Deception (6 page)

'No,
but your tongue is. It's too sharp.'

It
might be, she was ready to admit, but only when pro
voked.
'I'm usually quite cheerful and good-tempered, but
I do believe in free
speech.'

'Please
feel free to say what you like—until I leave this
bed,' he finished
silkily.

Thinking
she might be wiser not to-comment on that,
she asked hurriedly,
'Does this mean I'm—er—hired?'

'Engaged?'
The faint twitch of his lips might have been
amusement over her
choice of words. 'For a trial period
only. You'll have to
prove satisfactory, and there's a lot
more I'll need to know
before I'd even think of taking you on permanendy. That might have to wait for
a day or two,
though.' The amusement faded from his mouth
as it
tightened, as if his weakened condition angered him.

'I'll
make sure you have no cause for complaint,' Thea
hastened humbly,
in what she hoped was the appropriate
manner.

'Just
as long as you don't start making them,' he rejoined
sarcastically. 'The
others all did.'

Silendy
watching his renewed efforts to sit up, Thea
wondered
doubtfully if she had done the right thing. At
least she would
have a roof over her head until she had
decided what she really
wanted to do. Nothing could be
worse, surely, than walking around
the countryside in this
weather? She hadn't realised it would be so
bad. Being
part of a busy household might take her mind off her own
problems until she was ready to sort them out. The ten
years
she had added to her age could be a bit of a nuisance,
but
before Murray had time to take a good look at her, if
he
ever did, she might be able to do something about that.

That
he had to forsake his attempts to sit up didn't, she
noticed,
improve his temper. Sweat, because of his weak
ened
condition, began beading his broad forehead, but
instinct warned
her against attempting to wipe it off, as she had done through the night.
Unconscious, he had managed
to scare her half out of her wits. Now, while he was fully
aware of what he was doing, she felt even more apprehensive, although she
couldn't say exactly why. It must be because of his bare expanse of chest
which, as yet, he had made no attempt to cover up.

It startled her that
he seemed to know what she was thinking and was amused by it. Again his mouth
curved in faint derision. 'If you wouldn't mind returning my dressing-gown,
Miss Andrews, the sight of me might not offend you so much. Although I
shouldn't have thought a girl with nursing experience would have found the
sight of a little bare skin alarming!'

They were staring at
each other, Murray very hard and decisive, Thea with a hot flush over her
cheeks, a sudden, unpredictable antagonism seeming to hurl them together. It
was almost more than she could manage to tear her eyes away.

Looking down at the
dressing-gown as an excuse, she tried to explain, 'I had to borrow it last
night as I was wet through, but I'll go and see if my own clothes are dry yet.
Then I can bring your tea.'

'No hurry.'

Well, that sounded
reasonable. Encouraged, she glanced at him again. 'Could you tell me where I
can find Jamie? He took himself off to bed without showing me where his room
is.'

'I think you'll find
him in the kitchen, as it's almost seven. You might tell him I can't take him
to school this morning.'

'Then what will he
do?'

'He can walk.'

'But it's miles!' she
had to protest at such a harsh decision. Poor Jamie!

'There's a short cut
through the fields, Miss Andrews.'

Thea hesitated,
fearing she might be wasting her breath. 'Would you mind if I took him, Mr
Murray? I do drive.'
 
    

'You
have a licence?'

'Yes.'
Did he have to make it so obvious that he didn't
believe her?

'The
river will still be up if it hasn't stopped raining.
Can you manage a Land
Rover?'

'I've
had some experience.'

He
raised his eyebrows. 'Just make sure you take extra
care
when you go through the ford, with Jamie beside you.'

His
tone, indicating that it wouldn't bother him if she
drowned
in the ford if she were by herself, enraged her, but
before
she could comment, he turned over and closed his
eyes. The brief
strength he had found to talk to her had
gone. Feeling dismissed,
Thea placed a few more logs on the smouldering fire and quietly left the room.

There
followed one of the most hectic mornings she had
ever known, but
strangely, for all she was so busy, she
couldn't remember ever
feeling so exhilarated. Her grandmother had taught her that it was good
for a girl to be useful as well as educated, and Thea had dutifully learnt
a lot
about running a house. But she had always been over-
protected
and had never known what it was to have to
scrimp and save. Perhaps,
at Drumlarig, she felt good because at long last she was getting a chance
to stand on her
own two feet. Not even Jerry's duplicity
seemed to hurt so
much this morning.

She
suspected, however, that the source of her newly
found optimism
sprang not so much from this as from the
mysterious sense of
homecoming which seemed to increase
with every hour. Nowhere
did she feel a stranger. Every
door she opened held more or less
what she expected. Even
outside, where she was escorted by an eager
Jamie in the dawn light, many of the paths seemed familiar.

She
couldn't remember people, not even old Martha,
who had
apparently lived at Drumlarig all her life, so must have been here when Thea
was born. Martha was a widow
whose husband had been dead for many
years. Her health being bad, she could only help when she was able, which
wasn't
often. For this, she informed Thea, she received her
keep and a small wage.

Jamie,
fast losing his reserve, ate a good breakfast. He
had
shown Thea the warm, straw-covered barn where the
big
brown hens laid their eggs, and she had scrambled him
two
for his breakfast. She had piled them high in mounds
on
fresh-made toast, spread with lots of golden butter, as
she
couldn't find any bacon. The larder proved even less of
an
Aladdin's cave, this morning, than it had done the
previous evening.

When
she asked Jamie why there was no bacon, he just
shook his head.
It was Martha who replied that they
couldn't afford such
luxuries, that Himself wasn't made of money. Thea said nothing more, her last
encounter with
Murray making her instinctively cautious, but
her list of
mental notes was growing. There were things
she vowed
she would have out with him, once he was well again and
she was firmly
established.

She
watched Jamie finish off his milk and, when he asked
if
he could have some more, she filled up his glass. When
Martha
grumbled that if he drank all the milk there would
be
none left to get cream for butter, Thea took no notice.
After
he had finished, she told him to run upstairs and say
goodbye
to his father, then get his school satchel.

While
he was gone, Martha continued to grumble over
the milk. It was
quite clear that she considered Thea was
taking too much upon
herself too soon. 'I used to do the
milking,' she finished,
on a less aggressive note, 'but now I
can't because of my
rheumatism. Mr Logan does it these days, but he won't be able tp again until
he's better, which
mightn't be until this afternoon.'

'This
afternoon!' Thea thought the old woman must
have taken leave of her
senses. 'Why, he isn't fit to be out
of bed! After I take Jamie to school I'm going
to find a doctor.'

'You'll
get no thanks for it! Mr Logan knows what's
wrong with him. It's this foreign fever.'

'I
don't know what it is, but I can see he's very ill. If the worst comes to the
worst,' Thea promised rashly, 'I'll milk
the cow myself!'

'You?'
Martha was taken aback. 'Where did a girl like
you learn to milk?'

'On
a farm,' Thea replied evenly. She had, in fact, often passed the long weeks
between school terms helping an
elderly couple on a
nearby farm. She couldn't have for
gotten everything the
Freemans had taught her.

Unimpressed,
Martha sniffed. 'If you once take it on,
you might get landed
with it for good. Never say I didn't
warn you.' When Thea remained silent, she shot
her
another glance out of sharp brown eyes.
'I never thought
Mr Logan would ever
take on someone like you as a house
keeper, although I don't suppose you'll last long. Six, he's
had,
in the last few years.'

'Six!'

Smugly,
Martha nodded. 'I thought that would surprise
you! I could tell
you all their names, if you doubt me.
None of them stayed more
than a week or two.'

Hastily
declining Martha's offer, Thea took a deep breath, asking impulsively, 'What
about Mr Murray's
wife?'

Martha
replied shortly, her tone betraying a reluctance
to talk of it,
'She's dead, and good riddance. She never was
the wife for him, and he knew it.'

The
woman's remarks were so frank, Thea felt shocked. She wouldn't have felt
surprised to have heard that Murray
had murdered his wife,
with Martha as a willing accom
plice. Through the night
he had sounded as though he'd
hated her. Martha, apparently,
hadn't liked her either, but
then Martha would be hard to please.
 
    

'I'm
sorry.' Rather helplessly she stared at Martha, not
knowing
quite what to say. 'Jamie must be very lonely
sometimes.'

'Aye,
and Himself, too,' Martha rejoined soberly. 'Mr
Logan needs a
woman, but I don't think he will ever marry
again. Mind you, there
are those who would like to make him change his mind, the widow of his late
brother being one of them, but I doubt if any of them will succeed.'

 
CHAPTER
THREE

If
Martha had given her food for thought, it was
a while before Thea had time to ponder over what she had learnt.
After
taking Jamie to the village she dropped him off at his
school,
then, going back the same way as she had come, she
called
at the doctor's house, which Jamie had pointed out
to her.

The
doctor was out, but she left word with his daughter, stressing how important it
was that her father called at Drumlarig as soon as possible. Mr Murray, she
said, was
very
ill.

The
doctor's daughter, a tall, dark girl, studied Thea curiously, with a hint of
alarm in her face. She didn't ask
any questions, however,
she simply promised that the doc
tor would get Thea's message.

The
Land Rover, Thea discovered, was much the same
as the Range
Rover which her grandfather had owned when
they had lived in the
country. She hadn't explained to
Logan Murray that she
had'learnt to drive in the Range
Rover, that she had
driven it for miles over quiet estate
roads. As it had stopped
raining, the water at the ford was shallow and she had little trouble in
getting across.

She
could see this morning that she had been wrong in her previous estimation. What
she had thought was merely
a stream, and Jamie had referred to
as a burn, was in reality exactly what Logan Murray had called it, a
river—a fairly
narrow one, it was true, but definitely a
river. Thea had a
hollow feeling inside her at the thought of
what might have happened if she had fallen into it when it was deeper. With
just
a little more rain to swell it, it might easily have been
a
raging torrent, strong enough to sweep her away.