ENEMY LOVERby

PAMELA KENT

SBN 373-00943-7

CHAPTER ONE

THE light was already fading when Tina stood at theschoolhouse door and watched the last of her pupilswalking away from her. She wished she had sent themhome earlier, but four o’clock in the afternoon was the usualhour for this remote part of the world. Fortunately, onlyJohnny Gains had any real distance to go, and he was usedto the long walk across the moor to his father's remote

cottage.

Even so, she suddenly couldn’t bear the thought of Johnnygoing forth into the dusk with a threat of snow in the air, andno one to give him a helping hand if he blundered into abog.

“Wait, Johnny!” she called, and darted back into the houseto fetch her own coat and a head-scarf. “I’m coming with

you,” she told him, as she clasped his small hand, and heshowed her his two broken front teeth in a relieved grinwhile the other children melted into the dusk, and soon eventhe sound of their chattering voices and their little bursts oflaughter died into silence.

There was a piercingly cold wind cutting across the moor,but Tina tucked her coat collar up about her ears, and shewound Johnny’s thick woollen scarf tightly about his neck.They kept their heads bent and, in order to make thedistance seem shorter, recited scraps of doggerel as theywalked

“We folk, good folk,

Trooping all together;

Green jacket, red cap And white owl’s feather...

“Down along the rocky shore some make their home;

They live on crispy pancakes of yellow tide foam.”

“What is yellow tide foam?” Johnny wanted to know, butTina was wondering whether she had locked the doorbehind her before she left, and she answered vaguely. Inany case, she thought, it didn’t greatly matter, for no onewould be tempted by a pile of uncorrected school-books;and her own personal things would have very little moreappeal.

Mis. Macartney had baked her a cake during the afternoon,and it was on the kitchen table. Someone might be temptedby that... She had a Golden Treasury of Verse which sheprized, and a couple of slim volumes which her father hadsaid might fetch money one day. She had a new coat withsome pseudo-mink on the collar, and a small portable radiothat had cost her more than she could afford.

On the whole, it might have been better if she had madeabsolutely certain that she had turned the key.

However, it was too late now, and they were at Johnny’scottage, and Johnny's mother was both surprised andrelieved when she saw her offspring accompanied by theyoung woman who corrected his cramped handwriting. Sheinsisted on Tina staying for a cup of tea before she set offagain into the night, but by this time it was very dark indeed,and Tina had the utmost difficulty keeping to the narrowtracks without a torch.

She remembered the night—now a couple of months ago— when she had unwisely ventured on to the moor without atorch. On that occasion she might have run into difficultiesbut for old Angus Giffard’s light shining out into the dark.She had been surprised to see it, at ten o’clock at night, forold Angus adhered to a routine that never varied, and hewas usually in bed and deeply sunk in his second sleep byten o’clock.

On this night, however, the light from his oil lamp had shoneout like a guiding star into the night. His cottage was verysmall, and all the rooms were on the ground floor. Thekitchen was on a corner, and Tina could see into it whenshe opened the garden gate and stole up the little pathsilently. She looked between the faded curtains and shesaw old Angus slumped across the table, either asleep orill.

She was never quite able to get over the miracle of one ofthe windows being left unlatched, for old Angus wasintensely suspicious of his fellow creatures, and she wasable to climb over the sill and into the house. There shefound brandy and hot-water bottles, and got old Angus tobed. He was in very poor shape, his lips blue, his eyesglazed, but she worked over him until dawn, when she felt itsafe to leave him. Then she set off across the moor in theangry primrose light to fetch the doctor at Little Connors,and after that she went back to the schoolhouse to openschool.

Old Angus was critically ill for a week, and during that weekshe visited him every day and took him baskets ofnourishing foodstuffs like egg custard and chicken jelly. Thechicken jelly she made herself, and reinforced it with aglass or two of the best sherry she could obtain locally. Shealso read to him, and discussed items of news in thenewspapers—and old Angus argued fiercely about politics(or would have argued, if she had let him). He told her she

was a remarkable young woman, although he thought shewas much too young for a schoolteacher, since childrenneeded

discipline and lots of good, hearty spankings. Old Angushad no time at all for the modern tendency to ‘spare therod’. In point of fact, he had little time for anything apart fromhis own unsociable way of life, and his narrow-mindedviews on most things. Governments were wrong, policieswere wrong, development was wrong... the whole worldwas wrong! But old Angus had the key to perfect peaceand contentment if only people would leave him alone.

He subsisted on the very minimum in the very maximum ofdiscomfort. He had few possessions apart from books andan old cabinet gramophone; yet he spoke severallanguages with the fluency of one who had used them often,he had travelled widely, and his air was the air of anautocrat who should have had servants to order about.

No one locally knew much about him, and the little that wasknown was not noised abroad. Tina thought of him as apoor, if disgruntled old man who needed care and attention,and she was not altogether sorry when she heard thatrelatives had whisked him away and his cottage wasempty.

She was sorry for the loneliness of the cottage whenevershe passed it, but otherwise it was old Angus’s cottage...

And no one had gone near it to do a thing about it since heleft. As she passed close to it tonight, on her way back tothe schoolhouse, she thought that she herself would have todo something some time, if no one else did. There mustalmost certainly be a lot of clearing up to do, for it washardly likely he would have left the place very tidy.

She would have been glad of a light shining out from thekitchen window, but there was nothing but the palereflection of the moon as it struggled through banks of low-lying clouds and endeavoured to bathe the whole lonelylandscape in some sort of radiance.

But if there was no light in Angus’s cottage, there was alight in the schoolhouse when she reached it. Tina’s heartgave a startled leap when she caught sight of it, and whenshe caught sight of the long, sleek car outside theunpainted iron gate she could hardly believe her eyes.

The tiny schoolhouse nestled in a fold of the hills, and hardlyanyone came to it at night, unless it was Mrs. Macartney toenquire whether Miss Andrews could do without her thefollowing day, or something of the sort. But Mrs. Macartneyhad certainly never driven in such a car as now stood at thegate, and she would have been utterly overcome by thesleek magnificence of it, if she had been permitted to gazeat it with the yellow lamplight shining out and discoveringanswering beams in the bonnet.

Tina herself stood still to inspect it for a moment before sheentered the house. There was no one inside the car.Whoever moved it—or whoever had driven it to this farawayspot—was inside and waiting for her.

There was no need to turn the handle of the front door, for itwas standing partly open. The schoolroom door was shutfast, but someone was moving about in her sitting-room,casting a shadow on the whitewashed wall. She couldmake out the head and shoulders of a man—a tall man—and he was bending to inspect the contents of herbookcase when she nervously and almost stealthily pushedwider the sitting-room door.

There was a tiny fire in the grate, and it was leaping andkeeping company with the lamplight. The lamp stood on acentre table, and because someone inexperienced hadlighted it it was smoking a little, and the first thing she did—even before asking her uninvited visitor who he was—wasto adjust the wick. The man spoke critically.

“I didn’t know oil lamps were still used, even in parts likethis. Can’t the local authorities run you up a cable, so thatyou’d at least have the benefit of electric light ?”

Obviously he thought the other ‘benefits’ she enjoyed werefew.

Tina removed her head-scarf while she answered

mechanically:

“We’re having electricity installed in the summer. It’s notvery long to wait.”

The man’s smile was a little incredulous, as if he thought ayoung woman who must be still in her early twenties slightlyabnormal if she could accept waiting a few months foranything with so much complacence. Denuded of her head-scarf her hair was soft and fluffy about her face, with the softfluffiness of a day-old chick and the pale colour of aprimrose and her eyes were blue.

The man, who was dark and slender and elegant, and whowore a heavy topcoat with the collar well up about his ears,gazed at her curiously for several seconds, as if he hadbeen uncertain of what he would find here, and he was stillnot at all certain of what he had found.

“Who are you?” she asked, with sudden sharpness. “Andwhat right had you to walk in here without waiting to receivean invitation?”

“You left the door unlocked.”

“I know. At least, I was afraid I had left it unlocked ... I wentoff in rather a hurry.”

“Then you mustn’t be surprised if you find someone waitingfor you when you get back.”

“It’s never happened before.”

“Perhaps you’ve never left the door unlocked before.” Heglanced at the darkness beyond the windows. “It doesn’tseem altogether wise in a spot like this.”

“I’m as safe here as I would be in a town. Possibly safer.”Once again he glanced at her, and his glance lingered.There seemed to be very little of her, but she wasfashionably slender... He would have said too fashionablyslender. But then he was a doctor, and he disapproved ofdieting, and excessive thinness. She had a delicate facewith fine bones, but there were slight hollows in her cheeksand her eyes were a trifle over-large. No doubt she lived ontinned soups and cups of coffee. In a benighted place likethis who could blame her?

Once more he glanced at the dark outline of the window, atthe bare room, at the lamp the still smoked, and heshuddered inwardly.

“I’m not going to introduce myself,” he said. “At least, not atthe moment, but I would like you to understand that thismatter is urgent. Were you ever acquainted with an AngusGiffard?”

She looked surprised.

“The old man who lived in the cottage? I knew him as

Angus... I don’t think I ever heard his surname.”

“Well, you’ve heard it now. Angus Diarmid Ian Giffard, ofGiffard’s Prior, about fifty miles from here. Will you comewith me at once, because he wants to see you, and I don’tthink he has very much longer to live. A day or so at theoutside ...”

Tina was thrown into a state of utter stupefaction. Thatanyone should want to see her at. this late hour of theevening was extraordinary; that she was to be driven fiftymiles in order that that person could see her was fantastic,and that it should be old Angus ... and he was dying.

“I’ll come with you,” she said, and asked only that sheshould be allowed to change into something more suitablefor the journey, and that she should be back at theschoolhouse in time to open it for school the following day.

“I’ll drive you back myself,” her unknown visitor promised.“And this time I’d recommend that you lock the door, andtake the key with you. I’ll look after it for you if you’d care toentrust it to me.”

CHAPTER TWO THE car had a maximum speed that tookTina's breath away when she heard of it, but mostly theytravelled at considerably below that for the greater part ofthe journey. In any case, fifty miles was not a very greatdistance, and in such a car it was hardly noticeable.

Tina sat huddled in her new coat with the false mink on thecollar in the seat beside the driver, and she marvelled at theease with which he manipulated the gears that seemed tobe attached to the chromium-plated wheel, and was a littleoppressed by his silence. They sped through the night withthe noiselessness and ease of a bird on the wing,skimming over unseen highways and diving into clumps ofwoodland, while around them lay still sheets of water thatreflected the starshine, and the endless lonely stretches ofthe moor that were bounded by faraway bens.

Outside it was bitterly cold, and the threat of snow was stillthere; but inside the comfort and luxury of the car it wasbeautifully warm. If it had not been for the fact that hercompanion was a stranger and she had no real idea ofwhere she was being taken Tina could have seized theopportunity to relax her overtired limbs and lain backagainst the expensive upholstery and dozed for at leasttwenty-five of the fifty miles. Her companion spoke to heroccasionally.

“I think you ought to be put into the picture,” he said. “OldAngus is very ill, as I’ve told you, and he’s not expected tolive. In any case, he’s nearly eighty... Hardly anybody everguesses it, of course. His sister is with him, and hisnephew. I’m a kind of distant nephew. My name is alsoGiffard.”

She glanced sideways at him, at his dark, aloof features,

and she decided he had little or nothing of old Angus abouthim. Angus had a jutting jaw and a fierce blue eye, and a lotof red in his hair still. The unknown Giffard beside her wasan entirely different proposition, far less predictable, but atthe same time much more conventional. And as yet she didnot know that he was a doctor, who could scarcely afford tobe unconventional.

“Giffard’s Prior is the family house, and Sir Angus has livedthere for years. ..”he went on.

"Sir Angus—?”

“Yes.” He glanced sideways at her for a moment . “Youdidn’t know that?”

“I’ve told you, I knew little or nothing about old Angus, as wecalled him.”

“You didn’t even know he was a rich man?”

She was obviously completely amazed.

“If he was—if he is!—why did he live in such a state ofpoverty? His cottage was utterly comfortless ... He didn’teven have enough to eat! I tried to feed him up during thatweek I looked after him.”

“So you looked after him for a week, did you ?” he said alittle wonderingly, and it struck her that his voice had

softened. “Well, it may turn out to be a rewarding week foryou, but at the moment I

can do nothing but warn you. My uncle Angus has alwaysbeen slightly eccentric, and his relatives have had a gooddeal to put up with from him. You can’t expect relatives toappreciate being swept to one side, and a completeoutsider—”

But they had arrived at the house, and he broke off as heswept in at the drive gates. There was a blaze of light fromthe house itself, streaming down the drive to meet them, sothat to Tina it seemed strange and bewildering withmidnight not much more than a quarter of an hour away. Asthey came to rest before a handsome portico she couldhear the chimes of a distant stable clock shattering thestillness, claiming that in actual fact midnight was only aquarter of an hour off.

The front door was flung open, and figures appeared at thehead of the steps. The man who had driven Tina for fiftymiles with calm capability, and without revealing very muchabout himself, alighted and opened the car door for her;and she found herself being urged quite gently up the steps.She also heard him say in a quiet, warning voice:

“Don’t let them over-awe you. They will if they can ... You’lljust have to remember that you’ve been sent for, and you’renot here to gratify any whim of your own.” And then his hand

halted her progress for an instant. “By the way, I neverasked you... You are Miss Clementina Mary Andrews,aren’t you?”

“Yes, of course.

He nodded in a relieved fashion.

“I don’t know why I didn’t ask you. I suppose it was becauseyou fitted the picture I’d been given of you so well.”

Tina had no time to ask him what sort of picture someonehad painted of her—very likely old Angus himself—for theywere met at the head of the steps by an agitated elderlylady who promptly seized hold of the dark man’s arm, andcompletely ignored Tina.

“I don’t think there’s much time!” she said. “He’s beenasking for you...” Still she ignored Tina. “You’d better go upat once. Dr. Ambrose is there, and Philip—”

“And Angus?” he asked.

“Angus arrived about a couple of hours ago. He’s in thelibrary. Naturally, he’s upset.”

The dark man nodded thoughtfully, and Tina felt bewildered.She felt her companion of the last few hours put his hand onher arm, and then he spoke almost sternly to the elderlywoman in the handsome dark evening-dress, whose white

hair provided such an effective contrast:

“Look after Miss Andrews, Aunt Clare,” he requested her.“She’s been whisked here at top speed, and she must befeeling tired.”

But his Aunt Clare merely looked surprised.

“Miss Andrews can wait in the drawing-room,” she said.“It’s not at all likely she’ll be wanted now, and you’ve wasteda lot of time. But I’ll see to it that someone takes her a trayof tea.”

A young woman in the background—also beautifullygowned, and as slender as a wraith—said tonelessly:

“I’ll see to it, Mamma,” and melted into the shadows of thegreat, sombre hall that not even crystal candelabra couldrender less sombre.

Tina was shown into the drawing-room, where she sat in asatin-backed chair amidst other elegant examples of thesame type of furniture for nearly an hour, when someonetapped on the door and a maidservant brought her a pot oftea and some sandwiches on a silver tray. The girl withdrewimmediately, as if she had received orders not to linger,and once more Tina was left alone, with the intense silencein the room pressing on her as if it were a living thing, thesatin-damask draperies that flowed before the windowsimparting to her a sensation of being smothered in their

folds, while the thick carpet deadened even the sound ofher footsteps when she attempted to cross the room.

She examined books and pictures, delicate examples ofbric-a-brac, the contents of one or two china cabinets. Theroom was furnished in an old- fashioned manner, buteverything in it was either costly or valuable. She knew that.The portrait above the fireplace was remarkably like oldAngus when he was younger, without bristling whiskers andunkempt hair. As the hours passed his intense blue eyeslooked down at her, watching every movement she made,smiling a little occasionally... or so she thought.

There was a chiming clock in the hall—probably agrandfather clock—and it kept her informed of the flight oftime. One o’clock, two o’clock, three o’clock ... At four sheparted the curtains and looked out into the darkness.Flakes of snow were fluttering against the panes, and snowwas already lying deep in the shrubberies. She couldascertain that much in the light that streamed from thedrawing-room windows. It was too early yet for any flush ofdawn to show in the sky; too early for cocks to crow... Andthe whole world was completely hushed and still.

She shivered in the slight draught from the window, andwent

back to the fire. No one had been in to build it up, and itwas not much more than a pile of embers in the grate, but

the room was warm with central heating. She stretchedherself out on the rug and rested her head in the lap of achair... If only the house wasn’t so silent. Somewhere in itold Angus was lying, critically ill. Why didn’t they let her seehim? She had come all this way to see him.

Once she thought she heard a car drive up to the house,and then it drove away again. Once, between sleeping andwaking, she thought that a man put his head in at the doorand looked hard at her... He had fiercely red hair, and hiseyes were a cold, hard blue. They were old Angus’s eyes,and yet they were not Angus’s eyes.

She fell fast asleep about five, and it was broad daylightwhen she awakened. Several people were in the room, andone was actually shaking her awake. She thought instantlyof the school day that might have begun, and sprang up inconfusion.

“You’ll have to take me back! I’ll never be back in time!”

The dark Giffard who had brought her to the house lookedalmost as concerned as she did.

“I’d no idea you were spending the night in here,” heapologised. “I understood that my aunt had put you into aroom.” He looked with sharp rebuke at his aunt, and thenback again at the girl who was still bewilderedly rubbing thesleep out of her eyes, and endeavouring to settle the

disorder of her clothes at the same time. “Really, AuntClare, this is too much!” he exclaimed. “Miss Andrews hashad to spend the night most uncomfortably...”

But his aunt was weeping into a handkerchief, and whenshe lifted her eyes for an instant it was to glance at Tina insuch a vague fashion that she might not even have existed.

“It’s no use blaming me,” she protested. “I didn’t want thegirl brought here. And you could have saved yourself thebother of bringing her. Poor Angus was never in a fitenough condition to see her.”

“But he asked to see her.”

“I know, Alaine, I know! Don’t we all know that he asked tosee her?... And don’t we all know why!” The slim youngwoman who had moved and looked like a wraith in the hallwas also crying fitfully into a handkerchief. Alaine turned toher as if his nerves were on edge.

“For goodness’ sake, Juliet, is that really necessary?” hedemanded. “Uncle Angus is dead, and you had no time atall for him when he was alive... None of us had! So why areyou so upset now?” The door opened, and someone elsecame into the room. He

was taller than Alaine, and possibly several years younger,and even although he was unshaved and his dinner-jackethad a crumpled appearance, and it was quite obvious he

was far from in a good humour, the quality of his looksaffected Tina with a queer sensation of shock. She knewthat she had seen him before—in the night—and it was theredness of his hair and the blueness of his eyes thatimpressed her then. Now she was impressed by thearrogant perfection of his features, the coldness of his jawand the hardness of his mouth, that somehow left unmarredthe sheer masculine beauty of it.

He ignored the rest of them and looked at Tina.

“So you’re still here,” he commented. “Why doesn’tsomeone send you home? Old Angus isn’t alive any moreand you won’t have any more opportunities to turn hisageing head. You must have worked pretty hard during theshort time that you knew him-”

“Angus!” his aunt exclaimed, as if even she was slightlyshocked by his outburst.

But he ignored her.

“And to look at you you’re nothing more than the littleschool-marm we know you to be. A conniving little school-marm from some isolated village school!” The coldcontempt in his merciless blue eyes made Tina cringe. Shehad never encountered anything like it in her life. “Butthere’s no fool quite like an old fool, and old Angus was abachelor all his life—”

Alaine didn’t merely order him to be quiet, he ordered himfrom the room.

“Until you know how to behave in a house that has just beendeprived of its master, and can remember you’re supposedto be a gentleman, not an oaf!”

Alaine’s tone was arctic, his dark eyes glinted as if steel layin their depths.

“Go to bed, if you’re tired, but whatever you do, go! MissAndrews has spent the night in here, and no one eventhought to keep the fire in for her.”

“Miss Andrews was warmed by the thought of the future,”Angus enunciated with obvious difficulty, and then turnedand strode from the room.

White-faced, Tina turned to Alaine.

“What does he mean?” The clouds of sleep were stillwhirling in her brain. She didn’t merely feel at adisadvantage; she felt as if she was up against somethingthat was quite beyond her, and that the others held the keyto a mystery that was utterly baffling. “Why did

he look at me like that—?”

“Don’t worry, my dear,” Alaine said gently, patting hershoulder. “We’ve all been up all night, and we’re none of us

particularly fresh. Sir Angus died about four o’clock, and itdidn’t seem worth going to bed after that. Aunt Clare, you’dbetter go to bed.”

His aunt groped her way to the door.

“I think I will. Everything’s been such a shock over the lastfew days... Juliet, you’d better go to bed, too.”

But Juliet had stopped crying, and her expression wassullen. She had the same aubum-tinged hair as her brother,the same nearly perfect features, but her complexion hadthe strange whiteness and delicacy of a hot-housecamellia. She looked like a hothouse plant that had beencarefully nurtured all its days, and now in her twenty-secondyear she was beginning to suspect that there was anotherside to life. It carried its shocks and disappointments aswell as pandered to her pleasures.

“I don’t think I want to,” she answered sullenly. “I’ll go andfind

Angus and we’ll have some breakfast together. I supposewe’re still entitled to breakfast in this house—?”

Alaine looked at her long and peculiarly.

“If you want to be helpful,” he suggested, “you can rouse upone of the maids and get her to provide breakfast for us all.Miss Andrews will need some before she leaves.”

But Tina said swiftly: “No, thank you, I’d rather leave now, ifyou don’t mind. I can’t possibly be back in time to begin anormal school day, but I’d like to get away from here. Andperhaps I could telephone before I leave? Someone willhave to be informed of the reason why I disappeared sosuddenly last night.”

“Of course,” he answered. “And we’ll stop and havebreakfast on the way back. I’m afraid you’ve received verylittle hospitality in this house, but the circumstances wereunusual. My aunt isn’t normally inhospitable... Andunfortunately Sir Angus was in no condition to see you oncewe got here last night.” She glanced round the handsomeroom, that was beginning to oppress her unbearably.

“I was an intruder at the wrong time,” she said quietly. “Ishould never have been brought here at all. I can’t think whyI was brought here... Sir Angus and I hardly knew oneanother.”

Alaine Giffard was silent.

She gazed at him with sudden earnestness, too weary todrive home the point, yet feeling it had to be made.

“You believe me, don’t you?” she asked. “Your relativesobviously don’t—” ignoring the fact that Juliet was still in theroom with them—“but it’s true. The friendship between SirAngus and myself was a brief affair that might never have

happened at all, but for the fact that he needed help onenight. And now he’s dead, and I’m sorry because I liked him. . . the little I knew of him. He was the loneliest man I’veever met, and yet apparently he need not have been lonelyat all, for he was not alone in the world as I imagined. Hewasn’t even poor.”

She glanced up at the portrait above the fireplace.

“That was him when he was younger, I suppose?” Thefierce blue eyes seemed to be watching her with a curious,fixed eagerness. “I’m sorry it’s over,” she whispered. “I’msorry we won’t meet again, Sir Angus!”

“But Sir Angus’s interest in you isn’t over,” Alaine told hier,oddly, as he guided her to the door. “You’ll find that out in aweek or so. You may be inclined to agree with thosenearest and dearest to him that it was a somewhatexcessive interest for such a fleeting impact on his life!”

Barely a fortnight later Tina understood what he meant. Shereceived a letter from Sir Angus’s solicitors informing herthat she was the sole beneficiary under Sir Angus Giffard’swill. His nephew inherited his title, but the property—whichwas not entailed—was bequeathed to her. She was also tobecome the possessor of his investments, his two cars, alarge amount of family jewellery, and a London house.

CHAPTER THREE

TINA went to London for an interview with the solicitors.They were an old firm—a very old-established firm—andshe found them enshrined in an atmosphere of handsometooled leather and crackly parchment that was mostlycontained in black japanned deedboxes.

The crackly parchment that was concerned with Sir AngusGiffard, deceased, and his estate had already beenbrought forth from its appropriate deed-box. The seniorpartner of the firm was awaiting her behind a handsomewalnut desk, and as she was shown into the room by anunderling he rose with promptitude and walked to meet her.She was surprised, because he was quite unlike the agedand bent solicitor who had handled her father’s affairs, andhad practised in a dark and stuffy little office where heemployed one man and a youth; and the sea of faded butbeautiful carpet she had to cross before her hand wasfirmly grasped by long white fingers was as much asurprise as everything else. Quite obviously Londonsolicitors were far more prosperous than those whopractised in small provincial towns.

“Ah, my dear Miss Andrews!” Mr. Jasper exclaimed. Hehad a thin

and elegant face as well as thin and elegant hands. Shecould actually fed him beaming at her.

Tina was wearing a warm wool dress under her fur-trimmed

coat. The dress was a very dark red, and the coat was aneven darker red—a shade that took the colour out of hersmall, delicately boned face. Her hair swung loosely on hershoulders, and as she had washed it only the night before itwas an unbelievable pale flaxen yellow. Her eyes were alertand darkly blue.

“Mr. Jasper” she began, as if she had rehearsed herspeech in advance, “I can’t understand why Sir Angus—”

“No, no, of course not, my dear young lady,” the solicitorreturned, guiding her expertly to a chair and putting her intoit. “No one ever understands why certain things happen, butthey do happen, nevertheless. Sir Angus was a man, in anycase, inclined to the unexpected, so perhaps this finalgesture of his is not such a surprise, after all.”

“You mean—” looking at him with those very darkly blueeyes—“that you yourself are not surprised?”

He shrugged. It was an elegant gesture, and he took hisplace once more behind his desk.

“My dear young lady—” obviously he was going to adoptthe paternal note—“does it matter? The important thing isthat you rendered a service to Sir Angus, and he decidedto reward you. A perfectly understandable thing for a man ofhis temperament to do.” “But what of his relatives? All thosepeople who should have benefited under the terms of the

will?” Mr. Jasper shrugged, and this lime he smiled a triflecuriously.

“Not really your concern, Ms. Andrews,” he assured her.“For one thing, the fact that they have been passed over inthe will doesn’t mean that they have been reduced to acondition of poverty, or anything of that sort. Mrs. ClareGiffard has a perfectly satisfactory income of her own, andher daughter, also, is provided for. Dr. Giffard neverexpected to be mentioned in the will, and Sir Angus—”

“Ah, Sir Angus!” she exclaimed. The memory of those hardblue eyes that had raked her from head to foot and thendismissed her in complete contempt when she was not inany condition to put up any defence for herself had notfaded. If anything, the memory of them had become like araw wound that refused to heal ... Startling her suddenly inthe silence of the night, rising up like an uneasy miasma inthe daytime. He had stripped her bare of something thatwas more important than pride, and the fact that he had hadno justification for disliking—if not despising—her offeredher no comfort.

She had come to London for the express purpose of puttingmatters right, and avoiding all further contact with the ownerof the merciless blue eyes. But it began to seem that it wasnot the simple matter that she had imagined, and Mr.Jasper talked with such smooth plausibility and sosuccessfully prevented her advancing any arguments that

she began to feel deliberately frustrated. According to himthe new baronet was in no greater need of financialassistance than either his mother or sister.

It was unfortunate, perhaps, that Giffard’s Prior would nolonger belong to any member of his family; but Sir Angus—the late Sir Angus—had been on such poor terms with hisfamily for such a number of years that they could not haveformed the habit of visiting there. And after all, it wasentirely up to Sir Angus where he left his money . . .everything that belonged to him apart from his title. If he hadmarried he would no doubt have had a wife and really closefamily of his own who could have benefited; but he hadremained a bachelor all his days, and it was his whim that ayoung woman who was neither kith nor kin should inherit hispossessions. In his will he had stated very clearly, and in nouncertain terms, that he considered she deserved them ...‘The only female I ever met for whom I felt an instantattachment, and to whom I would have proposed marriageif I had been of an age to consider it. Being far beyond thatage, and wishing her to know the greatest amount ofsecurity and comfort for the rest of her days—in anunmarried state if that should be her wish— I feel that I cannow die happily, and at peace with my relatives who maynot think kindly of me once I am gone. But as they neverthought kindly of me during my lifetime that is not anythingto worry me! My nephew, Angus, will get the title . . . Andmuch good may it do him! And may he make a bettersuccess of his life than I have ever done!

‘My nephew, Alaine, lacks for little. My niece, Juliet, willalmost certainly marry ... I should like my leadingbeneficiary to provide her with all the trimmings of amagnificent wedding when this event is to take place. Mysister-in-law, Clare, might

be encouraged to visit at Giffard’s Prior if this should in noway inconvenience Miss Clementina Mary Andrews.’

Provision was made in the will for a couple of old servants,and there were one or two other minor bequests . . . But,apart from this, Tina was the only one who really benefited.To her it seemed a quite extraordinary and utterlyunacceptable Last Will and Testament.

“You must realise, of course, that I couldn’t possibly—possibly.” she was beginning, when Mr. Jasper’s smoothvoice died into silence; but he rose immediately and wenttowards her.

“Miss Andrews,” he pointed out, with unexpected firmness,“there is no question of your benefiting anyone if youdecline to accept all that the late Sir Angus has madeavailable to you. Short of an expensive legal action whichmight very easily go against them, the Giffard family will stillget nothing even if you do refuse the benefits. Sir Angusprovided for this eventuality in his will . . . The money goesto an obscure society for the preservation of ancientdialects, and the house—or houses, since there is also the

London house—are to be sold to swell the funds. It seemsto me that Sir Angus didn’t really want this to happen.”

Tina was startled and amazed.

“Did he dislike the members of his family so very much,then?” she asked.

Mr. Jasper smiled faintly, but declined to answer in so manywords.

“And is it true that he put that bit in about wanting to marryme if—if he had been young enough to marry?” shemanaged to get out, while blushing vividly.

Mr. Jasper, with a wider and much more benevolent smile,asked her whether she would like to peruse the documentfor herself, but she declined hastily with an even morepainful flush.

“No, no! It was just that I ... I couldn’t believe . . . You see, heonly knew me a week.”

“Hearts have been lost in a day, Miss Andrews,” thesolicitor reminded her gallantly.

“I know. But that usually happens when two people are—areyoung—”

“And impressionable? Well, I’ll confess Sir Angus proved

himself to be far more impressionable than I would, haveever believed, although I can’t say I’m entirely astounded.”Mr. Jasper became very fatherly all at once. “You’re veryattractive, my dear, if you don’t mind my saying so,” hesaid.

Tina felt a little glow of pleasure seep through her but it waslargely because an old man who was nearly eighty hadfound her attractive enough to wish tc marry her after thebriefest possible acquaintance, and stated so openly in hiswill.

“I shall always remember Sir Angus wanted to marry me,”she confessed with shy impulsiveness. “I’m twenty-three,and no one has ever wanted to marry me before!”

“Believe me,” the solicitor assured her a little drily, “it will notbe the last time a man will want to marry you, MissAndrews. You may find yourself very popular from now on.”

And then he asked her what she proposed to do in theimmediate future, suggested that she stayed at a hotel for afew weeks until all the legal business was completed, andoffered to advance her any money she required.

“Just name the sum,” he said, smiling, and preparing towrite a cheque.

Tina looked slightly taken aback.

“Well, if I really can’t benefit the family by giving up all claimon the will, a few pounds...” she said diffidently.

“A few pounds? A few hundreds might suffice for the timebeing, but you will have a very generous income and thereis no need to stint yourself. You can call upon me forwhatever you need,” he assured her.

In the end she left his office with a cheque, the size of whichmade her feel vaguely uncomfortable, in her handbag, anda promise to take a taxi straight to the hotel in a verysalubrious part of Kensington recommended by Mr. Jasper.She would have been perfectly happy driving to a hostelwhere she had stayed before, but he looked so shockedwhen she suggested it that she hastily agreed it might not,perhaps, be suitable . . . now that she could certainly affordsomewhere better.

And as he let her out of the door, with many bows andsmiles, and even accompanied her across the floor of theouter office, where a smiling secretary opened the door forthem, he advised her to take a look at her London house—at present in a somewhat bad state of repair, since no onehad lived in it for years—and arranged to have the keysdispatched to her with as little delay as possible.

“And if there’s anything you wish to know, or any advice orassistance you require, please don’t hesitate to contactme,” he begged her, and watched her walking a little

dazedly down the steps as if she hardly knew whether shewas the victim of good fortune or otherwise.

She took a taxi to the hotel, and was instantly provided witha room and bath on the second floor, the price of whichcaused her some serious misgivings when she thoughtabout it afterwards. Nevertheless, it was a very pleasantroom, the furnishings were almost luxurious, and thebathroom a real joy after the somewhat primitive bathingarrangements that were hers in the tiny schoolhouse in thefar north. She would hardly have been normal and young ifshe hadn’t experienced a kind of upsurge of naive delightat the thought that this room was hers for as long as shewanted it—and could afford it—and that no one else had aright to enter it or disturb her in any way.

She wandered round examining the tapestry-coveredarmchairs and the writing-desk, and then decided to take ashower without delay. She had never taken a shower in herlife before, and it was a glorious feeling standing beneaththe deliciously warm water and then drying herself on somereally voluminous towels. There appeared to be a vastquantity of them, and when next day they were all whiskedaway and a fresh supply put in their place she felt concernfor the size of the hotel laundry bill.

But on this, her first evening, the novelty of everything wasthe thing that really mattered. She wondered what she wasgoing to wear to go down to dinner, and then decided that

there was really no problem, for she had one other dresswith her, and that hardly fitted into the category of anevening-dress, or even a dinner-gown.

She had been granted a week’s leave of absence by theauthority who controlled her little school, and although atthat time it never even occurred to her that she would begiving up teaching it did occur to her that her wardrobewould have to undergo some extensive alterations . . not tosay increases. One could hardly be the possessor of acheque the size of the one contained inside her handbagand feel content to go about wearing either a dark redwoollen dress or a skirt and hand-made jumper.

She decided that the red dress would have to do for goingdown to dinner, but nevertheless she felt almost painfullyconspicuous when she entered the softly lit dining-roomwhere a startlingly large number of people were alreadybeginning their dinners.

They seemed to be composed largely of distinguished-looking elderly ladies wearing ropes of pearls and the odddiamond bracelet, who glanced up at her with raised browsas she made her way to a table. Fortunately, the waiter wasattentive, and the head waiter was even more attentive afterhe had received a message from the reception desk whichrequested him to look after her and

pay her particular attention.

She was not to know that Mr. Jasper himself hadtelephoned and made it clear that she was a rathervaluable client of his who was new to London and its ways,and asked that she should receive special treatment.

The next morning she rose early despite the temptation toenjoy a long lie-in in such a superbly comfortable bed, andbreakfasted almost alone in the big dining-room. She had areally satisfying breakfast— fruit juice, cereal, bacon andegg, toast and marma-lade—and smiled when the waitermade some joke about not caring about the size of herwaistline. As she had an exceptionally tiny waistline, neatand trim beneath the Orlon jumper that was the samealmost violet blue as her eyes, he could do this without inany way offending, and she realised that he was actuallypaying her a compliment.

The first thing she intended to do this morning was makefor the shops. She had a vague idea of the importantshopping thoroughfares, and within half an hour of leavingthe hotel was in one of London’s leading stores andchoosing a practical outfit. She had a nasty moment when itcame to settling the bill, for as yet she hadn’t presented hercheque at the bank, and only the thought of Mr. Jasperprevented her from becoming really flurried. But atelephone call to the solicitor soon put matters right, andshe was assured that she could have extended credit at thestores if she wished it, and was finally escorted outside andput into a taxi by the young woman who had attended to

most of her purchases.

It was twelve o’clock when she was put into the taxi, andtwenty past when she arrived back at the hotel. Shehastened upstairs to her room with a pageboy following herinto the lift with the greater number of her parcels, and aftershe had seen them all safely stowed away in the capaciouswardrobe space she returned downstairs to partake of ahasty lunch, and then sought the advice of one of the youngwomen behind the reception desk.

She wanted a hairdresser who could fit her in without anappointment. Apparently that was a simple matter withwhich to confront the receptionist, for an appointment wasmade for her almost immediately, and she was on her wayto keep it before she really had time to realise that for thefirst time in her life an expert was to take over thearrangement of her softly swinging, flaxen-gold tresses.

Usually she washed her hair herself, but occasionally shepaid a visit to a hairdresser. This was no ordinaryhairdressing establishment, however, to which she hadgained access. It was one of those temples of beautyculture from which well-to-do women emerged sometimesas many as three times a week, all ready for a luncheonengagement, a cocktail party or an evening at the theatre.

Tina had no plans for the rest of the day, and she certainlyhad no engagement of any kind, but when she finally

emerged after Monsieur Andre had worked over her—withthe assistance of a couple of pink- robed high-priestesses—she was looking so completely different from the TinaAndrews who had entered the imposing portals that a closefriend might have gaped at her.

Monsieur Andre had taken at least three inches off her hair,and it no longer swayed gently against her face with everymovement she made but glittered in a golden ‘bob.’ Theglitter came from the brightening rinse that had beenconsidered essential, and the ‘bob’ was a little reminiscentof the nineteen-thirties. It suited her as perhaps no otherstyle could have suited her—or certainly not as well; and themake-up experts at Monsieur Andre’s had gilded the lily stillfurther.

They had held a consultation and decided that a very lightform of make-up was all she needed—the merest touch ofeye-shadow, hardly any mascara because her eyelasheswere dusted with gold at the tips, the lightest "dusting offace-powder and a lipstick that glowed as if rose petalswere softly lighted from within. She was assured that shemust never, never use a really brilliant lipstick, and as forperfume only something really flowerlike would suit her.

She came away with a slim phial of flagrantly expensiveflower perfume, and a complete range of the cosmeticsrecommended by the salon, and hoped that no one wouldnotice any alteration in her appearance when she crept in

through a side door of the hotel. She also felt mildlyhorrified by the amount of money she had spent that day.

But when she went down to dinner that night in herKensington hotel she certainly merited the looks that weredirected at her. Elderly dowagers and elegantly gownedmatrons felt inclined to put up their lorgnettes as she madeher way—with the same shyness as the night before—toher table in a corner. Tonight she was even more glad thatit was in a corner because the interest she had arousedwas something that could actually be felt, andunaccustomed to creating anything in the nature of a stir,she felt as if her embarrassment was literally scorching hercheeks.

But if that was so, in actual fact the scorching process in noway

affected the matt smoothness of her

complexion. Her dress of cream wool with an utterlyuncluttered line and a slim girdle that drew attention to thedesirable small waist was so obviously expensive that itwas an excellent choice; and the fact that she wore nojewellery apart from an antique turquoise and silver bracelet—at one time the possession of her mother—was anotherexcellent choice in the way of adornment.

The elderly ladies relaxed and smiled slightly amongst

themselves. One or two elderly gentlemen puffed out theirchests a trifle ... . The waiters gravitated as if by instinct toher side of the room.

But Tina was concentrating on ordering her meal, and afterthat she began to tick off various important things that shehad to do on her fingers.

Clothes . . . She was temporarily equipped with more thanenough. The bank manager . . . Mr. Jasper had arranged tomeet her the following morning and introduce her himself.And in the afternoon she planned to look over her house.The keys had arrived, brought round by special messenger,and were lying in a drawer of the writing-desk upstairs inher room. When she touched them for the first time theyprovided her with an extraordinary sensation, for they werethe keys of the first house—indeed, anything in the nature ofa home or possible home—she had owned in her life.

Then, when she had seen the house for herself, she had tomake a decision about what to do with it. And after that sheplanned to make a telephone call. Sir Angus Giffard had aflat somewhere in the West End, and she had to see himand discuss this whole matter with him. Since the solicitorcould not put things right, someone must help her to do so .. . There had to be a solution.

She was determined to find a solution somehow. And, if nota solution, a compromise . . . Surely it should not be

impossible to alight upon a compromise?

CHAPTER FOUR LONDON is full of quiet squares, andsome of them are more tucked away and less accessiblethan others. These are not the fashionable squares . . .certainly not nowadays; and they contain houses that havebecome faded and forlorn-looking with the passage oftime, although frequently there is something extremelydignified about the exteriors. The late Sir Angus Giffard’shouse had this air of apologising for present misfortuntes,and inside there was a damp smell of disuse and theabsence of central heating.

Such a house needed central heating, with its five storeys—not

including the attics. As Tina’s footsteps echoed hollowly onthe stairs she felt as if cold, dank fingers were touching hershoulders and reminding her of days that were gone.

The staircase was a handsome affair, curving upwards tothe first and second floors. The stairs above that werenarrower and steeper, and made her think of maidservantstoiling up them with cans of hot water for the occupants ofthe bedrooms on the upper floors. The house might nowlack life and vitality, but at least there were no wearyfemales answering imperious summonses on bells anddarting out of the basement to make up coal fires and carrytrays of tea to the drawing-room.

The drawing-room was a splendid apartment that wasdivided by folding doors and could save the purpose of tworooms, and Tina returned to it when she had completed herinspection of the upper floors, and had satisfied herself thatthey were much as she had expected to find them.

All the furniture was good, and possibly valuable. Thecarpets were faded and in many eases threadbare, but theone in the drawing-room had a beauty that delighted her.The damask-covered chairs and stiff little settees delightedher, also, and she wondered whether—if they were reallyand truly hers!— she could ever bear to part with them. Shesat down at a Sheraton corner table and leafed through afamily album that stood on it—no pictures of any member ofthe Giffard family that she could recognise; and then sheexamined the delicate workmanship of an ivory Swisschalet, and an ornate musical box that tinkled enchantinglywhen she lifted the lid.

All items that belonged to the Giffard past, and nowseemed to belong to no one. For she couldn’t feel that theybelonged to her.

She sighed, and wondered what she was going to do withthe house if she finally had to make a decision about it.Impossible to imagine herself living there, and even if shemade a small corner of it habitable in a modern way forherself what would she do with the rest of it?

What did one do with a house of this size when one was theowner of it? Let it? Sell it? . . . Why hadn’t old Angus sold itlong ago since he declined to live in it?

The house was intensely silent, and it startled her when shethought she heard a small noise in the hall

The drawing-room was on the first floor, and in order tomake certain her ears hadn’t played her false she went outand peeped over the balustrade of the staircase. But thehall was empty, and

apart from a slight scampering noise that could have beencaused by mice there was nothing there to disturb her.

She returned to the drawing-room and started to wanderuneasily about it, touching books and flower vases, evenstraightening an odd picture on the wall. She ran her fingersover the yellowed keys of the piano, jumped because therippling chord startled her afresh, and then jumpedconvulsively and uttered a startled cry as the chains of thegrandfather clock in the hall grated horribly, and thetimepiece that had been silent when she entered the houseemitted a couple of chimes.

This time she fairly raced to the head of the staircase, andas she stood there staring in unbelief Sir Angus Giffarddesisted from his attempt to get the clock working normallyand looked up at her

calmly.

“Hello,” he said. He said it quite casually—so casually thatshe wondered whether her eyes as well as her ears wereplaying her tricks, and he really wasn’t there at all. “Gettingthe feel of the house, as the saying is? Gloating over allyour new possessions?” Tina stood quite still at the head ofthe stair, unable to move or say a word in answer. The manwith the glorious shade of Titian hair in the hall below her,and the hard blue eyes that were not glorious but arrogantlyhandsome and as coolly watchful as a cat’s, walked to thefoot of the stairs and came up them slowly with the carefulprecision of a cat. He was wearing a dark lounge suit, andhis tie had the delicate sheen of pure silk. His head washeld arrogantly, and although his hair was fiery it wasrecently and beautifully barbered.

He was obviously a man who enjoyed being thought—andplainly was—a master of the art of sartorial perfection.

“Sorry if I startled you,” he apologised, when he was only afew steps below the spot where she was standing. Butthere was no apology in his eyes, only quiet, insolentcontempt. “I’m afraid I’ve formed a habit of dropping in hereoccasionally and winding up the clock. It’s a very fine pieceof work, that clock— Italian, I think. If you can bear to partwith it perhaps you’d let me buy it off you.” There was muchdryness in his voice, but she answered mechanically.

“How did you get in? Have you a key?” Obviously he had akey, since he couldn’t have entered the house without one.“The clock is yours, if you want it. In any case, I’ve a lot totalk to you about.” “Oh, indeed?” The finely markedeyebrows that were several shades darker than his hairarched. “And what, I wonder, could a

young woman like you wish to talk to me about? I wouldn’thave said we’d a lot in common.”

She flushed. He was being deliberately unpleasant, andshe realised it. But he was also being unreasonable andshe resented that.

“I should say we almost certainly have very little incommon,” she returned with sudden spirit, “and what littlewe have won’t be cultivated by me once we have had thetalk I mentioned just now, I can assure you, Sir Angus. Butyou must have some sort of rationality about you, and ifyou’re nursing a grievance because you believe that youruncle had an affair with a girl of my age while he was lying illin a cottage, then it’s high time you had it pointed out to youthat you must be mad.”

“Thank you.” He smiled tightly. “You can’t have heard of Mayand December . . . They attract one another, you know. Andwe must assume that my uncle wasn’t always lying ill in acottage.” “For the short time I knew him he was ill.”

“And inside the cottage? Who was it tucked him up at nightand made him hot drinks, and generally nursed him back tohealth with beef tea and womanly tenderness? So muchwomanly tenderness that he would have married you if hecould, and if the neighbours wouldn’t have thought it oddwhen he tottered up the aisle leaning on a stick!”

For a moment her mouth dropped open, and she stared athim. And then with cheeks flaming and biting her lower lipshe turned away abruptly and walked back to the drawing-room.

Sir Angus followed.

“Did I hear you playing the piano just now?” he enquiredconversationally, as she took up her position in front of thefireplace, hands straight down at her sides and chin a littlein the air, as if she was preparing herself for battle.

“No. I can’t play the piano.” “Then you were making a verypleasant noise.” He strolled over to the instrument himselfand started to strum on it idly... incidentally, also making avery pleasant noise. Then he glanced at her over hisshoulder, and she could tell by the gleam in his eye thatsomething provocative was

coming.

“I see you’ve improved your style of dressing. Must havespent quite a bit of old Angus’s carefully hoarded money ...

And I must say that new hair-do suits you!”

He leant back against the piano, and his blue eyes blazedwith insolence.

“Sir Angus—” she found it difficult to enunciate clearly, butthis was a business that had to be concluded as rapidly aspossible, “how much money do you want to leave me alonefor the rest of my life, and if possible never to come nearme again? You know how much your uncle left, and youknow how much I received... According to the will I can’t justhand it all over to you and the other members of your family,because your uncle didn’t want that to happen, apparently,and if I decline to be his leading beneficiary everythinggoes elsewhere. Some society for the preservation ofancient dialects. ” “I know all about that.”

“Then how much will you take?”

The blue eyes positively glittered. His jaw was as hard asiron. “You mean you’re prepared to buy me out? To buyyour way into the good graces of the Giffard family, shall wesay?”

“You can say what you like, but all I want to know is howmuch do you want? There’s nothing to stop me having aDeed of Gift drawn up, and that can be large enough tomake some sort of provision for your aunt and your cousin. Iunderstand that they are not destitute, but they probably

expected to benefit under your uncle’s will, so now is thetime to make up to them for any disappointment theyreceived .”

A dull flush was creeping up under his naturally dark—shedecided it was tanned—skin, and for a moment the look inhis eyes frightened her. Her voice died into silence, andbetween them there was silence for several long-drawn-outand extraordinarily tense seconds, after which he spoke ina clipped, curt voice and walked to the window.

“I don’t suppose you mean to be as crude as you sound, butif you were a man I’d give you something to remember yourimpertinence by!” Outside in the square taxis were glidingpast, children were playing in the square gardens, an oldlady was glancing anxiously up at the sky because a fewflakes of snow were falling ... But Tina knew that AngusGiffard saw none of these things, he was so consuminglyangry. He turned on her with a gesture of violence thatcaused her to back slightly. “If you were even a few yearsyounger I’d put you across my knee and give you thethrashing you deserve...” His voice was muffled. “And I don’tsuppose you ever received!”

Tina had come up against the hard edge of the marblemantelpiece, and she could retreat no further. But hercheeks had turned quite a degree paler, because never inher life had she encountered anything like this man’s badlysuppressed fury...

And the thought that if he failed to suppress it she was onlyfive feet two inches tall, and he was over six feet, and therewas no one else in the house to come between them,alarmed her all at once.

“It was not my intention to offend you,” she said.

He swallowed his wrath.

“No, I don’t suppose it was . . . But take my advice, andnever try anything out on me like that again! If you do, you’llregret it. Or I shall!” His lips twisted in a mixture of wrynessand slow-dying fury that he sought to disguise as a smile,and a little of the dull red receded behind his skin. “Let megive you a piece of advice. You’ve come into quite a lot ofmoney and a number of possessions that you possiblynever dreamed would one day be yours. Well, enjoy them!Have a good time on the strength of your ill-gotten gains, ifyou’ll forgive me for putting it in that way, and try not tobump into me more often than you need. That’s all I ask!”

He turned away, and she realised that in a few short strideshe would have reached the door, but she halted hisprogress.

“Sir Angus!”

“Yes?”

He didn’t even turn his head, but she knew that his squarejaw was squarer than ever.

“What about the clock? You said you would like it. At leastallow me to make you a present of it!”

At that he removed his note-case from his pocket, took outa card which he flung down on an occasional table, andaccepted the gift in the spirit that it was offered.

“Very well. You can have it sent to my flat. My address is onmy card.”

No word of thanks, or even appreciation. But sheexperienced a curious sensation of relief because hehadn’t actually flung the clock at her.

“Goodbye, Sir Angus.” He failed to reply, and a brief whilelater she heard the front door slam as he left the house, andthen the noise of a taxi driving away from the front of thehouse. She ventured to desert the support of the marblemantelpiece behind her, and was not altogether surprisedwhen she found herself trembling as she stood in themiddle of the room and drew a deep breath that alsoseemed to be a little shaky. She put out one of her handsand looked at it, and the fact that they were trembling, too,did seem to surprise her.

“I must have put things rather badly,” she murmured toherself, and then decided all at once that the house was

very empty and she

didn’t like being alone in it any longer, and she picked upher gloves and handbag and let herself hurriedly out into thestreet.

It really was beginning to snow... the bare trees in thesquare were becoming quite white with it, and a bitter windthat seemed to be blowing straight from the arctic wasscattering the flakes so that they resembled a minaturewhirlwind. Tina bent her head against it, and with her newthick tweed coat buttoned well up against the cold shehastened along without quite realising where she wasgoing— or why, if it came to that—and collided with a manwho was also wearing a thick tweed coat buttoned well upagainst the weather, and heard a voice that was vaguelyfamiliar saying apologetically: “I’m afraid I nearly knockedyou off your feet!” His arm was supporting her, and he waslooking down at her in dark-eyed concern. “Why, it’s MissAndrews. Miss Tina Andrews!” His voice sounded pleasantas well as surprised, and if she had been capable ofdetecting it just then it even held a pleased note. “What areyou doing so far from your bleak north country? Not thatLondon has anything much better in the way of weather tooffer at the moment, I’m afraid!” And then, as if he wassuddenly inspired: “Of course, you’ve been to look at thehouse!”

She put back her head to look up at him, and the snow that

had already collected on her feathery gold curls lent her afairytale appearance.

“Dr. Giffard!” she gasped, in relief. “I’m so pleased to seeyou.” And she was, after her recent interview with hiscousin, for Alaine Giffard had been her one support in timeof trouble only a couple of weeks before. “Were you on yourway to the house, too? Sir Angus has just been there!”

She felt that he was immediately enlightened, andunderstood the reason why she had been hurrying along asif temporarily demented. His arm was still lightlyencompassing her shoulders, and he glanced around himand then up at the sky full of snow.

“I wasn’t on my way to the house... I was on my way to myclub, which is only a short distance from here. I was thinkingabout lunch. Do you think you could be induced to thinkabout it too?” “You mean, will I have lunch with you?”

His white teeth gleamed.

“Exactly. Will you have lunch with me? I’d be very glad if youwould.”

“You really mean that?”

For an instant the dark eyes registered surprise, and thenthey softened until they were almost gentle.

“Of course I mean it. I want to hear all about your doings.How you like London, and so forth. How you got on with oldJasper—I won’t ask you a word about Angus!”

The promise plainly comforted her, for her wholeexpression betrayed relief—in fact, profound relief.

“I don’t like him,” she said jerkily, “and he doesn’t like me.But I’d love to have lunch with you!”

CHAPTER FIVE WITHIN a few minutes they were in a taxi,and driving the rest of the way to his club. It was the firsttime in her life that Tina had been invited to have lunch witha man of Dr. Giffard’s eminence— or with a man as wellturned out, and who looked as attractive as he did. Whenshe glanced rather shyly sideways at him from time to timeshe realised that he was really exceptionally good-looking,and a little thrill not unlike excitement swept through herbecause, having accepted his invitation, she didn’t have tofeel ashamed of her own appearance, because she, too,was particularly well dressed. Just before the taxi reachedits destination Giffard’s eyes rested on her approvingly, andhe commented:

“I see you haven’t been confining your visit to London whollyto business. You’ve been doing some shopping.”

“Yes.” The dark blue eyes enquired candidly whether heapproved of her taste or not. “It was wonderful, buying new

clothes. I never knew it could be such a thrill.”

“You mean you never had the opportunity to find out?”

She nodded her head, soberly.

“A new coat once a year... Perhaps a couple of newdresses. Usually I make them myself. It’s cheaper to buy thematerial, and you get better value.” She coloured withsudden selfconsciousness. “At least, I think you get bettervalue... Or you do if you’re clever and can copy some of themodel clothes. I’m not always successful because I’m notfrightfully clever, but at least it’s fun trying.”

His eyes were watching her as if he were amused.

“But from now on you won’t even have to try,” he remindedher. “So I hope you’ll find your fun elsewhere.”

They had arrived at his club, and she felt temporarily shyagain as the somewhat sombre portals received them. Butonce inside the atmosphere of relaxed comfort and easebrought back the pleasant feeling of excitement she hadexperienced when he asked her to lunch with him. Therewas no orchestra playing lunch-time music,

or even a large number of other women present, or flowerson the tables, but the sparkling silver and magnificentdamask, the fine oak panelling and red leather chairstogether suggested a highly civilised way of life, and above

all the smell of excellent roasts made Tina realise all atonce that she was very hungry.

After the cold outside the warmth lapped her about like acomforting extra garment, and as Dr. Giffard insisted thatshe drank a sherry before her meal she was soon aware ofthe remaining shreds of her shyness floating away. She hadnever really felt acutely shy in the presence of the dark,distinguished-looking doctor, and after the death of oldAngus, when he had taken her back to her schoolhouse, hehad made such an effort to be nice to her that she had feltinstinctively he was fundamentally nice. No doubt he felt hehad a good deal to make up to her since she had receivedunmistakably cavalier treatment—even rather appallingtreatment!—from his cousin Angus, and he had actuallyapologised for Angus during the journey in the car. He hadasked her to overlook his rudeness because he wasprobably tired and hadn’t quite realised what he wassaying, but Tina knew that the new baronet had beenperfectly well aware of all that he was saying,.. and herexperience that morning had confirmed her in her opinionof Angus.

Alaine could tell by the rather thoughtful look in her eyes thatshe wasn’t wholly at her ease with him yet, and he leanedacross the table and looked at her earnestly.

“If it’s my cousin you’re thinking about, forget him” headvised. “I don’t know what he was doing in your house this

morning, but he hadn’t any right to be there. You could haveordered him out, you know.”

She smiled a little wryly.

“When you say „my’ house, you know that Angus doesn’tthink of it as my house. He was there to wind up a clockwhich stands in the hall, and which he apparently prizes. Itold him he could have it.” The doctor’s eyebrows rose.

“That was generous of you,” he remarked—she couldn’t beentirely certain whether it was without a hint of sarcasm.

She looked him steadily in the eyes, while the fragrance ofhot turtle soup rose between them.

“Don’t be silly, Doctor. You know very well it was the veryleast I could do to offer it to him!” she said quietly. “As amatter of fact, when I discovered he was in the house Iseized the opportunity to offer him a good deal more thanthe grandfather clock... But he

refused with so much emphasis that I realised I’d offendedhim badly. In fact, I thought he was going to tear me apartwith his bare hands for behaving with so muchimpertinence!”

“Indeed?” Alaine said, frowning quickly. “What exactly doyou mean by that? And what exactly did you offer him?”

She answered the last part of his question first.

“I offered him a sum of money. I asked him how much hewanted to leave me alone, and never, if possible, comeanywhere near me. I realise now that I put it a little badly, butI discussed the matter with Mr. Jasper and he said therewas no way in which the will could be rescinded, or in whichI could be discounted now that I’m an actual beneficiary—unless I refuse to accept the benefits, in which case theentire estate will go elsewhere—so I made up my mind todiscuss the matter with Angus when I saw him, and get himto suggest some fair division of the property. But he flewinto such a rage I really was quite alarmed for a fewmoments.”

“That was why you were scurrying along like a badlyfrightened rabbit when I caught sight of you outside thehouse?” Dr. Giffard suggested, watching her with theremnants of a frown between his brows. “I couldn’t think whyyou had such an air of trying to escape from something orother.”

She smiled wryly.

“I suppose you know that Angus has a deadful temper... Isuppose I should say Sir Angus? But although he regardsme as some type of adventuress the world would be betterwithout I can’t honestly think that he has any real cause toso dislike me. Any justification for disliking me, I mean. If

Sir Angus had been really fond of his relatives surely hewouldn’t have passed them over in his will? Just becausehe met me! I mean, it isn’t reasonable.”

And then she flushed because she realised that he was oneof Sir Angus’s relatives, and he also had been passed over—because of her!

She leaned towards him earnestly.

“You don’t believe that there was anything between thatpoor old man and myself that wasn’t just casual friendship—really casual friendship—do you ?” she implored, as if itwas important to her to know what he really thought of her.

As the waiter had just served them with their second courseand left them alone in their cosy corner, he leaned acrossand gave her fingers not a slight squeeze but a firm, hardgrasp.

“Of course I don’t,” he answered at once, without thesmallest hesitation. His eyes dwelt upon the soft, featherygold hair, so

beautifully cut now and gleaming in the subdued light of theclub dining-room, and at the delicate, earnest, almostexquisite face below it, and suddenly he smiled at herwarmly. “And you can take it from me that Angus doesn’treally believe anything of the kind, either. It so happens thathe’s annoyed... badly annoyed because our uncle offered

rather a nasty slight to the family when he decided to leaveeverything he possessed to you. Angus got the title, but heregards that as an empty thing when nothing else goes withit.”

“But he isn’t poor, is he? I mean... Did he need anythingelse?” Alaine looked amused.

“Have you ever met anyone who wouldn’t be happy toreceive more than they need? Angus should be quitecomfortably off, but I don’t know much about his financialconcerns.”

“Mr. Jasper assured me that neither he nor your Aunt Clare,or your cousin Juliet, need very much.” The doctorshrugged, his smile altering very slightly. To Tina thequizzical gleam in his eyes betrayed the fact that he wasslightly surprised by Mr, Jasper’s communicativeness.

“Then that leaves you, doesn’t it?” she said quietly. Thequizzical gleam temporarily confused her. “You can take itfrom me that I’m not starving, either,” he assured her. “And,in any case, I was never

a favourite of Uncle Angus.”

“But your cousin Angus was?”

“At one time. I believe the old boy was quite attached to himat one period of his life, but they fell out because they were

much too like one another, and old Angus was just as liableto fly off the handle as young Angus unfortunately is. IfAngus had toed the line there’s no doubt about it, my unclewould have left him everything when he died, but I don’timagine Aunt Clare would have got anything, or Juliet,either. There was no family feeling between them and oldAngus.”

“Then you don’t think I ought to offer them something?Suggest that I make something over to them, I mean,” sheamended the somewhat awkward phrase hurriedly. “I’d feelhappier,” she assured him candidly, “if I did.”

But Alaine shook his head at her, and after they hadconsulted the menu to decide their sweet urged herseriously not to make any more overtures to Angus, and ifpossible to avoid him whenever she saw him coming.

“I don’t mean that he’d ever be violent to you, but he has aflaming temper and a devilish lot of pride, and it doesn’t doanyone any good to get on the wrong side of him.Unfortunately, it was inevitable that you’d be on the wrongside of him, so make up your mind that there’s nothing thatcan be done about it, and treat him as you would a stick ofdynamite. Remember that it has a nasty habit of explodingsuddenly, and so has Angus. When he marries, his wife willhave an outsize job keeping him in a good humour.

“Is he likely to be married soon?” Tina asked, finding it

difficult to associate the red-headed, bleak-eyed Anguswith the softer sentiments like love and marriage. Alaineshrugged.

“So far as we know he isn’t even engaged yet. But there’salways the possibility that he might be one day. Julietseems to think it could happen at any time.

“Oh! Then there is... someone?”

Again Alaine shrugged.

“According to Juliet, yes.

Tina watched him as he lighted a cigarette and a waiterbrought their coffee, and during the temporary lull in theconversation she wondered whether there was anyoneimportant in his life, and whether he might, or might not, becontemplating matrimony. He was so darkly attractive thathe must appeal to a good many women, and then, inaddition, he was a doctor—and doctors always seem tomake a tremendous impact on the imagination of thewomen with whom they come into contact.

Tina was unaware that her eyes were growing verythoughtful as they remained fixed on Alaine, and it was onlywhen he smiled a little quizzically and one of his eyebrowselevated itself that she realised what she was doing. Sheflushed and looked away hurriedly, and then said quickly:

You know, I’ve never asked you... Have you a practice inLondon ?”

“Yes, but it’s not a fashionable practice, if that’s what youwere expecting. In fact, it’s rather unfashionable, in the dockarea. But I enjoy living amongst my patients, and one day I’llretire to the country and set up a practice there, when I growtired of my toughs.”

“Are they so very tough?”

“Some of them. Most of them, not a bit.”

“You look to me as if you ought to have a consulting-room inHarley Street,” she admitted.

He inclined his sleek dark head.

“Thank you, Miss Andrews. But I don’t know - whether tofeel flattered or otherwise.”

“I suppose, if you had a wife...” she began, diffidently, andhe

threw back his head and laughed.

“I was wondering when you were coming to that,” he toldher. “All women have to know whether the men of theiracquaintance are married or otherwise, if only, I suppose,so that they can do something about the omission if the

victim hasn’t already been caught. But I’m very much afraidI’m not the marrying kind, so don’t waste any of yourenergies on me. Content yourself with hoping that a womanwill one day soften up Angus. And now tell me what youpropose to do with your life now that you’re a rich woman?You can’t go on being a schoolmistress with your * •>income.”

“No, I suppose not,” she agreed, a little doubtfully, however.“But I like teaching—which means, of course, that I likechildren— and I’ve got to have something to do.”

“You could marry,” he suggested, “since we’re on thesubject of marriage. Then you could have children of yourown.”

“Yes.” But she was not prepared to discuss her ownmarriage aspirations with him since he had quite definitelysnubbed her where his own were concerned —andapparently he hadn’t any. “But that’s something in the future,and what I have to plan for is the present. I haven’t yetasked to be released from my job at Stoke Moreton.”

“But you will,” he predicted.

She lifted slender shoulders.

“Perhaps. I’d like to do something useful with my life... I waswondering whether the house in Cheviot Square might beput to some purpose that would benefit someone. Perhaps

a lot of people. It's far too big to be lived in as an ordinaryhouse, and yet it has possibilities.”

“I’ve often thought so myself,” he admitted. “In fact, at onetime I thought of trying to persuade Uncle Angus to let mehave it for a nursing-home.” Her eyes brightened.

“That’s a good idea. Or a children’s home. “There we goagain!” He laughed. “You really will have to marry, youknow... And fairly soon, I would say! You seem to me tohave the ideal oudook for * •> marriage.”

As she didn’t reply he leant across the table and gentlypatted one of her hands that was resting on the tablecloth.He spoke apologetically.

“I’m sorry if you thought I was rude just now when I refusedto discuss my own ideas on marriage. If anything, they’rethe ideas of a perfectionist... an idea! I don’t think I’d like torisk it!”

They looked at one another across the table. It was true,she thought, he had the slightly ascetic lines of an idealist inevery contour of his face—and it was a good .face, a strongface. The eyes were a trifle brooding, but they would alwaysinspire confidence.

And she knew now why she had not hesitated to go withhim, a complete stranger, that night when he arrived at theschoolhouse to take her to old Angus.

CHAPTER SIX

THERE was the question of Giffard’s Prior. The realisationgradually sank in that it was hers now, and Tina began totoy with the idea of returning to the north country and atleast visiting it again. She supposed she had every right tostay there now, and the staff would have to be given someinformation about her intentions, and it would be up to themto stay on or hand in their notices as they thought fit.

Alaine, with whom she had dinner one night only a few daysafter she had lunched with him, advised her to make thereturn journey to the north, and he also advised her stronglyto stay at Giffard’s Prior. If she didn’t do so the house wouldbe without either a master or a mistress, and old Angushad neglected it badly enough when he was alive. The factthat the various members of the staff had remainedextraordinarily devoted to him, and had carried onadmirably during his constant absences, was certainindication that he, at least, had been a good master tothem, and he would expect Tina to carry on the tradition andbe a good mistress.

Besides, Alaine urged, she had to live somewhere, andwith a house like Giffard’s Prior why even think about livingsomewhere else? She couldn’t deceive herself about herpossessions... she was a very wealthy young woman, andthe sooner she got used to the fact the better.

Tina was inclined to look upon Dr. Giffard as a fount ofwisdom—in the short time she had known him he hadimpressed her strongly as utterly reliable. And she wasquite sure he didn’t resent her benefiting financially at theexpense of himself. Also, apart from Mr. Jasper, there wasno one else to advise her... And Mr. Jasper was too urbaneand pompous to be easily approachable. He said, ‘Yes,yes, of course,’ whenever she voiced any doubts, and wasincreasingly surprised because she was so unwilling toaccept the fact that she was financially secure, and hadreally nothing to worry about at all.

Indeed, she was very, very fortunate.

Dr. Giffard, on the other hand, could understand the reasonwhy she could not work herself up into a state of excitementover her new possessions... although it wasn’t because shewasn’t secretly thrilled and amazed whenever she allowedherself to dwell on them. And Dr. Giffard’s advice nevervaried.

“Have a good time... I don’t suppose you’ve ever reallyknown what it is to have a good time,” he said, for she hadconfided to him that she had been an orphan since her veryearliest years, and the grim old aunt who had brought herup was not the kind to approve of young people enjoyinglife very much. On the contrary, life had to be looked uponas a very demanding and serious business indeed, and thefrivolous pursuit of pleasure was violently frowned upon in

her house.

Hence the reason why Tina’s jewel-blue eyes had ashadowed look in them sometimes that disagreed with thedelicate, flowerlike youthfulness of her general appearance.

“I don’t think you’ve ever known what it is to have fun,”Alaine remarked, somewhat abruptly, on the secondoccasion when they dined together. “Old Angus probablyrealised that, and it struck him that here was a splendidopportunity to put right something that he regarded as anomission. A young girl living the lonely life that you wereliving, bothering to look after him when he was ill... Howinfinitely more worthy you were to inherit what he had toleave than anyone else he knew! So, although he couldn’thave been feeling too good at the time, he got in touch withhis lawyers and had a fresh will drawn up. He left youeverything, and he wanted you to enjoy it.”

Tina was watching him with wide open, interested eyes.

“And you think he meant me to live at Giffard’s Prior, and togive up teaching and that sort of thing?”

“Of course.”

“I remember he said I was too young to be responsible foryoung children, who needed lots of discipline. Herecommended hearty spankings, which of course Idisagree with. There were occasions when I read to him out

of the newspapers that he said I was too solemn. Do I looksolemn?” An expression that was vaguely anxious flittedacross her face.

Dr. Giffard reassured her on this point, but he added that inanother twenty years—if she had gone on teaching in herremote schoolhouse, with nothing but a few books and awireless set for company in the long, lonely evenings, andapparently hardly any-

thing in the nature of adult companionship—she wouldalmost certainly have worn an extremely, solemnexpression.

“So look upon old Angus as someone who came along atprecisely the right moment to prevent that happening, andshow some appreciation of your good fortune by reallybeing young. Buy more clothes, all the things you’ve alwayswanted and never thought you’d have, a car—”

“I couldn’t drive a car.”

“No, but you could learn. In the meantime you could havesomeone to drive you.”

“A chauffeur?”

“Why not? You’ve got to get about, and it’s inconvenient todepend upon taxis and trains. There’s no reason why youshouldn’t return to Giffard’s Prior in your own car, or at least

have one delivered to you once you’ve returned there. If youlike, I’ll take you round the showrooms myself. In fact, I thinkI know of a man who could provide you with what you wantwithout any unnecessary delays.”

“Could you ?”

She was suddenly excited by the thought of possessing acar of her own—even more excited than she had been bythe opportunity to buy new clothes. She admitted that shehad often longed to possess a little car at isolated StokeMoreton, where dependence on a bus was often mostinconvenient.

“Well, drive up to your schoolhouse in something new andshining, and give your old pupils a treat,” Alainerecommended. “What about tomorrow morning? I think Ican manage an hour before lunch— perhaps a couple ofhours. I’ll pick you up at your hotel.”

So, the following morning, they drove up to a very imposingand well patronised car showroom in Dr. Giffard’s car, andhe introduced her to the man he trusted to find her just whatshe was looking for. Tina was a little alarmed when he lefther to make her decision without his assistance, but sherealised that being a doctor he was pressed for time, andthe young man he had handed her over to seemedextraordinarily helpful. He thought he knew exactly what shewanted, and produced it, as it were, out of a hat.

A sleek grey Bentley, not in the least ostentatious, butenough to make anyone’s eyes pop who knew anything atall about this make of car. And anyone who had known TinaAndrews a month or so before, and was suddenly given tounderstand that she was the owner of it, would almostcertainly have his eyes start right out of

his (or her) head when the information was passed on.

Tina herself felt a hysterical desire to laugh when sheremembered little Johnny Gains, and wondered how hewould react if she drove up to his cottage in her brand newpossession and asked him whether he would like her totake him for a drive on the moor. Johnny’s mouth wouldalmost certainly drop wide open, allowing her to see hisbroken front teeth, and his eyes would grow as round asmarbles.

“Your car? ” he would gasp. “But you can’t possibly own acar like that! You’re the teacher!”

And his mother would look suddenly faintly alarmed, realiseall at once that Miss Andrews was no longer the MissAndrews with whom she had once been quite familiar, andshe would probably pull Johnny inside the cottage and tellhim not to be rude to the lady.

But the thought of taking Johnny—as well as a few of theother children—for trips into Murchester, the nearest town

to Stoke Moreton, and buying them sweets and anythingelse they fancied in her own car was the thought thatsuddenly decided her to buy the car. Not to hesitate anylonger.

She pulled out her cheque-book shyly, and then felt slightlyfaint when she had written the cheque. Would Mr. Jasper,and her bank manager, have a joint fit? She was soalarmed about this later on that she telephoned her solicitorand told him what she had done, and was immenselyrelieved when he laughed and said genially: “Having a realspending spree, are you? Well, go ahead and enjoyyourself! The estate will stand the strain!”

Having acquired the car she had to have someone to driveit. Even if she started taking lessons in driving straight awayshe couldn’t possibly take over the controls of the Bentleyuntil she was reasonably proficient, and she wanted toleave for Stoke Moreton in a few days’ time.

The young man who had sold her the car gave her thename of an agency where she could almost certainly obtaina competent chauffeur with little or no difficulty—especiallyif she mentioned the name of the showrooms where shehad just obtained the car. And she set off immediately afterlunch to be interviewed by another plausible young man inan office crowded with temporarily disengaged domesticstaff.

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

Tina had never seen any member of her own sex quite aselegant as was this young woman, and certainly no onewho was quite as assured. She and Sir Angus werediscussing a party they had apparently both been to thenight before, and their clear laughter rang out a triflehollowly and mockingly in the taut atmosphere of theagency.

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

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

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

“Good afternoon, Miss Andrews,” he said. He introducedhis companion. “Kathryn, this is Miss Clementina Andrews,whom my late uncle thought so highly of that he left hereverything he possessed! Except his title, of course, whichunfortunately came my way ... It would have suited Alainemuch better! Miss Andrews, this is Miss Kathryn Gaylord.”

“How do you do,” said Miss Gaylord, staring hard but noteven offering her hand.

“She does very well indeed,” Angus spoke for her. “Andshe’s obviously here to pick up some staff. What are youlooking for, Miss Andrews?” he enquired insolently. “Apersonal maid?” with his eyes on the chic little suit beneathher beautifully tailored coat.

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

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

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

“How extraordinary,” Miss Gaylord murmured drawlingly,and then she tittered slightly. “It really is extraordinary, isn’tit?”

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

Then he turned back to Tina.

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

CHAPTER SEVEN IT was a very exclusive tea-shop, and itwasn't exactly round the corner. They took a taxi to it, andby the time she was seated behind a teapot pouring out teafor the man she had come to look upon as her declaredenemy, Tina was beginning to wonder why she had beenso easily persuaded. Perhaps it wasn’t so much that shehad been persuaded, but that a stronger will than hers hadmore 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 withhim 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 offa couple of fairy cakes, he removed the scales from hereyes and filled her with astonishment.

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

“What!” she exclaimed.

“I’ve just said that I’ll be your chauffeur.” He took a slim goldcigarette 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 afancy to you. He loathed and abominated any woman whosmoked, drank, or painted her toenails. I’ll admit I don’tmuch care for the painted toenails myself... But you can’texpect a girl to be an entire prude. Now, what sort of a carhave you bought?”

“A Bentley,” she returned, rather faintly. “But you can’texpect 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 downto the bread-line, but I do have expensive tastes...” Thearoma of his choicely blended cigarette convinced her ofthat. “There is, also, another reason why I should likesomeone to employ me for a while, at least. The youngwoman I introduced you to just now— that gorgeous

woman I introduced you to just now— that gorgeouscreature, Kathryn! —plans to marry me one day (or I plan tomarry her!); but her father won’t hear of it unless can proveto him that I’m not unemployable. He’s one of the nouveauriche... A supermarket Baron inclined to look down on ane’er-do-well like myself. Titles simply don’t attract him... Atleast, that’s what he pretends.”

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

“And you believe every word that old humbug says to you, isthat it?” with a steel-edged glance of withering contempt.“Well, you offered to share your ill-gotten gains with me, soat least you didn’t listen to his advice. But the subject of myincome—or lack of it—is not the subject under discussion.I’ve just told you I need a job. Something honest anduncomplicated and unspectacular, preferably involving theuse of a pair of hands.” He extended his own for her to see,and she was struck by their virile strength and a certainobvious 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 cleanlicence. So clean that I’m almost proud of it myself. Now,how much will you pay me a week, and when will you takeme on ?”

If he expected her to argue the matter further, or to displaysymptoms of being completely overwhelmed by the thoughtof having anyone as distinguished-looking as himself—anda real live baronet into the bargain—for a chauffeur, he was

disappointed. Her initial surprise over, she regarded himsideways with a kind of unconcealed and astonisheddisgust.

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

He seemed surprised.

“I could, but I never thought of the matter before ... notseriously.” He studied her with a kind of interest, in whichwas a dark blue-eyed disdain. “I suppose I might havestudied engineering, or become a doctor or lawyer, like oldJasper; only I hope I wouldn’t have been as unscrupulous ashe is! Or I might have embraced the Army or the Navy...We’re a naval family, by the way, when we go in for anythingalong those lines! Or wondered how the church might havebenefited if I’d considered that seriously! But somehow Ijust drifted ... the idle playboy, brought up short all at onceby a plebeian futlire father-in-law and his uncomfortableideas about honest toil. So you see, all I can do now isdrive you, or someone like you, about for a few months—”

“At the end of which time, having gained Mr. Gaylord’sconsent to your marriage, you’d revert to your previous wayof 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-lawwould make me. Together with the various odds and endsof income I can boast of on my own account.”

She gazed at him shrewdly.

“I suspect that those odds and ends are notinconsiderable,” she told him.

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

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

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

“Here,” he said suddenly, pushing the cakes towards her,“you’re not eating anything. Don’t bother about the bill,” withdryness, “I’ll pay for this little lot. You won’t even have todeduct 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 achauffeur?” The steely blue eyes were watching her closelyand the feathery gold ends of hair that caressed hercheeks, and fell softly over the fur collar of her coat. “I thinkyou owe it to me, Miss Andrews,” he told her, the steel inhis voice as well as in his eyes. “You owe it to me becausebut for you I could have taken my bride to Giffard’s Prioronce I married her, and we could have started our marriedlife there. You owe it to me because I was bom and broughtup at Giffard’s Prior, and now it’s not even in the family...”

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

“So it’s Giffard’s Prior that is upsetting you, is that it?” shesaid. “You resent the fact that it’s now mine? Well, you canhave it!”

Instantly his eyes warned her.

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

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

“Do you really want the job?”

“Of course.”

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

He saw her bite her lip rather hard.

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

Once again she bit her lip.

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

Very close to her slim shoulder his eyes gleameddangerously ... menacingly. On the whole, it was just as wellthat 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-fewdays, and staying at Giffard’s Prior. You will drive me there.

I don’t know what sort of accommodation you’ll expect, butthere must be chauffeur’s quarters ...”

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

“I haven’t yet received my car keys, but you can collect themfrom Aiden, Crawley and Bentinck. As the car will be yourconcern 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 onto them?” “Dr. Giffard,” she admitted.

“I might have known it,” he murmured. "Alaine has taken youunder his wing... So like Alaine! I wonder whether you’regoing to have the same effect on him that you had on poorold 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 herpurse and placed a tip on the table for the waitress, andthen called for the bill. After which she

turned to him and spoke decisively,

“Let us understand one another,” she said clearly andcoldly. “I have agreed to employ you for some deviouspurpose of your own, but if you behave in such a mannerthat I find it impossible to continue the arrangement I shan’thesitate to sack you and terminate the arrangement.

Remarks such as the one you have just made will comebeneath the heading of impossible behaviour, so I shouldadvise you—if you really wish to convince Miss Gaylord’sfather that you are capable of earning your own livingshould the emergency arise—to be a little more cautious infuture, and remember that, in future we are employer andemployee.”

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

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

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

“Sir Angus—” and then she corrected herself hastily. “I can’tpossibly 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 impertinencethat made her want to lash out at him.

“Well then, Angus, there’s one thing I want to know. Whatwill 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 quicklyput up her hand and stopped a taxi. She did not offer togive him a lift, and as he watched the taxi glide away theamiable look vanished from his face, and was replaced byone of uncompromising grimness.

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

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

he put forward his unworkable proposition. Alaine mighteven go and see Angus and talk him out of it.

But Alaine, groping for cufflinks even while he wasspeaking into the mouthpiece, apologised for havingabsolutely no time to spare. He was already, late for hisdinner engagement, and the following day he was flying toNorthern Ireland to attend the funeral of his godmother, whohad died suddenly.

“I’m terribly sorry, Tina,” he told her, “but I’ll let you know assoon as I’m back, and in the meantime relax as much aspossible and have a good time spending your money. I’mglad you made your decision about the car. The chap I putyou to telephoned me.... he seems to think you’re avaluable customer. The next thing you’ll have to do is getyourself someone who can drive you.”

“I’ve already done that,” Tina confessed, a little thinly.

“You have? Oh, good! I hope he’s got a clean licence.”

“He says he has,” Tina said.

“And is well recommended?”

“Oh, yes, I should say he’s fairly well recommended ...” “Isuppose you haven’t had time yet to take up hisreferences?” The doctor sounded puzzled.

“No, not yet.”

Well, don’t rush the matter. Take your time. “I will,” Tinapromised, but she was not at all certain what she was totake her time about once she had replaced the receiver. Itseemed that she had already engaged Angus, and hewould most certainly hold her to the terms of theengagement—or become something more than a thorn inher side. There was apparently, no way out. She was stuck

with him!

Unless he did something outrageous, and she could givehim the sack!

She felt desolate and a little disconsolate. It wasextraordinary how she had come to depend on Dr. Giffardin such a short time, and somehow the world seemedempty now that he was temporarily flying away out of herlife... Although only, thankfully, to Northern Ireland!

She decided to skip dinner that night, and had somesandwiches on a tray in her room. Somehow its luxuryoppressed hear. London was no place for a girl on her own—even a wealthy girl. She decided to go north withoutdelay, even if it meant having Angus mocking her with hiscold blue eyes, and saying deliberately unpleasant things.At the worst, she could always retaliate... And somehowshe felt she was getting a little better at that sort of thing.Where Angus was concerned she was not quite so timidand long-suffering as she had been.

CHAPTER EIGHT TINA was even more confident of herability to handle him when they met for the first time asemployer and employee on the day that he was driving herto Giffard’s Prior.

She had issued her instructions to him on the telephone theday before. Alaine was still in Ireland, and she had no word

from him, so she felt she had to be strong in her own right.She said clearly and concisely, from her hotel room, thatshe wished to be collected at ten o’clock the followingmorning, and if possible she wanted to reach StokeMoreton before nightfall.

“That means four o’clock, since it’s dark around then,”Angus returned with suave affability. “You forget that it’searly February, and we’re liable to get stuck in a snowdrift ifit’s snowing in the Midlands— and I believe it is at themoment. However, it’s your car, your risk. I’m completely atyour service!”

“We could always stop for the night somewhere on theroad,” she said rather more diffidently.

“We could. You’ll be footing the bill, and I’m in no hurry.There are one or two very comfortable hotels I can think ofbetween here and Stoke Moreton.”

She wasn’t sure whether he was being helpful or merelymocking her. “Anyway, I want to leave tomorrow.”

“Splendid. Your wishes are my commands— madam!

“You have had a look at the new car?”

“I’ve done better than that. I’ve tried it out. A first-class job,running beautifully. I couldn’t have done better myself if I’dgone out to buy a car.

She refrained from saying anything further, and that nightshe collected her hotel bill and was ready to leave by teno’clock the following morning. She felt a little embarrassedwhen various members of the hotel staff—one of the twosmall page-boys in particular—having been suitablyrewarded by her for any extra attentiveness they had paidher, collected in the vestibule to watch her depart. All hernew cases were stacked ready to be loaded into theBentley when it arrived; and when it finally did arrive shereceived something in the nature of a shock. For Angushad got himself fitted out with a uniform, and it was sosmart that it became him even better than his well-cutSavile Row clothes. It was grey like the car, and the peakedcap drew attention to his dark blue, gleaming eyes.

“I trust I’m on time, madam,” he said, as he slid easily outfrom his seat behind the wheel, and presented himselfbefore her in the vestibule. He clicked his heels smartlytogether, and attempted some form of salute. “I was upbright and early this morning in order not to keep youwaiting. I’m afraid I had rather a late night last night, whichdidn’t make things too easy.”

She felt herself flushing brilliantly. The pages-boy and thehall porter were goggling openly, for this wasn’t the firsttime they had seen Sir Angus Giffard. And Sir AngusGiffard in a uniform was still Sir Angus Giffard, veryimmaculate as to linen and polished as to boots.

“Why in the world have you dressed yourself up like that?”she demanded, in rather an angry whisper.

He looked almost disappointed.

“But I thought I cut rather a pleasing figure. And I’ve got thebill for the whole outfit for you here . . . I didn’t think you’d belikely to have an account at a shop that caters strictly for therequirements of the male sex, so I settled it and dependedupon you to reimburse me. On the whole I think I did somevery economical shopping.”

She declined to so much as glance at the bill, and thrust itinstead away in her handbag. He picked up a couple of thelightest of her suitcases, and the hall porter and hisunderlings saw to the disposal of the rest. The boot of theBentley was very capacious, and it took everything withease. Inside in the car with her she had only her smalldressing-case and a mysterious armful of hot-house rosesthat someone had had delivered to her at the hotel thatmorning.

She had no real idea who it was who had sent them to her,although she strongly suspected Alaine. She was wildlythrilled because, although still far away in Ireland, he hadthought of doing something that would give her pleasure...He could have no idea how much pleasure.

“Nice,” Angus remarked, as he placed the roses on the

seat beside her. She met his dark blue eyes fully, and theywere bright and alert, and even seemed to her to bedancing a little. “Pity they’re not red roses, though... We allknow what red roses mean!”

“Will you please let us get away as quickly as possible,”she requested urgently. “I feel utterly ridiculous having youdrive me like this, when half the hotel must know who youare,”

He shrugged. And then he directed a quick, flashing grin upat the front of the hotel.

“Well, I would hardly say half the hotel . . . But a smallminority perhaps. Do you mind if I stop and make atelephone call on the way out of London ? It’s ratherimportant.”

After he had made his telephone call he returned to the carwith a quietly satisfied look on his face. There was a certainlanguidness about his eyes, almost a melancholy droop tohis lips as he got back into his seat and made a slightpretence of closing the glass partition between them.

“Miss Gaylord,” he murmured. “I always telephone her aboutthis hour of the morning. Helps to get the day really startedfor me. I don’t think I could face it if I didn’t hear her voice,still drugged with sleep, calling me ‘darling’ in those soft,drawling tones of hers. Don’t you think she has an

extraordinarily attractive voice? And that she is, in fact, anextraordinarily attractive young woman? Beautiful . . . Reallya sight for sore eyes! ”

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” Tina remarked, with astiffness she found it impossible to overcome, althoughsomehow it made her seem raw and pretentious. “And inany case, it’s only skin deep.”

“True,” he agreed. “But the average man doesn’t botherabout probing beneath the skin.... I don’t suppose thatfellow who sent you roses got down to the task of trying todiscover what’s going on beneath your skin. He accepted itthat you’ve got a nice, schoolgirl complexion, and left it atthat. In his case I think he was wise.”

Tina’s back pressed rigidly against the seat she wasoccupying and her gloved hands tightened on the smoothcalf of her handbag. A nice, schoolgirl complexion ...Somehow it was hardly a compliment, and yet why in theworld should she expect compliments from him? If he’dknown that she’d pad a second visit to the beauty parlourshe had already visited once before in order to acquire thatmatte and flawless look he so admired in Miss Gaylord hewould probably have laughed aloud. The little schoolmarmdolling herself up and hoping to look like her betters!

Well, thankfully Alaine had noticed what a angularly perfectskin she had, and had commented on it. He had said

something about it reminding him of pale rose-petals... TheDresden pink roses she held in her lap?

Once clear of London, Angus let the car out... not, however,omitting to remember that it was an entirely new car, andthat the surface of the road was not ideal for speeding. Itwas, in fact, rather an icy surface, and the lowering cloudsthat massed above their heads threatened them withsomething more than ice before the day was out

They stopped for lunch at one of the well-run country inns forwhich Angus seemed to have a predilection and as theydrove beneath the arch into the ancient courtyard of the inn—once a famous posting-house—Tina found herselfwondering how she would feel with a liveried chauffeur (herown!) sitting opposite her at the table, and whether theconversation during the meal would be difficult to maintain,or merely a trifle embarrassing. If Sir Angus insisted onbehaving like an over-subservient manservant with a gleamboth of malice and contempt in his eye, the food would behardly enjoyable. She might even feel as if it was inclined tochoke her . . .

But she need not have worried. Sir Angus had alreadydecided upon his course of action once they entered thehotel, and she hardly knew whether to fed relief or a certainamount of surprised vexation when he anounced that hewould have some sandwiches in the bar, and allow her a fullhour in which to enjoy her meal.

She expostulated at once.

“But this is ridiculous! Of course you must have lunch withme—a proper lunch in the dining-room. I absolutely insist!”

But he shook his head regretfully.

“It would be most incorrect. Wouldn’t look right. And, in anycase, I shall prefer my sandwiches in the cosy atmosphereof the bar! You can enjoy your roast chicken, or pork, orbeef, or whatever you fancy without anyone like me to upsetyour digestion, at a suitable corner table in the restaurant. Ifyou like I’ll go ahead and order it for you.”

“You’ll do nothing of the kind. And I think you’re merelybeing awkward—”

He was standing holding open the car door, and heshivered in an exaggerated fashion as the icy cold windwhistled past his ears.

“There’s a magnificent fire in the bar,” he informed her,glancing in through the window. “I shall probably discoversome pleasant company, too. Do you mind getting out, andI can lock the car doors ?”

“For two pins I’d stay where I am” she said, between closedteeth.

He shrugged.

“As you please of course. But it will look rather silly, won’tit? The lady in the car, the chauffeur in the bar.”

“If I order you to drive on you’ll have to,” she told himtriumphantly.

But he disabused her of any such notion.

“Oh, no, dear lady ... dear Miss Andrews! You haveentrusted me with the task of getting you to Stoke Moreton,and I couldn’t

possibly drive on in this weather without refuelling my innerman. And if you don’t want to create a kind of minorcommotion you’ll get out and walk with the dignified graceof a lady of means into the hotel proper,” he urged her, withsudden sharpness. “There are one or two curious pairs ofeyes watching us from that window behind us!”

With the feeling that she had been beaten at the first fence—and bitterly resenting it—she climbed out and walkedstiffly into the hotel.

She could not have told what she had for lunch, for althoughshe was grateful for the sudden warmth and the old-worldcomfort of the hotel dining-room, she was in such a state ofseething rebellion after her conversation outside with hernewly engaged chauffeur that her appetite was nil, and shebarely noticed the dishes as they came and went.

She knew that she eventually arrived at the coffee stage,and by that time a little of her anger had evaporated, andshe even rebuked herself for losing her temper with a manwho would always get the better of her in conversationalwarfare . . . She was so certain of that that she wonderedmore than ever why she had ever allowed herself to bepersuaded to employ him. And, apart from anything else,he was sufficiently a man of the world to be wise in some ofthe things he said, and he had undoubtedly been rightabout her lunching alone. It might have looked odd, andcaused comment afterwards, if she had shared a cornertable in the dining-room with him, when in spite of hismusical-comedy uniform he looked so arrogantly incommand of the situation. And was so strikingly good-looking.

A dear old lady might have shared a table with him, and nocomment would have been made. But not a girl who lookedlike Tina, and had so very recently received an extra polish.

So, on the whole, she felt mildly grateful to him when sheemerged from the hotel, and when he held open the door ofthe car for her—he was already sitting in the car when sheleft the dining-room—she smiled in a very, very faint andforgiving fashion.

“I hope you enjoyed your sandwiches,” she said, as sheallowed him to tuck a rug over her knees.

“Thank you, I did,” he returned. “And the company wasexcellent! I hope you enjoyed your roast beef of OldEngland ?”

Her feathery-brown eyebrows puckered a trifle.

“I can’t even remember whether it was beef,” she admitted.“But I know I had some soup that was very warming.” Sherealised that his eyes were studying her with unusualgravity. “I want to apologise for making something of ascene before I went in to lunch,” she said impulsively.

He answered in a quiet voice that matched his eyes.

“You’d better listen to me in future, if you don’t want to makemistakes,” he advised. “I’m a good ten years older than youare, and I’ve had experience of life and you I would say,have had practically none! And if we’re always to be at warover trifles it will be a little uncomfortable for us both.”

She agreed.

“So long as you don’t deliberately set out to antagonize meyou’ll find that I don’t normally go out of my way to beawkward,” she told him. “But you must admit the situation isunusual.”

“Very,” he agreed, and the dryness of his voice wa

“Very,” he agreed, and the dryness of his voice was adryness that could be felt.

He got back into his seat on the other side of the glasspartition, and once more they were on their way, and oncemore the view from the car windows seemed extremelydepressing to Tina as it slid past. By four o’clock it wasalready dark, and it was snowing in earnest as theycrossed the bleak Derbyshire moors. Tina was perfectlywarm and comfortable in the back of the luxurious car, andthere was a strange sense of security in the small, enclosedspace. But when the fat flakes of snow flattened themselvesagainst the car windows, and perhaps because they werenew the windscreen wipers didn’t seem to function verywell, she began to wonder how much farther they couldproceed without being forced to stop at the first lightedvillage they came to.

Lighted village was not a very apt description of the onethey finally stopped at, for apart from the inn there werehardly any lights at all. The inclement weather had driveneveryone indoors, and curtains were drawn against thewildness of the night outside. The inn, a lonely, lost littleplace, looked as if it would hardly have accommodation fora couple of visitors, but Angus, leaving the warmth of hisdriving compartment and slipping out into the snow,announced bleakly that it was to be hoped they could be putup there because he wouldn’t trust the Bentley on the

treacherous roads ahead in that sort of weather.

“I’d hoped to reach Manchester, or somewhere civilisedlike that, but it seems that we can’t make it. If necessary youcan sit up in the inn parlour all night but I’ve no doubt thelandlady will find a room for you. I’ll have to make my way toa garage, if there is one near. This was hardly the rightseason of the year to make a long * * •> journey in a newcar.”

Tina looked at him anxiously.

“But if there isn’t a garage near, you’ll have to wait till * •>morning... ”

The inn door had opened, and a face looked out at them.Behind the face was bright firelight and lamplight, and Tinawas heartily relieved when she found herself in the heavilybeamed room, with a row of curious faces looking at her astheir owners sat on bench near the fire, and the landlordbawled lustily for his wife. When she came, wiping herhands on an apron, she was obviously considerablysurprised by the sight of a young woman in a fur-trimmedcoat, with snowflakes adhering to her soft fair hair and anexpensive pouch handbag clasped beneath her aim,standing looking hesitantly about her while a liveriedchauffeur who towered above her demanded with a touchof arrogance whether they could be accommodated for thenight.

“Well, as to that, sir, I don’t rightly know,” she began.

And then Tina’s eyes appealed to her, and she realisedthat Tina was shivering, and that she was a very slightyoung woman who huddled her coat around her. With amovement like scattering hens she turned to the locals whowere enjoying the heat of the fire, and in a matter ofseconds a space had been cleared for the girl, and someawkward-looking men were standing and wondering whatto do with their hands and caps, while the landlady saidbriskly that a tray of tea was what was obviously required,and she would bring it in in a matter of minutes.

Sir Angus approached the bar and called for a drink forhimself, but he was not surprised that his employerpreferred tea. He looked at her with one eyebrow raised,and a mildly apologetic gleam in his eyes, and when thelandlady said that she would have a fire lighted in her ownsitting-room for them and that the place would be habitablein about an hour advised her to remain where she was forthe time being and get really warm.

“And I’ll see about getting the Bentley stowed away for thenight” said Angus.

“But can’t you garage it here? Surely they’ve gotsomewhere where you can garage a car?”

He shrugged.

“If they have, it will hardly be suitable. Besides, I’ve told youthat there are one or two things that will have to be put rightbefore we set off again tomorrow.”

“But supposing there isn’t a garage near?” Suddenly shewas appalled by the thought of him wandering about in thedark outside. “This is strange country to you, and you’ll getlost. I insist that you wait until morning.”

He smiled at her a trifle one-sidedly.

“Only a few hours ago you promised to listen to my advice,”he reminded her. “And not to enter into argument! Thelandlord says there’s a garage at the crossroads, only aquarter of a mile away, and I shan’t get lost finding my waythere, or finding my way back without the car! Now, be agood girl and drink your tea, and order somethingsubstantial in the way of a dinner for us for when I get back,”he concluded lazily, but firmly.

She watched him go with larger apprehensive eyes, andwhen the landlady informed her that the sitting-room wasready for her, and she had to leave the company of somany sturdy but perfectly polite yokels who provided herwith a sensation of security in such an unfamiliar andisolated spot, she deserted the comfort of the bar-parlourwith an actual feeling of apprehension dragging at her feet.The sitting-room was full of pot plants and ornaments andfaded lithographs, and smelled of damp, and although the

fire was burning brightly it hardly warmed her heart, and shefelt terribly alone once the landlady had left the room.

She had ordered roast chicken and all the usual trimmingsfor dinner for herself and Angus, but sitting in the silentroom with the thin whine of the wind and the falling snowoutside it seemed to her that the moment when she andAngus would sit down to it was as remote from her as thestars.

Angus was wandering somewhere out in the wild, unfriendlynight, and if he took a wrong turning on his way back fromthe garage she might never see him again. The thoughtappalled her . . . Angus—Sir Angus Giffard—with his darkred hair and his flaming blue eyes, his square jaw and hiscruel mouth, lost somewhere on the lonely Derbyshiremoors. Without so much as a torch to guide his footsteps,so far as she knew. And herself sitting waiting, perhaps forhours . . .

When she caught the sound of his voice in the narrow halloutside the sitting-room door her relief was so great thatshe sprang up and snatched it open with one spontaneousmovement, and when Angus entered the room, covered insnow like a snowman, she was ready practically to hurlherself at him and grab him.

“Oh, I’m so glad you’re back! I’m so glad- ”

Her voice died away, and he gazed at her with someastonishment. The lamp was burning brightly, and he couldsee that the relieved colour was actually flooding hercheeks, and her eyes were aglow.

“I was terrified that you would lose your way, and mightnever come back!”

“Well, well,” he said softly, and before casting his hat into acorner and walking over to the fire to warm his frozen handshe took hold of her for a moment by both her shoulders. Heshook her gently, but not in the least reprovingly. “Do youknow,” he told her, on a note of whimsicality, “that’s the firsttime in my life, I think,. that anyone has welcomed me souninhibitedly. And with, such obvious sincerity I must begaining in your good opinion,”

He looked back at her from the fire, and his dark blue eyeswere smiling whimsically. She blushed brilliantly. Hepressed the bell on the tables and when the landladyanswered the summons promptly ordered a bottle of wineto be served with their meal. Apparently there was no suchthing as champagne in the inn, but she was certain thelandlord had a few bottles of hock in the cellars.

“Then let us have one up, and serve it with the chicken. Andbefore that we’ll have a couple of sherries if you don’t mindbringing them.”

The landlady disappeared, obviously thinking it quite thething for such an impressive-looking chauffeur to order winewith his meal, and when she had left the room again Tinaspoke to him shyly.

“I think that was a good idea,” she said. “I ought to havethought of it myself.”

He rounded on her. He offered her a cigarette from his goldcigarette-case, and then remembered that she didn’tsmoke.

“I’m afraid we’ll have to have our meal together tonight,” heobserved. “Unless you’d prefer me to sit on one of thosehard settles in the bar.”

“Of course not,” she returned. She was so emphatic that itcaused her to blush again. “And I’m glad you don’t mindhaving your dinner in here with me.” “Well, well!” he saidagain. He threw back his head and laughed. “You do saythe most surprising things, Miss Andrews.” And then headded unexpectedly: “And the nicest! I’m sure no meredomestic was ever invited to take a meal with his employerin such a very nice way before!”

CHAPTER NINE TINA slept well that night. Her bed wascomfortable and the stone hot-water bottle kept her feetwarm.

When she wakened in the morning it was to find that it had

stopped snowing, and the day was reasonably fine. Therewere deep drifts at each side of the narrow moorland road,but the sky had lost the leaden look it had had the daybefore, and there were even a few patches of blue. Therewas a feeling that the sun would shine later in the day, andthe snow would begin to melt.

They had breakfast in the same small parlour where theyhad dined the night before. The landlady brought them eggsand bacon, toast and coffee, and Tina found that she hadan appetite although

Angus was once more his reserved and slightly hostile self.He said that he never took breakfast and drank severalcups of coffee and smoked several cigarettes while shepiled marmalade onto her toast, and plainly surprised himbecause she had apparently no concern at all for her figure.

“You’re not afraid of putting on weight?” he enquired, in acool, bleak tone.

“No.” She smiled at him. Whatever his mood this morningshe was feeling as if everything was working outextraordinarily well— for some reason that she couldn’tunderstand herself. It might have been the return to clean,country air, the fact that she had an appetite, and the factthat the night before he had unbent . . .

She could hardly believe it now, the way they had laughed

and joked. He had told her quite a lot about himself and histravels around the world, and if anyone hadn’t known theywere employer and employee they would have beensurprised to discover their relationship; and if they hadn’tbeen aware that they were enemies they would never havebelieved it possible that basically they thoroughly dislikedone another. They had discussed books, the theatre,modern trends ... even subjects as remote from these aswinter sports, horse racing, the advantages of possessinga flat in Paris.

She had discovered (a) that he was an expert skier, andhad broken more bones pursuing one of his favouritehobbies than many people would have considered wise; (b)that he enjoyed modern drama, but had a weakness forvariety and even old-time music hall; and (c) that he actuallydid possess a flat in Paris, and went to it whenever theopportunity arose and he was not otherwise tied down.

It had struck her as ridiculous that she was employing aman who could afford the rent of a Paris flat, and they hadlaughed together over one of life’s absurdities, and thentoasted themselves in the remains of the bottle of hock thathad been served with the meal.

But this morning, when he asked her in that bored, andslightly peevish, tone whether she wasn’t afraid of puttingon weight she knew that it wasn’t because he wasinterested in her figure but because he ached to be critical

about something. It was almost as if he was feeling viciousthis morning.

“No,” she repeated, “I don’t have to bother about things likethat. If anything, I need to put on weight.”

“Yes, you do, don’t you?” he agreed, a highly critical note inhis voice. “You’re a little bit undersized. Kathryn couldprobably give

you a few tips about that... She studies that sort of thing.Makes a hobby of being beautiful.”

“Which, of course, she is,” Tina remarked quietly.

That seemed to remind him of something, and he said hewould find out where the telephone was. He wandered off,and when he returned he was looking slightly more affable.Tina, on the other hand, was feeling vexed once more—notso much because he had neglected to ask her permissionbefore leaving the room on his own concern, but becauseshe had a fairly shrewd idea why he was looking morehuman. No doubt Miss Gaylord had put him in a sunniertemper, while she still reclined in her bed in her farawayLondon flat.

She bit her lip hard as she rose from the tables andrealised that there was a snap in her voice as she saiddecisively;

“Well, we’d better be getting on our way, hadn’t we? Theredoesn’t seem any point in hanging about here.”

Angus replied with a casual smile.

“Yes, by all means let’s be getting on our way. I’m growing alittle tired of this benighted spot. But no doubt that’sbecause I’ve just been on the line to London!” and his smiledeliberately provoked her. “Awkward when one is forced todwell in one spot and all one’s instincts prompt one to flyback to the delights of another!”

Tina preceded him out to the car, and for the first mile ortwo she said nothing at all. Angus sang lightly above thesoft purr of the engine—running in very sweetly despite thecar’s ill-usage of the day before. And his good humourpractically forced her to remark a trifle acidly at last:

“Of course, you don’t have to force your body to dwell in onespot, while you’re hankering after being in another. Youcould try and convince Miss Gaylord’s father that you’re aworthy suitor for his daughter by trying for some other jobthat would keep you near to her. A job in the supermarket,for instance!”

Angus laughed as if the idea really amused him.

“One day I might be forced into that,” he admitted.

They arrived at Giffard’s Prior in time for lunch, and the

housekeeper came out to greet them. If she was surprised—and she must have been amazed, Tina realised—by thesight of Sir Angus in a chauffeur’s uniform, at the wheel ofthe sleek grey Bentley, she of course refrained fromallowing this surprise to show, and Sir Angus explainedaway the oddness of the situation by saying lightly that hehad decided the time had arrived when he should justify hisexistence by working in a workaday world.

“Like you, Mrs. Appleby,” he said coolly. “You wear very welldespite the fact that you have to work, and I’m sure it won’tdo me any harm to copy your example. Now, shall we getthese cases into the house?”

Tina was sure that the look Mrs. Appleby directed at herwas strongly critical of her for daring to employ a memberof the Giffard family, but as she couldn’t go intoexplanations on the spot—or, indeed, at any time, sinceAngus would have strongly disapproved—she had to put upwith the slight sourness of the glance. The late Sir Angushad employed a butler, but he appeared to have left in thelast few weeks.

“If you think it necessary to take on a manservant we couldget on to the agency in London this afternoon, miss,” Mrs.Appleby suggested, but Tina said at once that she didn’tthink it was in the least necessary to add a manservant totheir staff, and the older woman elevated her eyebrows.

“Well, if you’re unlikely to do very much entertaining, andyou plan to live simply, I suppose it won’t be necessary,”she agreed.

Angus sent her a derisive glance sideways.

“You can always get me to wait at table if you’re stuck, hetold her affably. “There’s not much I don’t know about wines,decanting, and so forth, and it would give me the greatestpleasure to open the door, to a few of my old friends. Theastonishment on their faces would compensate for a gooddeal!”

Tina declined to return even a brief answer to this, but whenthey were in the house and her luggage had been borneupstairs to her room—or the room the housekeeper hadhad prepared for her, for it was up to her to decide whichroom she would occupy once the novelty of being mistressof the house had worn off, and she felt a little more capableof making decisions—she waited for Angus to return downthe main staircase and told him she would like to have aword with him after lunch.

“Certainly,” he returned, with the same affability as before.“Where shall we have our chat? In the library?” And then henoticed Mrs. Appleby lingering in the hall, and in order notto disappoint her he drew himself up smartly and salutedhis employer. “I am at your disposal whenever you want me,madam. Just tell Appleby to send for me. And now I’ll go

and see whether Cook can give me some lunch in thekitchen.”

When he had departed and the green baize door shuttingoff the kitchen quarters had swung to behind him, Tinanoticed that the housekeeper was still standing there andregarding her a trifle primly. Mentally squaring hershoulders, Tina seized the opportunity to say somethingabout Angus, for she realised that some

explanation was expected of her.

“I’ve no doubt you think it—strange,” she began, “that SirAngus is wearing that absurd uniform and driving me about.Well, it was his own idea entirely ... You might call it a whimof his. There is a reason, of course, but it’s not reallyanything at all to do with me.”

Mrs. Appleby’s eyebrows ascended once more.

“People are going to think it extraordinary,” shecommented, “everyone who has ever known or met SirAngus!” There was delicate emphasis on the „Sir.’“Personally, I got quite a shock when I recognised him inthat peaked cap, and wearing, as you rightly call it, thatabsurd uniform. But although I’ve known Sir Angus since hewas a boy of fifteen I’ve never presumed to questionanything he’s done, or has been caught doing. So you candepend upon it I shall say nothing now!”

“Thank you,” Tina acknowledged the condescension withslight dryness.

The housekeeper flushed slightly.

“I think I can say I know my place, and it isn’t my job to askquestions. But naturally we were all a bit put about—surprised— when the news leaked out that not one singlemember of the family benefited from old Sir Angus’s will. Imay say we were all shocked, and Foyster—he was thebutler, who left last week—felt he couldn’t stay on in thecircumstances.” “As Sir Angus—the late Sir Angus—lefthim a very generous bequest I don’t suppose he thought itnecessary to continue working as a butler,” Tina observedvery quietly, and the housekeeper’s flush spread wildly.

“He left me quite a nice little bit,” she admitted, “but I didn’tthink it would be a good thing for all the staff to walk out onyou, Miss Andrews. Letty and me are willing to go onworking here if you want us.”

“Letty is the cook, I believe?”

“Yes; and there’s Jane, who has been parlourmaid here foryears. She’s willing to stay on, too.”

“That’s very kind of her.” Tina moved to the fire andattempted to warm her hands. Although the house wasbright and welcoming she felt that no real welcome hadbeen intended for her. She even felt a little cold right at the

heart of her. “What happened to the girl who brought me thesandwiches when I was here before?”

Mrs. Appleby tried to remember.

“Oh, you mean Gillian, a temporary who left after the funeral.She lives in the village, I believe. I could get her back if youthink we need her.”

“I’d like to have her back,” Tina said, and knelt down in frontof the flames so that she could fed the warmth of them onher face.

Mrs. Appleby adjusted the cuffs of the dark cardigan shewore over her neat, dark dress.

“Very good, miss—ma’am!” She seemed to draw herselfup to her full height. “I’d like to say here and now that bothCook and I will do our best for you so long as we’re here,and although it’s true we were upset at the way things wereleft we’ve had time to get over it. As Cook says, old Anguswasn’t anybody’s fool . . . And I’d like to congratulate you,miss —ma’am!”

Tina rose and smiled at her. The smile did more than sherealised, more even than she intended.

“Thank you very much, Mrs. Appleby,” she said impulsively.“And I’d like to say that if you and Cook stay on here I don’tthink either of you will ever regret it . . . And now, if you don’t

mind, I’d like to see my room. And after that I’d like somelunch. I’ve got to interview Sir Angus after lunch.”

Mrs. Appleby led the way up the stairs.

“He always was a little bit odd, Sir Angus,” she confessed.“That is to say, he was unusual. . . Never did anything hedidn’t want to do, if you follow me. My late lamentedemployer used to get very annoyed with him at times, justas he used to get annoyed with all the members of thefamily. They didn’t please him, somehow,” she sighed.

CHAPTER TEN SIR Angus evidently persuaded the cookto give him a satisfying lunch in the kitchen, for when hepresented himself in the library about half an hour after theeffects of it had had time to wear off he was lookingremarkably complacent, as if the fatted calf had beenslaughtered and served up for him.

Tina, who had been served with a lonely lunch at one end ofthe vast dining-table in the dining-room, was looking as ifshe had scarcely enjoyed hers, and was facing up to theproblems of the future with something. in the nature of a stiffupper lip and no real confidence.

Angus represented one of the future problems. For onething, she had no idea where he was going to sleep.

“Oh, that’s all settled,” he assured her complacently. “I’vemoved into the flat above the garage —the one I told you

about. It doesn’t remind me strongly of a Park Lane flat, butit will do. Cook

will look after me and cosset me as she probably would if Iwas a genuine chauffeur, and Mrs. Appleby has promisedto see to my mending and my laundry. Between the two ofthem I shan’t lack for a single thing.”

“But the situation is still ridiculous,” she declared, with ashrill emphasis that told him her nerves were too slightly, onedge. “I’ve more or less explained matters to Mrs. Appleby,but everyone else is likely to think it extremely odd.”

“Don’t you believe it.” He was quite casual, helping himselfto a book from one of the’ bookshelves. “I’ll borrow this, ifyou don’t mind. My reading matter is a little scarce at themoment.”

“You know very well you can have any book you like.”

He bowed to her, half mockingly.

“Can I also help myself to the cigars, and so forth, in thediningroom? There are several boxes of them secretedaway in one of the cupboards. It would be a pity if they wereallowed to get overlooked.”

“Of course.” But her voice grated a little. “Have anything youlike.”

“Including a nightcap, and a bottle of wine occasionally?”Suddenly his blue glance lashed her. “Don’t worry, MissAndrews, I’m not a petty pilferer, and everything in thishouse is yours. I shall look upon it as sacrosanct . . . andeven the mice will be safe from me! You’ll have to provideyour own mousetraps!” Why she had annoyed him shecouldn’t think, but he left the room without asking herpermission, and she didn’t see him again that day, althoughshe heard his voice several times, and the sound of hisbrief, attractive laugh, which floated out from the kitchenquarters.

The fact that he was something like a thorn in her sideprevented her deriving any real pleasure from this first visitto Giffard’s Prior—as its mistress, that is; and although shewas still slightly bewildered by the thought of all her newpossessions she couldn’t really believe that everything shenow saw, and touched, and merely admired in the greathouse was hers. The bedroom that Mrs. Appleby hadselected for her would normally have delighted her, but asthings were she felt as if she were an unauthorised guestwhen she first took possession of it.

It had a pale cream-coloured carpet and flowery curtains,and although the bed was old-fashioned the dressing-tablewas an imposing affair with an array of silver-topped toiletbottles making it seem even more impressive. Because ofthe weather a huge fire glowed in the grate, and she spentthe rest of the day sitting beside it and reading a book that

someone had left on the bedside table.

The next day she made a careful inspection of the house,and decided that it was quite unsuited to a young womanliving alone. Although old Angus had spent little time therehe had insisted that the place was properly maintained, andthere were stacks of sheets and towels in the vast linen-cupboard that was more like a room devoted to thepurpose of cherishing hand-embroidered linen and faintlyyellowing but beautifully made lace. Tina had never seen somany tea-towels in her life outside a shop, and that went foryellow dusters, too. There appeared to be an unlimitedsupply of them.

The various storerooms attached to the domestic quartersproved that the house was well fitted to withstand a siege,and when she made her first visit to the cellars she wasslightly alarmed by the display of bottles. Old Angus hadlived much in France and Italy, and he knew wines. Heknew how to preserve them, too, and every bottle wascarefully labelled and had its place in a suitable rack. Somewere covered in cobwebs, while others appeared to havearrived there recently. Only a butler, Tina realised, wouldknow how to deal with that generous supply of liquidrefreshment, and she, at the moment, had no butler. Andapart from the odd glass of sherry she was in no sense ofthe word a drinker.

She began to feel slightly appalled.

Mrs. Appleby conducted hereon her tour of inspection, andshe showed her everything there was to be seen. Keysrattled in locks that had grown rusty with disuse, creakingdoors and well-oiled doors swung open and confronted herwith fresh wonders ... and more problems.

After the dining-room, the drawing-room, the library, a smallroom that was known as the snuggery, and a much largerand comfortably shabby room that housed a billiard-tableand had a kind of armoury at one end, Mrs. Applebysuggested a visit to the outbuildings, and despite the slushoutside and a piercing wind that cut like a knife theycrossed the kitchen courtyard and began anotherinspection.

There were boiler houses and fuel houses, an electricityplant that generated power for the house housed in whathad once been a groom’s room, and an old harness-roomgiven over to the storage of logs. There were several loose-boxes, but no occupants, and two enormous garages,above which was the flat at present occupied by the late SirAngus’s nephew— also an Angus.

As Tina looked up at the windows, and saw that they wereattractively curtained, she wondered whether that curiousmixture, who was her declared enemy and her chauffeur,had made himself

comfortable amidst the amenities that had been provided

for someone who was definitely outside his classaltogether.

Mrs. Appleby noticed her upward glance, and askedwhether she would like to inspect the chauffeur’s quarters,but Tina said ‘No’ hastily. With a pinched feeling about hernose, and the certainty that it was slightly blue, from cold,cold feet and cold fingers inside her gloves, she had nodesire to be brought face to face with Angus Giffard.

Mrs. Appleby sounded almost understanding as she saidsympathetically:

“I expect you’re feeling like a good hot drink, and I’m sureCook will make you a nice pot of tea if we go back to thehouse. Or perhaps you’d prefer coffee?”

“I don’t mind,” Tina answered, with a flatness that causedthe older woman to glance at her.

“I hope you haven’t taken cold, Miss Andrews,” she said.“You look a bit pinched.” And then she added unexpectedly:“You’re going to find it lonely here all by yourself, aren’t you,miss? What you need is a companion.”

The idea appealed to Tina. She was growing a little tired ofher own society.

“Perhaps I do,” she admitted.

“You’ll have to set about getting someone suitable.” Butwhen they reached the house all Tina could think about wasthe pot of strong coffee Mrs. Appleby had promised to sendto the library, and even after the coffee she shivered somuch that she was glad to retire to her room once lunchwas over. The next day she was confined to her bed with achill, and when the doctor came he said that she wouldhave to stay there for several days. Apart from Mrs.Appleby and the doctor she saw no one during those days,although she was given to understand that her chauffeurhad made enquiries about her, and was holding himself inreadiness in case she should need anything fetched from adistance.

Tina saw, in her imagination, the hollow mockery in hiseyes when he made the enquiries. As matters stood at themoment, if anything happened to her he would almostcertainly benefit, for with no close relatives of her own towhom her worldly goods could be transmitted the Giffardfamily would lose no time in getting the will put right. Of thatshe felt fairly well assured.

But, after a week in her room, she was considerablyamazed to receive a present of a large carton ofsnowdrops the first probably to show their heads in that partof the world. Mrs. Appleby put them into water for her andexplained that there were masses of them in shelteredcorners in the grounds, and Sir Angus had been seenpicking them an hour or so before. But to Tina they didn’t

look like wild snowdrops, the kind to be found in little, lonelyhollows in leafless woods. They looked like snowdrops thathad been forced under glass, and the carton that containedthem had undoubtedly, at some time or other, come from alocal florist.

But why should Sir Angus Giffard buy her snowdrops?

There was no reason that she could think of, and sheaccepted it that he had picked them in the grounds...probably from want of anything better to do.

The first day she was downstairs she sent for him, and hecame with a smiling air that made her feel secretly uneasy.For when Sir Angus smiled she usually needed all her witsabout her to cope with him.

But today he was uninhibitedly friendly. After enquiring afterher health, commenting that she looked pale, and himselfadding a log to the already bright fire that blazed on thehearth, he nodded towards the snowdrops that weremaking a gloomy corner of the room look fresh andspringlike.

“I see they’ve survived,” he remarked. “Hope you likedthem?”

She gazed at him curiously.

“Why did you buy me flowers, Sir Angus?”

“Tut, tut,” he reproved her. “We mustn’t have this formality.Sir Angus, when everyone nowadays calls me Angus!Including even Cook, who doesn’t think I look the part! Andwhy shouldn’t I buy you flowers, when you pay me a salary?On top of all the money of my own that I possess!”

She sighed. Suddenly she wished that he would stopmaking fun of her—that she could talk to him, as one humanbeing to another.

“You did buy them, didn’t you?” she insisted.

“I bought them.”

“Why?”

He leaned against the mantelpiece, and his blue eyesflickered at her oddly.

“Perhaps because I thought you looked a little like asnowdrop that day you and Appleby were inspecting thestables, and I saw you underneath my window wonderingwhether you ought to pay me a call. A rather pinched andbewildered snowdrop ... but a snowdrop all the same!There wasn’t any other really appropriate flower that I couldsend you.”

“You didn’t have to send me flowers at all,” she remindedhim.

“In fact,” with a sudden rather shy gleam in her eyes, “it wasa little irregular, to say the least.”

His eyes mocked her mildly.

“Are you against irregularities ?”

“In this case, I think I—appreciated them very much indeed.It was nice of you, Sir Angus.” The shy look deepened.

He removed one shoulder from the mantelpiece, andwagged a finger at her to enjoin caution.

“Always remember that I’m not nice, Miss Andrews. If ever Iseem really nice you’ll have cause to mistrust me. Butperhaps I thought I owed you an apology for my insufferablybad behaviour when you paid your first visit to this house,the night my uncle died... It was rather much to expect anyyoung woman to put up with, and you were ratherdefenceless. My cousin Alaine realised that. However ...”He walked over to the window, and abruptly he changed thesubject. “I don’t know whether you know it, but it’s a fine dayoutside. The sun is actually shining, and it’s not particularlycold. What about letting me take you for a drive somewherethis afternoon ? It would do you good!

She thought for a moment.

“There is somewhere I would like you to drive me to,” she

admitted. “I would like you to drive me to see the children inmy old school. And, as a matter of fact, there are a few ofmy things that have to be removed from the schoolhouse.”

He stood looking down at her curiously.

“You don’t think it’ll look rather odd if you drive up there inthe Bentley? Rather like—”

“Showing off? No,” she shook her head with its feathery softfair curls, “they’ll love it, and I’ll love seeing them again—particularly little Johnny Gains. And we’ll take them somesweets and toys and things. Perhaps we could buy them onthe way.

But he shook his head.

“I'll buy them this afternoon, and we’ll make the triptomorrow. I think it would be a bit much for you to make thetrip this afternoon, when it’ll be dark around four o’clock.Much better to leave early tomorrow morning—-if it’s fineenough—and I’ll go into Stoke Moreton and buy the giftsthis afternoon.” She thought it a good idea.

“Then I’d better give you some money,” she said. Heshrugged. “Afterwards will do.”

But she was very firm about it.

“No, you must have the money now. I’ll give you a cheque.”

She rose and made her way over to a bureau in a corner,and he watched her as she bent a little unfamiliarly over acheque-book and wrote in silence for a few seconds. Then,when she handed it over, his eyebrows lifted.

“So much?” he said. “You’re being very generous, MissAndrews.”

“Not at all.” She shook her head, smiling. “Buy them somenice things, won’t you ? The sort of things children like...books, games, dolls. The little girls must have dolls!”

“And how many little girls are there?”

“There are ten, including Mary Jane Williamson, who israther old for a doll. But still, she’d better have one.”

He turned away, smiling.

“And sweets? A big box, that they can share amongstthem?”

“A very big box! ”

He reached the door, and turned and bowed to her with atouch of the old irony.

“It looks to me as if you really are going to turn out to be akind of Lady Bountiful,” he remarked. “We’ll have to watchyou,” more drily, “in case you over-reach yourself.”

you,” more drily, “in case you over-reach yourself.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN IF Tina had expected the children ather old school to welcome her with open arms she wasdisappointed. It might have been the Bentley that overawedthem, or the fact that, being children, they had alreadyforgotten her; but although her replacement, a much olderwoman, encouraged them to smile and look welcoming,most of them looked more than normally glum, and only thesight of the presents brought gleams of sudden delight andappreciation to their faces.

Little Johnny Gains sidled up to her as soon as theopportunity arose and patted the sleeve of her coat as ifeven he, youthful though he was, could detect the differencein a handsome velour cloth and a piece of inferior tweed.And although he was temporarily diverted by his modelengine and box of sweets, he was much more impressedby the Bentley, and Tina promised to come over one daywhen the weather was really fine and take him for a drive init. Perhaps during the next school holidays.

“That’ll be Easter,” he said, gazing up at her solemnly.

“Quite right,” she agreed. And then an idea seized her.“How would you like to come and stay with me, Johnny?”she suggested. “At Easter! We could do all sorts of thingstogether, and I’d see that

you had a lovely time.”

“And would we go out in the Bentley?” he asked, his eyeswidening at the prospect.

“Of course we would. We’d go for long drives.”

He showed her the gap in his small front teeth.

“I’d like that,” he told her. “Gee, I’d like that!”

On the homeward drive Tina felt oddly, but distinctly,depressed. Somehow the visit to the schoolhouse had notbeen an unqualified success, and her ego had beenpricked like a bubble by the fact, which she couldn’t prove,that the children had more or less forgotten her. And theywere children over whose homework books she had oncepored, concerned herself about when they were ill, beentouched and warmed by when they brought her little gifts,like bunches of flowers and baskets of strawberries—evena solitary apple occasionally.

And now the one who had seemed closest to her— andwho had, at least, remembered her—had quite obviouslybeen much more impressed by her car than gratified by thesight of herself. And when she pressed half-a-crown into hishand, with which to buy more sweets or a comic or two,before departing, he had hardly thanked her for it, havingthe car very much on his mind.

“You won’t forget,” he said, looking up at her intently, “that

you’ve promised to take me out in it, will you?”

“Of course not, Johnny,” she answered.

A sort of early dusk set in before they reached Giffard’sPrior, and the house itself looked a little grey and grim inthe bleakness of the late February afternoon. Angus, whenhe held open the car door for her to alight, realised that sheboth looked and felt depressed, and although herdepression might easily result from the bout of ’flu she hadhad he knew it was not entirely that. He saw her glance upat the windows, that were rather like blank eyes overlookingthe lake, and he knew she was thinking of the empty, firelitroom where she would have tea on her own, and whereeven Mrs. Appleby would not linger for longer than the fewminutes it took to set down the tea-tray and enquire whethershe had had an enjoyable outing.

Angus smiled . . . rather a peculiar little smile.

“It’s always a good thing to come home,” he remarked. “Butperhaps you haven’t come to look upon Giffard’s Prior asyour home yet?”

Tina’s eyes forsook the long line of windows, andencountered his darkly blue ones.

“I don’t suppose I ever will do that,” she replied.

He shrugged his shoulders.

“Oh, I don’t know... At the moment the place is unfamiliar,and you’re feeling lonely, but if you had company it wouldbe different. You’ll have to induce someone to come andlive with you.”

“A companion, you mean?” she asked. “Mrs. Applebysuggested that I look out for a companion.”

Again he shrugged.

“If you’re so bereft of friends that you have to pay someoneto come and live with you, well, do so. It might be theanswer. Personally, I’d just get on the telephone to a fewpeople I know and suggest a party.”

“I haven’t any friends,” she answered simply, still gazing upinto his face.

He looked inside the car to make certain she hadn’t leftanything behind, and then prepared to slip back into thedriving seat. She thought of the long evening ahead of her,and that room with the portrait of old Sir Angus hanging onthe wall above the fireplace where the handsome silver tea-tray awaited her, and impulsively she issued an invitation.

“Won’t you come and have tea with me before you return toyour quarters? I’m sure Mrs. Appleby will make more toast,and there’s bound to be plenty of cake and things...” Hervoice trailed away.

Sir Angus squared his shoulders under the fine grey cloth ofhis uniform jacket, and to her mortification his eyebrowsascended and the blue eyes looked back at her with a kindof amused disdain.

“My dear Miss Andrews!” he exclaimed. “However sorelytempted I might be to accept your invitation, I hope that Iknow my place! Think of the consternation in the servants’hall if I sat gossiping over a pot of tea with you while theywere firmly shut away in the kitchen!”

Tina said nothing further, only turned and walked up thesteps. But her ears burned. How deliberately cruel he couldbe to her on occasion, and how much he must dislike her.She mustn’t let that box of snowdrops go to her head! Hewas quite plainly warning her about that.

Nevertheless, after her lonely tea and still lonelier dinner,she felt that she had to have someone to talk to or go quitemad. For the first time in her life her nerves were on edge;she jumped every time some slight noise occurred in thehouse and the great room in which she sat was utterlyunaffected by it; every time her eyes met the eyes of SirAngus hanging on the wall above her she was disturbed bythe queer little smile in them ... not at all unlike the queerlittle smile she sometimes surprised in the eyes of thepresent baronet.

She wondered what Sir Angus would say if he knew she

was employing his nephew as a chauffeur. She wonderedwhy he had passed him over so entirely when making hiswill, and had remembered Alaine to the extent that he hadleft him a collection of stamp albums, and one or twopieces of Georgian silver.

Even Juliet had been remembered in the will, and AuntClare. They had each received some valuable china, andAunt Clare had been permitted to make her choiceamongst some family portraits, and select a couple forherself.

So far she had not availed herself of this postscript to thewill, but no doubt she would do so one day when her moodof indignation had cooled a little.

Only Angus had been completely overlooked, and Tinacould not think why. Unless old Sir Angus had disapprovedof him so strongly that he couldn’t bring himself to leave himanything in his will.

She prowled about the room as the slow minutes passed,and at last she couldn’t bear it any longer. The house wasoppressing her unbearably, the constant intrusive thoughtthat she had no right there— and others had!—was like anobsession, and inside the quiet room she could not escapefrom it. Although it was a cold, windy night, and she had justhad a bout of ’flu, she decided she must go for a short walkin the grounds, and perhaps the exercise would clear her

mind for her. She might even, under the cool, remote stars,forget that she was singularly bereft of friends, and thatAngus had refused to have tea with her.

She fetched herself a coat from the hall cloakroom, tied aheadscarf over her hair, and let herself out by a side door. Itwas still only nine o’clock, and when, after rounding theangle of the house, she saw a light shining through thecurtained window of the flat above the stable block whereSir Angus was at present quartered, she was not surprisedto discover that he was still up. It occurred to her to wonderhow he spent his time, and what means of diversion wereprovided in the little flat.

Had he a television, or a wireless set ? If not, ought she toprovide one for him? What sort of furnishings was he livingamongst, and how much actual comfort had he got? As hisemployer, it was her duty to find out as soon as possible, inorder that any bad omissions could be rectified, and surelynow was as good a time as any other to acquaint herselfwith his needs, if any? She ought to have done so daysago, but she had been confined to her bed, and also shehad lacked the courage. Now, despite the fact that he hadsnubbed her and put her in her place earlier in the evening,she decided to summon all the remnants of her courageand go boldly up to his door and knock on it.

He couldn’t really be rude to her... not any longer, now thatshe was his employer. And he couldn’t refuse to admit her

—unless, of course, he was actually in the act of retiring tobed—for the very good reason that she was his employer,and he was nothing more than an employee. Owing to theenormity of the late Sir Angus Giffard’s will the present SirAngus had no rights at all at Giffard’s Prior, and if hisemployer chose to call on him at a reasonable hour of theevening, well then, he couldn’t just shut the door in her faceand tell her to go away.

All the same, Tina directed another careful look at the lightin the flat living-room before she knocked on the door at thefoot 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 inthe bedroom.

Her rat-tat seemed to echo unbearably in the silence of thenight, and she was tempted to turn and run away beforefootsteps could sound on the stairs. But as they did notsound she knocked again. And Sir Angus did somethingutterly 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 ofthe night?”

Tina tilted back her fair head with the creamy head-scarfprotecting it from the rawness of the night and looked up athim appealingly.

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER TWELVE

TINA found that the light was embarrassingly bright whenshe reached the top of the stairs. It showed him herwindblown hair, and the slightly scared look on her face, asif she knew that she was intruding unwarrantably, and at anhour when she could have no possible excuse, unless anemergency had arisen, or she required him to drive hersomewhere. In which case she would have got in touch withhim over the telephone, not braved the blustery dark thathad played havoc with her appearance, although it had puta glow of unusual colour into her cheeks.

“In here,” Angus said, standing aside for her to precede himinto the sitting-room. “This is the hub of the home, if you cancall it a home.” His eyes were appraising her, looking

frankly surprised. “I’m honoured by this visit, but I can’t thinkwhy you’ve made it.” “I know it’s late,” Tina apologised. “Atleast, country people would consider it late, but I didn’t thinkyou’d be in bed.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He thrust her with a certain lack of gentleness towards thearmchair.

“Well, sit down. You might as well confess that you werelonely. That was why you invited me to have tea with youthis afternoon, wasn’t it? Because you were lonely, and youcouldn’t face the thought of Giffard’s Prior without a singlesoul to talk to throughout a long evening. Well, I didn’taccept your invitation because it would have been mostincorrect, but now that you’re here you might as well have adrink 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,” drilybrandishing one of the bottles, “I make some effort toprovide the creature comforts, and as a matter of fact Idon’t do too badly.

Cook reserves all her special tit-bits for me, and that newhousemaid looks after me fairly well, too. I’m not in anymood 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 meanat the schoolhouse?”

“Yes. It didn’t quite go off as you’d imagined, did it? Theyweren’t quite as impressed as you’d hoped, and most ofthem 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?” Heshrugged. “Well, it might have been that, but I wouldn’tswear to it that it was. I’m inclined to the belief that you’dgrown rather attached to those kids—particularly that smallfreak with the gap in his teeth—but the sentiment doesn’tseem 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 takerather than give. They improve in this respect as they growolder.”

She felt almost humiliated as he sat looking at her withalmost a thoughtful gleam in his hard eyes.

“I give you my word that I never wanted to impress them forone single moment,” she declared rather hotly, “and as toacting the part of Lady Bountiful... well, that’s absoluterubbish, too! I merely wanted to give them all something inthe nature of a treat—a change—a little variety! They don’tget much of it in this part of the world, where everything’s sobleak 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 ofthem sick ... as a result of eating too many sweets! Butyou’ll have to adjust yourself, you know, now that you are ina position to be Lady Bountiful if you wish. You’ll have tobecome less vulnerable, unless you decide to take acompanion or get married all in a hurry, more attached toyour own company.” She realised that there was a mildlyderisive note in his voice, but it was only very mild. At thesame time she was certain that there was little point intrying 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 atrifle breathlessly.

He smiled. “Poor little rich girl! I ought to sympathise, butsomehow I don’t feel I can. You really will have to thinkseriously of matrimony.”

“You must have thought very seriously about it,” she heardherself say rather jerkily, “to be willing to take a job like thisin order to convince Miss Gaylord’s father you’d make aworthwhile 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’tone?” 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 thatmean you won’t be marrying for some time, because you’renot in love?”

He stood looking across the room at her, his eyes very darkand searching, one corner of his mouth twisting a littlepeculiarly. She felt her cheeks burning under the slightcruelty—like an unkind electric light—of his gaze, and thenadmitted with a strange sort of dignity that sat well upon

her:

“I’ve never really given any serious thought to love ormarriage. I suppose it was because it never once occurredto 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 youthink that, sooner or later, some man will want to mary mefor my money ?”

“Your money and—that new, rather fetching way you have ofdoing your hair, and the fact that you’re rather a daintyperson who would look quite well at the head of a dinner-table. Some man might fancy you as a hostess for hisfriends, a mother for his children... You look healthyenough!”

“Thank you,” she returned, with deceptive quietness.

“And of course, there could be other reasons why a manmight suddenly find himself attracted to you ...” He directedat her one of his slightly distorted, flashing white smiles.

“Possibly even a number of reasons! But the money will bethe biggest draw.” “You’re cruel, aren’t you ?” she said, hereyes very large and studying him almost wonderingly.

“Am I?” He reclined in his favourite attitude against themantelpiece, smoking a cigarette. “Well, someone’s got towarn you. And I’m the type who can do it without makingyou 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 Ithink you’ve softened a little towards me.” Suddenly hestraightened, 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 tomarry him you’d probably get on very well together. But Iwouldn’t marry Alaine, if I were you. He’s not, strictlyspeaking the marrying kind.”

“I know. He told me so himself.”

“Oh! So you’ve got as far as discussing marriage? You andAlaine! That proves he’s a slightly faster worker than Ithought.” He ground out his cigarette in an ash-tray, took afew steps towards her and pulled her deliberately out of herchair. “Let’s find out how much you know about men ” hesaid, “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 astonishmentshe felt his mouth pressing hard and persistently againsther own.

He might have let her go immediately following that purelyexperimental kiss, but something about the curious, softgasp she uttered when he partially released her—the wayher extraordinarily limpid, violet-blue eyes looked up at him,and her flower-pink mouth parted—affected him in a way hewould never have believed possible. He said somethingthat sounded like, “You’re a witch!” and snatched her backinto his arms again. He kissed her so thoroughly this timethat there was every excuse for the bemused look in hereyes when he finally released her; and as he strode awayfrom her to the window and stood looking down into theshadowy darkness of the stable courtyard she could havesworn that he was breathing unevenly, although she was notexactly 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’mcomfortable or not wait until it’s daylight, and then if anyonesees you making your way over here it won’t look so odd.But this kind of inspection is not necessary. If I wantanything, I’ll ask for it!”

Feeling herself dismissed, and not yet quite capable oftaking in anything very clearly—although the one thing shedid gather was that he wanted to be rid of her in an

extraordinary hurry—she retied her headscarf over her hairand made for the door. Her mouth was burning, and it feltslightly bruised. Never in her life had she been kissed likethat before, and she put her fingers up to her lips andtouched 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 andbreak your neck. If you fall on me I shan’t notice it, sinceyou’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 somethingwaiflike and elf-like about you. And you invite trouble just bylooking so detached! Yes, you are detached ... I’mbeginning to understand what old Angus meant when hehad that will of his drawn up.” “Goodnight, Sir Angus,” shesaid quietly.

“And for goodness’ sake stop calling me Sir Angus if we’reto keep up this charade,” he urged. “You make the wholeposition impossible when you will remember who I am.”

“And you make the situation impossible when you forgetthat I’m your employer,” she retorted with a hint of latentspirit, her clear eyes upturned to his in the darkness. “You’dbetter go back to London, Sir Angus, and I’d better get

myself another chauffeur...

And I mean that!” she added between her teeth, and thenran off into the darkness before he could even offer to seeher back to the house.

He swore as he stood at the foot of the stable steps in thedarkness. He had meant to see her back to the house...

CHAPTER THIRTEEN THE next day Tina sent for him andtold him that she wanted to be driven into Stoke Moreton todo some shopping. It was a delightful, early spring day, shewore a spring-green suit under a coat of nylon fur, and herattitude was very much the attitude of an employeraddressing someone who was on her payroll.

She said briskly:

“If you want to stay we’ll re-furnish the flat for you. You can’tpossibly go on living in a hovel like the place I saw lastnight... And you must have a radio and a television set, andanything else you need. We’ll call at Snaithby’s.”

“And if I don’t want to stay?” quietly, watching hercomposed face.

“Then,” drawing on her gloves, “We’d drive to the stationand find out about the times of trains. Or you can borrow thecar and drive yourself to London. You might do one smallservice for me, and go to the agency where I originally

intended to get someone to drive me. I’m sure you couldengage a suitable man, and he could bring the car back toGiffard’s Prior.”

Sir Angus smiled with his lips, although the expression ofhis eyes remained somewhat peculiar

“I’ll stay,” he said “You knew I would, didn’t you?”

“No.” She glanced at him coolly. “Why should I assumeanything of the kind?”

For a moment his expression struck her as slightly baffled.Standing there in his extremely smart uniform he lookedhandsome and arrogant, but he also looked a little lesssure of himself—in her presence, that is—than he normallydid.

“Did you sleep well last night?” he asked casually, as shegathered up her handbag and a few letters for the post andmoved to the door.

She shot him a quick look over her shoulder. “Beautifully.Why? Should I have had a sleepless night, or something?Did you have a sleepless night?” “Touche!” he exclaimed,grinning, and held open the door for her. “So we drivestraight to Snaithby’s, do we?” “We do, unless you want tochange your mind,” she replied.

“I assure you I have no intention of changing my mind.”

“That will be good news for Miss Gaylord,” she murmured,as he put her into the car.

When they returned it was to find a car standing before theentrance. It was not a particularly new car, but it was slimand rakish, and violently coloured —a bright letter-box red,in fact.

“Who would have believed it,” Angus murmured. “Juliet ishere! I wonder whether Aunt Clare is here, too?”

But when he entered the house after his employer was todiscover that Miss Gaylord had accompanied his cousin onher journey north, and there was no one else with themapart from a tall and rather lanky young man who looked alittle uncomfortable on being presented as Miss Giffard’sfiance, Mr. Justin Forbes.

“Of course, it isn’t official yet,” Juliet said, talking hurriedlyand quite ignoring Tina, who was the mistress of the house.“In fact, it can’t possibly be official until we’ve had a chanceto talk to you. And Kathryn thought you were the one personwe ought to talk to! You might have some ideas! She saidyou almost certainly would have some ideas.”

“What about?” Angus enquired, and his voice sounded alittle curt—perhaps because he was aware of Tina, in herslim fur coat, standing on the fringe of the group, and notattempting to break it up, although Mrs. Appleby was

looking rather tight about the lips as she took up a kind ofdefensive position at the foot of the stairs.

So far and no farther, her attitude seemed to say . . . Shehad allowed the callers to get so far, but they were notpenetrating the recesses of the house without thepermission of Miss Andrews, to whom she now owedallegiance.

“Oh, darling, it’s such a long story—” Juliet was beginningto wail, when Miss Gaylord interrupted her.

“Angus, you can’t possibly hear all about it while we standabout in a group like this in the hall. Can’t we gosomewhere and talk? Besides,” slipping her hand throughhis arm, “I need a drink.”

“If Miss Andrews says you can come in and have a drink,then you can,” Angus replied, to her completeastonishment, “but the first thing I must do is put the caraway. And you had better say ‘How do you do?’ to theowner of Giffard’s Prior!”

Kathryn, who was looking exquisitely beautiful in a real minkcoat, with her much richer fair hair than Tina’s swinging onher shoulders, giggled as if she thought he was making ajoke.

“Oh, yes, of course, I forgot! She’s virtually mistress herenow, isn’t she?”

“She is mistress here,” Angus snapped back at her. “Andunless

you’ve completely forgotten your manners will yourecognise the fact? Miss Andrews,” he said in a taut voiceto his employer, “you must forgive my friends intruding likethis—that is to say, two friends and one relative—”

“But how ridiculous!” Miss Gaylord exclaimed, colourflaming in her face, and staining the whiteness of herbeautifully moulded throat. “A joke’s a joke, and I knowyou’re playing the part of her chauffeur, but do you have tobehave as if it’s really true? Why, she’s just a little outsider,in any case—a school- marm—and hasn’t the least little bitof right to be here. You said so yourself!”

“If I said that I must have been drunk at the time,” Sir Angusstated coldly.

Kathryn Gaylord gaped at him.

“Such a change of tone! . . .” she was beginning, whenJustin Forbes stepped forward. He made a rather elegantbow in front of Tina, and then held out his hand to her.

“Miss Andrews, my party are a little bit agitated just now, soyou must forgive them,” he purred. “But of course we allrecognise that this is your house, and I for one was verymuch against just barging in here as if it still belonged to

the old chappie who died, and, incidentally, cut poor Angusright out of his will! ” He grinned sideways at the baronet,without any real commiseration. “That must have been a bitof a shock, old boy. Nasty shock, too!”

“If it was, I’ve long since recovered from it,” Angus replied.Juliet Giffard stepped forward.

“Miss Andrews,” she said stiffly, “I’m sorry we overlookedthe fact that you’re mistress here now, but we’ve come allthis way to see Angus, and I’m sure you’ll let us have a fewwords with him in the drawing-room, or somewhere likethat? Perhaps the library would be better—”

“Of course,” Tina answered, and turned away as if she fullyunderstood that anything they had to discuss could notinclude her. “You know the plan of the house. Go whereveryou want to go.” Miss Gaylord pouted.

“But I thought we’d all go off somewhere and have lunch.The Bull in Stoke Moreton, or somewhere like that. Angus,surely you don’t have to keep up this, farce and pretend thatyou really take orders from this—this woman ?”

“Oh, I say!” Mr. Forbes exclaimed, apologising for her.“That doesn’t sound to me a very fair description of MissAndrews. She looks to me very young and attractive, andnot in the least like a woman? Besides, it sounds rude.” Hesmiled at Tina. “Forgive her,

Miss Andrews. She doesn’t mean to be as objectionableas she sounds.”

Once again Juliet stepped forward.

“She doesn’t. But we’ve some business to discuss—” shewas looking rather pale and strained, Tina realised—“andwe’re a bit on edge. At least I am—and Justin ought to be!Kathryn didn’t have to come with us, but we needed herinfluence with Angus.” She glanced round at himappealingly. “Oh, Angus, you’ve got to help us!” Anguslooked as if he was keeping his temper with a certainamount of difficulty, and he responded to her appeal with aglance

of distaste.

“All right! Come in here—” leading the way to the library. “IfMiss Andrews says we have her permission?”

“You have,” Tina replied, and met the look in his blue eyeswith a slightly puzzled one in her own.

All four of them left her standing alone in the hall, and theydisappeared into the library without a backward glance.That is to say, three of them did. Mr. Forbes glanced roundat her and smiled ruefully. The glance seemed to say,‘Sorry about this! But it is a kind of family conclave! ’

And then the door of the library shut fast, and Tina

suspected that it was Miss Gaylord’s, hand that caused it toclick so decisively as the stout oak barrier was interposedbetween her and her uninvited guests . . ; to say nothing ofher chauffeur! Since that only other occasion on which sheand Kathryn Gaylord had met, the golden beauty hadalmost certainly devoted a fair amount of her time to

thinking about her, and as a result there was no longer evena pretence of affability in her face. The teasing friendlinesshad gone, the amusement that had caused her eyes todance ... It was obvious she was not amused by theknowledge that the man she intended to marry had puthimself in the position of being ordered about by anotherwoman, even though that other woman was, in a sense,aiding and abetting them in a plan to deceive her father, theowner of the chain of supermarkets.

Tina did not wait for them to emerge from the library,following upon the discussion which was apparently so all-important, but went upstairs to her room and removed heroutdoor things and got ready for lunch, which she imaginedshe would be consuming, as usual, on her own. But whenshe returned to the hall she found Justin Forbes pacing upand down it and looking a bit agitated. He greeted her withan awkward:

“I say, I do apologise for bursting in on you like this, butJuliet’s

a bit upset and I don’t think she feels like facing a crowd ofstrangers in a pub for lunch.” If he was thinking of the pub inthe village Tina didn’t think they would have to face a crowdof strangers. But she realised what was coming evenbefore the words left his lips. “Would it be asking too muchof you to let us have a scrap of something to eat here? Andperhaps a drink beforehand? I’m dying for one myself . . .”His eyes wandered to the door of the dining-room, behindwhich, on the sideboard, he was certain there was someliquid refreshment. “Devil of a check, I know, but we’ve justhad a long drive!”

“Of course,” Tina said, and rang the bell for thehousekeeper. She led the way to the drawing-room, sinceher usual haunt, the library, was still in a sense out ofbounds. “You’d better all come in here and have somethingto drink, and I’ll instruct Mrs. Appleby to see what she cando about providing lunch for you all, and to lay extra placesin the dining-room.” Mr. Forbes muttered that she was verygood, and followed her over to the fireplace where anelectric fire glowed in the hearth, although the room wasalso warm with central heating,

“Awfully good of you,” he said, standing awkwardly andwanning his hands at the electric fire at the same time.“Jolly cold weather this, and not the time of year to putanyone about. But a kind of major crisis has arisen, andwe’ve got to do something about it. Angus is usually prettygood at solving problems, so we came to him.”

“I see,” Tina murmured.

Justin Forbes’ eyes kindled as he took in the slender line ofher figure clothed in an attractive soft wool dress, and thepale gold hair that covered her small head like a paleaureole.

“Daresay you’ve met Mrs. Giffard,” he said. “Doesn’t takekindly to the idea of Juliet and me marrying.”

“Oh, no?” Tina murmured again.

“Pity, but there it is!” Mr. Forbes sighed. Tina was graduallyarriving at the opinion that he was a perfectly pleasantyoung man who felt rather strongly about this impoliteintrusion, but she was not exactly surprised that ClareGiffard, whom she had also met on one occasion only, wasnot exactly enthusiastic about acquiring him for a son-in-law. There was a certain amiable weakness about his facethat could put a lot of women off—especially if they werestrong-minded, and it was a question of marrying off adaughter. But Tina who had no reason to like or approve ofMrs. Giffard, developed a sudden, impulsive liking for him.

“Is it because she wants Miss Giffard to marry somebodyelse?” she suggested tentatively.

“Oh, no! It’s simply and solely a question of money,” heconfessed.

“You haven’t got any?” she enquired sympathetically.

“Not much.” He grinned in the way she found curiouslyengaging, because it offered an apology for himself andany deficiencies that could be attributed to him. “That is tosay, I haven’t at the moment, although I will have one day;and Juliet’s acquired a pile of debts . . . bills, you know! Hermother won’t pay them, and she thinks she ought to marrysomeone who will pay them.”

“But that’s dreadful! ” Tina exclaimed. She thought itgenuinely dreadful that a girl should have to marry in orderthat some of her extravagances could be settled for her. “Ithought Miss Giffard had money of her own.”

“She gets an allowance,” Justin admitted, “but it’s usuallymortgaged by the time it’s due. Hence the bills.”

“For clothes, and things like that?”

“And an occasional flutter on the racecourse. I’m afraid Ju’sa bit of a gambler.”

“That’s bad, I suppose,” Tina said, and, never havinggambled on anything in her life, she thought it was alsorather daring. “But if it’s a question of marrying ... You musthave something more than an allowance to marry on—”

The door opened behind them, and the other three entered

the room. Juliet was looking tearful and upset, Kathryn wasrather flushed and stormy-eyed, and Angus’s eyes wereglinting in a manner that suggested the interview had beenas stormy as Kathryn’s expression. Mrs. Appleby came upbehind them, and Tina requested her to see what she andCook could manage in the way of lunch for all five of them.She also asked for a tray of drinks to be brought to thedrawing-room.

“Not for me,” Angus said stiffly. “I can provide myself with adrink. I’ll go over to my quarters.”

But Kathryn tugged angrily at his sleeve.

“Don’t be silly,” she said. “We’ve come all this way to seeyou. We can talk over lunch. We’ve got to talk!”

“Then we’ll all go over to my quarters. It’ll be a bit cramped,but I can rustle you up some bread and cheese. And I’ve nodoubt I can also find you a bottle of beer apiece,” smilingunpleasantly.

Kathryn positively glared at him.

“Since Miss Andrews is willing to give us lunch,” she said,“and willing to give you lunch—”

“I’m the chauffeur,” he interrupted. “Chauffeurs have theirplace, and mine isn’t here. It’s in a microscopic flat abovethe stables.” Miss Gaylord’s beautiful eyes developed a few

sparks. “If you go on talking like that,” she hissed betweenher perfect little white teeth, “I’ll—”

But Tina stepped forward and put a stop to the interchange.

“I think Sir Angus is merely being awkward,” she explained.“He knows very well he’s not really my chauffeur. It was hisidea, not mine! And as you have family business to discussI’m the one who is undoubtedly in the way. I’ll arrange foryou to have lunch on your own, and Mrs. Appleby can bringme a tray in the library. That should simplify everything.”

She was on her way to the door when Angus got betweenher and the smooth cream-painted woodwork. He said withextraordinary fierceness:

“If you do that I’ll certainly go over to my quarters ! The onlycondition on which I’ll stay to lunch is that you stay, too.”

Tina looked up into his granite face, and realised that hemeant what he said. She also experienced an extraordinaryrush of warmth about her heart—a kind of glow of gratitude,as if someone had given her an unexpected and entirelyundeserved present.

“Very well,” she said, and without quite realising what shewas doing she smiled at him. When the new maidservantbrought in the drinks she asked him in a perfectly normalvoice if he would do the honours. And she was the first towhom he offered a glass of sherry, putting the glass into her

hand with lean brown fingers that lightly touched her own.“Thank you, Miss Andrews.” he said.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

DESPITE the fact that she had had no warning beforehandthe cook provided them with an excellent lunch. As it wassuch a cold day there was a thick, rich soup, cutlets withmushrooms, and a delicious fruit tart to follow—the fruit outof one of the numberless bottles in the store-cupboard.And, of course, cream. Cream was served with every mealat Giffard’s Prior.

Afterwards Tina dispensed coffee in the drawingroom, andMiss Gaylord, obviously feeling slightly better temperedafter her excellent meal, lay back in a corner of one of thedrawing-room settees and smoked the cigarette that Anguslighted for her in a long ivory holder. Angus, giving theimpression that he was taking part in amateur theatricals inhis uniform, took up a position on the hearthrug and Julietsat curled up in an armchair. Justin Forbes handed roundthe coffee cups as Tina poured out, and he also madecertain that she didn’t neglect to pour herself a cup. Duringlunch the conversation had flowed freely despite thesomewhat hampering presence of the hostess. Thesituation—not exactly a crisis, so far as Tina could make itout—was simply that Juliet and Justin wished to marry, andMrs. Giffard was not favourably disposed towards themarriage. She was her daughter’s guardian as well as her

mother, and she controlled the strings of the purse thatcontained the money her father had left her, and declined tobe more generous with it than the terms of the will made itnecessary for her to be.

When Juliet was twenty-one—in six months’ time —shewould be in a position to control her own money. Justin,also, would inherit quite a large sum of money, as well as afamily estate, when he stepped into the shoes of a veryelderly uncle, who was expected to depart this life at anymoment. But apart from these future benefits their presentcapital was practically nil, and Juliet had acquired a stringof debts which had infuriated her mother, and made hereven less inclined to set up the two in some sort of anestablishment where they could begin married life.

It had been Kathryn’s idea that Angus would help them.Angus, it now became clear, had a great deal of money,and for him it would be the simplest matter in the world towrite off Juliet’s debts, and advance her enough cash tosee her through until her twenty-first birthday, when shecould easily return it. But Angus, for some reason wasadamant . . . He would do nothing to upset his Aunt Clare,even though he neither approved of his Aunt Clare, norcared very much what became of her. He was adopting theattitude, also, that Juliet had no right to expect other peopleto burden themselves with her debts, and although he hadnothing against Justin—in fact, in a half-contemptuousfashion he seemed to approve of him—he told him very

bluntly that he thought a man should wait until he was in aposition to suppast a wife before marrying her.

Kathryn cried out at this.

“I think you’re extraordinarily heartless!” Her eyesreproached him. “You can’t expect two people to wait tomarry just because of a few bills. Marriage is important.”

“It’s also important to settle one’s debts and put one’shouse in order before considering it,” he replied.

She made a little impatient gesture with her shoulders.

“It’s not as if they were Justin’s bills. He, poor dear, is justhard up.”

“Then he must wait until fortune smiles on him,” Angusreturned glibly.

She surveyed him with a gleam of astonishment in hereyes, as if she was seeing him for the first time. “You’rehard,” she accused. “Horribly hard!” He shrugged.

“Perhaps. I’ve an idea Miss Andrews thinks the samething.”

Dragged into the conversation, Tina contributed her ownquota to it and successfully astounded them all.

“If Sir Angus doesn’t feel like helping,” she said, “I’mperfectly willing to do so in his place. I’d be happy to dosomething—and of course, I wouldn’t want it returned! Infact, it was my intention to make over some of the moneyleft to me by the late Sir Angus Giffard to various membersof his family, only I was given to understand that it wouldn’tbe welcome.” Her eyes went to Sir Angus. “I received theimpression that I was impertinent, and I didn’t intend to beimpertinent. I merely wanted to adjust matters a little . . .since I realise I’ve been the cause of a good deal ofconsternation in the Giffard family.” For a moment therewas silence, and then Juliet left her chair and rushed at her.

“Oh, but that’s wonderful!” she declared. “You really will dosomething for us? For Justin and myself?” She crouched onthe rug at Tina’s feet. “And you can easily spare it, can’tyou? It won’t hurt you at all—”

“Except that I won’t allow her to do it!” Angus declared, in avoice of cold fury that startled them all. Every pair of eyes inthe room became fixed on him. “Juliet must get herself outof her present mess, and as for Justin . . . Well, let him get ajob if he wants money!”

All of them, with the exception of Tina, gaped at him.

“A—a job?” faltered Mr. Forbes.

“Why not?” demanded Angus, almost hostile in his anger.

“There are lots of things you can do, if you have the guts.You can take on the job of chauffeur here, for one thing, andJuliet can turn that flat I’m occupying into a lovers’ nest. I’veno doubt it could be transformed, with a little feminine skilland effort.” Juliet abandoned her crouching position on therug, and returned to her chair.

“I think you’re absolutely—horrible!” she declared, and burstinto tears.

Justin went to her and did his best to comfort her. He sat onthe arm of her chair and patted her shoulders, and it wasleft to Miss Gaylord to sail right into the attack. Sheaccused Sir Angus of having changed almost out of allknowledge in the last few weeks, and behaving like a brutetowards his cousin. She said that such indifference to thewell-being of a relative would not have been possiblebefore he attached himself to Miss Andrews—with a balefulglare at the latter—and that in any case he himself hadbeen the biggest attacker of Miss Andrews in the dayswhen they first learned she was to inherit all that old SirAngus left behind him. What he said then was vicious andnot entirely fair, and now apparently he wanted to unsay itall and make certain that Miss Andrews retained all her ill-gotten gains intact

The inference was that she had acquired some influenceover him—that she wasn’t the mealy-mouthed little nobody,the dull little school-marm, the scheming little outsider who

hadn’t hesitated to make up to a doddering old gentlemanwho should have been past such weaknesses in order toget his money that they had thought she was . . .

“Be quiet! ” Sir Angus ordered, at this point. Kathryn methis eyes stormily.

“Why should I be quiet? You said those things yourself—allof them!—you know you did. And you said a lot of othersbesides! It was your idea that you should take on the job ofdriving her car and give her a few ‘thrills,’ as you put it, inorder to teach her how badly she had behaved! You saidshe was a menace . . . That young women like her shouldbe put across someone’s knee and slapped!”

Sir Angus regarded her bleakly, although his eyes were ablue blaze that caused her to shrink back a little.

“Search your memory for a few more things I said,” headvised her, “and let Miss Andrews have the lot! It would bea pity if you left her any illusions.” “She can’t possibly haveany illusions about you,” Kathryn commented, looking roundat Tina, who was sitting very still in her chair. “I don’t knowwhat explanation you gave for suddenly wanting a job as achauffeur, but it couldn’t have been very convincing. If shebelieved you she must have been more gullible than I’mprepared to accept. What kind of story did you tell her?”suddenly gazing at him suspiciously.

“He said he wanted to marry you, and your father objectedbecause he had yet to prove that he could do a job ofwork,” Tina, in a strangely flat and spiritless voice, told her.“Not a job that had been wangled for him, but an honest,everyday one. If it had been

true, of course, he could have taken on a job in your father’ssupermarket—”

“My father’s what? ” Kathryn shrieked at her.

“Your father’s supermarket. Or one of them. I understand heruns a chain of them.”

On the far side of the room, still sitting on the arm of hisfiancee’s chair, Justin Forbes put a hand up to his mouthand chortled into it.

“A chain of supermarkets! That’s rich! I had no idea you’dsuch an imagination, old boy,” he said to Angus.

“My father is a very respected alderman in the City ofLondon,” Kathryn disclosed, passing on the information toTina between her teeth. “He is also a merchant, and hisbusiness is confined to overseas products . . . Not puttingthem on the market for lower-class women shoppers!” Shegathered up her hat and handbag, swung her expensive furcoat round her shoulders, and walked to the door. “I’mgoing to the inn in Stoke Moreton,” she told them, “and I’llbe there if you want to join me, Juliet. I wouldn’t bother to try

making an impression on Angus’s softer side, if I were you .. . He hasn’t got one any longer! Or if he has it’s a reversedsofter side for Miss Andrews’ benefit only!”

Once the door had slammed behind her Juliet gave a wail.

“But what are we going to do? ” she appealed to Justin.

Tina rose and went across to her.

“Don’t worry,” she said soothingly, “I meant what I said, andno one—no one, ” she emphasised, “can prevent me doingwhat I like with my own money. I’ll see to it that all your billsare settled, and that you have enough over and above thatto begin married life. That is, of course, if you really want toget married?”

“We do, oh, we do!” Juliet assured her fervently, reachingout a hand to clutch at one of Mr. Forbes’ hands. “Don’t we,Justin?”

“We certainly do,” he supported her, blinking at Tina as ifher unexpected generosity overwhelmed him. “But ofcourse we’ll pay back anything we receive from you, MissAndrews,” he assured her. “You can take my word for that!”

Angus made a sound that could have been one ofcontempt, but Tina merely ignored him.

“I won’t want it back,” she said, and she spoke very

decisively. “I’ll do nothing for you unless it’s on my ownterms, and those are that the money will be accepted asyour right, and not as a loan.” Juliet, who was entrancinglyattractive with her pale skin and dark hair—even though hernose was now rather red with crying—

gulped something flattering into her handkerchief.

"I don’t wonder Uncle Angus took such a liking to you. It wasAngus there—” she sniffed as her red-rimmed eyes turnedtowards him “—who did his best to set us all against you!Mother didn’t really need the money, I didn’t—although Ineed it now!—and Alaine certainly didn’t. And he was theonly one who had a good word to say for you!”

“Miss Andrews has discovered by now that it’s a favouritehobby of mine saying unpleasant things about otherpeople,” Angus observed, with a still gleam in his eyes, asTina was careful to keep her back turned towards him.

Mr. Forbes suddenly remembered that they were stillintruders. “Well, I think we ought to be making tracks for theinn as well as Kathryn,” he remarked. “Although as she’sprobably taken the car we shall have to walk.” “You can takemy car,” Tina offered, and

Angus strode forward. “Over my dead body!” he declared.“Anyone who messes about with that car while it’s stillbeing run in will be answerable to me. If you want a lift back

to the inn, Forbes, you can go outside and wait on the drive.I’ll be with you in a few minutes.”

As soon as they had left the room, in the wake of MissGaylord, Tina turned to him. Her eyes were quiet andexpressionless, and very, very darkly blue.

They made him think of gentians, rather than violets,

now that at last she knew everything there was to knowabout him.

“I suppose you thought it was a tremendous joke,” she said.“Apart from providing you with an opportunity to make mylife a trifle hazardous?”

“Have I made your life in the smallest degree hazardous?”he enquired, almost as if his curiosity prompted him to findout the answer. The real answer.

She looked down at hear hands, that were clutching the beltof her dress.

“There was that occasion when we put up at the inn on theway here,” he reminded her. “If I’d wanted to provide youwith a few thrills we could have gone on! I could have seento it that you had a very unpleasant time that night. Butinstead we had dinner together, and it was a very enjoyabledinner! There have been occasions since, when we’vebeen out in the car together . . . when I’ve seen to it that you

enjoyed yourself! I don’t think you’ve ever had muchenjoyment in your life, and perhaps it occurred to me thatone ought to do something about it in order to make up forpast deficiencies. And there was the other night, when youcame over to the flat . . . I

could have been really unpleasant to you on that night!”

She lifted her eyes, and once again they were looking hardat one another.

“You kissed me,” she reminded him. “I don’t suppose youwould have kissed a normal employer?” “Not unless shelooked like you,” he replied.

She wondered whether he was mocking her.

“If I had been Miss Gaylord what would you have done?”“Probably kissed her, too” he said drily. She turned away.

“Because she would have expected it. It would have beenrather in the nature of a routine kiss.”

“Then you don’t really want to marry her?”

“Shall we say,” with the same dryness, “she once wanted tomarry me. But I’ve a kind of suspicion she’s changed hermind about that now.”

“I think that’s rather a caddish thing to say,” she said with

contempt.

Unseen by her he shrugged.

“But then you’ve always been of the opinion that I’m a cad,haven’t you?”

“You behaved towards me as your cousin, Dr. Giffard,wouldn’t have dreamed of doing.”

“All the same, it’s you and I who have spent the last fewweeks together, and not you and Dr. Giffard!”

He moved towards her, and she never knew what heintended at that moment because a car swept past thewindows, and she recognised the red sports car which shehad been given to understand was Mr. Forbes’s property.At the wheel was Miss Gaylord, handling it a triflerecklessly. Behind the red car another car came to rest,and Tina had plenty of time to associate it with AlaineGiffard before he himself alighted and handed out his aunt,Mrs. Clare Giffard. The two of them came towards thehouse.

“A family conference?” Angus murmured, so close to Tina’sear that she started. “That’s bad! It means we’re going tohave everything out into the daylight again, and I do dislikeharsh daylight. Much better to discuss problems in a mellowatmosphere.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN BUT there was nothing mellow aboutMrs. Giffard’s appearance when she came bustling into the.drawingroom with Alaine in

attendance. The housekeeper discreetly closed the doorbehind them, and the widow advanced on Tina.

On the only other occasion that they had met Mrs. Giffardhad looked upset but dignified in a clinging gown of blacksatin, and with her hair beautifully piled on top of her head.Now she was dressed in a tweed suit, wore flat-heeledshoes and had a headscarf tied under her chin. She lookedas if she had decided upon a journey in a hurry, and wasnot really prepared for it. She also looked as if she hadevery cause in the world to be indignant with someone.

“My daughter?” she demanded. “I’ve reason to believe youare hiding her here, and I demand to see her. She isobsessed with the idea of marrying that stupid young man,and I simply won’t allow it. Not at present, anyway!”

“So far as I know, Mrs. Giffard,” Tina returned quietly, “yourdaughter and Mr. Forbes are outside on the drive. SirAngus was going to drive them to the inn in StokeMoreton.”

“Quite right, Aunt,” Sir Angus supported her placidly. Mrs.Giffard looked slightly taken aback.

“Oh!” she exclaimed. “Then why did I fail to catch sight of

them when we arrived just now? Kathryn Gaylord is outthere sitting at the wheel of Justin’s disreputable car, butthere is no sign of Justin.”

“If he had any sense,” Angus observed, “he would havetaken refuge in the bushes when he witnessed your arrival. Iknow I would!”

The doctor moved round his aunt until he was in a positionto shake hands with Tina. While retaining one of her smallhands a little longer than was strictly necessary he lookedat her a trifle rebukingly.

“Did you have to get yourself mixed up in Juliet’s affairs?”he enquired sotto voce. “She’s a featherbrained youngwoman, you know, and my aunt is really upset about her.Forbes is in no position to marry. I hope you haven’t beenencouraging them ?”

“To the tune of a substantial sum in cash, and thesettlement of all her bills,” Sir Angus disclosed with a faintnote of relish in his voice, because he knew what wouldfollow immediately.

“What!” Mrs. Giffard exclaimed, and Alaine said, “What!”even more sternly.

Aunt Clare removed her head-scarf and shook out herwhite hair. She also removed her jacket, because theatmosphere of the drawing-room was delightfully warm and

clement after the cold outside, and having knelt down infront of the fire to warm her

hands turned her head sideways and looked hard at Tina.

“Does this mean,” she asked, in the tone of one who hopedshe had not made a mistake, “that you have come to thedecision after a few weeks of occupying someone else’shouse that the will of my late brother-in-law, Sir AngusGiffard, was iniquitous? Because, if you have, I’ll admit youare not the adventuress I thought you were. I’ll evenconcede—the rest of the family being in agreement!—thatyou have a right to something out of the estate if you reallyhave made up your mind to renounce it all.”

Angus’s eyebrows lifted, and then his blue eyes regardedhis aunt with icy disdain. Alaine concentrated his fullattention upon Tina, and ignored his aunt.

“Is this right, Tina?” he asked. “Against my advice you’regoing to split the family fortunes?”

“It will be against my advice,” Angus said, between his hardwhite teeth, “if she doesn’t order Aunt Clare out of thehouse and request her never to return to it for making suchan impertinent suggestion!” He wheeled on his aunt. “Nowonder Uncle Angus declined to leave you anything morevaluable than a few trinkets. Or was it a picture you wereentitled to choose? You never did anything for him that I can

remember, and if Miss Andrews was so misguided as togo against his wishes you’d fight the rest of us for thishouse and anything else you fancied for yourself. So far asI’m concerned you could have it. You could have the lot,provided you settled it on Justin and Juliet! But you wouldn’tdo that. You’d let the girl get into more and more difficultiesbecause you’re too mean to supplement her allowance,although even now you can well afford to do so.”

His anger was so violent that even Alaine stared at himaghast, and Tina tried to intervene. “Please! If my havingthe money is going to cause all this trouble, let us come tosome arrangement that will put an end to the trouble. I don’twant it.” She turned to Alaine, as if appealing to him.“Honestly, I don’t want it! I was far happier when I wasworking as a schoolteacher, and I can return to teachingtomorrow and be happy again.” She moved wildly towardsthe door, but Alaine seized her by the wrist and drew herback to the fire again.

“Don’t be silly, Tina,” he urged. “My uncle meant you to havethe money, and you must keep it.”

“But I don’t want it!” What with these endless accusationsthat implied she was nothing more than an adventuress,and Angus thinking she needed to be taught a lesson sobadly that he took a job in her service just for the purepleasure of making her regret her new position, all at onceshe was really upset. Or was that really and truly his only

motive when he took on the job?

She didn’t know. She was unable to know. When she methis eyes now the expression in them had alteredcompletely, and there was queer compassion for the tearsthat were welling up slowly in her eyes, and beginning to rolldown, her cheeks. He spoke to her roughly, moving acrossto her and gripping her by her arm so fiercely that it hurt

“Tina, stick to the promise you made to Juliet, and ask myaunt to leave here. She hasn’t any right to anything. None ofus has! We were never very close to Angus . . . In fact, as afamily he detested the lot of us!”

“Well!” Mrs. Giffard exclaimed, rising to her feet andconfronting her nephew. “What a dreadful thing to say! Andwhat a completely untrue thing! I devoted many years toyour uncle, looking after his needs . . . ”

“You mean you wrote to him regularly explaining why younever seemed to be able to make ends meet, in the wayyou’d like them to meet! And if it wasn’t for yourself it wasfor Juliet. There was always something you were asking for.And it was only when he was ill and on his deathbed thatyou came here to take over control of the house.”

Mrs. Giffard spluttered.

“And who with a greater right than myself?” she demanded.And then, because there seemed no point in being

dishonest, “I any case, he was a horrible old man . . . rude,discourteous, ungenerous and inconsiderate. He had avery poor opinion of you, too,” she told Angus in triumph.

He looked back at her with coldest of cold blue eyes.-“Idon’t dispute it,” he said. “I never did anything to give him abetter opinion. Only Alaine got on with him, or bothered tokeep in touch with him. Yet he left him nothing when hedied.”

“Because of that girl!” She pointed a rude finger at Tina.

Angus placed himself slightly in front of her.

“If you say anything more as offensive as that to MissAndrews . . .” he began.

“Well?” said Mrs. Giffard, panting a little. “What will you do?You whom we find here pretending to be her chauffeur, andliving under the same roof with her. No wonder poorKathryn is outside sitting in Justin’s car and lookingwretched. The world seems to have turned upside downsince Miss Andrews came into the

picture!”

For a moment Alaine, who was watching with interest,thought the violent Angus, with his red hair and flaming blueeyes, would forget himself altogether and be reallyobjectionable to his aunt. But he remembered in time that

she was his aunt, and in answer to the last accusation tookTina’s hand firmly in his and made a statement that shookeveryone in the room, including Tina.

“Miss Gaylord is at liberty to sit in any car she chooses andlook wretched. She and I were never anything more thanfriends. Oh, I know that’s what everyone says in thesecircumstances, but it’s true! We were good friends while itlasted, and now I don’t imagine we’re friends any longer.But Tina—Miss Andrews—and I have never been friends!We are however, going to marry one another, and then weshall learn to be something rather better, perhaps.”

Vaguely Tina heard Alaine, who was standing close to heron her other side, utter a sound like applause.

“Splendid, splendid! I really ought to be upset, but I’m not.”He squeezed Tina’s free hand. “You two were suchunnatural enemies!”

“Upon my word!” exclaimed Aunt Clare. “You must be mad,Angus! Why, you hardly know the girl.”

“I know her as well as I need to know her,” Angus returnedquietly. He felt Tina trying to wriggle her hand free, but heheld on to it grimly. “A short while ago I advised her not topart with any of her money to any one of you, but now I wanther to get rid of the lot of it. But we’ll keep Giffard’s Prior. Itwill make an ideal family house, and old Angus would have

approved.” He glanced up at the portrait of old Angusabove the fireplace, and the two men who were so muchalike exchanged knowing glances. “Thank you, Uncle, formaking such an exceptionally wise and diverting will,” hesaid.

Tina managed to wriggle her hand free. She managed tomake herself heard at last.

“Your aunt is right, Sir Angus. You’re mad! You know verywell we have no intention of marrying.”

“Haven’t we ?” He looked at her sideways, and suddenlyher heart leapt. She also experienced an extraordinarysensation of weakness—almost of faintness— after thatexchange of glances, and when he took possession of herhand again her fingers tightened about his as if she neededsupport.

He spoke to her gently—very gently—this time.

“Go upstairs and pack a bag, and we’ll leave for Londonjust as soon as you’re ready. And just as soon as I’ve gotout of this uniform and put on something I’ll feel slightlymore at home in. Justin can have it if he likes, but oncewe’ve seen the solicitor his problems will be settled. And sowill Juliet’s! In future she won’t need to appeal to her motherwhen she runs up a few bills!”

Aunt Clare spluttered again.

“If you think I’ve been ungenerous to Juliet—”

“I do,” her nephew told her firmly, and then, with equalfirmness, he half led, half guided, Tina to the doors.

“I’ll give you a quarter of an hour,” he said. He glanced atthe darkening sky outside. “If we run into a storm we’ll knowwhere to spend the night!”

“That doesn’t sound at all nice to me,” Aunt Clare saidfeebly, but her other nephew went after Tina andcongratulated her—and Angus—in the very middle of thehall, beneath the magnificent chandelier that had sent forthsuch a blaze of light on the night that Tina had first arrivedat the house.

“As I said before, I ought to be upset, but I’m not really.” Yetthere was a wry expression round his mouth as he tookTina’s hand. “If I were a marrying man I’d probably go andcommit suicide. But I’m not, and Angus is, and I do wishyou both every happiness! I don’t know when you decidedthat the instantaneous dislike you took to one another hadfaded sufficiently to allow you to consider such a step asmatrimony, but from an onlooker’s point of view you don’tseem to have wasted much time.”

Tina shook her head at him helplessly, but her eyes wereradiant—so curiously radiant that he felt a little amazed byher. Angus was still gripping her hand in a manner that hurt,

but it didn’t seem to matter in the least.

“So far as I’m concerned,” she confessed, “there never wasany instantaneous dislike. And Angus doesn’t really want tomarry me.

Angus looked down at her, a cat-like gleam of satisfactionin his eyes, and contradicted her flatly.

“As a matter of fact, I do! I found that out a week or so ago,and there was no one more surprised than myself. Youcould say it’s because she grows on one. . . Anyway, I thinkI know now why old Angus made that will!”

In the car, on the way to London, Tina felt as if events hadmoved so fast they had taken away her breath. Sheglanced sideways at her companion— for the first timesince the acquisition of the Bentley they were both seatedon the same side of the glass partition, and Angus had ridhimself of his chauffeur’s uniform— and thought how well helooked in a well-cut dark suit, with his Old Etonian tieknotted with meticulous correctness. He had undoubtedlysunk the personality of the chauffeur in the personality of SirAngus Giffard, Bart, for good and all.

He was frowning because it was the wrong end of the dayto be starting off on a long journey, and they had a lot oftime to make up.

“If the weather holds we could be at my flat in time for an

“If the weather holds we could be at my flat in time for anearly breakfast,” he said.

Her eyes became suddenly almost painfully shy. “I’ve neverseen your flat,” she said. “I don’t even know where it is.”

“Service flat off Piccadilly,” he admitted. “Handy for theclubs and bars and things.”

“The sort of life you lead when you’re in London?” His eyesleft the mad for an instant, and he glanced round at herquizzically.

“Did lead,” he amended. “A married man will have to settlefor something different.”

The colour rose up under her clear skin. She swallowedhard, and then plunged in at the deep end.

“You know very well you don’t really want to marry me,” shesaid. “You only said all that you said Giffard’s Prior as—asa sort of- challenge . . ” “To whom ?” he enquired, as if thesuggestion was a novel one to him.

“Well, to all of us, I suppose! You wanted to say somethingthat would startle us and put an end to all the argumentthere! Some kind of decisive action had to be taken, asthey were all in such a state of confusion.”

“And you think that what I said to Alaine was part of the act,too?”

She looked down at her gloved hands, that were claspingone another for support in her lap, and suddenly he utteredan exclamation that had a mingling of impatience andresignation in it, and glanced at the lowering clouds abovethem. “Well, I didn’t want to waste the time . . . But Isuppose we’d better stop. You seem to be still labouringunder an outsize delusion, and knowing you I recognise thatimmediate action will have to be taken.” He slowed the car,and they drew in towards the hedge and finally came to astop on the utterly deserted road. “Give me your hand!” hecommanded.

She obeyed, and after removing the glove and examiningthe delicate shape of it and the shiny pink nails, he carriedit almost reverently up to his lips. He kissed it several times,and then held it

for a brief moment against his cheek.

“So I don’t want to marry you, is that it?” he said. Herabashed eyes hung upon his.

“Well, why should you?” Her voice faltered. You don’t evenneed my money!”

“But marrying you for your money would be a good thing!Although we’ve decided, haven’t we, to give it away? That’sone of the reasons why we’re making this hasty trip toLondon!”

Then, before she could have the least idea of his intentions,he had bent towards her and caught her almost fiercely intohis arms. He forced her head down on to his shoulder, andshe could feel his long fingers stroking her hair. The scentof that hair stole up to him, and he was looking distinctlybemused when she managed to get a clear view of hiseyes.

“Oh, Tina!” he exclaimed. And then, again, practicallyinaudibly, “Oh, Tina!”

When he kissed her before he had been experimenting,she knew ... Or couldn’t she even be certain of that now?The way his mouth found and devoured hers was such anexperience that it left her without the power to assess ordecide anything; and when her own left arm crept up andclung about his neck she didn’t even wonder at hertemerity. She could hear him whispering to her, in acuriously derogatory and yet wholly adoring way:

“You little idiot! You wonderful girl! Don’t you know I’ve beenobsessed by you from the moment I found you curled up onthe rug like Cinderella that night old Angus passed away?You looked like a waif blown in by the storm, and your hairwas like floss silk, and your eyes were so blue . . . andbewildered!” He kissed them lingeringly, obviouslyappreciating the way her eyelashes fluttered beneath thetouch 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 asrude. Then you were even more of an enchantment,because you’d had the sense to have all the right thingsdone to you, and I could hardly believe it! That day I foundyou 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 headinto his shoulder, and clinging to him tightly. “You saidsomething about giving me a good thrashing if I was a man—!”

“Which, no doubt, would have improved you still more!” Hetilted her chin and looked deep into her eyes. “Tina, I doknow what old Angus meant when he said he would havemarried you if he’d been younger! You do things to a man—even Alaine!— and one wants either to dominate you or getdown on one’s knees and grovel at your feet. I’m not thegrovelling kind, so I tried to get what I wanted in other ways.I had to remedy the unfortunate early impression I’d givenyou of myself, and I had to be near you. So, when I foundthat you needed someone to drive your car, I applied for thejob! I didn’t mean to fight you. I meant to insinuate myselfinto 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 theygazed up at him, clouded suddenly.

“But you did say you were very much in love with MissGaylord! It was supposed to be the reason why you took onthe job! Weren’t you—” hesitantly “—the least little bit inlove with her . . . ever?” “No, my darling, not ever!” Hesmoothed the silken soft hair and his touch wasmiraculously gentle. “I used her, shamelessly, eventelephoned her in the evenings to give the right sort ofimpression and received a lot of abuse over the wirebecause she was wrapped in the arms of Morpheus at thetime!” He drew her passionately closer to him. “If you wantthe truth, I’ve never been in love with anyone, although thatdoesn’t mean I haven’t made love occasionally.” He washolding her chin firmly so that she couldn’t avert her eyes.“Every man has to make a little love before he discoversthat he’s „in love’— as I am with you! Hopelessly in love,submerged, smothered in it! And if you can’t assure methat you’re just as much in love with me,” his voice shakingas if for once in his life it was far from under control. “I don’tquite know how I’m going to take it! I might revert to type,become violent! Force you to have some sort of feeling forme ...”

“But I love you,” she told him with soft clarity.

“Do you? Really?” His fingers, as well as his voice, wereshaking 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 allmy money to the members of your family who need it?Juliet, for instance?”

“Certainly not!” he returned, with something of his oldsharpness and arrogance. “Have you any idea, I wonder,how long lawyers take to draw up a simple thing like aDeed of Gift? Anything up to six months, I’d say, at the rateJasper moves. And in any case, I’m not at all certain we’rehanding it all over. I can certainly keep you for the rest ofyour life without inflicting any unnecessary hardship

on myself, but there’s Giffard’s Prior to maintain, I’ve anidea old Angus wanted it lived in. Probably by you and metogether! ”

“You mean he hoped we—we might get to like oneanother?” He snorted.

“As did Angus knew me very well indeed he would havebeen quite certain I’d do something more than ‘like’ thewoman I married. But yes, I think it might have crossed hismind that either Alaine or I might make you a dependablehusband, and thus keep at bay the fortune-hunters. Therewas 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 handand touched it lovingly,

“Not red, Titian,” she said, as if it mattered. “It really isTitian!” And then, reverting to the subject of Juliet: “But I didpromise to settle all her bills, and make things easy for her.We must do that!” “We will,” he promised, an expression ofdelight crossing his face as he bent his head to kiss her.“As soon as we get to London . . . After makingarrangements for getting married ourselves, that is!”

A lorry was approaching from the opposite direction, andthrough the gathering dusk the lorry driver watched themwith interest as he sped past Angus lifted his head.

“Well, I suppose we’d better be getting on,” he saidregretfully.