The Breadth of Heaven (19 page)

“Of course it matters ... since it is you who will make the decision.”

“I ...?
” She stared at him uncomprehendingly.

“Yes, you. If there is anything about the place that seriously offends me I shall not, of course, buy it, but I intend to be guided largely by you.”

She looked at him gravely, consideringly.
“I ...
I don’t understand,” she said. “You were very annoyed with me, you dismissed me from my post—”

“I did not dismiss you. You told me that you intended to leave—‘early in the morning’, if you recall.”

“But you
were
very angry. And yet now you—you want me to advise you on the choice of a house just as if
...
just as if
...
”

“Just as if you yourself were my
fiancée
?”

She looked away from him. “Just as if I were a—a family friend, instead of an employee—a former employee.”

“Well, does it worry you?” He was concentrating hard on the road winding ahead of them. “Remember you work for an estate agent now. This is your job, in a sense.”

“But you need not have chosen me. I mean, Mr. Hartley himself would have gone with you, I’m sure.”

“You sound as if that would have been a very great honour. However,” with an odd little smile, “I didn’t ask Mr. Hartley. I asked you. And I assure you,” flashing white teeth at her, “that I haven’t brought you down here in order to exact a terrible revenge!”

Kathy said nothing.

Half an hour later they entered the village of Little Chanbury, and Leonid slowed the car to a crawl. They passed the church, a beautiful building of Sussex stone, with a tall, tapering spire, and they passed a row of thatched and weather-boarded cottages, before finally coming to rest outside the Rose and Dragon Hotel, where Leonid hailed a plump and sturdy countrywoman and asked the way to Little Chanbury Manor. The Manor, it turned out, was hardly any distance from the centre of the village, and less than three minutes later they were turning in through a well-worn gateway, and following the winding progress of a rutted and tree-lined drive.

Then they caught sight of the house, and Kathy gave a little gasp of pure pleasure, while Leonid stopped the car, and climbed out.

Chanbury Manor had been built during the sixteenth century, in accordance with the personal wishes of the man who intended to live in
i
t
,
and the most skilful craftsmanship available had gone into the joining of its ancient timbers, and the placing of its small, rosy bricks. It was L-shaped, and its twin roof-trees were uneven, its tiles old and red and lichened. There seemed to be dozens of windows, all latticed and all gleaming in the pale afternoon sun-light, and there were clusters of tall, slender Tudor chimneys. All around lay its gardens, and as Kathy got out of the car she could see that there were snowdrops beneath the trees.

Leonid looked at her. “You are impressed?” he enquired.

“It’s
...
beautiful.” Her eyes shone with sheer appreciation, and she glanced up at him quite unselfconsciously. “Don’t you think so?”

He didn’t give her a direct answer, but merely said: “Shall we look at the gardens first, or would you like to go inside?”

“The gardens are wonderful, but I’m longing to see inside,” she confessed, and he felt in his pocket for the key.

“Very well. I think, by the way, that it would be as well to be prepared for rather a shock when we do see the inside. The outward appearance of a house like this is often a good deal finer than the interior.”

But they did not receive any shock, for the house had been maintained in excellent order, and as soon as they crossed the threshold Kathy knew that it was the most perfect house she had ever seen in her life. They wandered through big, airy, oak-beamed rooms that overlooked the sunlit gardens, they climbed a polished staircase which would have caused any expert on Tudor workmanship to tremble with delight, and when finally they returned to the long panelled drawing-room Kathy was full of almost breathless appreciation. She walked across to one of the wide windows, and stood gazing out across the velvety lawn, while Leonid stood in the centre of the room and watched her.

“It’s a wonderful room,” she said, and there was a little catch in her voice.

Leonid moved towards her. “You think its future mistress will like it?”

Outside in the gardens the sunlight seemed to dim, and Kathy felt as if someone had touched her with cold fingers.

“I’m quite sure that Mademoiselle Liczak
will ...
love it,” she said, and started to turn away from the window. She was aware that he was standing quite close to her, and the fact unnerved her. “Isn’t it getting late?”

“I don’t think I mentioned Mademoiselle Liczak.” He had placed a hand on her arm to detain her, and the sound of his voice startled her, for there was a note in it which she had never heard before. She looked up at him, all her pulses beginning to beat a great deal too rapidly for comfort, and she knew that she couldn’t move
...
couldn’t make the effort to break away and move out of the room, out of the house, and demand to be driven back to London. “Katherine
...
” His hand moved to her left shoulder, and he gave her a little shake. “Don’t you understand ...
?
Why do you think I wanted you to come with me? Don’t you
understand
...
?
”

Tears were rolling down her cheeks, and she struggled to break away from him. “I don’t
know
why you made me come here,” she said huskily. “I wish I hadn’t come. This will be Sonja Liczak’s house. You should have brought her with you—”

“This will never be Sonja Liczak’s house.” He bent his head, and his arms slipped about her. “Katherine, you have been so foolish, and you have
made me so angry, but I can’t go on punishing you any longer.
Katherine
...
”

And then he kissed her, and she felt the world slipping away, while sunlight slanted brilliantly through the dusty mullioned window, and outside, in a bare, leafless rose bush, a blackbird started to sing.

CHAPTER TEN

After
what seemed a very long time, she lifted her head and looked at him, and her eyes were starry and very blue, but also completely incredulous.

“Then you aren’t going to marry—” she began,
but he interrupted her.

“No, my darling, I’m not going to marry her, so you don’t need to talk about her any more. How could
you ...
how
could
you think,” cupping her face with one hand, and looking down into her eyes, “that I would plan to marry her, after I had almost
told
you ...
Katherine, don’t you remember that morning at the Villa Albinhieri? I was very upset because you had run away from me the night before, and you were so plainly certain that I was
...
what is the word? ... ‘trifling’ with you! But I intended to tell you then that I loved you—to ask you to marry me. You must have known; but you behaved so strangely, and that night, at the
o
pera, you hardly looked at me.”

“You didn’t look at me,” she whispered.

“Didn’t I?” He smiled. “Well, perhaps I was a little offended because it seemed to me that you were doing your best to point out to me exactly how unwelcome my attentions were, as far as you were concerned. I had arranged the visit to the opera because I wanted you to see precisely what can happen when a member of my family appears in public—although we probably won’t be seeing very much of that sort of reaction in the future. I thought it was only fair that you should know the sort of thing you might be
exposed to if you became a Karanska. But then I began to think, watching you, that you had no intention of becoming a Karanska
...
that you simply didn’t want to marry me, and when I had convinced myself of that I only wanted to hurt you. I didn’t know what I was going to do with my own future, for I realized then that I couldn’t face it without you!” He drew her to him, and she buried her face in his shoulder. “And then you ran away, and Natalia wept, and reproached me—and although I was not really listening to her I suddenly realized that she was saying you had been in love with me. I couldn’t believe it, but then my godmother came to me, and she told me
...
she told
me ...”

His voice became unsteady, and he drew Kathy’s face back into the open. “Oh, my darling, why did you listen to her?”

“She—she was fond of you, and she didn’t want anything to hurt you.
I
don’t want anything to hurt you either, and I thought she must be right. And she was so certain that you didn’t—didn’t love me ..
.”

“Oh, no, she wasn’t.” He smiled again, as if in grudging admiration for his godmother’s perspicacity. “She knew very well that I adored you, and so she has told me. But for a time she thought that I would forget you, and that it would be better for me to do so. And then, when you went back to England, and we were all so stunned
...”
He paused, as if the memory of it still had the power to hurt him. “Katherine, you must try to understand my godmother. She
is
fond of you, and she sees now that you will make the best wife in the world for me, but at one time she thought it was my desire to return to Tirhania, and replace my brother as king, and it
seemed to her that if I were going to do that it would be best for me to marry Sonja. She knows now that if I had wished to make such an attempt it would have been with you as my wife, not Sonja, but she also knows, because I have told her, that I have no intention of trying to seize power in Tirhania. One day, perhaps, when everything has been settled, we will go there, but the old days of monarchy are ended, and I would not try to revive them. Katherine, will you mind very much being the wife of a mere ex-prince, whose principal ambition is to lead the life of an ‘English country gentleman’—perhaps to become a farmer?”

Her eyes were brilliantly blue. “Oh, Leonid, I—I can’t imagine anything more wonderful!”

“But are you really sure?” His smile was suddenly teasing. “You haven’t yet told me whether my godmother was right, after all. You haven’t said—”

“Leonid darling, I love you better than anything in the world,” she assured him anxiously. “I’ve loved you for ages. But I didn’t know ... I mean, although you kissed me, and at one time I did begin to think that you ... that you rather liked me, I was certain that you couldn’t—couldn’t
love
anyone like me. And then, that morning, when you were talking to me in the library at the Villa Albinhieri, and Sonja Liczak arrived ... Well, you didn’t seem to want to go on talking to me any longer, and I thought that perhaps it was because the sight of her reminded you—”

“Reminded me of my duty?” Leonid shook his head at her. “My sweet little innocent, Sonja and I were never engaged, and although, as we’re rather
close to one another in age, our parents may at one time have planned that we should marry, I don’t think that either of us ever seriously considered the possibility. And as to the conversation that was broken off when Sonja arrived, that was simply because I knew we should probably interrupted at any minute, and I decided that when I did ask you to marry me I would prefer it to be at a time when we would be unlikely to be disturbed.”

“But you didn’t bother about me again,” she couldn’t resist reminding him. “Not until late that night, anyway. And then you were furious with me!”

“I did bother about you,
cherie
—I thought about you all day,” he confessed rather wryly. “But then I wondered whether it was right—fair—to ask you to marry me until you really understood what you might be taking on, and so, as I’ve told you, I arranged that visit to the opera in Genoa, so that you could see what can happen when my family appears in public
...
especially in a country like Italy. We may never get that sort of reception again, and I at least, intend to lead as normal a life as possible, but I wanted you to realize
...
You were wonderful, of course: calm and serene, and not at all frightened, and I was so proud of you!”
⁷

“And then I spoke to that reporter.” Kathy closed her eyes, as if the memory of the solecism she had inadvertently committed were too much for her. “I’m so sorry ... oh, Leonid darling, I’m so very, very sorry!”

“You didn’t know, sweetheart. How could you? I went into the matter, and the man admitted that he did not tell you he was from the Press. But what hurt me so much was the fact that you told him I
was going to marry Sonja. You were so certain
...
and after the things I had said to you!”

“I didn’t think I was good enough,” she whispered. “I know I’m not good enough! But I will try
...
Leonid, I’ll do my best!”

She was not allowed to continue.

Ten minutes later, Leonid glanced at his watch, and through the window at the fading light, and suggested that they ought to be going.