The Breadth of Heaven (18 page)

Her first weekend was spent wandering disconsolately round a selection of art galleries which she had imagined might divert her, and in attending Sunday morning service at St. Martin’s in the Fields—after which she felt slightly more cheerful—and when she arrived back at her desk on the following Monday morning she stared at the work which lay in front of her, and wondered how she was going to get through it.

By mid-morning she felt very little better, and when she was told, by means of the intercom, that an extremely important client wished to see Mr. Hartley, her employer, she sighed rather heavily, because every small effort seemed a little too much for her just then.

When she contacted Mr. Hartley, in his inner office, she discovered that he was in the middle of a very important long-distance telephone call, and could not see any client, however important, for at least another five minutes, so she gave instructions for the gentleman to be shown into her office instead, and wearily but instinctively patted her hair and brushed a tiny speck off the otherwise immaculate sleeve of her plain blue dress.

When the door opened, she did not look up immediately; she had just caught sight of what looked to her like an absurd mistake in a letter she had just finished typing, and her eyes were still lingering on the error when somebody spoke ... and she decided that either she had slipped into a kind of day-dream, or her ears were playing tricks on her.

“Good morning, Miss Grant,” said the voice. “How strange to find you here.”

She lifted her eyes, and an odd little shudder ran through her. “Your Highness!
”

Leonid carefully closed the door behind him, and then walked across to the desk. “This coincidence is really quite extraordinary,
mademoiselle
.”
He paused, and looked down at her. “How are you?”

“I’m ... all right, thank you.”

“My sister received your letter. I believe she has replied to it.”

“H-has she?”

He glanced around him in an almost bored fashion. “May I sit down? Your employer, I believe, will not be able to see me immediately.”

“No.” She swallowed, and bit her lip in an effort to stop it trembling. “Then
...
you do—”

“I do wish to see your employer? Yes, of course. Charming as this unexpected encounter is, it
is
unexpected. I did not know,
mademoiselle
,
that when I entered this room I would see you sitting behind that desk. How could I?”

She realized that he was waiting for her to resume her seat before sitting down himself, and she slowly sank back into her chair, at the same time, with tremendous determination, forcing herself to look straight at him.

In a small, tight, muffled voice, she said: “I hope the Princess—well, that she understood why I left so
...
suddenly.”

“I am sure she did.” He smiled, but his eyes were abstracted, and she had the impression that, beyond being mildly surprised at seeing her where she was, he was not in the least interested in her. “I am looking,” he told her suddenly, “for a house in England.
Do you think that your ... Mr. Hartley, is it not? ... will be able to find me something suitable?”

K
athy stared at him. “A house ... in England?”

“Yes. As, you understand, I am being married so soon. And I think my wife and I will definitely wish to settle in England.”

“I see.” To her, it seemed absurd to continue the conversation, but as he evidently wished to behave as if he were an ordinary customer who had never seen her before today she moistened her dry lips and made a violent effort to talk in a no
r
mal matter. “What—what sort of house are you looking for?”

“Oh, an old house ... I think. Yes, I am sure, an old house. I don’t think that my future wife would appreciate a modern one. Quite large, of course
...
Not too large, but it is important to have accommodation for one’s friends. A family house—I believe that is the correct expression?”

The intercom buzzed on Kathy’s desk, and she was spared the necessity of answering him. Her employer could see him now.

He bowed to her as he got up, and once again, before he entered the inner office, bestowed on her that slight, detached little smile.

Twenty minutes later he emerged, with Mr. Hartley at his elbow, and both men looked more than satisfied with the results of their discussion. Leonid executed another small bow in Kathy’s direction, and Mr. Hartley beamed at her.

“Put those papers aside, my dear. You’re going down to Sussex for the day!” He smiled at her again, and added, not without a rather quizzical expression in his keen brown eyes: “I had no idea that you and Prince Leonid were known to each other!”

To her annoyance, Kathy felt herself blushing. “Yes, we—we met a short time ago.” She had always felt guilty because she had not told her present employer about the very last job she had occupied, and she felt more so now. She could not meet Leonid’s eyes, but she knew instinctively that he would not have told Mr. Hartley any details of their acquaintanceship. He must think it rather odd, she supposed, that she should not have mentioned having held a position which any young woman would be proud to have occupied. He could not know that it hurt her even to remember, in the private recesses of her own mind, that she had once lived under the same roof as himself. “G-going down to Sussex?” she repeated, as she suddenly realized the implications of what had just been said. “You want me to ... go down to Sussex?”

“Yes. I shan’t find it very easy to spare you, I’ll admit, but the Prince was insistent.” He looked at Leonid almost indulgently. Clients of his calibre did not appear every day, even in the offices of London’s topmost estate agent. “His Highness is interested in Chanbury Manor; you may remember I discussed it with you. It’s near Little Chanbury, and that’s not terribly far from Chichester. Anyway, it’s in West Sussex. It’s a fairly long journey, but the Prince has a car with him, I understand. If you leave now, you should get to Little Chanbury by early afternoon— stopping for lunch on the way, of course.” He looked affably from one to the other of them, and Kathy realized with embarrassment that he had decided they might not be particularly anxious to hurry. If Leonid had insisted upon detaching her from her regular duties so that she should be free to give him
her personal attention perhaps his assumption was not entirely incomprehensible, and only Kathy knew that in doing such a thing the Prince could only have wanted to hurt her in some way.

She could not really understand it—she would never have believed him to be quite so mercilessly vindictive—but she supposed he felt that his revenge was not yet entirely complete. An afternoon of polite but cruel taunting—was that what lay in store for her?

But there was no possible escape, and in any case she knew—although the knowledge made her despise herself heartily—that she didn’t really want to escape. An afternoon in Leonid’s company ... He might taunt her, he might be quite brutal, but she would be with him. She would sit beside him while he drove, she would hear his voice—speaking to
her
— and only this morning she had expected never to see him again ... It was like being granted a reprieve, and although it was only a temporary reprieve, and the whole purpose of the excursion was the inspection of a house which he would one day share with Sonja Liczak—when, of course, she was no longer a Liczak! —she couldn’t do anything about the light which sprang into her eyes as she looked at Mr. Hartley, and which only he saw.

“I ... I ought to go home and change,” she said, glancing down at the dark blue dress.

Leonid nodded briskly. “I’ll drive you.” He held open the door, at the same time bestowing a formal smile on Mr. Hartley, and then followed Kathy out of the room and down the stairs to where a smart pale blue sports car was waiting by the kerb. She looked at him a little apprehensively as he placed her
in the passenger seat and then settled himself behind the wheel, but his face was completely impassive, and he said nothing whatsoever until he brought the car to a standstill outside the hostel in which—largely because she couldn’t be bothered to move—she was still sharing a cheap room. Then he said:

“This is a hostel for young women?”

“Yes.” He was looking distinctly disapproving as he helped her to alight, and she glanced at him in surprise. “I have to stay somewhere,” she said a little stiffly, “and this sort of place is rather convenient. And it’s inexpensive too, of course.”

“But you have a very good job, I think?”

He sounded as if he were determined to get to the bottom of the matter, and Kathy felt a little confused. It didn’t occur to her to think his pointed questioning impertinent, but she hesitated for a moment before answering slowly: “I suppose I just haven’t bothered ... to look for anything else
...
”

“I
see.” Something in his voice made her look quickly and instinctively up at him, but the expression in his eyes was utterly unreadable. Then he closed the car door with a snap, and said briskly: “Don’t be too long. I can’t park here for more than ten minutes.”

Just over seven minutes later she returned, this time wearing a light tweed suit ornamented with a very attractive golden fleck, and a pair of slim, elegant, casual shoes. In her hand she carried a folded silk headscarf, just in case it should become necessary to protect her hair against the elements, but as a pale, early spring sun was just on the point of emerging from behind the clouds, and the temperature was decidedly warmer than it had been in
England for weeks past, it seemed very likely that she might not be needing the protection.

Leonid started the car, and for twenty minutes they weaved and threaded their way through the intricacies of London streets and London traffic, then they were in the suburbs, moving along broad streets lined with houses, and Kathy sat staring in front of her, and wondered why the man at her side was so obviously determined not to speak
...
and why, in fact, he had wanted her with him at all.

By the time they reached the green, open country, it was nearly noon, and the day had begun to fulfil its earlier promise of being bright and comparatively warm. They sped through the small, picture postcard villages of Surrey, and every so often the road wound through bare, grey woods
,
in which this morning, for all their bareness, there was a strange feeling of awakening life.

Still Leonid did not speak to her, but, despite his silence, and the fact that this would probably be the last time she would ever see him, Kathy felt almost happy. She could look sideways and see Leonid’s chiselled features
...
the slight frown contorting his brow as he concentrated on the curves of the road ahead. And she could study—discreetly, of course— the deep waves in his thick, dark hair, and watch the way in which his capable, sensitive hands controlled the swing of the steering-wheel.

It wasn’t very long before they had crossed the border into Sussex, and just a little after half past one they stopped for lunch in Midhurst. The inn which they decided to patronize was very old, and very lavishly equipped, and the food was excellent, but Kathy wasn’t particularly hungry, and Leonid
seemed detached and almost impatient. She realized that he was anxious to see the house which he might, by the end of the afternoon, be intending to buy, and because she didn’t want to hold him up any longer than was strictly necessary she hurried through her own lunch, and refused coffee. He looked faintly conscience-stricken as he handed her back into the car, and when he had got in himself he looked at her.

“You did not have a good lunch. I hurried you too much.”

“It was a very nice lunch, and I didn’t feel at all hurried,” she assured him, without very much truth, but with an absurd desire to set his mind at rest. “How soon do you think we shall get to Little Chanbury?”

“In about an hour. Are you tired?” looking at her sharply, as if he had quite suddenly recollected that he was in some degree responsible for her well-being.

“Oh, no, I’m not at all tired.” She sounded almost anxious. “It’s—it’s such a pleasant drive.” For something to say, she added: “You must be looking forward to seeing the house.”

He turned his head a little. “Are you looking forward to seeing it?”

“Well,
I ...
”
For some reason she felt confused. “I’m not going to buy it—I shan’t be living there.”

“Even so, all women are interested in houses, are they not?” His eyes were on the road, but he smiled slightly. “They enjoy looking for the possibilities
...
imagining exactly what sort of colour-scheme would suit some particular room, inspecting sinks and water-heaters, and old-fashioned stoves. I hope you
are
interested in all these things,
mademoiselle
,
” the
smile becoming more pronounced, “for I don’t propose to concern myself with them.”

“But ...
” She looked rather agitated. “I don’t know enough about things like that to—well, to give you an opinion
...”

“But you will know if you like the house.” With faultless precision, he negotiated a dangerous right-hand bend.

“It doesn’t matter whether I like the house,” she said rather flatly.