Enemy Lover (9 page)

He answered in a quiet voice that matched his eyes.

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

She agreed.

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

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

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

He got back into his seat on the other side of the glass partition, and once more they were on their way, and once more the view from the car windows seemed extremely depressing to Tina as it slid past. By four o’clock it was already dark, and it was snowing in earnest as they crossed the bleak Derbyshire moors. Tina was perfectly warm and comfortable in the back of the luxurious car, and there was a strange sense of security in the small, enclosed space. But when the fat flakes of snow flattened themselves against the car windows, and perhaps because they were new the windscreen wipers didn’t seem to function very well, she began to wonder how much farther they could proceed without being forced to stop at the first lighted village they came to.

Lighted village was not a very apt description of the one they finally stopped at, for apart from the inn there were hardly any lights at all. The inclement weather had driven everyone indoors, and curtains were drawn against the wildness of the night outside. The inn, a lonely, lost little place, looked as if it would hardly have accommodation for a couple of visitors, but Angus, leaving the warmth of his driving compartment and slipping out into the snow, announced bleakly that it was to be hoped they could be put up 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 civilised like that, but it seems that we can’t make it. If necessary you can sit up in the inn parlour all night but I’ve no doubt the landlady will find a room for you. I’ll have to make my way to a garage, if there is one near. This was hardly the right season of the year to make a long * * •> journey in a new car.”

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 Tina was heartily relieved when she found herself in the heavily beamed room, with a row of curious faces looking at her as their owners sat on bench near the fire, and the landlord bawled lustily for his wife. When she came, wiping her hands on an apron, she was obviously considerably surprised by the sight of a young woman in a fur-trimmed coat, with snowflakes adhering to her soft fair hair and an expensive pouch handbag clasped beneath her aim, standing looking hesitantly about her while a liveried chauffeur who towered above her demanded with a touch of arrogance whether they could be accommodated for the night.

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

And then Tina’s eyes appealed to her, and she realised that Tina was shivering, and that she was a very slight young woman who huddled her coat around her. With a movement like scattering hens she turned to the locals who were enjoying the heat of the fire, and in a matter of seconds a space had been cleared for the girl, and some awkward-looking men were standing and wondering what to do with their hands and caps, while the landlady said briskly 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 for himself, but he was not surprised that his employer preferred tea. He looked at her with one eyebrow raised, and a mildly apologetic gleam in his eyes, and when the landlady said that she would have a fire lighted in her own sitting-room for them and that the place would be habitable in about an hour advised her to remain where she was for the time being and get really warm.

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

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

He shrugged.

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

“But supposing there isn’t a garage near?” Suddenly she was appalled by the thought of him wandering about in the dark outside. “This is strange country to you, and you’ll get lost. 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! The landlord says there’s a garage at the crossroads, only a quarter of a mile away, and I shan’t get lost finding my way there, or finding my way back without the car! Now, be a good girl and drink your tea, and order something substantial 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, and when the landlady informed her that the sitting-room was ready for her, and she had to leave the company of so many sturdy but perfectly polite yokels who provided her with a sensation of security in such an unfamiliar and isolated spot, she deserted the comfort of the bar-parlour with an actual feeling of apprehension dragging at her feet. The sitting-room was full of pot plants and ornaments and faded lithographs, and smelled of damp, and although the fire was burning brightly it hardly warmed her heart, and she felt terribly alone once the landlady had left the room.

She had ordered roast chicken and all the usual trimmings for dinner for herself and Angus, but sitting in the silent room with the thin whine of the wind and the falling snow outside it seemed to her that the moment when she and Angus would sit down to it was as remote from her as the stars.

Angus was wandering somewhere out in the wild, unfriendly night, and if he took a wrong turning on his way back from the garage she might never see him again. The thought appalled her . . . Angus—Sir Angus Giffard—with his dark red hair and his flaming blue eyes, his square jaw and his cruel mouth, lost somewhere on the lonely Derbyshire moors. Without so much as a torch to guide his footsteps, so far as she knew. And herself sitting waiting, perhaps for hours . . .

When she caught the sound of his voice in the narrow hall outside the sitting-room door her relief was so great that she sprang up and snatched it open with one spontaneous movement, and when Angus entered the room, covered in snow like a snowman, she was ready practically to hurl herself 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 some astonishment. The lamp was burning brightly, and he could see that the relieved colour was actually flooding her cheeks, and her eyes were aglow.

“I was terrified that you would lose your way, and might never come back!”

“Well, well,” he said softly, and before casting his hat into a corner and walking over to the fire to warm his frozen hands he took hold of her for a moment by both her shoulders. He shook her gently, but not in the least reprovingly. “Do you know,” he told her, on a note of whimsicality, “that’s the first time in my life, I think,. that anyone has welcomed me so uninhibitedly. And with, such obvious sincerity I must be gaining in your good opinion,”

He looked back at her from the fire, and his dark blue eyes were smiling whimsically. She blushed brilliantly. He pressed the bell on the tables and when the landlady answered the summons promptly ordered a bottle of wine to be served with their meal. Apparently there was no such thing as champagne in the inn, but she was certain the landlord had a few bottles of hock in the cellars.

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

The landlady disappeared, obviously thinking it quite the thing for such an impressive-looking chauffeur to order wine with his meal, and when she had left the room again Tina spoke to him shyly.

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

He rounded on her. He offered her a cigarette from his gold cigarette-case, and then remembered that she didn’t smoke.

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

“Of course not,” she returned. She was so emphatic that it caused her to blush again. “And I’m glad you don’t mind having your dinner in here with me.” “Well, well!” he said again. He threw back his head and laughed. “You do say the most surprising things, Miss Andrews.” And then he added unexpectedly: “And the nicest! I’m sure no mere domestic was ever invited to take a meal with his employer in such a very nice way before!”

CHAPTER NINE TINA slept well that night. Her bed was comfortable and the stone hot-water bottle kept her feet warm.

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

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

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

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

“No.” She smiled at him. Whatever his mood this morning she was feeling as if everything was working out extraordinarily well— for some reason that she couldn’t understand herself. It might have been the return to clean, country air, the fact that she had an appetite, and the fact that 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 his travels around the world, and if anyone hadn’t known they were employer and employee they would have been surprised to discover their relationship; and if they hadn’t been aware that they were enemies they would never have believed it possible that basically they thoroughly disliked one another. They had discussed books, the theatre, modern trends ... even subjects as remote from these as winter sports, horse racing, the advantages of possessing a flat in Paris.

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

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

But this morning, when he asked her in that bored, and slightly peevish, tone whether she wasn’t afraid of putting on weight she knew that it wasn’t because he was interested in her figure but because he ached to be critical about something. It was almost as if he was feeling vicious this morning.

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

“Yes, you do, don’t you?” he agreed, a highly critical note in his voice. “You’re a little bit undersized. Kathryn could probably 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 he would 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—not so much because he had neglected to ask her permission before leaving the room on his own concern, but because she had a fairly shrewd idea why he was looking more human. No doubt Miss Gaylord had put him in a sunnier temper, while she still reclined in her bed in her faraway London flat.

She bit her lip hard as she rose from the tables and realised that there was a snap in her voice as she said decisively;

“Well, we’d better be getting on our way, hadn’t we? There doesn’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 a little tired of this benighted spot. But no doubt that’s because I’ve just been on the line to London!” and his smile deliberately provoked her. “Awkward when one is forced to dwell in one spot and all one’s instincts prompt one to fly back to the delights of another!”

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

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