A Case of Heart Trouble (12 page)

“So she is. Well, anyway, the tray can wait.” He started walking up and down again. “I thought I ought to warn you about the sort of impact Joanna is likely to make on you. She carries everything before her, you know . . . and she’ll carry you before her if you allow it! You’ll just have to stand squarely on your two feet and not allow it! ”

Dallas was completely at sea, and she had no idea at all what he was trying to warn her of, but she did know that he was agitated, and his agitation carried him over to the window, where he stood looking out into the early March dusk and suddenly gave vent to a sigh.

“I think I’d better go back to London tomorrow. Yes, I’m fairly certain I ought to go back. . . . It’s the sensible thing!”

CHAPTER TEN

THAT night he was very quiet and thoughtful during dinner, and Dallas wished she had been allowed to have hers upstairs on a tray with Stephanie. At least, with Stephanie, she felt at ease, and the child’s chatter diverted her . . . the somewhat heavy silence which kept constantly falling between herself and her employer was the kind of silence that allowed all sorts of uneasy and tormenting thoughts to dart across her brain and entirely destroy her appetite.

Martin didn’t appear to notice that she ate little. For that matter, he ate very little himself, but he drank quite a lot. Before dinner, instead of his usual couple of sherries, he had downed two very large whiskies, and at the outset of the meal he had ordered Mrs. Baxter to bring up a bottle of wine from the cellar. It was only a light French dinner wine, but Dallas merely sipped at half a glass, and he seemed disinclined to leave very much in the bottle.

When they went through into the drawing-room to have their coffee he asked her whether she would like a liqueur, but she refused very firmly. He smiled at her for an instant, with a hint of his old whimsicalness, said she was not very companionable, and decided to have one himself.

After that Dallas was not surprised when he became more conversational, but she was certain that before that he had been dwelling on some private grief—almost certainly the loss of his wife, and the memories called up by the visit of her sister. Or—and this was much more remotely possible— the visit of the sister had upset him because the sister herself attracted him, and he was unwilling to become involved with her in any serious way. That would account for his recoil when she approached too near to him, and his watchfulness— wariness—when she was not actually close to him. His disinclination to have her once more establishing herself in his house (possibly, in the past, she had

spent a lot of time at Loring Court) and the bright, provocative sparkle in her eyes whenever she looked at him.

The link, Dallas was certain, was somewhere between the two sisters . . . the unhappiness was there because of either one or both of them. And in any case, having been brought face to face with his memories he was not in a mood to have Dallas breaking in on his thoughts and destroying them. Not until the effects of the mellowing wine at dinner, and the liqueur following, cast a rosy veil over those thoughts, and rendered him more approachable.

But by that time Dallas was wishing she was miles away from where she was, and her own tongue had become almost completely tied. She had to make a tremendous effort to appear as if she was her normal responsive self, and when he rallied her on looking a little downcast—as if the thought of his departure the following day was actually weighing on her! —she denied anything of the kind with a somewhat severe note in her voice as if she disliked the personal element he at times sought to infuse into their relationship.

“As a matter of fact, I was thinking that, from tomorrow onwards, Stephanie and I will settle down into a kind of routine,” she said. “If I’m to earn the extremely generous salary you’re paying me I must do my job properly, and I feel that it will be good for Stephanie if we begin as we mean to go on. A little work and a little play . . . after all, she mustn’t be allowed to forget school lessons altogether.”

He smiled slightly.

“What a glutton you are for earning your salary, aren’t you?” he observed. “I remember that when you were here, before, looking after me, you insisted on earning your salary.” His eyes, a trifle over- bright now, rested on her as she sat with her head bent over a piece of embroidery in her lap, and he lay back comfortably relaxed in his chair. “It’s odd to think that by this time tomorrow night I shall

be miles away from you. Will you think of me, Dallas, and wonder what I’m doing?”

She bit her lip.

So it was to be ‘Dallas’ again for a short while!

“Naturally, I shall think of you,” she replied coolly. “You’re my employer, and Stephanie’s father, and as such I shall hope that you have a very good journey back to London, and will arrive there safely and not too tired after the journey.”

“And your thoughts will have nothing more personal about them than that?”

“Why should they?” putting back her head and meeting his eyes levelly as if she was defying him to take advantage of the peculiar intimacy of their situation, and remember that she was, after all, an employee.

“Why should they not?” He frowned at her almost forbiddingly, and then went across and sat on the arm of her chair and removed her embroidery from her fingers and tossed it on to an occasional table. “You’re such a peculiar person, Dallas, so correct and formal and prim and dull.”

“Dull?” Her green eyes blazed up at him indignantly.

“Yes. Despite the fact that you have green eyes . . .” bending forward to peer into them deliberately. “You’re always weighing the consequences of every word you utter, every look you fling at me. You’re not at all sure of me . . . you never were. To you I could be dynamite, and then again it’s quite possible you’re not interested in dynamite. You’re so contained, so much like a closed book. One can’t even begin to guess what lies beneath the surface.”

“Please,” Dallas said, keeping her face averted from him. “I’d like to have my embroidery back if you wouldn’t mind handing it to me.”

“And I refuse to sit opposite you and watch you concentrating all your attention on that piece of material.”

“Then I’ll take it upstairs to my room, if I’m annoying you.” “You won’t, because I’m in the mood to talk to you, and I shan’t be here tomorrow night! Dallas—”

Infuriated by his condescension and his admission that he was now in the mood to talk to her—to notice her, and fill her with false ideas—she leaned in front of him and made to snatch up the piece of embroidery work he had so contemptuously cast aside, but he leaned forward at the same time to prevent her, and their two heads came together with a crack. For an instant she saw stars, and then she heard him apologizing in a state of utter abjectness.

“Dallas! Oh, darling, did I hurt you? Darling, I didn’t really hurt you, did I?” She blinked up at him stupidly, and he stood up and drew her unresisting to her feet. His arms went round her, and he cradled her close. “My poor little one, I’ve a head like iron, and you must have got the worst of it! Sweetheart, forgive me. I ought to be shot for behaving like an oaf! ”

Between feeling slightly bemused and unable to believe in the stream of endearments that were leaving his lips Dallas was unable to assure him that her head was not in two halves, and that stars were no longer whirling in front of her eyes, and he cupped her face in the palm of his hand and looked deeply and anxiously into her eyes.

“Forgiven?” he asked, after a moment.

She nodded. “Of course. There’s nothing to forgive,” she said huskily.

“On the contrary, I think there’s a lot to forgive.”

He bent his head, and she knew that in another moment his mouth would close over her mouth, but she had neither the will nor the desire to prevent it. Softly, and almost with a sigh, his lips pressed down on her lips, and so utterly blissful was the sensation that her arm went up and partially closed about his neck. He rubbed his cheek against her cheek, murmured into her hair and against the pink lobe of her ear, and then returned to the attack on her mouth . . . only this time it was a much more concentrated attack, shaking her to her foundations, refusing to

be satisfied even when the hall clock chimed the hour of ten; and as each breathless, silvery stroke prolonged itself and hung in the atmosphere Dallas felt as if her own breath was being ruthlessly denied her, and at the same time the ecstasy was almost too great.

Then Martin let her go, and as he looked at her his eyes were deep and dark, their expression completely altered.

“That wasn’t a reward I deserved,” he remarked quietly.

Dallas’s face was alive with color, and her eyes were like green stars; but his words brought her back to earth with something of a jolt.

“It wasn’t a reward at all,” she said huskily. “It was—I think!—an accident.”

“Like the accident of our two heads coming together?”

“That was my fault for behaving impulsively. I’m afraid I was rather rude to you.”

“And I was impossible to you! ” If he had been excited by his potations at dinner the effect had completely worn off, and he was sober enough now. He took her face between his hands once more and examined it carefully. His eyes were grave and searching. “I don’t want anything to alter our relationship at this stage, Dallas.” She had no idea what he meant, but she understood he was apologizing to her for his conduct of a few minutes ago, but not for the fact that he had kissed her for the second time while she was in a more or less defenceless position under his own roof. “I have to return to London tomorrow, and I have many preoccupations. You have to concentrate on Stephanie and taking care of your own health, and when next I come to Loring I hope to find you both looking very fit. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t both look as tough as a couple of gypsies if you follow the program I’ve mapped out for you.”

She nodded. She found she was unable to speak save in a slight, husky whisper.

“We’ll do our best. At any rate, I’ll do my best!”

“I know you will. And if you want anything.... Well, let me

know.”

She nodded again. She managed to free her face without doing anything very obvious, apart from stepping backwards a little.

He sighed.

“Well, now I suppose you’d better go to bed.”

“And in the morning you’ll be gone, so I’ll—I’ll say goodbye to you now,” and she held out a slender, hesitant hand.

But he declined to take it.

“No, I’ll see you at breakfast, and I’ll say goodbye to you then,” he said, and turned away.

But in the morning he was gone, long before breakfast was

served in the oak-panelled dining room, and Stephanie was full of indignation because he hadn’t even taken the trouble to slip up to her room and wake her to say goodbye.

Mrs. Baxter was full of complaints because he had gone off without any breakfast, and she thought that was ridiculous.

“You’d think a doctor would have more sense, wouldn’t you?” she said to Dallas.

But the latter didn’t know what to think of Dr. Martin Loring.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

JOANNA LORING wasted no time in taking over the studio at Loring Court. Dallas had a look at it before she arrived with her easel, her canvases, and all the paraphernalia of an artist, and she thought it an exceptionally pleasant room, quite apart from the fact that it was one of the largest and best-lit in the house.

It was on the first floor, and had once been the principal bedroom in the house, occupied for a long time by Martin’s grandmother. When his wife was alive she, too, had used it as a studio, for both girls were extremely talented, and in addition to painting Maureen had been interested in modelling. Some of her delicate little statuettes were scattered about the house, and a small head she had done of her husband, and had coated with bronze, occupied quite a prominent position in the drawing room.

Joanna Loring painted both landscapes and portraits, and they were extraordinarily good—particularly the portraits. They were not inclined to flatter, but they left no doubt as to who the sitter was, and apparently that sold well. Mrs. Baxter, who was unwilling to hear anything good said of Mrs. Roger Loring—the unfortunate Roger, it seemed, had lost his life while on a mountaineering expedition in Nepal—declared that she was the un- tidiest woman she had ever met in her life as she went round preparing the studio for occupation.

It meant opening it up and airing it, lighting fires in the big fireplace that was surrounded by a nursery fire-guard for some unknown reason. It also meant much polishing and refurbishing of chair covers and curtains, for the housekeeper was most unwilling that anyone should find anything in Loring Court in a condition that didn’t satisfy her own critical eye. But at the same time she was depressed by the thought that it was all so much wasted effort

when it was Joanna Loring who was going to look upon it as her room for the next few weeks.

“And mark my words, this is only the beginning,” the housekeeper declared. “The next thing will be she’ll want to move into the bedroom next door, or she’ll have a bed put in here. She did that once before, and you never saw such a state when the maids tried to clean. Stockings and underwear draped over every chair, ash-trays choked with ash. And she used to hang a notice outside the door saying she was not to be disturbed.”

“But she promised Dr. Loring she’d be very careful this time,” Dallas said defensively. . . although the impression she had received of Joanna Loring was that she needed no one to defend her. She was a law

unto herself, completely indifferent about other people’s feelings—save, perhaps, the feelings of Martin Loring!—and therefore not caring in the slightest whether they approved of her or not.

If she liked living in a state of muddle and uproar, she would continue living in a state of muddle and uproar, however many promises she made. And she was too beautiful to actively revolt, whatever she did. That was the strongest impression Dallas had received about her, and the kind of effect she had on most people ... particularly men.

The Mrs. Baxters of this world would always disapprove of her, but that wouldn’t trouble Joanna. It was quite possible that Aunt Letty disapproved of her, but that wouldn’t trouble her, either. The one person she knew who obviously could never quite disapprove of her was Martin, and where he was concerned Dallas had the oddest and most unshakable conviction that she was desperately anxious to please.