Enemy Lover (12 page)

He couldn’t really be rude to her... not any longer, now that she was his employer. And he couldn’t refuse to admit her—unless, of course, he was actually in the act of retiring to bed—for the very good reason that she was his employer, and he was nothing more than an employee. Owing to the enormity of the late Sir Angus Giffard’s will the present Sir Angus had no rights at all at Giffard’s Prior, and if his employer chose to call on him at a reasonable hour of the evening, well then, he couldn’t just shut the door in her face and tell her to go away.

All the same, Tina directed another careful look at the light in the flat living-room before she knocked on the door at the foot of the flight of stairs that led up to it. It was a very bright, and quite cheerful light... there was no sign of any light in the bedroom.

Her rat-tat seemed to echo unbearably in the silence of the night, and she was tempted to turn and run away before footsteps could sound on the stairs. But as they did not sound she knocked again. And Sir Angus did something utterly unexpected. He opened a window. He looked out, and she heard him utter an expression of cool amazement.

“You! What in the world do you want with me at this time of the night?”

Tina tilted back her fair head with the creamy head-scarf protecting it from the rawness of the night and looked up at him appealingly.

“I don’t really want anything. I—I just thought...”

“Wait a minute!” he called. “I’ll be down in a couple of seconds.”

When he had the door open she saw that his face was slightly grim, and very, very far from welcoming, but the tone of his voice was perfectly polite.

“Come in,” he said. “These stairs are a bit dark, but there’s a good light shining out at the top of them. I was just thinking about getting myself some supper, but I don’t mind delaying the process. Come in.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

TINA found that the light was embarrassingly bright when she reached the top of the stairs. It showed him her windblown hair, and the slightly scared look on her face, as if she knew that she was intruding unwarrantably, and at an hour when she could have no possible excuse, unless an emergency had arisen, or she required him to drive her somewhere. In which case she would have got in touch with him over the telephone, not braved the blustery dark that had played havoc with her appearance, although it had put a glow of unusual colour into her cheeks.

“In here,” Angus said, standing aside for her to precede him into the sitting-room. “This is the hub of the home, if you can call it a home.” His eyes were appraising her, looking frankly surprised. “I’m honoured by this visit, but I can’t think why you’ve made it.” “I know it’s late,” Tina apologised. “At least, country people would consider it late, but I didn’t think you’d be in bed.”

“I seldom go to bed before midnight,” he admitted. “Frequently much later.” He waved a hand to indicate the one comfortable chair the room contained. “Do sit down. It’s not exactly a comfortable chair, but the springs don’t hurt if you sit down gently.” But she refused the invitation, and stood looking about her, genuinely horrified.

“I’d no idea this was such a poorly equipped place,” she told him. “I imagined—I don’t know why —that it was adequately furnished.”

“Perhaps because you’ve formed the opinion that I’m a bit of a sybarite, and like lounging about in the lap of luxury. But, as a matter of fact, it’s not too bad.” He cleared some books off another chair, and then carried a tray with the remnants of a meal on it through into the tiny kitchen. “The bed’s quite comfortable, and although there’s no bath I can have a Saturday night wash down in the kitchen sink.” When he returned to her he was looking a little grim. “You should take more interest in your employees, you know. Make sure their surroundings conform with the modern idea of what a domestic should have provided for his or her needs.”

“I know,” she admitted almost humbly. “But, as you know, I’ve had that bout of ’flu, and I didn’t feel like taking much interest in anything, but now I see that I should have inspected this place at once. I’m sorry,” the glow becoming a flush in her cheeks, “that you’ve had to put up with this.”

“And did your conscience trouble you all at once and send you across here to find out how I was faring?”

“I did suddenly start to wonder whether you have everything you need.”

“At nine o’clock at night you felt it necessary to begin a tour of inspection?”

“No... N-no, not exactly...” The colour swept brilliantly into her cheeks, her violet-blue eyes fell abashed before his. “Not exactly,” she admitted.

He thrust her with a certain lack of gentleness towards the armchair.

“Well, sit down. You might as well confess that you were lonely. That was why you invited me to have tea with you this afternoon, wasn’t it? Because you were lonely, and you couldn’t face the thought of Giffard’s Prior without a single soul to talk to throughout a long evening. Well, I didn’t accept your invitation because it would have been most incorrect, but now that you’re here you might as well have a drink and be truthful for a short while.” He produced bottles and glasses, and persuaded her to have a small sherry, although he himself drank whisky and soda. “You see,” drily brandishing one of the bottles, “I make some effort to provide the creature comforts, and as a matter of fact I don’t do too badly.

Cook reserves all her special tit-bits for me, and that new housemaid looks after me fairly well, too. I’m not in any mood to grumble, so don’t look so guilty as you sit there. Instead, tell me what went wrong this afternoon?”

“Went wrong?” She looked slightly startled. “Oh, you mean at the schoolhouse?”

“Yes. It didn’t quite go off as you’d imagined, did it? They weren’t quite as impressed as you’d hoped, and most of them had forgotten you already.”

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. “You’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.