Return To Tremarth Page 13

  Her face worked a little as she nodded.

  “It was a miracle… One moment I was certain you were dead – burned to death in the blazing wreck of your car! ” and she shuddered and clutched at him – “and the next there you were, talking almost rationally, saying something about being thrown clear, and not fastening your seat-belt. I don’t think I’ve ever been so profoundly grateful for anything in my life! ” His sound arm crushed her to him. He spoke huskily into her hair.

  “I’m glad I ended up at your feet. It was highly suitable.”

  “But horribly cold and wet on the grass of the cliff-top-”

  “Never mind the cliff-top. I was referring to the fact that fate always seemed to intend you to walk over me, although on that highly fortunate

  – for me – occasion you were plainly too shocked to do anything of the kind. I shall never forget your face when I opened my eyes in the drawing-room here at Tremarth and saw that every scrap of colour had left your face, and your eyes were so big and horror-stricken they actually worried me. Shortly after that I was somewhat comforted by the knowledge that you were also conscience-stricken. You proved that when you turned your own bedroom over to me, and actually allowed me to crawl into the warmth and comfort of your bed! I shall never forget how sublimely comfortable it felt after the horror of that drawing room sofa! I liked the smell of your sheets, too – ” He wrinkled his nose. “I wished I could have prevented you changing them the next day! ”

  "She put back her head and studied him with the faintest hint of suspicion.

  “That night… when you said you didn’t remember who you were, or anything about the accident… did you really think I was a complete and absolute stranger bending over you?”

  For one instant his eyes avoided hers, and then he smiled slightly and inhaled the perfume of her hair-a curl of which was brushing against his cheek.

  “Shall we say that for twenty-four hours I was genuinely confused about a good many things? But when Claire arrived with all those flowers I was so badly startled because it looked as if she was about to take possession of me that my memory began, most conveniently, to bestir itself. And when I understood perfectly that she had the coldblooded intention of trading on what she believed to be a far more serious condition than it actually was I became both wary and alert. I realised it was somewhat dangerous allowing her to believe my mind was a blank, but as I have already explained it seemed a good opportunity to find out what she was up to… and there was the added inducement of making you jealous! I wonder whether you realise that from the moment you caught sight of all those flowers in my room your expression gave away your determination to remove them as speedily as possible? You’d bought quite a lot of things for me in Truro that afternoon, and to find me reclining in a bower of flowers, with a lovely lady seated at my bedside, was plainly almost too much for you! ”

  Charlotte laughed… But the recollection of her annoyance on that particular afternoon, and the instantaneous dislike she had taken to Claire Brown, very quickly sobered her.

  “I hated her,” she admitted, and once more buried her face in his shoulder.

  Richard made a faint sound which could have been a mildly amused laugh… and then she felt his fingers stroking her hair, he spoke huskily, in a way that was new to her, and it actually seemed to her that his whole body was trembling.

  “There was no need for you to hate her,” he said softly, practically inaudibly, into her hair. “There was never any need for you to dislike her. In all my life, I’ve loved and desired only one woman, and that is you! ”

  She reached up and caught at his hands, and dragged one of them up against her.

  “Is that true, Richard?” she asked.

  “You know it’s true!”

  Brown eyes and grey eyes gazed at one another… and he could hear her draw in her breath.

  “But you couldn’t have really loved me when I was a child… And you haven’t seen very much of me since I’ve been grown up! ”

  “I’ve seen enough! ”

  “Then you must have been-”

  “Waiting for you? I was! I waited for years for you to come back into my life, and when I heard that you’d been left Tremarth I knew that the signal had been given me that I could start laying siege to you. I didn’t really want Tremarth… That is to say, I did, but I wanted you as well… I wanted you more than anything else! And you turned me down, with brutal coldness and firmness! But now you’re going to marry me, and Tremarth is going to be our home! ”

  “Is it?… Am I?”

  Her lips were parted, her eyes were glowing, and he bent and kissed first the radiant brown eyes with their drooping white eyelids, and then the soft warmth of her mouth. With a little gasp of happiness and ecstasy she surrendered it to her, and both her arms fastened themselves tightly about his neck.

  Hannah emerged from the house and looked startled when she observed them locked in one another’s arms. Then she smiled and advanced and offered her congratulations.

  “I hope you’ll both be very happy!” she said. “James said you’d marry one another in the end… and as I’m going to marry James I think that will be very nice, because we shall be neighbours when you settle down at Tremarth! ”

  Charlotte blinked at her a little stupidly.

  “James?” she echoed.

  “Dr. Mackay. He asked me to marry him last night… but I declined to say yes until Miss Brown had taken her departure. I take it she’s gone for good?” she asked, her healthily attractive face beaming complacently, as if she really had no doubt at all that the beautiful Claire had gone for good.

  Richard caught Charlotte back into his one sound arm, and over the top of her flaming red head he smiled at Hannah.

  “I think you can take it that she will not be returning to Tremarth,” he said. “I’ve a kind of idea that the Cornish air doesn’t really suit her!”

  Susan Barrie

  ***

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