Heart Specialist Page 7

  Peter looked at her and then caught his breath. ...

  “And all this for me!” he said. “Valentine, I’m ... I’m honored!”

  She swept him a little curtsy with her wide skirts, although she suddenly felt absurdly shy. Perhaps it was the look in his eyes.

  “You needn’t be,” she returned. “You look as if you’re just about to step into the shoes of Sir David Fairfield, Bart!” And as a matter of fact, that was exactly what he did look like, with his Englishman’s air of being born in formal evening garments, although like most Englishmen he probably loathed the feel of them. And not even Dr. Daudet had anything on him in the matter of impeccable grooming.

  “Did I say my uncle was a baronet?” he inquired, smiling. “As a matter of fact, he is, and one of these days I hope to be one, too. But at the moment Uncle David looks good for another fifty years.”

  He made no comment on the sumptuousness of the apartment, said that he didn’t think they should wait for a drink, as it was he who was taking her out, and Valentine was conscious of slight relief, just in case the telephone should ring at any moment, or worse still, the front doorbell shrill suddenly.

  Outside he had a taxi waiting, and Valentine felt a rising bubble of excitement as she realized that this was the first time she had been taken out to dinner in the French capital by a man who looked capable of entertaining her in a manner that would do justice to her new black dress.

  And Peter Fairfield, apparently, once he got the bit between his teeth, did things as his instincts prompted him they ought to be done. His aunt had come over to do some shopping a month before, and in the process of acting as her escort he had taken her to a restaurant perched high above the Seine, from whose windows one could see all the lights on the opposite bank, dangling like colored streamers across the steel-gray water.

  It was a well-known restaurant, famous for its service, and even more famous for the fashionable people who frequented it. It had a sort of Victorian opulence about it, and the waiters were even more soft voiced and attentive than they had been at the only other smart restaurant in Paris Valentine had visited, the one she’d had lunch in with Dr. Daudet.

  Tonight, as she sat facing Peter Fairfield at a discreet table in a corner, near enough to a window for her to look out at those fascinating colored lights, she couldn’t for some reason help thinking about Dr. Daudet, and although she didn’t actually compare him in her mind with her fellow countryman, she did make a few comparisons. Peter didn’t make her feel in the slightest degree embarrassed every time he looked at her across the centerpiece of flowers, but she did find pleasure in looking at him. He was so extremely wholesome, and there wasn’t one gleaming brown hair on his head that wasn’t beautifully brushed. His teeth were as hard and white as Leon Daudet’s, but the doctor had a crooked smile, and Peter’s smile was open.

  She could never forget for one instant when she was with Dr. Daudet that he was many years older than herself—possibly somewhere in his late thirties—and those years had bestowed upon him enough experience to make her appear very silly and young in his sight. Peter just made her feel like a contemporary, and with him she could relax and be herself. Dr. Daudet, on the other hand, at times exuded a kind of protectiveness toward her, and with him there would never be any need to make the next move. He was always capable of that! Therefore, with Dr. Daudet she was not relaxed, but in some curious way she was resigned. Resigned to what ...?

  She looked up suddenly to see him looking at her, and it wasn’t in her imagination, because he was at a table at the far end of the room, in a little alcove that was something like a private dining parlor in itself, and with him was Madame Faubourg, splendid in golden lame.

  Valentine had just had a portion of veal swimming in wine sauce placed in front of her, and she looked down at it rather helplessly and then up again at Dr. Daudet.

  Yes, he was still there! He was dining at the same restaurant with the dark-eyed widow who was willing to take her under her wing!

  Madame Faubourg hadn’t caught sight of her as yet, and she was smiling with a kind of open seductiveness right into the doctor’s face. He was answering something she had said and looking straight down the length of the room at Valentine. His eyes were completely enigmatic and very, very dark. Valentine felt her pulses quicken nervously, and then yet again she experienced that upsurge of resentment.

  Dr. Daudet hadn’t made the smallest indication that he had recognized her. Well, she wouldn’t recognize him! Instead, she leaned forward impulsively across the table and said something happily to Peter.

  Her reward was a brilliant enamored smile from him, and as the waiter had turned his back for a moment his hand stole out and covered one of hers. She felt his fingers give hers a little squeeze and she didn’t withdraw her hand until the waiter turned around.

  She was sure that Peter enjoyed their meal—their first dinner together! She chatted to him so brightly, was never in the least shy, and she looked so enchanting beneath the lights that more than one pair of masculine eyes—apart from those of Dr. Daudet—wandered in her direction while the meal lasted. And then when it was over, the bill paid, the waiter beaming because of the size of his tip, and Peter had suggested that they go on to somewhere to dance, she knew that she would have to pass that table in the alcove in order to reach the door.

  Once more she felt absurdly nervous.

  Peter slipped his hand beneath her elbow and guided her toward the door. Just as they neared the door he was saying, “We must do this again, Valentine ...!” And then the French doctor stood up. Madame Faubourg looked up with a smile, Peter bowed, and Valentine felt herself coloring furiously, ridiculously.

  “I hope you enjoyed your dinner, Miss Brooke,” Dr. Daudet said as he took her hand. “This place is quite famous for its food, you know. Your escort is obviously well versed in the ways of Paris.”

  She couldn’t tell whether he was being slightly sarcastic, or merely very affable, and she made the necessary introduction with a feeling that she was laboring hopelessly under the disadvantage of being caught out, like a schoolgirl, in something she was sure he didn’t approve of.

  But Madame Faubourg made up for any possible lack of enthusiasm in the doctor’s manner as he accepted the Englishman’s hand. She positively beamed at Peter and was almost as effusive to Valentine.

  “If there’s one thing I love to see, it’s two young people enjoying themselves,” she said. “Two young people of the same nationality, sharing, no doubt, all sorts of interests in our unequaled capital. The most romantic capital in Europe!”

  Her glorious dark eyes looked upward and straight into Valentine’s.

  “You must bring Mr. Fairfield to one of my little evenings, Miss Brooke. I will send you both cards. And the next time I go into the country for the weekend you must both come! Mustn’t they, Leon?” she appealed to him. She rested her white fingers on the dark cloth of his sleeve. “You didn’t tell me that Miss Brooke already knew someone who could escort her. And now that I stop to think about it, I am quite certain I have met your aunt, Mr. Fairfield. She stayed for a few days with a very great friend of mine, the Comtesse de Massenet.” Peter slightly inclined his head again and murmured something about his Aunt Pat getting around when she was in Paris, although his uncle, Sir David, preferred to stick to his Norfolk acres. And while they were conducting a few exchanges Dr. Daudet looked downward at Valentine and said, not exactly in an undertone, but hardly loud enough for the others to hear,

  “I was going to ring you tomorrow morning, Miss Brooke, and suggest taking you to tea with my aunt. Will it be convenient, or have you—” rather dryly “—some other engagement?”

  She looked up at him for an instant with the determination to assure him that she had another engagement and also to inform him that there was absolutely no reason why he should trouble his aunt to entertain her. And then, even as their eyes met, the determination died. She heard herself saying in a voice that at first faltered a
nd then grew firm and almost grateful, “That is very kind of you doctor, and of course I would love to meet your aunt. But not if it means taking up your time.”

  Blue eyes and dark eyes continued to hold, and she felt suddenly breathless.

  “I can spare the time quite easily tomorrow,” he assured her.

  Once again Madame Faubourg clutched at his arm. “Then you will spare me a little of your time in the morning, Leon!” she said. “If tomorrow is going to be a slack day with you ...!” and some of the brilliance had faded from her eyes as she looked past him at Valentine. “Just to go with me and look at those pictures in the rue La Boetie and tell me what you think about them! You know that I don’t trust my own opinion in these matters, and you are so very expert.” Her cajoling upward glance was suddenly soft.

  Valentine turned quickly away, and Peter apologized for having caused an interruption to their meal.

  “Not at all,” Madame Faubourg said pleasantly. “We shall meet again!”

  And Dr. Daudet said directly to Valentine, “I will call for you tomorrow afternoon about three-thirty, Miss Brooke. But if that is too early for you I can wait.”

  “I shall be ready,” she answered, and once again she felt breathless and wondered whether there had been an indication of breathlessness in her voice.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  THE CAR PASSED beneath an arch into a courtyard, and Valentine had her first feeling of unpreparedness when she realized that the house she was visiting was one of the oldest houses of Paris, possibly one of its best preserved.

  There was a coat of arms above the arch, and the enormously thick door facing it was iron studded. They had barely emerged from the car before the door was opened, and a very elderly manservant stood there waiting for them to enter. Leon Daudet, who had given Valentine very little information about his relative, took her arm and guided her up the steps and into the hall, where she had an impression of tapestries waving gently in the sudden current of air, and portraits that frowned on her from some infinitely black paneling.

  The manservant went ahead and led the way up a staircase, curving and fanlike, and in a gallery she saw console tables loaded with China ornaments, fans, miniatures, medals, and all sorts of objets d’art. There were gilded screens and mother of pearl chests, and silver-mounted dower chests that, looked as if they had been there since the first stone of the house was laid.

  The carpet was so thick that their footsteps made no sound, and when the manservant held wide a door and announced them his voice seemed to be swallowed up immediately and muffed by the richness of the pile that flowed into a damask-lined room.

  Madame La Marquise de Rullecourt—and it wasn’t until she was actually presented that Valentine realized how very highly placed was the lady who had invited her to tea—was sitting in a comfortable chair beside a tea table, and she already had another visitor. He was a very brown-faced man in his late thirties, or early forties, with indolent eyes the color of cairngorm, and hair that curled crisply. There was a touch of chestnut in that hair, and there were also a few strands of gray, and he had the figure of an athlete who was just then feeling very unathletic.

  He was lying stretched out at full length on a little Empire couch, with his head buried in a nest of velvet cushions, and he was disposing of a sandwich to which he had obviously helped himself. As the manservant’s voice began to make itself heard he reached for another sandwich, and his hostess shook her head at him reprovingly while she poured tea from a richly chased silver teapot.

  “It is too bad of you, Philippe,” she declared, “to drop in on me when I do not wish to see you!” She had high-piled white hair and a delicately powdered face, and her figure was that of a plump and comfortable dowager, “You disappear for weeks—no, months—and then when I am looking forward to meeting someone quite new you arrive without any warning whatsoever! And in addition, you sprawl all over my furniture!”

  “My health is in a delicate condition at the moment, and I need plenty of rest,” Philippe attempted to convince her and then sprang to his feet as Dr. Daudet urged Valentine quietly but purposefully forward, and she found herself looking into the insouciant brown eyes that instantly took in every detail of her appearance.

  “Your pardon, mademoiselle!” he said and made her a grave bow. “But I only lounge in the afternoon when I am on the near fringes of complete exhaustion!” Then, he grinned attractively at her escort. “How flourishing you look, Leon! Every time I see you I feel sure that you have climbed yet another rung up the ladder that leads to the splendid isolation of a man of brains and brilliance. If only I had taken up medicine as a serious career, instead of trying to make money in other ways.”

  “Which means, I suppose, that you are not very flourishing?” Leon remarked dryly and then went on to salute his aunt almost tenderly on both of her temptingly soft-looking cheeks.

  She patted his hands and held on to them for a moment. “Leon! It is always good to see you, dear boy!” Her eyes were as dark and deep as his own, and the smile in them was the sort of smile he occasionally permitted himself to direct at other people. “And this is Miss Valentine Brooke? My dear—” patting the chair beside her “—come and sit here and let us get to know one another! My nephew was right—you are very English, but much younger than I expected.”

  Philippe intervened a little plaintively, “And am I not to be introduced to Miss Valentine Brooke? I am willing to inform her that she is the most English young Englishwoman I have ever met, and in addition, I have the feeling that my footsteps were purposefully directed here this afternoon!” His undisguised admiration didn’t turn her head, but she liked the little laughter wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, and although there were lines of dissipation at his mouth, they didn’t detract from the pleasant shape of the mouth itself. “Have a sandwich, Miss Brooke,” he begged, offering her the plate, “before I consume them all myself. I only come here when I am hungry; madame la marquise feeds me!”

  “Don’t take any notice of him, Miss Brooke,” the marquise said tolerantly; but there was quite an affectionate smile in her eyes as she shook her head at him once again. “The Comte de Villeneuve is my godson, and if I feed him it is because I once took his sins upon my shoulders, and now that they are grown so many and there is nothing very much I can do about them, feeding him is all that is left!”

  “And for me there is nothing but gratitude!” the comte declared, laying his hand on his heart.

  After which he kissed her hands, and she patted his cheek and murmured that he was quite impossible. And Leon Daudet inquired what he was really doing there, anyway.

  “The last I heard of you, Philippe, you were running an airline in some dusty corner of Africa,” he recalled, leaning gracefully against the mantelpiece and surveying the other man enigmatically. “What happened? Did you run out of funds, or were there never any passengers?”

  “Oh, yes, there were passengers.” Philippe grinned reminiscently. “But if you’d seen some of the samples of our aircraft, you might have wondered at that. And in the end, of course, we ran out of funds. We always do!” He grimaced at Valentine. “I have discovered that one of the big disadvantages of this life, mademoiselle, is that for every purpose one must have money! And it is money that eludes one—perhaps because everyone else requires so much of it!”

  “People like you certainly do,” Leon observed somewhat curtly.

  “I will let you in on a secret, Miss Brooke,” the comte confided, leaning nearer to her to impart it. “One of these days I hope to marry an heiress, and then all my troubles will be at an end!”

  “Or just beginning,” the doctor asserted.

  The marquise reiterated her opinion that Philippe was impossible, but she did so in the indulgent way that proved he was really a prime favorite with her. And then she turned again to Valentine and said that she had been looking forward to meeting her ever since her nephew had first mentioned her, and although she said nothing at all about Miss Constantia,
and was too well bred to refer even in a roundabout way to the money that had been left to her, the girl sensed that she was deeply curious about her and a little intrigued. To her, fifteen million francs was probably such a trifling sum that she would certainly not regard Valentine as an heiress, and the fact that she had not long ago been a secretary-companion, that she had left her own land in order to become one, that she spoke French beautifully and, in spite of the charm of her appearance, was plainly rather shy and diffident, were things that interested her far more.

  “My nephew is of the opinion that as a stranger to Paris, you ought to be shown more than you have been shown so far,” she observed. “I no longer do very much entertaining—my rheumatism,” she admitted with her charming smile that would always have an ingredient of youth in it, “is a little trying at times, and I’m getting old! But I would love it if you would drop in and see me any time you feel like doing so, and I understand you have a friend who is joining you from England? You must bring her along to see me, too, and one night we will arrange a little dinner party! Just a few of my very special friends and people you would like to meet!”

  “You are very kind,” Valentine said and thought that although the doctor had not asked about Jane he had evidently made up his mind that she was joining her.

  Madame la marquise looked at her quizzically.

  “Do you know,” she said, “I’ve never before known my nephew to take such a particular interest in anyone quite as young as you are—a young woman, I mean. Naturally, in his profession he comes in contact with all ages and all types, but I’ve never known him to specially mention someone of your sex who wasn’t of a very sophisticated order indeed. His women friends are always sophisticated, and I have more than once lamented the fact that they were perhaps a little too much so!”