Singing in the Wilderness (11 page)

CHAPTER VI

Her face was grey with shock. How could they possibly have got on his desk
?
She shook her head miserably.

‘I hid them,’ she confessed. ‘I didn’t want you to see them!’

‘Well, it appears that somebody else did,’ he said. ‘You little fool, Stephanie! Why didn’t you tell me about them the moment you found them
?
’

‘I don’t believe my father wrote them!’

‘Don’t you?’ he said grimly. ‘Then who did?’

It was the most important thing in the world that he should believe her. ‘I didn’t type them—’

‘Are you quite sure of that?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I never saw them in my life before yesterday. Though they were typed on my machine—at least I think they were, and they have my initials on them. But I didn’t type them, and I’m almost sure my father never dictated them either!’

‘
I see.’ He was silent for a long moment. ‘You realise I shall have to follow this up? I shall have to find out if they were ever sent out as coming from your father, and I’ll have to send a full report back to London.’

‘Yes,’ she murmured.

‘It puts your father in the front line of suspects as far as the culprit who overturned your office is concerned too.’

‘Yes,’ she said again.

‘Why the devil didn’t you tell me all about it last night as I asked you to
?
’

Stephanie licked her lips nervously. ‘I don’t know,’ she managed. ‘I didn’t know what to do! But I realise I can’t go on working for you—under the circumstances. I’ll give you my letter of resignation later in the day.’

‘Getting in first?’ he jibed. ‘Okay, Miss Black, it looks as though I shall have to do without you in the office. Now sit down, before you go and faint on me, and let’s talk about you and me. Feeling better?’

If anything she felt worse. She hoped desperately she was not going to faint. She sat up very straight and tried to think of something else besides the pounding in her head and the black spots before her eyes.

‘Is there anything to talk about
?
’ she asked.

He came round the desk and placing a hand firmly on the nape of her neck, ruthlessly pressed her head well down between her knees. ‘Stephanie, my love, don’t you know that modern young ladies take anything in their stride without swooning away? Smelling salts went out with Queen Victoria, and I haven’t any feathers to burn under your nose either. Come on, nothing is so bad that we can’t face it together!’

‘But this has nothing to do with you!’ she protested. ‘Cas, you’re breaking my neck!’

‘You’re lucky I didn’t do so the moment you walked in here! I had hoped you trusted me—’

‘I don’t
know
you!’ she pleaded. His hold on her neck was as relentless as ever and, far from feeling faint any more, she was getting crosser by the minute as she suspected that he was enjoying her discomfiture.

‘That,’ he said calmly, ‘can be remedied.’ He pressed her head still lower and then finally allowed her to assume a more upright position, smiling at the scarlet indignation on her face. ‘How you hate to have your dignity upset!’ he teased her. ‘But at least you don’t look as though you’re going to faint on me any more!’

She eyed him resentfully, automatically rearranging her skirts and patting her hair back into position. ‘There are times when you are very unlikeable!’ she shot at him. His quiet acceptance of this unpalatable truth drove her into further, more reckless speech. ‘I hate you!’ she said with passion.

‘Like hell you do!’ he retorted.

She watched, fascinated, as he bent his head towards .her, and was quite unbearably disappointed when he changed his mind and took up his position behind the desk again.

‘This isn’t the time or the place for our own affairs,’ he said as he sat down. ‘We’ll sort them out somewhere else. Meanwhile, Miss Black, I am not going to accept your resignation, but I am going to suspend you from working in these premises pending my enquiry into these letters.
Now, think hard, Stephanie! Is there anything else I ought to know before I let you go?’

‘
Y
es
!
I
want to know how the letters got on your desk. I didn’t put them there, so who did?’

‘That’s what I mean to find out.’

‘How?’

He raised a thoughtful eyebrow. ‘I’d like to think you trusted me to do my best for you. Is that asking too much
?
’

His blue eyes held hers and she had the strange sensation that he could look right inside her and could read her inmost feelings, feelings that she didn’t understand herself they were still so new to her.

‘Wh-what?’ she said vaguely.

‘I was asking if you could bring yourself to trust me to look after you
?
’

‘Yes, of course.’ She wrenched her eyes away from his with an effort. What on earth was she talking about? There was nothing ‘of course’ about it! He was a stranger,
an American
! And it didn’t matter at all! She was fathoms deep in love with him and she’d trust him with the last breath in her body. ‘What do you want me to do?’

‘Give me your keys and go home until I come to you.’ She gave him an uncertain smile. ‘What about your letters
?
’

‘Fatemeh can do them. She’ll have to take your place temporarily.’ He stood up and she thought anew how large he was and that he only had to look at her for her heart to turn over inside her. It was only a physical attraction, an acute awareness of him as a man, that she had never experienced before, and she could only hope that she was not about to make a crashing fool of herself by having the sort of crush on him that she ought to have learned how to manage in her adolescent days.

‘Why not Gloria?’ she said in a commendably even voice.

‘I think Fatemeh will suit me better.’

Stephanie stood up too. ‘Fatemeh is getting married soon. She’s invited me to her wedding. What will you do then?’

He put out a hand and cradled her cheek. ‘I’ll manage. Now give me the keys and we’ll go along to your office
together and pick up your personal things. Do you think you can amuse yourself until lunchtime without going into a decline because I won’t let you go on working?’

‘I think so,’ she said. ‘I’m quite modern in some ways.’

He grinned. ‘You could have fooled me!’

‘Why
?
What’s so old-fashioned about me
?
’ she demanded. ‘I can’t see that there’s anything to laugh about!’

‘Can’t you? That’s because you can’t see your face!’ His laughter was very gentle, though, and she thought she would be hard to please indeed if she were to resent it. ‘Go home, honey,’ he went on, ‘and cook us something delectable for our lunch, after which I’ll take you out for the afternoon. Okay?’

She gave him a smile that was more than a little shy. ‘I thought you’d be angry with me for not telling you about the letters. I’m sorry, Cas.’

‘A little disappointed. But I’ll win your trust yet, my love. I’m old-fashioned too, you see. I don’t like to see too much independence in a woman, not when I’m there to do her worrying for her. I have my pride too!’

‘But I’m a stranger to you,’ she objected. ‘Why should I depend on you when I’m the one who’s in trouble
?
’

He ran his hand through her hair, mussing it up to his satisfaction. ‘Can’t you guess?’

She chewed at the inside of her lip, shaking her head, suddenly rather nervous of him, ‘Please don’t, Cas.’

‘Meaning you can guess, but you’re not going to be drawn?’

‘Meaning that I like to keep my hair neat!’ she retorted. ‘I don’t like it all over the place!’

His chuckle made her blush. ‘I think it looks cute. It makes you look like a windswept child! And you ought to be grateful. It got you off the hook and you haven’t had to admit a thing—not this time!’ He threatened to tousle her hair once again, but she stepped back too quickly to allow it. ‘I take a personal interest in how you keep your hair,’ he teased her.

She was immediately indignant. ‘That doesn’t give you the right—’ she began, the more heatedly as she made the discovery that she hadn’t really minded half as much as she thought she should have done.

‘It’s a right I choose to take!’ he countered, smiling. She had no answer ready for him. She gave him a quick, frightened look; her mouth gone dry, wondering what other rights he might choose to take and, even more, whether her already weakened defences were going to stand the strain. If he were less attractive to her, or if she could meet him on equal terms—but, in her heart of hearts, she knew that none of these things would have made any difference at all. She had been lost from the first moment that the urge to please him had been stronger than her need for caution and an orderly existence. She, who had always taken the long view, was now incapable of seeing anything but him and, heaven knows, he was large enough to block out the rest of the world if he’d a mind to!

He smoothed her hair down again, still smiling. ‘You’d better go before I think up something else to delay you. Shall I come down in the lift with you
?
’

She shook her head, a little shocked that he should suggest it. ‘Of course not!’ She felt faintly relieved that she should sound so decided and in command of herself. ‘But, Cas, I’m sure my father
didn’t
write those letters!’

‘Would you have shown them to me if you had thought he had?’

Her eyes wavered in the face of the brilliant blue of his. ‘I hope I would have done,’ she said at last. ‘I
think
I would have done so, but I’ll never be absolutely sure. I can’t forget he’s my father!’

‘I’m not likely to forget it either,’ he assured her.

‘No, but you’ll do the right thing,’ she sighed. ‘I wish I could be certain that I would have done so too.’

He touched her mouth with the tips of his fingers to silence her. ‘You’ll do, honey! Though I could have wrung your neck with the greatest of pleasure when I saw those letters on my desk this morning! You beguile me far too easily. Will you always do so, I wonder?’

She felt a shiver of fear run through her. ‘You will be careful, won’t you? Supposing they try to get rid of you too?’

His eyes narrowed thoughtfully. ‘I can look after myself. It won’t be the first time I’ve had to deal with
this sort of thing. I can play it pretty dirty myself if I have to, but I don’t want you involved any further. You can exercise your talent of feeding the brute and keeping me happy. Is it a deal?’

He held out his hand to her and she took it without any hesitation. ‘Not everyone likes my cooking. Gloria didn’t!’ she said with feeling.

‘Possibly a recommendation in itself,’ he drawled.

She threw back her head and laughed. ‘Poor Gloria! I wonder what made her apply for a job out here. I’m sure she’d be much happier back in England!’

‘Could be. What about you
?
’

‘Me?’ She thought about it. ‘I’m happy here. I’ve never been happier—or, at least, I would be if it weren’t for this muddle and my father having to go back to England.’ Yet, if her father hadn’t gone, Casimir Ruddock would never have come to Isfahan to replace him, and the latter had a lot to do with the warmth of her feelings for Persia and the life she had come to love there.

‘Then you don’t mind being away from England
?
’

She was surprised by the question. ‘Why should I mind? I’ve always wanted to travel and see places for myself. I’d like to see America too.’ She thought then that she didn’t know much about him. She didn’t even know which State of the Union was home to him.

‘Western Virginia,’ he supplied, with that uncanny knack he had for reading her thoughts. ‘My family has a farm there. One day it’ll be mine and I’ll go back there and farm the land, like my father before me. I want my own sons to be born there and to run wild there as I did. We’re proud of the life we’ve made for ourselves there. Even my mother is more Virginian than Polish now.’

‘Was she born in Poland?’

‘No, but her family came from there. She didn’t speak a word of English until she went to school and she still has a slight accent when she gets excited. You’ll like her.’

This last was said with such conviction that Stephanie couldn’t doubt that he meant it. But what were her chances of ever meeting his mother?

‘I’d better go,’ she said aloud. ‘Thank you for being so nice about everything, Cas.’

He nodded his head, opening the door for her
.
As she passed him, he grinned at her. ‘You’d better make it lunch for three,
’
he said. ‘Casimir’s dreamboat may come along with me if she hasn’t anything better to do.’ His grin grew broader. ‘Only for lunch, my dear. After lunch, I want to talk to you by yourself, and she’d be decidedly
de
trop
!
Fortunately, she has an infinite capacity for doing nothing and won’t want to come with us if we say we’re going out. She’s a placid creature despite the somewhat exotic exterior.’