Across the Counter (9 page)

Though she could not have said why, Katherine felt there was something almost menacing about the geniality of his smile, and she was aware that Paul, beside her, had abruptly stopped speaking and was looking at his father—his eyes slightly narrowed in assort of grim alertness.

“This time it concerns my son,” the old man went on. And glancing across the table Katherine saw a faint self
-
conscious smile pass over Aileen Lester’s face.

Good heavens, he can’t,
thought Katherine. But she thought she knew just what this obstinate and tyrannical old man was going to do in his favorite role of the one who forced issues.

“It isn’t often that a
father has the pleasure of announcing two engagements in one week—” There was a slight, enjoyable gasp from the company. But before the old man could go on Paul got to his feet—apparently unhurriedly, but with resistless authority.

“You’re not going to steal my thunder by announcing my own engagement for me,
father,” he said pleasantly but firmly, “
I
would like to be the one to ask you all to drink to my engagement to the charming girl beside me—Katherine Renner.”

CHAPTER
FIV
E

Everyone gasped
in chorus at Paul Kendale’s sensational announcement, so that Katherine’s faint exclamation was lost in the general excitement. And as she instinctively dropped her glance before the barrage of interested stares, her bewilderment and protest went unnoticed and she merely looked like the slightly overcome heroine of the occasion.

“Katherine
...
Renner?” Paul’s father repeated the unfamiliar name on a note of stupefaction quite out of keeping with the confident way he had previously started to make the engagement announcement. “But I thought—”

“Yes, father. But it doesn’t do to jump to conclusions,” his son told him with easy good humor. “I told you
I
hoped to become engaged this evening—” Katherine did glance up then, and noted the hard stare with which Paul dared his father to challenge that “—but I didn’t tell you to whom. That was why I had to make my own announcement. I couldn’t have you making embarrassing guesses in public.”

“It’s sensationally sudden, isn’t it?” That was Malcolm speaking a little hoarsely beside Katherine.

“But these things often are sudden, aren’t they?” Paul turned his smile on Malcolm then. “You should know,” he added, still with that air of almost dangerous good humor. “You didn’t exactly waste time about your own arrangements, did you?”

“Well
...
no.” Malcolm seemed strangely nonplussed.

It was Geraldine who—whatever her disappointment might be on behalf of her friend Aileen—imparted some air of probability to the scene by exclaiming, “Well, it’s certainly a-dramatic way of doing things—and terribly like you, Paul. When did you settle things, the pair of you? On the way here?”

“On the way here,” her brother agreed. “Didn’t we, Katherine?
”
And as he bent down with apparent devotion to speak to Katherine, he said under his breath
—
but with tremendous urgency—the one word, “Please!” She knew it was his appeal to her not to let him down—to accept, however temporarily and in whatever form, the extraordinary position that he had thrust upon her. It was an incredible thing to ask of anyone
—
without explanation or qualification—and for a second she thought she must refuse.

But he had been curiously understanding about her own dilemma and
...

Afterward she was not sure if she made a decision or if, in sheer cowardice, she just let things slide. In any case she heard herself say, a little huskily, but with firmness, “Yes. We
...
settled things on the way here. But I
...
still can’t quite believe it. So please don’t ask me to
...
to say much about it.”

“I know
exactly
how you feel,” declared Geraldine who did not in the least, of course. “And it’s a shame to turn the limelight full on you like this. Please all drink your coffee, my dears, because we really ought to be starting for the ball any minute now.”

It was a good effort on her part. And although, naturally, it was not possible to dismiss the whole subject quite so lightly, at least most of the guests appeared to turn their attention to their coffee, and one or two actually managed to introduce some other topic.

As for Katherine, she ventured at last to cast a glance across the table at Aileen Lester, for whom she felt genuinely sorry at this moment. Unquestionably, she had behaved very badly on more than one occasion, and almost certainly she had connived at old Mr. Kendale’s absurd attempt to stampede Paul into an engagement. But whatever her errors, she had been most richly punished.

She looked a little pale, but she was talking animatedly to the man beside her and outwardly she was calm. She did not look at Katherine. But if ever anyone managed to emanate fury and dislike without so much as a glance, it was Aileen Lester at that moment.

It was over at last—this most embarrassing meal in which Katherine had ever taken part. And to her unspeakable relief, the company broke up immediately into small groups so that she and Paul were able to go out at once to his car.

She said nothing to him until she was seated beside him and they were driving away from the house. And even then it was difficult to know how to begin. Inevitably, it was he who spoke first.

“I simply don’t know how to apologize to you,” he said.
“
But if I hadn’t done what
I
did, I would now either be irrevocably engaged to someone I don’t want, or have had to insult her with a public refusal.”

“
But you
are
engaged to someone you don’t want,” she reminded him with a faint flicker of humor.

“But not irrevocably,” he countered quickly.

“No—that’s true,” Katherine agreed, and she drew her first breath of relief that evening. “Even so—”

“Even so,” he caught her up, “
I
know it was inexcusable. There’s no way in which I can apologize to you. Or thank you for having backed me up,” he added.

“
I
don’t know what else I could have done,” she admitted frankly. “If I’d repudiated the—your announcement, the position would have been even more impossible. I think it was cowardice, probably, rather than cooperation.”

He laughed slightly at that. Then he said, “Katherine—may I call you Katherine?”

“You have to, if you’re engaged to me,” she pointed out practically.

“I’ll get you out of this as soon as I possibly can. It was a relatively small group who heard the announcement, and
I
hope we can keep it within that circle for this evening at least.”

She hoped so, too. But she privately thought he might as well try to stem a forest fire with a garden hose as control the sort of gossip and conjecture that would break out the moment it was even hinted that the assistant managing director had become engaged to a member of the staff.

“All the guests were more or less intimates of our family circle,” he went on a little as though he was thinking aloud. “There wasn’t one who doesn’t know my father’s eccentric degree of domestic tyranny. It should be possible to do some quiet explaining, even this evening—”

“On what lines?” she inquired with genuine curiosity.

“The truth, I suppose,” he replied with a shrug. “That I realized my father intended to stampede me into marriage, and that in order to stop a most pai
n
ful public scene I leaned heavily on the tact and cooperation of an excellent business colleague and friend.”

“Oh, yes, I see.” She smiled suddenly and mischievously. “It sounds rather good, put that way. But they’re bound to start guessing whom your father had in mind,” she added doubtfully.

“That I can’t help,” he said coldly.

“It’s a bit hard on her.”

“It would have been a bit hard on me if the ruse had succeeded,” he retorted dryly, so that she saw that he at least believed Aileen had been party to the whole disreputable business.

“Well,” she said after a slight pause, “if we do manage to keep the story within bounds this evening
—
what do we do after that?”

“Coolly deny any rumors that have spread.”

“It’s not going to be easy.”

“Nothing about this business is going to be easy,” he replied curtly. “That’s why I’m beginning to kick myself for ever having involved you in it.”

“That’s all right.” Somehow she felt she had to offer him some word of reassurance. “As you said yourself, there was very little else you could do.”

“Thank you,” he said briefly. And then they arrived at the really beautiful Assembly Rooms, where the ball was already in progress.

“I’ll meet you here,” he told her as she parted from him in the great entry hall to go and deposit her evening coat.

She had a queer, unprotected feeling as she turned away from him. But as she approached the ladies’ cloakroom she saw Jane Falloden coming toward her and she felt her confidence return. For hardly more than a couple of seconds, however, for Jane caught her immediately by the arm and exclaimed, “Katherine is it really true? I simply can’t believe it, even now.” Katherine felt her heart miss a couple of beats.

“Is what true?” she countered as calmly a
s
she could.

“Why, this
...
this story about your being engaged to Paul Kendale.”

“Who told you that?” Katherine asked, feeling she must prevaricate just as long as she could.

“No one told me personally. Miss Kendale—Geraldine Kendale—just walked straight into the crowded ladies’ room and said, ‘You must forgive us for being so late, but we’ve had an exciting sort of dinner party. My brother’s just got engaged to Katherine Renner from Bremmisons.’ ”

Katherine took a deep breath. If it had been stated as categorically as that, and on the authority of no less a person than her supposed future sister-in-law, there was remarkably little she could do about it.

“It’s true the announcement was made—though a bit prematurely,” she added with masterly understatement.
“We were slightly put out about it, and really, Jane, we’d both rather not have it discussed much yet.”

“Not have it
discussed
!” Jane laughed. “Then, my dear, you should have arrived here first—or briefed Geraldine Kendale. In two minutes flat, after she’d made her little speech, the whole place was sizzling with it.”

“Oh, dear! I wish we
had
arrived here first,” exclaimed Katherine.

“
I
expect you took the longest way around. You must have had a lot to say to each other,” declared Jane indulgently, speaking more accurately than she knew.

“Come back with me while I deposit my coat and powder my nose,” Katherine begged. “
I
need some moral support. Are there many people in the cloakroom?”

“Quite a few,” Jane assured her cheerfully. “
I
expect they’re hoping to catch a glimpse of you.”

There was nothing to do but go through with it—just as with the dinner party. But to comb one’s hair and powder one’s nose while knowing one was an object of the most passionate interest was not easy.

Jane chatted gaily to her most of the time, and at least no one offered either good wishes or comment. Even the one or two who knew her slightly ventured no more than a curious smile. And she realized with something between amusement and irritation that her supposed new position had put her in a sort of ivory tower, as far as her day-to-day colleagues were concerned.

Outside in the big hall once more, Jane rejoined her somewhat devoted-looking partner, and Katherine went up to Paul Kendale who was standing near the bottom of the magnificent Regency staircase.

“I’m sorry I’ve been rather long,” she said. And then in a slightly agitated undertone. “I’m afraid the news was broken even more thoroughly than anything we feared.”

“How do you mean?” He, too, spoke in an undertone as they slowly mounted the stairs.

“Your sister broadcast the information in the ladies’ room. Probably even the drummer in the band knows it by now.”

She was pretty sure he uttered a swearword under his breath. But at that moment they arrived at the top of the stairs and, inevitably, at the doorway to the truly beautiful ballroom.

At any other time the sheer loveliness of the place
—
with its perfect proportions and blazing chandeliers
—
would have taken her breath away. Now what made her gasp slightly was the fact that the band broke off as she and Paul entered. Everyone stopped dancing and turned to look at them. It was like something in a bad dream.

Then the master of ceremonies—evidently under the impression that he was timing things to perfection
—
made a gesture to the band and they somewhat incongruously but with great goodwill broke into,
“
For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow.”

Someone began to clap, and as this sort of thing is invariably catching, everyone followed s
u
it, and Katherine and Paul Kendale made their entry to hearty applause based on the irrefutable fact that all the world loves a lover.

“You see what
I
mean?” she muttered.

“Yes. Confound it!” he replied in the same tone.

“Well, smile and look as though you like it,” she admonished him softly. “Otherwise they’ll all think
I
pushed
you
into this.”

Something about that must really have amused him. Because as she smiled up compellingly at him he actually laughed outright. Immediately there was quite a barrage of popping flashbulbs and clicking cameras, evidence of the fact that the local press photographers who were there to “cover” the ball had no intention of missing what amounted to a minor sensation. Already, in a moment of distressing clarity, Katherine visualized the resulting photographs gracing the display board outside the canteen at Bremmisons.