Mountain Magic (12 page)

“WHAT
...
did you say?”

Slowly she retraced her steps, and unbelievingly, with wide, amazed eyes she returned to within a foot of him.

“What did you say?”

“I said I wanted you to stay on as my wife!”

Bells
rang
in her ears; her heart expanded and contracted, and then expanded again. Although it was very dim in the
corner
of the verandah where they were standing he could see her eyes and the extraordinary, glorious shimmer that made them seem huge and luminous.

“Oh, Kurt!” she said.

By contrast with the sudden radiance of her expression his was grave and remote. She felt as if he had withdrawn from her, although he stood so close, and in sudden fear lest her ears had deceived her she put out a hand and touched his arm.

“You didn’t really say that, did you? I—I imagined it?”

“You’ve known me several months now, Toinette,” he responded grimly. “Do I normally say th
ings
I don’t mean?”

“
Or—do you?” she added, with a wondering break in her voice.

“Like that kiss this morning? Little idiot!” He all but snatched her into his arms and fastened them about her so tigh
tl
y she could hardly breathe. “Oh, Toinette,” his voice was utterly unlike any voice she had ever heard from him, “I’ve wanted to do this from the moment I met you on that ledge, and because I wanted it so badly I very nearly lost you altogether
!
Oh,
Liebling,
Liebling
!...
Why
do you think I kissed you this
morning?”

“Tell me, please,” she begged, faint with the ecstasy of being in his arms. “Tell me, Kurt!”

For answer he forced back her head until he could see her eyes, and then deliberately lowered his mouth to hers. By the time the kiss ended the stars were wheeling in the sky above her, and even the mountain peaks were swaying round her. Dizzily she clung to him, and he picked her up in his arms and carried her back to her chair. Although there was a hard wood floor to the verandah he knelt down beside her and took her hands, carrying them up to his face.

“Little idiot,” he repeated. “Adorable
little
idiot!” and he kissed the hands fiercely.

“Why did you let me think it really was nothing more than a job you had to offer me?” she whispered.

He smiled twistedly.

“To test your faith, perhaps
... your faith in one human being who adores you! Listen,
little
one—darling, darling
little
one! All my life I have wanted to meet a girl like you, and when I met her on the ledge I couldn’t believe it
... It was too good to be true!”

“I still can’t believe that,” she confessed, as if she was quite convinced she was dreaming.

“Nevertheless, it is true. When you were on that ledge I wanted to rush to your assistance, but something held me back. I suppose it was because I’m basically hard, and I’ve led a hard life
... and you were so small, and soft, and vulnerable!” He smiled wryly. “I knew you disliked me instinctively, and it didn’t trouble me at all at the time. But
...” lifting her chin with an unsteady finger and then cupping her face in his hands, “I couldn’t bear it if you disliked me now!”

“You know I don’t,” she barely breathed, and wondered where all her courage was coming from. Why he was suddenly so much more than physically near, and infinitely dear
... and why she had ever imagined it was an hallucination in the office when he called her ‘darling.’

He was saying it now, over and over:

“Oh, darling, darling!
...
Liebling
!”

His arms went round her again, and he held her so close that her heart beat against his. The two of them thundered together and caused a roaring in her ears like the roaring of an express train. At the same time he was kissing her eyes, her hair and her cheeks with a mixture of fierceness and tenderness she would never have believed him capable of. The spot on her head where the lump had arisen under her hair after her accident with the loaded tray he kissed like one possessed.

“I’m so terrified of hurting you, darling! You’re so small, and there’s such a little of you ... and when I think how badly you might have been hurt if some more of that glass had cut you I can’t bear it!” He
strained her against him.
“
I’ll
never forgive Marianne!”

“I thought you
... liked her,” she whispered.

He looked puzzled for an instant.

“Only as a woman I thought I could admire. For her business capabilities and her shrewdness. She has put the
Rosenhorn
on its feet...
”

“And not for any other reason
?
”

He shook his head.

“There never was any other reason. In all my life I have felt tenderness for two women
... One was my mother, and the other is you! Does that satisfy you
?
” he asked.

“Oh, Kurt!” she answered, as if she was shattered. For several minutes they dung to one another, and he whispered every sort of endearment to her in a mixture of English and German. Then he drew her over to the glassed-in wall of the verandah, where the light of the stars shone full upon her, and asked her a question that was really unnecessary.

“And you, Toinette? You haven’t said yet what I mean to you. Do you love me
?
”

Her voice quivered as she answered:

“Love you, Kurt? I’ve loved you from the beginning
!
That has been my trouble
!”

“My poor
little
one,” he answered, gathering her close and stroking her hair with infinite tenderness. “You must believe me when I tell you that I never intended any hardship—not the smallest—to you when I brought you here. I wanted you to have an easy time, and to grow to love me. But Marianne must have realised that as well
...
If I had had the least
idea that she had put you in that dreadful room I’d have had you out of it long before I did—”

She smiled up at him radiantly.

“But it had a wonderful view,” she reminded him. “Mademoiselle Raveaux was right about that.”

“And how often did you find time to look at it?” his face and voice extraordinarily grim.

She put up a hand and touched his cheek.

“Well, in the few days before I had that accident— when I took over the new job—I did have a little more time...”

But he dismissed that.

“And that’s another thing,” he said with equal grimness, “something we have to get straight. Did you really ask if you could replace Trudi, or was that nothing more than an invention on Marianne’s part
?
”

“I’m afraid it was,” she admitted. “Naturally I wouldn’t have coveted a job like that.” And then as she saw how upset he looked she tried to erase the matter from his mind. “But it’s over now, and we don’t have to think about it. I expect I was stupid not to tell you the truth—”

“You were,” he agreed. And then he bit his lip. “Gresham was right, you know! I did allow you to be treated appallingly, and it was partly because there were moments when you annoyed me to such an extent that you brought out the worst in me.” He was thoughtful for a moment: “And Gresham
?
” he asked, at last. “You told me he was a friend of your family, but you didn’t say how you met him for the first time here at the
Rosenhorn
. Was it in the course of your chambermaid’s duties
?
”

“Yes.” She drew a deep breath, realising he wasn’t going to like it. “It was on my first morning
... when I was doing chambermaid’s duties on his floor, and he rang for me. He—I—he wanted some coffee...”

“And you took it to him
?
”

“No.” The flush that had risen in her cheeks spread wildly. “I—I ran into Pierre, one of the dining-room waiters, in the corridor, and I got him to take it to him for me. He said it was against the rules, but he did it all the same.”

“Then I’ll see to it that he gets his reward.” The blackness of his frown almost alarmed her. “And that night when you ran into me on the edge of the wood ... were you running away from Gresham
?
”

She looked down at the front of his dinner-jacket, and made the admission to his i
mm
aculate white shirt front.

“I wasn’t exactly running away. But I had only a short time off duty, and I didn’t want to waste it talking to anyone—”

“Not even me when you cannoned into me?” with his slightly crooked smile.

She put back her head and looked up at him, and it was like being stampeded by a team of wild horses, or caught up on wings and
born
e away to the heights. Whatever had happened in the past he was hers now —and apparen
tl
y he always had been hers!

“That was the first time you were even a little bit nice to me,” she told him, a slight break in her voice.

Much later that night, when he had done a considerable amount of making up to her because he had so seldom been nice to her in the past, they came down to earth sufficiently to discuss their immediate plans.

“Your uncle insists that I give you a chance to go away with him for a week or two before we are married,” Kurt admitted, surprising her considerably because she had no idea the General had ever been made aware of the fact that Antoine wanted to marry
her. “I discussed it all with him the other day
—
Oh,
yes,” actually looking surprised because she was surprised. “How otherwise do you think I managed to induce an inflammable gentleman like your uncle to refrain from putting me up against a wall in front of a firing squad, and removing you from the hotel without any delay whatsoever, after he discovered what you had had to put up with here? I told him from the outset I wanted—intended—to marry you, and the only stipulation he made was that I should allow you a short time of freedom before expecting you to settle down. And that means that as soon as we’ve broken the news to the General in the morning that we
are
going to be married he’ll carry you off to somewhere like Paris for a week or two where he’ll give
hims
elf the pleasure of providing you with a trousseau.”

“But I don’t want a trousseau.” She wound her arms about his neck, and he was thrilled to feel the slight desperation in her hold as she clung to him. “At least, I can do without it. And I couldn’t bear the thought of being separated from you now that at last we—”

“Have found one another? I know, darling.” He held her away from him a little while he looked at her wryly. “That’s precisely how I feel. But you wouldn’t
have me go back on my word to the General, would you? And, in any case, I feel that I owe it to you.”

“Why?” she demanded, sharply, quick to realise what he meant.

His expression grew even more wry.

“You’ve had so
little
opportunity to really know how you feel when you’re away from me. And you’re very young still, and—”

“If you think by sending me away from you you’ll get me to change my mind about you and leave you free to pursue your old life after all—
”
she began with great indignation, and then buried her face against him and apologised humbly. “But don’t send me away from you, Kurt,” she begged.

He stroked her hair gently, and talked to her wisely, soothingly.

“Your uncle isn’t exactly young. He wants to give you a special kind of a treat
... behave like a father towards you. And after all, to a young woman of your age Paris will always be Paris
... And as long as you don’t forget me even for a moment I won’t grudge you this little break! And for you it will be a break, sweetheart
... shopping, and all the rest of it. And as soon as you return we’ll be married, and then
we will both
go to Paris for our honeymoon. How do you like the sound of that
?
”

Her face glowed like a suddenly opening flower— even in the pale starlight. Her eyes resembled nothing less than stars.

“Oh, Kurt!” she managed, and dung to him. And then, with shaking fingers clutching at him: “But you must make it perfectly
cl
ear to my un
cl
e that we can’t
stay in Paris for long. I could buy all the clothes I need in a matter of hours...
”

“My sweet,” he said, softly, lowering his dark cheek to hers, “all that is arranged. I have given the General very clearly to understand that you can remain away from me for a week, but not any longer. Do you feel any happier about the situation now?”