Enemy Lover (7 page)

The young man who had sold her the car gave her the name of an agency where she could almost certainly obtain a competent chauffeur with little or no difficulty—especially if she mentioned the name of the showrooms where she had just obtained the car. And she set off immediately after lunch to be interviewed by another plausible young man in an office crowded with temporarily disengaged domestic staff.

She had hardly entered the room where the applicants were being dealt with when she recognised the tall, distinguished figure of Sir Angus Giffard, the new baronet and her declared enemy, leaning up against a counter and chatting carelessly with a beautifully, dressed young woman with hair that was several shades darker and richer than Tina’s and a pair of widely spaced, brilliant grey eyes.

Tina had never seen any member of her own sex quite as elegant as was this young woman, and certainly no one who was quite as assured. She and Sir Angus were discussing a party they had apparently both been to the night before, and their clear laughter rang out a trifle hollowly and mockingly in the taut atmosphere of the agency.

Almost certainly they knew that they were being watched. .. with envy by the women (especially the younger women present) and with half-grudging admiration by the men. Sir Angus was so impeccably dressed, so much the man-about-town with a sufficiently large bank-roll, and his companion’s beauty must have been a source of bitter envy to the women, while the men naturally fell for it.

“What I’d, give to have a mink like that!” someone whispered rather throatily as Tina moved forward into the centre of the room, and it was then that Angus turned and saw her.

He betrayed no surprise. He straightened up, that was all, and his blue eyes—she had come to the decision that they were a strange navy blue in a poor light—raked her from head to foot.

“Good afternoon, Miss Andrews,” he said. He introduced his companion. “Kathryn, this is Miss Clementina Andrews, whom my late uncle thought so highly of that he left her everything he possessed! Except his title, of course, which unfortunately came my way ... It would have suited Alaine much better! Miss Andrews, this is Miss Kathryn Gaylord.”

“How do you do,” said Miss Gaylord, staring hard but not even offering her hand.

“She does very well indeed,” Angus spoke for her. “And she’s obviously here to pick up some staff. What are you looking for, Miss Andrews?” he enquired insolently. “A personal maid?” with his eyes on the chic little suit beneath her beautifully tailored coat.

She answered mechanically, realising that she was very much at a disadvantage.

“I’ve just bought a car, and I’m looking for someone to drive it.”

“Someone to drive it?” Angus’s eyes positively danced as they met those of the lovely Kathryn. “She’s just bought a car, and she wants a chauffeur. A chauffeur!”

“How extraordinary,” Miss Gaylord murmured drawlingly, and then she tittered slightly. “It really is extraordinary, isn’t it?”

“Completely and fantastically extraordinary,” Sir Angus agreed, and took her by the arm in a familiar manner. “Run away, darling, and leave me to deal with this. I’ll see you tonight about eight-thirty, and whatever you do don’t keep me waiting!”

Then he turned back to Tina.

“I think this calls for a nice cosy cup of tea somewhere,” he told her. “What about the Ritz? Or no, a tea-shop ... There’s one round the corner. All right?”

CHAPTER SEVEN IT was a very exclusive tea-shop, and it wasn't exactly round the corner. They took a taxi to it, and by the time she was seated behind a teapot pouring out tea for the man she had come to look upon as her declared enemy, Tina was beginning to wonder why she had been so easily persuaded. Perhaps it wasn’t so much that she had been persuaded, but that a stronger will than hers had more or less forced her to do his bidding.

But why he wanted to have tea with her she couldn’t think. Why he had deserted the golden beauty who had been with him at the agency in order to drag her, Tina, away to a tea-shop—a place a lot of men feel ill at ease in—was beyond her until, having consumed one cup of tea and polished off a couple of fairy cakes, he removed the scales from her eyes and filled her with astonishment.

“You want a chauffeur,” he said, “I’m looking for a job ... I’ll be your chauffeur! ”

“What!” she exclaimed.

“I’ve just said that I’ll be your chauffeur.” He took a slim gold cigarette case from his pocket and offered it to her. “No? You don’t smoke! That’s unusual...

Probably one of the reasons why Uncle Angus took such a fancy to you. He loathed and abominated any woman who smoked, drank, or painted her toenails. I’ll admit I don’t much care for the painted toenails myself... But you can’t expect a girl to be an entire prude. Now, what sort of a car have you bought?”

“A Bentley,” she returned, rather faintly. “But you can’t expect me to believe that you—need a job.”

“I’d prefer half a dozen directorships, of course,” he agreed, “but everyone doesn’t have the luck. I’m not precisely down to the bread-line, but I do have expensive tastes...” The aroma of his choicely blended cigarette convinced her of that. “There is, also, another reason why I should like someone to employ me for a while, at least. The young woman I introduced you to just now— that gorgeous creature, Kathryn! —plans to marry me one day (or I plan to marry her!); but her father won’t hear of it unless can prove to him that I’m not unemployable. He’s one of the nouveau riche... A supermarket Baron inclined to look down on a ne’er-do-well like myself. Titles simply don’t attract him... At least, that’s what he pretends.”

“But you’re not poor. Mr. Jasper assured me that you’re not poor... ”

“And you believe every word that old humbug says to you, is that it?” with a steel-edged glance of withering contempt. “Well, you offered to share your ill-gotten gains with me, so at least you didn’t listen to his advice. But the subject of my income—or lack of it—is not the subject under discussion. I’ve just told you I need a job. Something honest and uncomplicated and unspectacular, preferably involving the use of a pair of hands.” He extended his own for her to see, and she was struck by their virile strength and a certain obvious manly beauty that was attached to them. “I don’t” think there’s a make of car that I can’t drive, and I’ve a clean licence. So clean that I’m almost proud of it myself. Now, how much will you pay me a week, and when will you take me on ?”

If he expected her to argue the matter further, or to display symptoms of being completely overwhelmed by the thought of having anyone as distinguished-looking as himself—and a real live baronet into the bargain—for a chauffeur, he was disappointed. Her initial surprise over, she regarded him sideways with a kind of unconcealed and astonished disgust.

“And couldn’t anyone with your—advantages,” she stressed, “education, background, and the rest, do better than get himself a job as a chauffeur?”

He seemed surprised.

“I could, but I never thought of the matter before ... not seriously.” He studied her with a kind of interest, in which was a dark blue-eyed disdain. “I suppose I might have studied engineering, or become a doctor or lawyer, like old Jasper; only I hope I wouldn’t have been as unscrupulous as he is! Or I might have embraced the Army or the Navy... We’re a naval family, by the way, when we go in for anything along those lines! Or wondered how the church might have benefited if I’d considered that seriously! But somehow I just drifted ... the idle playboy, brought up short all at once by a plebeian futlire father-in-law and his uncomfortable ideas about honest toil. So you see, all I can do now is drive you, or someone like you, about for a few months—”

“At the end of which time, having gained Mr. Gaylord’s consent to your marriage, you’d revert to your previous way of life?” she demanded contemptuously.

“Precisely,” he agreed composedly. “Only it wouldn’t be exactly the same as hitherto... I’d have a wife to support, and I’d do it on the handsome allowance my father-in-law would make me. Together with the various odds and ends of income I can boast of on my own account.”

She gazed at him shrewdly.

“I suspect that those odds and ends are not inconsiderable,” she told him.

He flickered an approving, cool smile at her, and lighted another cigarette.

“You could be right, of course. You’re extraordinarily bright in some ways. For a girl like you—before my heart was involved, naturally—I might even have thought of butlering, or valeting in order to win your old man’s approval, only you haven’t got an old man, have you?”

“No,” she said quietly, as she looked down at the untouched toast on her plate.

“Here,” he said suddenly, pushing the cakes towards her, “you’re not eating anything. Don’t bother about the bill,” with dryness, “I’ll pay for this little lot. You won’t even have to deduct it out of my salary.”

She spoke suddenly and quickly.

“Sir Angus, you know very well I can’t possibly employ anyone like you to drive my car...”

“Not even although I need the job, and you need a chauffeur?” The steely blue eyes were watching her closely and the feathery gold ends of hair that caressed her cheeks, and fell softly over the fur collar of her coat. “I think you owe it to me, Miss Andrews,” he told her, the steel in his voice as well as in his eyes. “You owe it to me because but for you I could have taken my bride to Giffard’s Prior once I married her, and we could have started our married life there. You owe it to me because I was bom and brought up at Giffard’s Prior, and now it’s not even in the family...”

Suddenly she rounded on him. Her own infinitely softer and less emphatically blue eyes—they made some people think of wood violets growing in the depths of a shadowy wood, while others had been known to picture harebells growing in clusters— accused him in a straightforward manner.

“So it’s Giffard’s Prior that is upsetting you, is that it?” she said. “You resent the fact that it’s now mine? Well, you can have it!”

Instantly his eyes warned her.

“We had all this out the other day,” he reminded her, with dangerous quietness.

She turned away. Almost she turned her back on him, and then he heard her ask curtly:

“Do you really want the job?”

“Of course.”

“Have you any idea what sort of salary you ought to receive?” “I’ve a pretty shrewd idea. I’ll check up with a few of my friends, however, in order that you shan’t do me down in any way.”

He saw her bite her lip rather hard.

“I suppose you realise that I detest you? That I shall hate having you drive me?” “Oh, that doesn’t bother me in the least,” he assured her calmly.

Once again she bit her lip.

“I think you also ought to know that I despise you. I think you’re brutal, and a bully—and unscrupulous! A kind of gentlemanly cad!”

Very close to her slim shoulder his eyes gleamed dangerously ... menacingly. On the whole, it was just as well that she didn’t see them.

“Go on,” he said, with silken softness.

“And you can have the job. I shall be going up north in a-few days, and staying at Giffard’s Prior. You will drive me there. I don’t know what sort of accommodation you’ll expect, but there must be chauffeur’s quarters ...”

“There are. They’re over the old stable block. I shall be happy to occupy them.”

“I haven’t yet received my car keys, but you can collect them from Aiden, Crawley and Bentinck. As the car will be your concern you’ll handle everything connected with it.”

“Delighted, I’m sure,” the voice at her shoulder murmured. And then: “Aiden, Crawley and Bentinck? Who put you on to them?” “Dr. Giffard,” she admitted.

“I might have known it,” he murmured. "Alaine has taken you under his wing... So like Alaine! I wonder whether you’re going to have the same effect on him that you had on poor old Angus? If so, the rest of the family had better watch out, although I can’t see Aunt Clare capitulating quite so easily.” She drew on her gloves, and then deliberately opened her purse and placed a tip on the table for the waitress, and then called for the bill. After which she

turned to him and spoke decisively,

“Let us understand one another,” she said clearly and coldly. “I have agreed to employ you for some devious purpose of your own, but if you behave in such a manner that I find it impossible to continue the arrangement I shan’t hesitate to sack you and terminate the arrangement. Remarks such as the one you have just made will come beneath the heading of impossible behaviour, so I should advise you—if you really wish to convince Miss Gaylord’s father that you are capable of earning your own living should the emergency arise—to be a little more cautious in future, and remember that, in future we are employer and employee.”

“I assure you I will not forget,” he returned with the smooth insolence she hated. “Or I promise you I’ll make an effort not to forget!”

Once they were outside the tea-room he offered to call her a taxi, but she said she would prefer to walk —or even take a bus.

“As you please,” he said, his blue eyes smiling lazily. “Your word is my command—madam!”

“Sir Angus—” and then she corrected herself hastily. “I can’t possibly call you Sir Angus and have you drive me as well. You’ll have to put up with being called Angus.”

“Suits me,” he assured her, with that veiled impertinence that made her want to lash out at him.

“Well then, Angus, there’s one thing I want to know. What will Miss Gaylord think of your working for me?”

“She’ll think it’s the joke of the ccntury,” he assured her.

She bit her lower lip and turned away.

“I’m glad you both have such an enviable sense of humour,” she remarked, and in order to get away from him quickly put up her hand and stopped a taxi. She did not offer to give him a lift, and as he watched the taxi glide away the amiable look vanished from his face, and was replaced by one of uncompromising grimness.

That night she couldn’t resist telephoning Alaine, who was dressing hurriedly to go out to dinner.

“I’d like to see you some time soon,” she told him, feeling that she had to tell him about Angus and shift the burden of what she had done from her shoulders to his broad ones. For if he thought she was quite mad he would surely think of a way to terminate the arrangement she and Sir Angus had come to—largely because she hadn’t the moral strength to utter a blunt ‘No’ to the baronet when