Master of Hearts (2 page)

England, with the departure of her two charges for a distant land with their parents.

Shane lifted up his voice:

"Where are you two girls?"

Kathleen turned to her s
ister-in-law.

"But, Peg," she said hurriedly, "I don't like the sound of the Conde! From the picture you've painted of him, he's arrogant and impossible."

"Only because he's Portuguese and rich and sought-after."

"That makes him sound worse than ever!"

"And you needn't bother about Portuguese, because they all speak English. The children probably nothing else."

Shane called again.

"I want some coffee! And if Kathie doesn't hurry

and finish that packing of hers we'll miss the train!" Peg took her sister-in-law determinedly by the arm. "Let's go and tell him he can drive you to the quints

instead!" she said.

AS Kathleen sat waiting in the ante-room she felt as if Peggy had rather thrust her into this.

It was one thing to have a holiday in Portugal, and to spend it in the company of her nearest relatives; but it was quite another to find herself alone in a Portuguese household, faced with the intimidating prospect of being interviewed by an unknown and autocratic Portuguese male. And a Conde at that!

The title had meant little to her before she left England, but she had an idea now that the holder of it could be heir to a marquisate. And looking about her at the dignified elegance of the ante-room, and remembering how her breath had been slightly taken away by the size and magnificence of the quinta when she first saw it, she could well believe that this particular Conde was very much aware of his rank. As no doubt his sister was very much aware of her rank, too, despite the years she had spent with an American husband.

Kathleen found herself wondering idly how she had ever secured for herself an American for a husband, when Portuguese women with even the most modest pretentions to refinement and fortune were kept very securely tied by the heel. If they had a mother they were laced to her apron-strings until an approved marriage provided them with their first taste of freedom — of a somewhat restricted order. If they had been deprived of a mother at an early age an aunt was called in, usually one with a mind above coercion, and the same programme was adhered to.

Kathleen thought she heard a faint noise in the room adjoining, and she put back her head to listen. Surely that couldn't possibly be muffled laughter in such a silent house? The very thickness of the carpets seemed to, absorb all sound, and the heavy satin draperies cascading over the floor gathered up what delicate echo there might have been left after the almost sensuous pile had attempted to smother it.

Kathleen stared at a portrait and felt sure it was a Velazequez; and she thought how rich and ornate was the gilding of the ceiling. Slender pillars divided the room into two halves, and were entwined with gilded leaves and bunches of grapes, and the damask-covered chairs and couches had fragile little gilt legs. Tall vases held sprays of brilliant blossom, and the colouring was extra vivid against the muted sage-green of the background. Outside, in the middle of a tiny square of emerald lawn, hemmed in by high hedges, a fountain played, and the sound of it came clearly through the open window, and then became lost in the general silence of the room.

Kathleen started to glance at her watch, and she realised it was long past eleven. Yet the Conde had stated eleven o'clock, and Peggy had been terrified lest she should be late. She had barely been given time to change out of her travelling-suit and into one of her pastel-tinted linens that made her look as delicate as a mezzotint with her aura of soft gold hair and her apple-blossom skin Her eyes were an unclouded blue, and her mouth had all the inviting freshness of youth about it.

She looked very young, and she was young; but she also had a certain poise as she sat there, patiently waiting, in the chair a most obsequious servant had pulled out for her. And it wasn't until the slight sound in the next room became unmistakably laughter — repressed, gurgles of laughter — that her curiosity got the better of her, and she stole across the room and opened the door a few inches.

She found herself looking into a library, or a study, even more opulent than the room in which she had waited so long. It had a tremendous desk, with a glittering array of pens and inkwells and so forth; and seated behind the desk was a small boy whose chin barely reached to the blotter on to which he was busily shaking ink from a handsome gold-mounted fountain-pen, while another, who was startingly like him, sat cross-legged on the desk itself and chuckled over the destruction of a letter

with which he was strewing the room as if it was confetti he was manufacturing.

Both boys looked up at her as she stood gazing in at them, and they each leapt guiltily — a condition of mind, Kathleen realised, they had every right to be in —and sprang for cover as she took a step forward. In the case of the boy with the fountain-pen it was under the desk, which he reached in one sinuous, boneless movement; but his companion on this destructive adventure made such an unwary movement that he fell on his head on the carpet, and Kathleen picked him up and even hugged him to her as he started to whimper.

"There, there!" she said. "You haven't really hurt yourself, you know! You're still all in one piece!"

He had the reddest hair she had ever seen in her life; flaming hair that would undoubtedly earn him the cognomen of 'Carrots' when he was old enough to go to school. And his eyes were the greenish-hazel colour that almost invariably go with such hair, and just now they were swimming with surprised tears. It would be several years before he was old enough to go to a preparatory-school, although he was about ripe for a kindergarten, and Kathleen didn't hold it against him that he allowed an unmanly sob or two to escape him. Then he rubbed his eyes as if he was annoyed at his own weakness and scrambled off her lap.

"Who are you?" he demanded aggressively, with a marked American accent.

"I don't need to be told who you are," she replied, deferring the business of introducing herself until later. And if she wasn't engaged to look after them there would be no need to introduce herself. "But, what are you doing here?" she demanded. She looked with sudden horror at the fragments of torn letter and the ink-spots on the otherwise unblemished blotter, and as the second redhead crawled out from underneath the desk and she decided that they were twins she challenged him, too. "What are you doing here? Isn't this out of bounds for you? It looks like your uncle's study!"

"It is," the second redhead admitted, and treated her to a wide, engaging grin that showed a gap in the middle of his top teeth. He added a trifle nasally, and also a little huskily, as if he had a permanent frog in his throat: "But we watched him go out in his big black car, and we knew he wouldn't be back for some time because he said to Filippo before he went that the lady would have to be asked to wait. Are you the lady?" he wanted to know, with sudden interest.

"I—" Kathleen bit her lip. So that was it! The Conde had been called away, and his servant had forgotten to inform her that she would be kept waiting. Or perhaps she hadn't clearly understood what the man had said, because at that time her knees had been shaking a little and she had been far from certain that she ought to have come at all. Now she couldn't help feeling thankful she had come, because someone would have to do something about the mess these two had created.

"Never mind unimportant things now," she said; "but let's get down on our knees and pick up these bits, shall we?" With a delighted shriek the two flung themselves down beside her, and it became a scramble to pick up the bits of torn letter. Jerry (or Jeronimo, as she found out later the elder of the twins' name was) became so excited that he fairly rolled on the floor in his enthusiasm, while Joe (named simply and solely after his American father) fought anyone who got in his way when he was after a particular fragment.

The sounds of their laughter and their shrill, eager voices must have reached far beyond the door that admitted to the ante-room, but Kathleen could do nothing to check the hysterical fervour once she had started it, and as soon as all the pieces were collected she tried to calm them down by telling them they would have to change the blotter. At once they fell upon it, and in the tug-of-war that ensued, each twin wishing to be the one who would actually remove the stained blotting-paper and reveal the virgin white beneath, they once more fell upon the floor, and Kathleen got tripped up by their threshing legs and arms and went down, too. Which caused such a

shriek of merriment that every other sound — save that which might have been caused by an explosion — was muffled by it.

Jerry thought this was the best fun he had had for a long time — certainly the best fun any adult had afforded him since his father died. And he wound his thin arms about Kathleen's neck and kept her down on the rich gold carpet beside him, his strength astounding her because at a glance he looked a mere scrap of a boy; while Joe reached frenziedly for the blotter and began blissfully tearing off white strips. And it was while all this was taking place that the door that had been left standing partly open was suddenly thrust wide open, and a man stood observing them in utter silence.

Jerry was the first to realise he was there, and he uttered a gasp of genuine horror. Kathleen took advantage of the sudden relaxation of the small arms about her neck and struggled to her feet, her spun-golden hair ruffled and her cheeks brilliantly flushed, and Joe said simply, in an awe-stricken voice:

"It's Uncle Miguel!"

"Get to your feet, Jeronimo!" a stern, cold voice requested, and Kathleen wondered whether she had ever heard quite such a remote masculine voice before. "And you, too, Joseph!"

Both boys obeyed him with alacrity, but as if they felt the need of some support they reached instinctively for Kathleen's hands.

"I'm afraid I haven't the pleasure of your acquaintance, senhorita." Grey eyes that were a surprise in such an infinitely dark face gazed straight at Kathleen, and she doubted very much whether he would ever look upon her acquaintance as a pleasure. "I must also add that I didn't expect to find anyone at all in here, least of all a young woman who looks as if she might well be English!"

"I am English," Kathleen heard herself admitting in a whisper.

His level dark brows ascended.

"It is not possible that you are the sister of Senhora O'Farrel?"

Kathleen felt as if she ought to bow her head as she made yet another admission.

"I am Kathleen O'Farrel, senhor, and I came here especially to see you!"

"I find that so hard to believe that you must forgive me if I look as if I doubt your word!" His voice was soft, sibilant, and every syllable received a delicate emphasis. And every syllable was as cold as melting ice. He was beautifully dressed in a cream silk suit, and she wished Peggy had warned her that he was shatteringly handsome, for somehow his type of looks affected her rather like a shock. It wasn't so much the darkness, the perfect features, the strange lustre of the thickly-lashed grey eyes; it was the impression of arrogance and domination, the soft-pedalled message of strength and virility that his tall, elegant shape gave out as he stood there framed in the doorway to the ante-room.

A Portuguese aristocrat who was so unmistakably an aristocrat that there couldn't be a circumstance that could camouflage it from the world. And although he probably wasn't much more than thirty the bleakness in his eyes had nothing to do with youth, or anything approaching an ability to understand youth.

Kathleen pushed back the tumbled hair from her brow, and thought with a sudden surge of resentment that although she had been caught out in a situation that seemed sadly against her, it wasn't fair that he should look at her quite like that.

"I can't change my name to oblige you, senhor, and — strange though it may seem! — I did come here to be interviewed by you!" She bit out the words with a frustrated feeling of impotence. "But of course I understand you almost certainly feel an inte
rview is scarcely necessary now!
" She attempted to free her fingers from Jerry's and Joe's small, clinging hands, but they wouldn't let her go. "Your nephews," looking down at them, "were under the mistaken impression that your desk

needed tidying" (what else could she say to defend them?), "and I came in here to—to---"

"Assist in the process of tidying? with an insolent suavity in his voice that made her flush more hotly than ever, while his eyes never left her face.

"Yes, I—I mean, I realised they were being overenthusiastic, and I—"

"You need say no more, senhorita." He seemed to be standing aside in the doorway, to make it possible for her to leave them altogether if she wished—and had the sense! "I can only agree with you that an interview does seem a little unnecessary under the circumstances, and thank-you for having waited so long! Your sister's desire to be of assistance to me is much appreciated by me, but my nephews are already in the charge of a young woman who seems every bit as capable of handling them as you — from the brief opportunity I was afforded of studying you all together! — have given evidence of doing. And I can only repeat that it would be a waste of time to go into the matter further!"