by Susan Barrie
“It’s a sapphire and diamond ring.” He turned and looked at her coolly ... so coolly that she turned cold, despite the fact that it was already a beautiful morning. “An engagement ring. But I take it you no longer contemplate becoming engaged to me?”
Her blue eyes looked haunted, and utterly unhappy. She knew if she told him that she had been taking herself and Johnny away simply because the woman he had once been engaged to had told her a series of deliberate untruths he would despise her. He would never be able to trust her, or believe in the quality of her love.
And yet—since it was the truth—what else could she tell him?
She licked her lips, swallowed convulsively, took a deep breath ... and was about to admit to the truth when he laid a hand firmly and comfortingly over both of her.
“It’s all right, darling,” he said, softly. “In a way, I’m the one to blame. I didn’t actually ask you to marry me, and Georgina said she would smash things up between us. I take it that she had a good try?”
In a mortified voice she whispered:
“Yes.”
He smiled at her—tenderly, and with complete understanding. After all, she was such a slip of a thing, and she had no real idea how important she was to him. She had a kind of natural humility which made it easy for someone full of self confidence like Georgina Islesworth to get at her and undermine what little selfconfidence she had completely.
He squeezed her hand so tightly that she winced, and then he slid an arm along the seat and drew her to him. In a slightly muffled voice, with his lips against her hair, he ordered her to open the package and try the ring on for size, and when they discovered that it fitted perfectly and her blue eyes gazed at him wonderingly he took her face between his hands and looked at her as if the sun was actually rising at the backs of his eyes.
“You like it?” he asked. “I went to London for it because I wanted something as near perfect as I could possibly get for you.”
“Oh, Peter!” she breathed.
“But if I’d had the least idea you’d come hurtling after me as you did in that ancient taxi I’d have contented myself with giving you something that could have been bought locally, and then you wouldn’t have had to risk life and limb. Was it a bone-shaking experience?”
She nodded, with her head against his shoulder.
“It was an experience I’ll never forget,” she said.
“Nor I.” There was a sudden laugh in his voice. “And I don’t suppose Johnny will, either!”
Table of Contents
Start
