burdened by its master as well as a young woman whose place was supposed to be the nursery quarters of the house. As he lifted her down she seemed to him to be rather flushed, but that could have been due to the wind and the sun in her face on the ride back.

  “If you’re implying that Miss Sands’ extra weight might have proved too much for him I feel I ought to let you know that she weighs practically nothing at all,” Jervis replied, a little stonily. He, too, alighted, and handed the reins to the groom. “She’s about as heavy as a handful of thistledown.”

  Bennett grinned.

  “Then it shouldn’t be difficult to find you a mount, miss. If you’re that easy to carry I think I know the very mare for you ... over at Halcombe Manor, sir,” he added to his employer. “Joe Reeves was telling me the other day that they’ve a beautiful little chestnut ... one of last year’s foals out of Blue Haven and Golden Dawn. If you really want to find a mount for Miss Sands—”

  “I’m not at all sure that I do, after all,” Jervis plainly took the groom aback by replying shortly. “For one thing Miss Sands hasn’t been in the saddle alone yet, and a foal of Golden Dawn would be very pricey. I don’t want to incur a lot of expense,” with the cool drip of ice in his tone.

  “But you were saying only the other day, sir—about Miss Sands ...”

  “Yes, I know.”

  Bennett scratched the top of his head.

  “You don’t mean that the young lady herself ... that this morning has put her off?” he hazarded, looki
ng towards Edwina for confirmation.

  “Something like that,” Jervis answered for her, before she could speak, and as she met his eyes with a feeling of indignation rising up inside her—since she had done nothing that she could call to mind to bring about this complete change in his attitude towards her—the bleak disapproval in his blue eyes turned her cold.

  Tina came racing round an angle of the stable buildings, wearing jodhpurs and a check shirt and plainly intent on taking Mothball out for an airing. Behind her came Marsha Fleming, much more elegantly attired for the saddle, and the expression of astonishment that flashed into her face when she caught sight of Edwina standing between the master and the groom was almost ludicrous while it lasted. Then in its place appeared a look of haughty questioning. While Tina raced up to her uncle and loudly demanded why, if he had been riding, he hadn’t taken her with him, Miss Fleming came to a standstill rather more than a few paces away and plainly waited to be enlightened.

  But Jervis was in no mood to enlighten anybody just then. He shut up his niece with a few curt words and instructed Bennett to lead the grey away.

  “Give him a good rub down,” he said. “He needs it.”

  “I can see that, sir,” Bennett replied. “You must have let him have his head and gone quite a way.”

  “How far have you already ridden this morning, Jervis?” Marsha enquired curiously, walking up to him. “I was more than hoping you would accompany Tina and myself on a before-breakfast gallop.”

  “Sorry, but I want my breakfast,” was the only reply she received from Errol.

  Instantly her eyes flashed, and their pale colour became surprisingly blue. Her soft pink lips tightened.

  “Isn’t that a little ... unobliging of you, darling?” she suggested softly.

  His brows crinkled.

  “What do you mean by unobliging?”

  She shrugged her shapely shoulders.

  “I’m your guest, darling,” she reminded him. She moved closer to him and laid her fingers on his arm. “I’m also—me! Do you understand what I mean by that?” tapping him gently with her riding-crop.

  “Perfectly,” he returned without enthusiasm.

  “Well, then...” Her slim brows creased, and she looked towards Edwina. “Miss Sands doesn’t ride, so why are you wasting time with her? She ought really to be over at the house, attending to her duties.”

  “Instead of which she and I have just returned from exercising Marquis.” For one moment, watching him, Edwina could have sworn that he enjoyed making this statement. “I had her up in front of me in order that she could get used to the feel of a horse. I think it worked ... although I’m not absolutely certain she wants to try the experiment again,” and he glanced with a hard smile in his eyes across the sunlit space at Edwina.

  “What!” Marsha was so plainly unable to believe the evidence of her ears that she simply stared at him. “You mean that you—that you and she...?”

  “Oh, there’s nothing very extraordinary about taking a lady pillion-riding on horseback.” His voice was easier now, and he even looked faintly amused. “It’s an old custom in places like Spain, you know ... and I’ve got quite a drop of Spanish blood in my veins. Actually, as I explained to Miss Sands, the lady should ride behind.”

  Marsha spluttered at him.

  “B-but why?”

  “You mean why do women consent to travel like that in Spain? Why don’t they absolutely insist on mounts of their own? Well, it could be for reasons of economy, and it could be because Spanish women like to tag along behind their menfolk. Then again, it could be because it’s companionable.”

  “You’ve never taken me pillion-riding,” Marsha hissed.

  “On horseback, you mean? No, but we did once try it on a motor-bike. You didn’t very much like it.”

  “I simply can’t think why Miss Sands had to go with you this morning.” She directed a malevolent look at Edwina. “For one thing, it isn’t a part of her duties to provide the master of the house with distraction, and for another you’ve always made such a fuss about Marquis and refused—yes, refused—to let anyone apart from yourself ride him. Not even Jeremy.”

  “Jeremy is my brother, but that doesn’t compel me to permit him to ride my horses.”

  “He’s lighter than you are, but you refused to let him up on the grey’s back. The combined weight of you and Miss Sands can hardly have been good for such a precious mount.”

  “I agree that Marquis is a precious mount, but I don’t agree that the weight he carried this morning was too much for him. Now, do you mind very much if I go in search of breakfast?”

  “You won’t change your mind and ride with Tina and me?”

  “Not this morning. Perhaps to-morrow morning.”

  “If Miss Sands doesn’t insist on accompanying you instead?”

  His noticeable chin jutted even more noticeably. His very dark blue eyes blazed with sudden anger.

  “I decline to discuss Miss Sands in the middle of the stable yard. If you’ve anything to say that you feel ought to be said in connection with her you can say it in the library later this morning. I suggest somewhere around about eleven o’clock.”

  “Thank you, but somewhere around about eleven o’clock will not suit me.” She took up a mutinous stand. “It won’t suit me at all!”

  “Then need we discuss her at all?” He had, all at once, a faintly bored air, and Edwina—forced to be a witness of this interchange, while Bennett made no attempt to conceal his interest from the open stable door behind them—felt as if her whole body was blushing with embarrassment and resentment because her name was being bandied back and forth as if she was of no real consequence whatsoever. She would have escaped if she could, but the two of them blocked her path ... Therefore she had to wait and provide an audience—together with Tina and Bennett—while the final insult was hurled at her. “After all, she came here as a governess, and as a governess she is no concern of yours. I engaged her. I will dismiss her when I think fit. In the meantime, I want my breakfast.”

  He was about to walk past her along the path when, with the ferocity of a sleek, blonde-headed tigress, Marsha leapt at him and administered a vicious slap across his face. The sound of it rang out so clearly that Bennett, with a length of hose-pipe in his hand, darted up to the stand-pipe to attach it as if it was the normal business of the day and he had overheard nothing that could disturb him.

  Tina, looking really frightened for the first time since Edwina had known her, cast an alarmed glance in her governess’s direction, and then started racing back in the direction of the house.

  Jervis Errol, without any expression at all on his face, also turned on his heel and strode away smartly in the same direction.

  Miss Fleming, quite white after the sudden release she had given to her fury, wheeled on Edwina and addressed her.

  “You see?” she fairly hissed at her. “Only you could have caused anything of that sort to happen! You’ve caused me to publicly humiliate Mr. Errol ... and he’ll find it hard to forgive me, but he’ll certainly never forgive you! If you take my advice you’ll pack up your things and leave! This day ... this very morning!”

  And then she, too, followed the procession that was making its way towards the house.

  Bennett began hosing somewhat wildly in every direction but where hosing was necessary, and his assistant—who had only just arrived on the scene—stood gazing at him in astonishment. Edwina, who had been standing as if petrified by all that she had heard, succeeded after a second or so in inducing her limbs to function more or less normally, and she walked off across the yard ... but not in the direction of the house.

  She felt that if she entered the house just then she couldn’t possibly endure it, and instead she made for the rose-garden, where the air was heavy and drenched with the intoxicatingly sweet perfume of the roses. She stood inhaling it and admiring in a completely detached way the formality of the paths and the graceful bronze fauns that stood at the intersecti
ons; and after a minute or so she managed to make her way to a white-painted garden seat, and she dropped down on it and endeavoured to gain some control of the feverish turmoil that was going on in her mind.

  One thing had become very obvious to her. She could no longer go on living naturally at Melincourt. Not only had her employer kissed her for no particular reason that morning—and a man who kissed a girl of her age for no particular reason merely insulted her—but because of her, his fiancée—and having already acquired a fiancée he had had absolutely no right to kiss Edwina!—had slapped his face in full view of one, if not two, of his paid men-servants, as well as the offending governess who, however hard she strove to do so, simply could not think why she had been apparently deliberately singled out for a double humiliation that morning.

  She knew she would never forget her employer’s cuttingly casual way of referring to her in her own hearing ... What was it he had said? She held her hand up to her hot face and tried to recall his exact words. Indeed, she had no need to make an effort; she could recall them with perfect ease: “After all, she came here as a governess, and as a governess she is no concern of yours! I engaged her. I will dismiss her when I think fit! In the meantime, I want my breakfast!”

  It was quite plain that the only thing that had annoyed him about the interchange at that stage was the fact that he was being kept from his breakfast. She was just a governess whom he had engaged, and whom he would dismiss when he thought fit.

  It was as baldly, badly humiliating as that!

  And on top of everything else there was this dreadful sensation she was struggling against. She was fighting not to be engulfed by the soul-destroying knowledge that she had been kissed by a man who was the only man she would ever wish to kiss her however short or long her life, and he had done it for some reason that could not possibly flatter her.