Master of Hearts (14 page)

from Jerry that he had seen his uncle drive off in his car while she was on her way to the library.

Kathleen bit her lip. So he hadn't thought she was worth waiting for—even though, he had commanded her to attend him in the library!—and, as on another occasion, he had coolly broken an appointment he had made with her.

So much for the sort of opinion he had of her! A nursery-governess who flirted with his guests, and might really have to be dismissed before very long!

The morning seemed very long, and very hot, and just before lunch she sent the children in to have their hands and faces washed by Maria before being served with their nursery lunch. She had more or less made up her mind that she would skip lunch for herself that day and go and sit in her own room, when the Conde's car swung up the drive and came to rest on the broad sweep before the house just as she was crossing it.

Sitting beside the Conde was Carmelita Albrantes, somehow managing to look extremely cool and composed in black relieved only by very slight touches of white. The tiny collar at her rounded throat, for instance, slightly stiffened like a Medici collar so that it acted as a frame for her face, and her gloves were of white lace, and her parasol when she stepped from the car and unfurled it to protect the sallow skin from the midday heat had insets of white lace, also.

An elegant young woman, who would never fail to be correct whatever the circumstances! Kathleen wished heartily that she could have avoided bumping into her just now, when she had the Conde smiling at her as he never smiled at anyone else—in Kathleen's experience —and declining to let go of her arm once she had alighted on to the gravel because she, too, wore absurdly high heels and she might twist her delicate ankle if he released her too soon!

Kathleen felt the self-conscious colour sweep into her face as she tried to slip past them, and she hoped ardently that they would ignore her. But Portuguese

politeness made that a vain hope, and even Senhorita Albrantes condescended to send her a little nod.

"You are the children's governess, aren't you?" she said. "I hope they are well this morning?"

Her voice was cool and perfectly amiable, but it was the voice of one who knew she was addressing a paid employee—and therefore a menial!

Kathleen replied hurriedly that they were perfectly well, and she deliberately avoided looking at the Conde, who, however, addressed her in very precise tones.

"We shall see you at lunch, Miss O'Farrel?"

No apology for having failed to be in the library at the appointed hour that morning, and only a glacial interest in whether or not they would see her at lunch. For one moment she very nearly said that she was lunching with the twins, but she knew that was against the rules, and she had to admit feebly that they would see her at lunch.

She disappeared upstairs to tidy herself, and didn't enter the sala for the aperitifs that she knew would be being dispensed before the meal was served. Normally she had a grapefruit when she had to submit to these occasions, but today she waited for the gong to summon them to the dining-room before venturing to the head of the stairs.

Carmelita and the Conde were already in the dining-room, and the Conde was carefully seating his guest at the table. Kathleen managed to slip quietly into her own seat before he could perform the same service for her. Inez, plainly, wasn't planning to join them.

The meal was the usual well-served, rather long-drawn-out affair, but Kathleen wasn't conscious of what she ate. She knew that she refused several dishes—in fact, most of the dishes—and occasionally her employer's eyes dwelt on her with a kind of remote gray-lay in their depths. She didn't see them, for she seldom looked up, but she could feel them alighting on her bent head and her scarcely touched plate, and more than once she was certain he was about to address her when Carmelita said something that interfered with his

intention, and he had to give his attention to his guest.

They talked mostly in Portuguese throughout the meal, and that made it unnecessary for Kathleen even to appear interested in the conversation, which she was quite certain didn't concern her in any case. Carmelita was the one who introduced all the topics, and when the Conde became particularly interested her large eyes sparkled and her voice grew several degrees warmer. Kathleen had the feeling that not merely was she in the way, but that the Portuguese girl expected her to withdraw at the earliest possible moment; and she decided not to wait for the dessert and the coffee, which was always brought to table at lunch time, but requested to be excused.

"But of course we will excuse you," Carmelita said, as if she was already mistress of the quinta. And the relief in her face was quite unmistakable.

The Conde stood up.

"You have made a poor lunch, Miss O'Farrel," he protested, his dark eyebrows meeting in a frown.

"I have had all I want, thank you!" she returned, and fled from the room before he could say anything further.

She had been terrified lest he would remind her that he had yet to have his talk with her in the library, and if he had done so in front of Carmelita, thus letting the Portuguese girl know that she was in disgrace for some reason, she didn't think she could have borne it. That would have been an humiliation that made her cheeks grow hot even as she ascended the stairs and let her mind dwell on it, in spite of the fact that it was an humiliation she had escaped.

But having settled the twins for their afternoon nap she went down again into the garden, to the, quiet corner where she knew she was unlikely to be disturbed. Maria had offered to give the children their fruit juice when they awakened, and because she had a headache she had accepted this gratefully. The dull ache behind her eyes was due to the anxiety she had felt all morning and the secret uneasiness that gnawed

at her, and the society of the twins could be a little exhausting under such circumstances. To be relieved of the task of looking after them for a whole hour, and that in the heat of the day, was something that made her feel exceedingly grateful to Maria.

The talk with her employer would have to come, she knew, and until she was finally sent for her anxiety was hardly likely to decrease.

But suddenly, as she sat there in the cool of the garden, with masses of colourful growth around her, a tree spreading protecting branches above her head, and a fountain tinkling musically in a tiled basin near to her, her agitation died. And in its place she was conscious of a righteous resentment that rose up from the core of her, and filled her whole being.

What right had Dona Inez to implicate her, and what right had the Conde to say he wanted to see her at a certain hour, and then either forget about it altogether or change his mind about the necessity for doing so? His indifferent attitude at lunch, and the fact that he had practically ignored her, had seemed to indicate clearly that he was not prepared to waste very much of his time on her, and she could understand that when Carmelita was practically clinging to his side. Hadn't he admitted that he hoped to marry soon and that his heart was irrecoverably lost, so naturally time spent with Carmelita was valuable time, and irksome people like nursery-governesses who were not even looking after his own children were outside his more important thoughts!

But that didn't make it any easier for the nursery-governess, and Kathleen had the right to expect an employer to abide by a decision he had taken. He had said he wanted to see her after breakfast; instead of which he had gone off and spent the morning with Carmelita, and then brought her back to lunch, and Kathleen was no nearer to knowing what sort of attitude would be adopted towards her in future!

She stood up, suddenly too incensed even to sit still, and the dull throbbing in her head made her look

a trifle white. She had heard the noise of a car gliding away from the front of the house fully ten minutes before and realised that the Conde had once more left the quinta behind him to return his luncheon guest to her home, which meant she would not be called upon to give an account of her behaviour the night before for some time yet. But instead of being relieved by the temporary reprieve she was overwhelmingly aware of a hopeless feeling of frustration, and as she turned towards the house this lent her a blind, defeated look.

"I thought I might find you here, Miss O'Farrel," the Conde said, and she looked almost violently startled as he appeared suddenly in front of her. "I have just been upstairs to the nurseries, and Maria told me you were in the garden. This, I believe, is one of your favourite corners of it, so it was here I came to look for you!"

Kathleen felt the startled pink colour drive away the pallor from her face. Her eyes, however, continued
to have that rather dazed look in
them.

"Have you been unwisely sitting in the sun?" Miguel de Chaves wanted to know rather sharply. "At lunch you obviously had little appetite, and when I came upon you just now you were as white as a sheet! What is wrong?"

Kathleen felt indignation bubble up in her. "Nothing is wrong," she answered, coldly. "There is absolutely nothing wrong with me, senhor!"

He frowned as he studied her, and then he drew her into the shade and told her to sit down on the garden seat where she had been sitting before.

"I thought you appointed the library as a suitable place for demanding an explanation of last night," she said.

His frown grew noticeably.

"I must apologise for not being in the library at the appointed time this morning, but an urgent telephone call took me away from the house."

Carmelita, she thought, the most irrational resentment seeping into every fibre of her being. Carmelita

dying to see you, and unable to wait! . . . And, of course, you were unable to wait to see her!

"In any case," the man said quietly, "there was no question of demanding an explanation. What I saw last night didn't require very much explanation, and my sister has thrown a certain amount of light on the incident since. What I would have done this morning, if I hadn't been called away, was warn you for the second time against a young man who has never been known to be serious about any young woman, and suggest that you behaved more circumspectly towards him in future! But having thought the matter over I wasn't going to raise the subject at all."

"You are kind, senhor," she told him, feeling as if indignation would choke her, "very kind!"

"And you," he said, "are very young!"

"So young," she returned, a little wildly, "that I don't honestly feel you can have sufficient confidence in me to continue to entrust me with the care of your nephews! And from my point of view I would far rather be relieved of their care, and allowed to go home to England! If you'll remember, senhor, this was to be only a temporary arrangement!"

Looking up at him she saw his eyes grow strangely dark.

"If you'll remember, senhorita, you gave me your promise to take charge of my nephews until they were ready to go to school!"

"Yes, but—" She looked away and bit hard at her lower lip. "I think things are different now!"

"Because an impressionable young man kissed your hand last night?"

"Because you believe that I arranged to meet him where I—where I did meet him!.. .

He looked down at the green turf on which he was standing, and for an instant his expression was quite inexplicable to her. Then he said with an odd touch of gravity:

"I suggest that we say no more about last night! My sister has interceded on your behalf, and after all

you were not guilty of a crime. You are— as I think we are all agreed!—young, and possibly young Queiroz has a way with women which is hard to resist," rather drily. "Even Inez put in a special plea for him, otherwise I would forbid him the house."

But this was too much for Kathleen; that she should be linked with a casual young man like Fernando was bad enough, but that she should require the intervention of someone like Dona Inez to gain her a reluctant pardon from this autocratic Portuguese landowner was more than her Irish blood would stand.

"I don't think you need concern yourself with my youth, senhor," she said, standing up and facing him stiffly, "and neither do I expect you to make allowances because of it. Although you may find it difficult to believe, I am not so susceptible that I am likely to be swept off my feet by a hand-kissing young man and so far as I am concerned you can forbid him not merely the house but the entire area! It will make not the smallest difference to me!"

She thought that his lips set a little grimly.

"In England, perhaps, these little 'affairs' mean nothing very much? You are accustomed to what you call hand-kissing' young men, and have discovered the art of dealing with them?"

"Perhaps," she agreed, because she didn't greatly care what she said just then.

His eyes went very dark, and very cold.

"In that case there is nothing much more to be said, save that I would like to remind you that everyone expects Queiroz to marry a young girl to whom we are all very much attache
d, and if you are only amusing
ourself will you please bear in mind that your idle interest in her future husband may cause that young girl a lot of heartache."

"I will bear it in mind, senhor," she said, and then turned away. "And now that you have decided to overlook my offence, may I go?"