Текст книги "Britannia All at Sea"

Автор книги: Betty Neels

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 3 (всего у книги 10 страниц)

CHAPTER THREE

IT SEEMED THAT Britannia was never to discover the professor’s taste regarding pink-clad females, but that was a small price to pay in the face of the frequency of their meetings. For she met him again the very next afternoon. Joan, laid low with a headache, had decided to stay indoors and Mevrouw Veske had an appointment with her dentist. Britannia, restless and urged by her friend to take advantage of the unexpectedly pleasant day, donned slacks, pulled on two sweaters, tied a scarf under her chin and went to fetch her bicycle. There was miles of open country around her; she chose a right-hand turn at the crossroads and pedalled down it, feeling a good deal more cheerful while she plotted ways and means—most of them quite unsuitable—of meeting the professor again. An unnecessary exercise as it turned out, for seeing a picturesque pond among the trees on the other side of the road she decided to cross over and get a better view. She was almost there when the professor’s magnificent car swept round the curve ahead and stopped within a foot or so of her.

She jumped off her machine, quite undisturbed by the sight of his furious face thrust through the open window, and his biting: ‘This is becoming quite ridiculous—you’re not fit to ride a bicycle!’

Britannia, a girl of common sense, nonetheless realised that her fairy godmother, kind Fate or just plain good luck were giving her another chance. The sight of the professor glowering from the opened window of his stupendous car sent a most pleasing sensation through her, although her pretty face remained calm. She said: ‘Hullo,’ and got no reply; the professor was swallowing rage. When he did at length speak, his voice was cold and nasty.

‘You were on the wrong side of the road. I might have killed you.’

She stooped to pick up her bicycle, observing that it had a puncture in the back tyre which seemed of no great importance at the moment; it was much more important to get him into a good mood. She said reasonably: ‘I’m a foreigner, so you have to make allowances, you know. You aren’t very nice about it; after all, we have met before.’

The blue eyes studied her in undisguised rage. ‘Indeed we have, but I see no reason to express pleasure at seeing you again. I advise you to travel on the correct side of the road and use the cycle path where there is one.’ He added morosely: ‘You’re not fit to be out on your own.’

Britannia took his criticism in good part. ‘You can come with me if you like,’ she invited. ‘I daresay some healthy exercise would do you good; there’s nothing like fresh air to blow away bad temper.’ She smiled at him kindly and waited for him to speak, and when he didn’t she went on: ‘Oh, well, perhaps you can’t cycle any more…’

The professor’s voice, usually deep and measured, took on an unexpected volume. ‘You are an atrocious girl. How you got here and why is no concern of mine, but I will not be plagued by you.’

She looked meek. ‘I don’t mean to plague you. My back tyre’s punctured.’

‘Mend it or walk home!’ he bellowed, and left her standing there.

‘He drives much too fast,’ remarked Britannia to the quiet road. ‘And how do I mend a puncture with nothing?’

She turned her machine and started to walk, doing sums as she went. She had been cycling for almost an hour—not hurrying—so she must have come at least ten miles. She would be late for lunch, she might even be late for tea. She had passed through a village some way back, but as she had no money and no one there would know or understand her, it wouldn’t be of much use to stop there. She had been walking for twenty minutes or so when an elderly man on a bicycle passed her, stopped, and with the minimum of speech and fuss, got out his repair kit. He had almost finished the job when the professor, coming the other way, slid his car to a halt beside them.

Britannia gave him a warm smile. ‘There, I knew you weren’t as nasty as you pretended you were!’

He surveyed her unsmilingly. ‘Get in,’ he said evenly. ‘The bike can be fetched later.’

She shook her head at him. ‘Oh, I couldn’t do that; this gentleman stopped to help me and I wouldn’t be so ungrateful as to leave him now.’ She shook her pretty head at him again. ‘You really must get out of the habit of expecting people to do what you want whether they wish to or not. This kind man hasn’t shouted at me, nor did he leave me to mend a puncture all alone in a strange land, which I couldn’t have done anyway because I had nothing to do it with.’

She paused to see the effect of this speech. The professor’s splendid features appeared to be carved in disapproving stone, his eyes pale and hard. She sighed. ‘Oh, well…it was kind of you to come back. Thank you.’ She had no chance to say more, for he had gone, driving much too fast again.

She very nearly told Joan about it when she got back, but really there didn’t seem much point; beyond meeting the professor again, nothing had happened; he still disliked her, indeed, even more so, she thought. There was the possibility that she might not see him again. She paused in the brushing of her mane of hair to reflect that whether he liked her or no, they had met again—she could have stayed her whole two weeks in Holland and not seen hair nor hide of him; she tended to regard that as some sort of sign. Before she got into bed she sat down and wrote to her mother and father; after all, she had told them about him in the first place, they had a right to know that her sudden whim to go to Holland had borne fruit. Rather sour fruit, she conceded.

But not as sour as all that; she was on her way down to breakfast the following morning when Berthe came running upstairs to meet her. She pointed downwards, giggling, and then pointed at Britannia, who instantly thought of all the awful things which could have happened to either Mijnheer or Mevrouw Veske and rushed past her and down the stairs at a great rate.

‘I had no idea that you were so eager to see me again,’ said the professor. ‘Should I be flattered?’

He was standing in the hall, in his car coat with his gloves in his hand, and gave her the distinct impression that he was impatient to be gone.

‘No,’ said Britannia, ‘you shouldn’t—I thought something awful had happened to the Veskes. What are you doing here? Is someone ill?’

The professor’s lip twitched faintly. ‘Cut down to size,’ he murmured. ‘I called to see you.’

Britannia’s incurable optimism bubbled up under her angora sweater, but she checked it with a firm metaphorical hand and asked: ‘Why?’

‘I owe you an apology for my behaviour yesterday. I offer it now.’

‘Well, that’s handsome of you, Professor, I’ll accept it. I expect you were worrying about something and felt irritable.’

‘You concern yourself a little too much about my feelings, Miss Smith. Perhaps it would be better if you were to attend to your own affairs.’

She had annoyed him again. The optimism burst its bubble and she said quietly: ‘I’m sure you’re right. Thank you for coming—I expect you want to go…’

He gave her a long look and went to the door without a word, but before he could open it she had nipped across the hall to stand beside him. ‘I’m only here for a fortnight,’ she told him, and then, unable to resist the question: ‘Do you really live near here?’

‘Yes. Goodbye, Britannia.’

So that was that. She went into breakfast and made lighthearted rejoinders to the questions fired at her, and presently they all began talking about their plans for the day and the professor was forgotten.

They spent the next day or so sightseeing; Mevrouw Veske was a splendid hostess. They drove to Arnhem and spent several hours in the Open-Air Museum, absorbing Holland’s national culture through centuries through its farms, windmills, houses from every province and medieval crafts, and were taken to lunch at the Haarhuis, where Britannia ate eel, so deliciously disguised that she had no idea what it was until her hostess told her. They spent the afternoon looking at the shops and buying a few trifles to take home, and arrived back at the villa exhausted but very content with their day.

The next day was Saturday and Mijnheer Veske had offered to take the two girls riding. The weather had turned cold and bright and he knew the charming country around them like the back of his hand. Britannia, a rather wary horsewoman, found that she was enjoying herself immensely; her mount was a calm beast who made no effort to play tricks but was content to trot along after the other two, so that Britannia relaxed presently and looked around her. There were woods on either side of them, with here and there a small estate between the trees. Mijnheer Veske, who had lived there all his life, found nothing out of the ordinary about it, but she longed to explore away from the lanes; the glimpses of the houses she saw fired her imagination, and just as they were about to return home she caught a glimpse of a really splendid house, its gables tantalisingly half hidden by the trees surrounding it. There was a narrow lane running round the walls of the grounds, too. It was on the tip of her tongue to ask her host if they might ride a little way along so that she might see more of it, but it was already eleven o’clock and she knew that the Veskes lunched at midday. She made herself a promise that before she went back to England she would either cycle or ride that way and see it for herself.

They all went to church the next morning, driving to Hoenderloo in the Citroën. Britannia couldn’t help but wonder if the service would be of any benefit to herself and Joan, but it had been taken for granted that they would accompany the Veskes, and it would be an experience.

The church was red brick, built in the jelly-mould style with whitewashed walls and plain glass windows. It was lofty and spacious and on the cold side, but Britannia forgot all about that in her interest in following the service. It seemed one stood up when one would kneel at home, and sat down when one would stand, but the hymns, surprisingly, had the same tunes even though the words were incomprehensible. They were sung rather slowly too, so that she had the chance to try out some of the verses, much to Joan’s amusement. It was as the sermon began that she saw the professor, sitting in the front of the church and to her right, and he wasn’t alone. Beside him was a fair-haired girl with a beanpole figure draped in the height of fashion. Britannia, sitting between her host and hostess, wondered about her. She was undeniably beautiful if one liked glossy magazine types. She glanced down at her own nicely rounded person and sighed to be slim and golden-haired. There was only one tiny crumb of comfort; the professor didn’t look at his companion once; his arrogant profile was lifted towards the dominee, thundering away at the congregation from under his sounding-board.

And presently, as the congregation left the church, the professor and his companion passed the Veskes’ pew. He acknowledged their greeting pleasantly, smiled nicely at Joan and then wiped the smile off his face as he bent his cold eyes on Britannia, who so far forgot herself as to wrinkle her nose at him and turn down the corners of her pretty mouth in an unlady-like grimace. If he wanted war, he should have it!

A belligerent decision which was made to look silly, for as they rose from Sunday lunch the professor arrived at the front door to enquire for her, and when she went into the sitting room where the giggling Berthe had shown him, it was to find him nattily attired in tweeds and an anorak, with the bland invitation to go cycling with him.

‘Me?’ asked Britannia, much astonished.

He opened his eyes wide in exaggerated surprise. ‘Certainly you. I was under the impression that you had asked me to accompany you—healthy exercise, you said, and the certainty that fresh air would be good for my temper.’

She eyed him with astonishment. ‘And you’ve actually got a bike? You want to go cycling? With me?’

‘Yes.’

She beamed at him; the fairies were very much on her side after all. ‘Give me two minutes,’ she begged him.

It took her rather less than that to pull another sweater over her skirt, wind a scarf round her neck and tie a scarf round her hair, and another minute to explain to Mevrouw Veske, who looked pleased if surprised. ‘Well, at least one of us has found Prince Charming,’ observed Joan.

‘Stuff!’ retorted Britannia. ‘He’s only doing it because he thinks I’m a fool on a bike.’

‘Well, you are, ducky,’ said Joan cheerfully. ‘I expect he’ll teach you the rules of the road.’

But he didn’t; they cycled amiably enough along the route she had chosen and when he asked why she particularly wanted to go that way she told him about the house she had glimpsed and hadn’t had time to see. ‘It looked exciting, like things do look when you can’t see them properly—just the gables between the trees and a lovely park.’ She turned to look at him and wobbled alarmingly so that he put out a hand to steady her handlebars. ‘I still don’t know where you live, you know, and I quite understand that you don’t want me to know, though I can’t think why, but you must have a house somewhere within cycling distance; you’ll know who the house belongs to, I expect. There’s a little lane running round the park walls. Do you suppose the owner would mind very much if we went down it and looked over the wall?’

She was so intent on riding her bicycle in a manner to win his approval that she didn’t see the professor’s expression. Astonishment, amusement and then sheer delight passed over his features, but none of these were apparent in his voice. ‘I believe it is possible to cycle right round the grounds—there should be a better view of the house. Why are you so interested?’

‘Well, it sounds silly, but I had a funny feeling when I saw it first—as though it meant something to me.’ She glanced at him and found him smiling and went on defensively, ‘All right, so it’s silly—I’m not even in my own country and I don’t know anyone here except the Veskes—and you. Perhaps it’s derelict.’

Her companion looked shocked. ‘No—someone lives in it.’

‘Oh, you know them?’

‘Yes.’

They had passed the crossroads and were in the narrow lane curving between the trees with the professor leading the way.

‘What I like about you,’ observed Britannia, ‘is the terseness of your answers.’

He slowed a little so that she could catch up with him. ‘I had no idea that there was anything you liked about me,’ he said suavely.

Which annoyed her so much that she forgot about the brakes and back-pedalled so that he had to put a steadying hand on her arm. ‘Now, now,’ he chided her in a patient, superior voice which annoyed her even more.

But she couldn’t remain vexed for long; the air was cold and exhilarating and the countryside charming, and had she not got just what she had wished for most? The professor’s company…

‘It’s down here,’ she said eagerly, ‘if we go along here and look to the left…’

‘There will be a better view further on,’ observed the professor matter-of-factly.

‘Why are you laughing?’ asked Britannia.

‘My dear good girl, I am not even smiling.’

‘Inside you—something’s amusing you…’

He shot her a quick look. ‘I can see that I shall have to be very careful of my behaviour when we are together,’ he said smoothly. ‘Since you asked, I was remembering something which amused me.’

She let that pass, although it was nice, she reflected, that the professor could be amused… ‘There!’ she exclaimed, and back-pedalled to a halt. ‘That’s the place. It must be sheer heaven in the summer—all those copper beeches and that row of limes. I wonder what the garden is like.’

‘Probably if we go on a little further we could see it,’ suggested her companion. He was right; the house came into view, typically Dutch, of mellow red brick, tall chimney pots among the gables, its large windows shining in the pale sunshine. It was too far off to see as much as she wanted, but she could glimpse a paved walk all round the house, outbuildings at the side of a formal garden laid out before its massive front.

‘I hope whoever lives there loves it,’ remarked Britannia. ‘Do you suppose it belongs to some old family? Perhaps it had to be sold to pay death duties and now there’s someone living there who can’t tell Biedermeier from mid-Victorian Rococo…’

‘What a vivid imagination you have! And do you really know the difference between Rococo and Biedermeier?’ He wasn’t looking at her but staring across the countryside towards the distant house.

‘Yes, I think so. You see, my father is an antique dealer and I always went with him to sales and auctions. I didn’t mean to boast.’

‘You admire antique furniture? Which is your favourite period?’

Britannia had got off her bike and was leaning against the low wall. ‘Oh, yes. Early Regency and Gothic.’

He asked casually, ‘Have you been inside any of the houses round here?’

She shook her head. ‘No, and I don’t expect to. I only came to keep Joan company—she’s the Veskes’ goddaughter.’ She got on her bike again. ‘Can we get all the way round, or do we go back the way we came?’

The professor smiled faintly. ‘You wish to return? We can go on. Do you intend visiting any of the hospitals while you are here?’

‘I’d like to, but one can’t just present oneself and say look, I’m a nurse, can I look round. Mijnheer Veske might be able to give me an introduction, but Joan isn’t keen, anyway.’

They were side by side, pedalling into the chilly wind. ‘I should be glad to arrange a visit for you,’ said the professor surprisingly. ‘Arnhem—I go there twice a week. I will call for you and bring you back after my teaching round.’

Britannia eyed him with surprise. ‘Would you really? Why are you being so nice? I thought you couldn’t bear the sight of me.’

His voice was smooth. ‘Shall we say that the fresh air and exercise which you recommended have had their good effect?’

He didn’t go into the house with her but bade her a casual goodbye without saying another word about her visit to the hospital. Probably he had regretted his words, decided Britannia as she went to her room to tidy herself before presenting herself in the sitting room for tea.

There were visitors; an elderly couple, their daughter and a son, home from some far-flung spot on long leave. Britannia was made instantly aware of the interesting fact that he and Joan were getting on remarkably well and being a true friend, engaged the daughter in a conversation which lasted until the visitors got up to leave.

Their car had barely disappeared down the drive when Joan told her happily: ‘We’re going out tomorrow. Britannia, do you mind? I mean, if you’re left on your own. He’s only got another week…’

‘Plenty of time,’ comforted Britannia. ‘Besides, it was an instant thing, wasn’t it? Flashing lights and sunbeams and things, it stuck out a mile.’ She added: ‘Prince Charming, love?’

Joan looked smug and hopeful and apprehensive all at the same time. ‘Oh, yes. Oh, Britannia, you’ve no idea how it feels!’

In which she was wrong, of course.

Britannia, happily, did not have long to wait before the professor paid her another visit, although visit was hardly the right word. He drove up some time after breakfast, asked to see her, and when she presented herself, enquired of her coolly if she was ready to go to Arnhem with him. She felt a surge of pleasure, for Joan was committed for the whole day with Dirk de Jonge and Mevrouw Veske had asked her a little anxiously what she was going to do with herself until lunchtime; all the same she said sedately: ‘How kind, but I didn’t know that you had asked me to come with you today. It’s not very convenient…’

He stood bareheaded in the hall, watching her. ‘May I ask what you intended doing today?’ His voice was very bland.

‘Nothing,’ said Britannia before she could stop herself, and then waited for him to make some nasty remark. But he didn’t, he said quite mildly: ‘In that case I should be glad to take you to Arnhem. I think you will find the hospital interesting. You have, after all, nearly a week here, have you not, and if your friend is going to spend it exclusively with de Jonge you will have to seek your own amusement, will you not?’

‘Do you know him? I thought he looked nice…’

‘Yes, I know him, and if by nice you mean unmarried, able to support a wife and anxious to marry your friend, then yes, he is nice.’

‘You have no need to talk like that. You must live close by…?’

His brief ‘Yes,’ didn’t help at all. Britannia sighed. ‘I’ll fetch my coat.’

Mevrouw Veske gave her a roguish look when she disclosed her plans for the day. ‘Very nice, dear, I’m sure you’ll enjoy yourself, and in such good company too.’ She wore the pleased expression that older ladies wore when they scented romance with a capital R, and Britannia, incurably honest, made haste to explain that she was merely being given a lift to the hospital and a return lift when it was convenient to the professor. Rather a waste of time, for Mevrouw Veske, accompanying her to the hall to bid the professor good morning, wished them both a pleasant day together, with an arch look which wasn’t lost on him, for the moment they were in the car he remarked silkily:

‘Your hostess seems to be under the impression that we are to spend the day in each other’s company. I hope that you don’t think the same.’

‘No,’ said Britannia sweetly, and seethed silently as she said it, ‘I don’t—but you know what happily married women are like, they want to see everyone else happily married; such an absurd notion in our case that I see no point in wasting breath on it.’

‘Why absurd?’ he asked blandly.

Britannia settled down comfortably in her seat. ‘Well,’ she explained carefully, ‘we’re in—incompatible, aren’t we? Different backgrounds and interests and…and…’

‘Ages?’ he queried.

‘Lord, no—what has age got to do with it? That was a very pretty girl in church with you.’

‘Yes.’

‘Does she live close by, too?’

‘Yes.’

Britannia turned to look at him. ‘I wonder why you offered me a lift? Certainly not for the conversation.’

He said blandly: ‘I thought I had explained about the fresh air and exercise…’

‘Oh, pooh. I shall hold my tongue, since you like it that way.’

He ignored this. ‘When you get to the hospital you will be put in the care of a surgical Sister who speaks excellent English. She will take you to any wards you wish to see. I shall be a couple of hours—you will be warned when I am ready to leave.’

‘Who looks after you?’ asked Britannia.

‘I have an excellent housekeeper.’

‘She must be a devoted one too if you fire orders at her in the same way as you’re firing them at me. You know, I don’t think I want to go to Arnhem after all. Would you stop, please? I’ll go for a walk instead.’

He laughed aloud. ‘We have come almost six miles and this isn’t a main road, nor are there any villages—you may have noticed that we are passing the Air Force field. You could walk back the way we have come or continue on to Arnhem. It will be a long…’ He broke off and slowed the car’s quiet rush. There was a woman standing in the middle of the road, waving her arms and shouting. As the professor brought the car to a halt she ran towards it, still shouting and crying too, and he got out without more ado to catch her by the shoulders and say something firmly to her. Britannia had got out as well, for plainly there was something very wrong. The woman was pointing now, towards a very small, rather tumbledown cottage half hidden in the trees, and the professor started towards it, the woman tugging at his sleeve. ‘A child taken ill,’ he said briefly, and Britannia went too; after all, she was a nurse and there might be something she could do.

The child was on the floor of the small room, crowded with furniture, into which they went. A little girl, whose small face was already blue and who had no trace of breath. The professor went down on his knees, asking brief, curt questions of the hysterical mother, then turned to Britannia.

‘Sit down,’ he commanded her. ‘Take the child on your knees and flex her head. There’s a pebble impacted in her larynx, so her mother says.’

He waited a few seconds while Britannia did as she was bid and then swept an exploratory finger into the child’s mouth. ‘Have you a Biro pen with you?’ he asked, and took a penknife from his pocket.

She didn’t say more than she had to, for talk at that time was wasting precious seconds. ‘My bag—outside pocket.’

She watched while he found the pen, pulled it apart and handed her the plastic casing; a makeshift trachy tube indeed, but better than nothing.

‘Hold the child’s head back, give me the tube when I say so,’ said the professor, and opened his knife. ‘This may just work,’ he observed. It took seconds and with the improvised tube in place the little girl’s face began to take on a faint pink as air reached her lungs once more. But the professor wasted no time in contemplating his handiwork. ‘Get into the car,’ he said, and took the child from Britannia’s knee and followed her as she ran back to the Rolls. ‘Hold her steady on your knee and hold the tube exactly as it is now. I’m going to drive to the hospital.’

Britannia paled a little, but her ‘yes,’ was said in a steady enough voice and the professor, acknowledging it with a grunt, went back for the mother, and when she was in the car, still crying and hysterical, picked up the telephone she had noticed beside his seat. He spoke briefly, bent over the child for a moment, got into his seat and drove off smoothly. He drove very fast too; Britannia, her hand locked on the frail plastic tube, sent up a stream of incoherent prayers, mingled with heartfelt thanks that Arnhem couldn’t be very far away now. And at the professor’s speed, it wasn’t. The city’s pleasant outskirts enclosed them, gave way to busy streets and in no time at all, the forecourt of a hospital.

His few terse words into the telephone had borne fruit. Two white-coated young doctors, a rather fierce-looking Sister and her attendant satellite were waiting for them. In no time at all the professor was out of the car, round its elegant bonnet and bending over the child through Britannia’s open door, with the two young men squeezed in on her other side and the Sister right behind the professor, a covered tray in her hands. He used the instruments on it with lightning speed; the plastic Biro case was eased out and a tracheotomy tube inserted and its tapes neatly tied. The professor muttered and the two doctors immediately started the sucker they had brought with them; after a few moments the child’s face began to look almost normal again while the trachy tube made reassuring whistling noises with each breath. The professor spoke again and lifted the child off Britannia’s knee; seconds later she was alone, stretching her cramped back and legs and watching the small urgent procession of trolley, professor and his assistants disappearing into the hospital.

It was almost an hour before anyone came—a porter, who eyed her with some surprise as he got into the driver’s seat beside her. She bade him a quite inadequate hullo and hoped that he could speak English. He could after a fashion, but his ‘In garage’ hardly reassured her.

With the British belief that if she spoke enough he would understand her, Britannia asked: ‘Will the professor be long?’ and then when she saw how hopeless it was, managed a: ‘De Professor komt?’

He shook his head, thought deeply and came out with: ‘Long time.’

He had forgotten her, of course. She smiled at the man, got out of the car and watched it being driven away, round to the back of the hospital. She could go and enquire, she supposed; ask someone where the professor was and how long he would be, but she fancied that he wouldn’t take kindly to being disturbed at his work. She walked slowly out of the hospital gates and started towards the main streets of the town they had gone through. Sooner or later she would see a policeman who would tell her where she could get a bus.

It took a little while, for the streets confused her and there seemed to be no policemen at all, but she found one at last, got him to understand what she wanted and set off once more, her head whirling with lengthy instructions as to how and where to get a bus for Hoenderloo, so it was some time later when she boarded the vehicle and wedged herself thankfully between a stout woman and a very thin old man. There would be a mile or so to walk from the bus stop and the afternoon was closing in rapidly, reminding her that she had had no lunch, but she cheered herself up with the thought of the cosy sitting room at the villa and the plentiful dinner Mevrouw Veske set before her guests each evening.

The bus made slow progress, stopping apparently wherever it was most convenient for its passengers to alight, but it reached her stop at last, and she got out quickly, the only passenger to do so, anxious to get back to the villa. She had taken a bare half dozen steps when she saw the professor looming at the side of the road just ahead of her, the Rolls behind him. He took her arm without a word and marched her to the car, declaring coldly: ‘You tiresome girl, as though I don’t have enough to do without traipsing round the country looking for you!’

She couldn’t see his face very clearly in the early dusk. ‘I’m quite able to look after myself,’ she pointed out reasonably. ‘I didn’t know what to do when the porter came to take the car away; he said you would be a long time and I thought that perhaps you intended remaining at the hospital. Is the child all right?’

‘Yes.’ He gave her arm a little shake. ‘You imagined that I would do that without sending you a message? Don’t be absurd!’

They were in the car now and she turned to look at him and observe in a kindly tone: ‘Not absurd, you know. You had enough to think of without bothering your head about me.’ She smiled at him. ‘I can’t think why you should.’

‘I’ll tell you why,’ he ground out, and then in his usual cool voice: ‘But not now.’ He started the car without another word.