Enemy Lover (8 page)

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

But Alaine, groping for cufflinks even while he was speaking into the mouthpiece, apologised for having absolutely no time to spare. He was already, late for his dinner engagement, and the following day he was flying to Northern Ireland to attend the funeral of his godmother, who had died suddenly.

“I’m terribly sorry, Tina,” he told her, “but I’ll let you know as soon as I’m back, and in the meantime relax as much as possible and have a good time spending your money. I’m glad you made your decision about the car. The chap I put you to telephoned me.... he seems to think you’re a valuable customer. The next thing you’ll have to do is get yourself 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 ...” “I suppose you haven’t had time yet to take up his references?” The doctor sounded puzzled.

“No, not yet.”

Well, don’t rush the matter. Take your time. “I will,” Tina promised, but she was not at all certain what she was to take her time about once she had replaced the receiver. It seemed that she had already engaged Angus, and he would most certainly hold her to the terms of the engagement—or become something more than a thorn in her side. There was apparently, no way out. She was stuck with him!

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

She felt desolate and a little disconsolate. It was extraordinary how she had come to depend on Dr. Giffard in such a short time, and somehow the world seemed empty now that he was temporarily flying away out of her life... Although only, thankfully, to Northern Ireland!

She decided to skip dinner that night, and had some sandwiches on a tray in her room. Somehow its luxury oppressed hear. London was no place for a girl on her own—even a wealthy girl. She decided to go north without delay, even if it meant having Angus mocking her with his cold blue eyes, and saying deliberately unpleasant things. At the worst, she could always retaliate... And somehow she felt she was getting a little better at that sort of thing. Where Angus was concerned she was not quite so timid and long-suffering as she had been.

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

She had issued her instructions to him on the telephone the day 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, that she wished to be collected at ten o’clock the following morning, and if possible she wanted to reach Stoke Moreton before nightfall.

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

“We could always stop for the night somewhere on the road,” 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 of between here and Stoke Moreton.”

She wasn’t sure whether he was being helpful or merely mocking 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’d gone out to buy a car.

She refrained from saying anything further, and that night she collected her hotel bill and was ready to leave by ten o’clock the following morning. She felt a little embarrassed when various members of the hotel staff—one of the two small page-boys in particular—having been suitably rewarded by her for any extra attentiveness they had paid her, collected in the vestibule to watch her depart. All her new cases were stacked ready to be loaded into the Bentley when it arrived; and when it finally did arrive she received something in the nature of a shock. For Angus had got himself fitted out with a uniform, and it was so smart that it became him even better than his well-cut Savile Row clothes. It was grey like the car, and the peaked cap drew attention to his dark blue, gleaming eyes.

“I trust I’m on time, madam,” he said, as he slid easily out from his seat behind the wheel, and presented himself before her in the vestibule. He clicked his heels smartly together, and attempted some form of salute. “I was up bright and early this morning in order not to keep you waiting. I’m afraid I had rather a late night last night, which didn’t make things too easy.”

She felt herself flushing brilliantly. The pages-boy and the hall porter were goggling openly, for this wasn’t the first time they had seen Sir Angus Giffard. And Sir Angus Giffard in a uniform was still Sir Angus Giffard, very immaculate 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 the bill for the whole outfit for you here . . . I didn’t think you’d be likely to have an account at a shop that caters strictly for the requirements of the male sex, so I settled it and depended upon you to reimburse me. On the whole I think I did some very economical shopping.”

She declined to so much as glance at the bill, and thrust it instead away in her handbag. He picked up a couple of the lightest of her suitcases, and the hall porter and his underlings saw to the disposal of the rest. The boot of the Bentley was very capacious, and it took everything with ease. Inside in the car with her she had only her small dressing-case and a mysterious armful of hot-house roses that someone had had delivered to her at the hotel that morning.

She had no real idea who it was who had sent them to her, although she strongly suspected Alaine. She was wildly thrilled because, although still far away in Ireland, he had thought 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 they were bright and alert, and even seemed to her to be dancing a little. “Pity they’re not red roses, though... We all know what red roses mean!”

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

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

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

After he had made his telephone call he returned to the car with a quietly satisfied look on his face. There was a certain languidness about his eyes, almost a melancholy droop to his lips as he got back into his seat and made a slight pretence of closing the glass partition between them.

“Miss Gaylord,” he murmured. “I always telephone her about this hour of the morning. Helps to get the day really started for 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, an extraordinarily attractive young woman? Beautiful . . . Really a sight for sore eyes! ”

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

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

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

Well, thankfully Alaine had noticed what a angularly perfect skin she had, and had commented on it. He had said something about it reminding him of pale rose-petals... The Dresden 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, and that the surface of the road was not ideal for speeding. It was, in fact, rather an icy surface, and the lowering clouds that massed above their heads threatened them with something more than ice before the day was out

They stopped for lunch at one of the well-run country inns for which Angus seemed to have a predilection and as they drove beneath the arch into the ancient courtyard of the inn—once a famous posting-house—Tina found herself wondering how she would feel with a liveried chauffeur (her own!) sitting opposite her at the table, and whether the conversation during the meal would be difficult to maintain, or merely a trifle embarrassing. If Sir Angus insisted on behaving like an over-subservient manservant with a gleam both of malice and contempt in his eye, the food would be hardly enjoyable. She might even feel as if it was inclined to choke her . . .

But she need not have worried. Sir Angus had already decided upon his course of action once they entered the hotel, and she hardly knew whether to fed relief or a certain amount of surprised vexation when he anounced that he would have some sandwiches in the bar, and allow her a full hour in which to enjoy her meal.

She expostulated at once.

“But this is ridiculous! Of course you must have lunch with me—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 any case, I shall prefer my sandwiches in the cosy atmosphere of the bar! You can enjoy your roast chicken, or pork, or beef, or whatever you fancy without anyone like me to upset your digestion, at a suitable corner table in the restaurant. If you like I’ll go ahead and order it for you.”

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

He was standing holding open the car door, and he shivered in an exaggerated fashion as the icy cold wind whistled past his ears.

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

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

He shrugged.

“As you please of course. But it will look rather silly, won’t it? The lady in the car, the chauffeur in the bar.”

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

But he disabused her of any such notion.

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

possibly drive on in this weather without refuelling my inner man. And if you don’t want to create a kind of minor commotion you’ll get out and walk with the dignified grace of a lady of means into the hotel proper,” he urged her, with sudden sharpness. “There are one or two curious pairs of eyes 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 walked stiffly into the hotel.

She could not have told what she had for lunch, for although she was grateful for the sudden warmth and the old-world comfort of the hotel dining-room, she was in such a state of seething rebellion after her conversation outside with her newly engaged chauffeur that her appetite was nil, and she barely 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, and she even rebuked herself for losing her temper with a man who would always get the better of her in conversational warfare . . . She was so certain of that that she wondered more than ever why she had ever allowed herself to be persuaded to employ him. And, apart from anything else, he was sufficiently a man of the world to be wise in some of the things he said, and he had undoubtedly been right about her lunching alone. It might have looked odd, and caused comment afterwards, if she had shared a corner table in the dining-room with him, when in spite of his musical-comedy uniform he looked so arrogantly in command of the situation. And was so strikingly good-looking.

A dear old lady might have shared a table with him, and no comment would have been made. But not a girl who looked like Tina, and had so very recently received an extra polish.

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

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

“Thank you, I did,” he returned. “And the company was excellent! I hope you enjoyed your roast beef of Old England ?”

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.” She realised that his eyes were studying her with unusual gravity. “I want to apologise for making something of a scene before I went in to lunch,” she said impulsively.