A Man To Tame - Rachel Lindsay (Roberta Leigh) (15 page)

Silently the child turned and led
the way down the path. ‘My father has already shown you the swimming pool, now
I'll show you the one that I like best of all.' She plunged ahead? gathering speed as she descended the sloping lawn. Within a
moment they were out of sight of the house—for the level dropped sharply—and
the well-tended lawns were replaced by wild-looking shrubs.

‘Mind the brambles!' Janey called,
but her warning came too late, for Kate found herself imprisoned by prickly
green stems.

'I'm afraid the brambles are
minding me,’ Kate chuckled, and tried to set herself free. But each time she
moved, other brambles dung to her and Janey &ad to come back and help to
set her free.

‘You walked straight into the
bushes,' she said solemnly. 'Don't you know not to do that?'

'I'm afraid I'm not very
knowledgeable about gardens,’ Thankfully Kate stepped free and on to the path
again. ‘What bushes are they?'

'Blackberries. In August they'll be full of fruit. Grannie
always lets me pick them,’

That must take you a long time.’

'I have nothing else to do in the
holidays,’

'Don't you have any friends?’

'I prefer to be alone with my
grandmother and my father,’ the child said fiercely. 'I don't like it when we
have visitors,’

‘You make me feel as if I'm in the
way!' smiled Kate.

Janey eyed her. 'You might not be,’
she said magnanimously. 'I mean you haven't fallen over me and said how
beautiful I am.’

I’m sorry, should I have done?'

'No. Because I
wouldn't have believed you even if you had. I'm not beautiful. I'm a
very plain child.'

Kate laughed and then instantly
sobered. 'I didn't mean to be rude, Janey, but if's such a funny thing to say.'

'It’s the truth,’

'I don't agree with you. You aren't
beautiful yet, but you aren't plain. You have a very distinctive face.'

‘What does that mean?'

'It means you're unusual. Different in an interesting way.'

‘Felicity says I have good bones
and that she would like to paint me, but I don't think she means it. She only Says it because she thinks it will make Daddy love her.’

‘You still haven't shown me your
special pool,’ Kate said hastily, and began to walk on.

Janey raced ahead and then stood squarely
in
front of �her,
arms akimbo. ‘You don't talk much for a grownup.’

There's no point talking when you
have nothing to say,' Kate replied.

Ton don't
look like a doctor.'

'Is that because I'm a woman?’

'It's because you're pretty. Is
your hair real or do you dye it?'

'It's quite real,' Kate assured the
child. 'It always looks streaky blonde in the summer.' She glanced over her
.shoulder. 'I think we'd better go back, it's nearly lunch-time.'

‘You must see my pool first.' Janey
turned and plunged forward, then disappeared round a bend. Kate followed and then
gave a gasp of delight. Ahead of her lay a small natural lake
some twenty yards across and about double that in length. It was
bordered by trees and a large weeping willow, beneath which was moored a small
boat.

'Sometimes I have a picnic in the
middle of the lake,' Janey announced. 'But I fell in a few months ago and Daddy
says I mustn't go out in the boat again unless I have a grown-up watching me.'

‘That’s very sensible of him.'

They began to retrace their steps
and Janey looked up at Kate with a confiding smile. The lake is much nicer than
the swimming pool, isn't it?'

'It's quite different,' Kate
replied. ‘You can't go boating in the swimming pool, but on the other hand I
think it's much nicer for swimming.'

'It's like people,’ Janey said. ‘We
like different people for different reasons and some we don't like at all,’

Sensing another indiscretion on the
way, Kate quickened her step. 'Do you go to school in Llanduff?' she asked.

‘I go to a private one on the other
side of the valley. But sometimes I can't go
because of my asthma and one of the teachers comes along and gives me private
coaching. It’s much nicer than a big school,’ Janey added, 'though Daddy says
if I grow out of my asthma he'll send me to a boarding school.’

‘Would you like that?'

'No,’ Janey said fiercely, 'and I'm
not going to go. She wants me to go because she knows I don't like her,’

Kate knew the conversation had
veered towards Felicity again and she decided that Janey's animosity stemmed
from jealousy. Obviously Janey resented her father feeling affection for anyone
other than herself and she possibly thought it also smacked of disloyalty to
her mother's memory.

'Do you like Felicity?' Janey
demanded so directly that an answer could hot be avoided.

'I've only met her
a couple of times, but she seems very nice. She's your cousin, isn't
she?'

'A very, very distant one,’

'I understand she looks like your
mother. I should think that would make you like her,’

'I didn't know my mother very well,’
Janey said artlessly. 'I had a nanny to look after me. She only left me last
year because she went to see her sister in Australia. But I didn't mind her
going, 'cos she always treated me like a baby and I'm
not.’

‘You're certainly not,’ Kate
agreed. ‘You're ten and very sensible,’

Janey gave a hop and a skip and
started to chant: 'I'm sensible, sensible, very, very sensible,’ which
immediately belied the fact and made Kate warm to her, and at the same time
feel saddened that a child who was so easy to make happy should still exude
such an air of being misunderstood.. Doubtless she was well cared for and
loved, but the love was not given in a way she could understand. If Janey were her child… She quickened her steps and came
up on to the lawn to find Dermot coming towards her.

‘We were just about to send out a
search party for you,' he said. ‘Lunch is ready and Mr Howard wants you.’

'If only he did!' Kate thought
wistfully, and followed Dermot to the house.

CHAPTER TEN

Lunch was served in the panelled
dining room where the dark wood of the walls was repeated in the solid Welsh
furniture: long refectory table, carved sideboard and straight-backed chairs
made comfortable by tapestry seats where golden rust colour was echoed in the
curtains at the windows, and a surprisingly elegant-looking sideboard. But if
the furnishings were Welsh, the food was decidedly cosmopolitan, beginning with
a quiche, followed by fresh Scotch salmon with Italian asparagus and concluding
with a magnificent cheese board.

Janey sat a few places down the
table from Kate, who noticed automatically that the child barely touched her
food. She looked flushed too, and Felicity Davis commented how pretty Janey
looked with pink cheeks.

'It makes your eyes look even bluer
than they are,’ she said.

‘My eyes can't be bluer than they
are already.'

Felicity looked amused as she
turned to Joshua. ‘You must let me paint her. You know how good I am with
children's portraits.’

'I know how successful you are with
them,' Joshua teased and, under cover of the general laughter, Kate looked
questioningly at Dermot.

'Didn't you know she was a portrait
painter?' he said softly.

Kate shook her head. So that was
why the name Felicity Davis had been familiar to her. If her wits had been
working properly she would have realised who she was immediately, for last year
Peter had taken her to an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery and they
had both been impressed by the extremely vital portraits of a new artist; of Felicity,
in fact. Kate glanced at the clear-cut profile, smooth white skin and jet black
hair. Yes, the paintings were as full of vitality as the young woman who had
painted them. No chocolate box likeness had marred the dozen canvases hanging
up for display, rather had each one been a detailed and ruthless character
analysis. Looking at the child's scowling face, Kate could not see Felicity
depicting her in any Mattering form. Indeed if she painted with her usual
honesty, then the sitter's animosity was bound to be visible on the canvas.

‘Do say I can paint her!' The
laughter round the table had died and Felicity's voice could be heard. 'I
shouldn't need more than three or four sittings.'

'How about it,
Janey?' Joshua asked. 'I fancy a
portrait of you. I could hang it up in the library and see it when I’m working
there.'

^‘
Janey's whole face lit up with pleasure and Kate was sure Joshua
had been very deliberate in what he had just said. Oh, he was a man to be
reckoned with.

‘Will you put it in a gold frame?'
the child inquired.

‘We shall have to decide when we
see the finished portrait.' Dark eyes turned to Felicity. When will you start?'

Tomorrow—before either of you have
a chance to change your mind. I'll do the sittings here, though. I think Janey
will be happier in her own surroundings.'

And it would also give Felicity a
chance to be in Joshua's home, Kate thought cynically, and was angry that a
woman who was so beautiful should also have such talent. A great deal of the
publicity she had read about her came back into her mind, and she found it hard
to accept that Felicity would be willing to keep her talent cloistered in a Welsh
valley when for so many years she had been queening it in the capital cities of
the world. But perhaps Felicity had grown tired of the social round and now she
had achieved fame, did not wish to go on courting
it.
Besides, sitters
wont come knocking at her door rather than the other way round, and she was no
doubt in the enviable position of being able to paint wherever she wished to
live, be it New York, London or Llanduff.

‘You're looking very pensive,
Kate.'

With a start Kate found Joshua
speaking directly to her, the first time he had done so since they had walked
together by the swimming pool. 'I was thinking how wonderful it must be to have
a talent like Miss Davis's,’ she said.

‘What's wrong with your talent?'

Silver-grey eyes were puzzled. 'I
have no talent.'

‘You are an excellent doctor and
you have a gift for making your patients talk to you. I consider that to be a
talent.'

Kate was astonished and
Felicity—who had overheard the comment—flung her a look that was far from
friendly. But her voice, when she spoke to Joshua, was disarmingly artless.
'Surely to be a good doctor one only needs a good memory and the ability to
pass examinations?'

'Does technical dexterity with a
brush turn a painter into an artist?' Joshua asked.

‘You know it doesn't But with
medicine——'

To be a good doctor you have to
have more than an understanding of illness,’ Joshua cut in. ‘You need to
understand people and what makes' them react and respond. Some of it you can
learn, but
if
you can ally it to your own intuition and feeling, then
I'd call it a talent!'

Kate's pleasure at hearing
this—especially coming from Joshua—was marred by the suspicion that his praise
of her was uttered merely to irritate Felicity. Certainly the anger in the
bright blue eyes indicated that she was rising to the bait. Unwilling to let
herself be used for this purpose, she intervened into the conversation.

'I appreciate the compliment you're
trying to pay me,
Mr
Howard, but I don't think one can compare a
doctor's ability with that of an artist.'

That’s what the artists say,’ he
replied at once. ‘But then they like to build up a mystique around themselves.
So do writers.'

‘Now they really do have a
mystique.' Dermot came into the conversation and with a faint sigh of relief
Kate let the talk wash around her. She glanced to where Janey was sitting and
was surprised to see the seat empty and a half-eaten peach on the plate. The
man on Kate's other side spoke to her and she forced herself to listen to him.
She had been so intent on Felicity and Joshua that she had given little thought
to the other guests who were, for the most part, county types and
business people.

If you decide to leave Joshua,' the
man on her left said, 'come and see me before you think of returning to London.
I've a mind to start a private medicine scheme of my own.'

'Isn't it too expensive?'

'No doubt of it,
but you gain a great deal for what you expend. I thought Joshua was mad
when he first started his scheme, but now I see how right it was. Dashed
irritating, mind you,' he muttered. 'I keep waiting to get the last laugh on
him, but in ten years I've never succeeded. Still, he works like fury and he
takes chances, and that’'s what big business is all
about.'

Quick steps at the dining room door
caused a momentary lull in the conversation. It was a young maid, and
immediately upon seeing her, Joshua's mother looked concerned.

'Joshua!' she called even as the
maid bent forward to whisper into her ear and the man immediately pushed back
his chair.

'Janey?' he said in half statement,
half question and, at her nod, hurried out.

Kate longed to ask what was wrong,
but she was here as a guest, not a doctor—even though she knew that had she not
been one, she would not be here today. Indeed had it not been for her
profession she would never have met Joshua, for in ordinary circumstances their
Uses were as far apart as their ideas and beliefs undoubtedly were. She was
still mulling this over when Joshua returned to the dining room. His voice,
always crisp, was now razor sharp as he spoke to his mother.

'Parker is away for the weekend and
his locum is out and hasn't left word how he can be contacted. Are you sure you
can't find that inhaler?'

‘We've hunted everywhere for it,’ his
mother said, and had no chance to say more, for her son hurried from the room
again.

Kate was unable to keep quiet, but
before she could speak, Mrs Howard noticed the jerky movement she had made in
her chair and looked at her. 'Janey is having a mild asthma attack. At least it
would be mild if we could find her inhaler. A couple of puffs and she'd be
fine.'