Unknown (17 page)

‘Catrin’s as amused as you appear to be,' Davina said gloomily, ‘but what are we to do? I think I’d better throw up my independence and go and stay with Grandmother just until I’m earning enough to pay my way.’

‘Shame on you I’ Rex still held her by the hand. ‘Would you really sink your pride and go cap in hand to Mrs Brehm? I take it you’ve warned Catrin about the Comstones’ antiquated outlook, so where’s the need to run away? In any case,’ his thumb rubbed back and forth across her fingers as he spoke, ‘what about me?’

Davina raised startled eyes as Rex said very softly, ‘Do you really want to go and leave me to try and cope all alone?’

There was more in his soft drawl than in the actual words, which made Davina’s heart beat quicker, then as she noticed Peter eyeing them both with evident curiosity, she pulled her fingers free. ‘I suppose I’m panicking for nothing,’ she admitted. ‘Chances are the Comstones don’t even know of our existence. Just the same I wouldn’t like to spoil anything for Catrin,’ she ended, and smiled shyly.

‘Forget about it,’ Rex advised. ‘By the way, supper early this evening. Remember you said you’d give me a hand painting.’

She’d done no such thing, Davina thought as she went into the house. It had been Rex’s excuse to Jim Thomas for refusing his invitation. She was surprised to find that the study had been prepared for the redecoration, for the furniture she had cleaned and polished was under covers and the fireplace blocked off.

‘Who did this?’ she asked Rex as he joined her, paint and brushes in his hands, and he raised his eyebrows.

‘I did. Measured the wood I’d need and knocked it up out in the barn. Incidentally, I’ve ordered three portable gas heaters for here and the bedrooms. And some furniture. The desk and bookcase are quite good, but the rest is only fit for a bonfire.’

As they worked, the problem of Catrin and the Comstones returned to bring a furrow back to Davina’s smooth forehead. She was unaware of Rex’s attention as she mulled the matter over again and again until he suddenly said harshly, ‘Go to bed, you’re flaked out. Things won’t look so bad in the morning—and no lying awake worrying, mind. Now off you go.'

Davina obeyed without argument, glad to get away from the hard eyes from which all the sympathy had fled. Rather to her surprise, she fell asleep as soon as her head touched the pillow, and did not awake until the alarm sounded the following morning.

Peeping into the study as she passed, she saw that Rex must have stayed up late, for the ceiling looked as if it had received two coats of white paint, while the drab walls now glowed with a pearly sheen like the inside of a shell. Despite this, he was already up and had gone out, presumably to feed the stock, because Davina was just in time to see him riding into the yard, leading a protesting ewe at the end of a rope.

She walked outside to greet him. As he dismounted he said grimly, ‘Can you hold breakfast over? I must pen this old lady well away from the others. Jim gave her an injection yesterday, but it hasn’t done the trick and Farr will have to put her down.’

Davina gave the ewe a sympathetic glance, for it looked as despondent as she herself felt. She looked up to find that Rex had lifted the saddle from the horse’s back and was standing with it in his hands watching her face.

‘I’ll be as quick as I can,’ he said, and nodded behind her. ‘Here comes the old man now,’ and Davina turned to see the shepherd coming down the lane.

Somehow the ewe’s death sentence was the final straw. Though she tried to keep up a pretence of eating, every morsel stuck in Davina’s mouth. As soon as the meal was over Rex said, ‘Leave Farr some sandwiches for his lunch. You and I are going for a picnic this afternoon.’ And when Davina raised her face, surprise in her eyes, Rex said, ‘I want to take a look at Hadrian’s Wall and there’s nothing urgent that can’t wait until tomorrow.’

An hour later they were in the Land Rover, a hamper containing a picnic lunch behind Davina’s seat. Rex drove fast and to her surprise seemed to know just where he was going. ‘Only parts of the Wall are left standing now, and not all are accessible,’ Davina warned him as a signpost for Hexham flashed past.

‘I looked out a route before I came up here and showed it to the old man. He agreed this is the best way, so stop worrying and just enjoy the scenery.’

‘What an amazing man you are,’ Davina murmured thoughtfully.

Rex turned his head to meet her eyes. ‘I learned at an early age to plan beforehand,’ he said as his gaze returned to the road ahead. ‘It’s not much use leaving things to chance, though Lady Luck does play into one’s hands unexpectedly from time to time.’

Davina waited for him to elaborate on this cryptic statement, but Rex had obviously no intention of satisfying her curiosity. She turned to admire the wild beauty of the countryside and they did not speak again until Rex pulled up in a car park and said, ‘I guess we have to walk from here.’ Davina gave an involuntary shiver as the cold wind cut through even the thick woollie she had put on over her cotton shirt and Rex said dryly, ‘Trust a woman to come ill prepared ! Here—put this on,’ and he thrust a tweed jacket into her arms.

Slipping her arms into the sleeves, she hid a smile. Rex took her arm and they stepped on to a footpath which led across the close-cropped turf to where other sightseers were brushing up on their Roman history. When they stood at last on the section of the old wall built so long ago as a defence against the warlike Scots, Davina drew a deep breath of the keen air blowing from the north. ‘Strange to think people lived and worked here nearly two thousand years ago,’ she said absently, and Rex at her side topped her remark by, ‘You ought to see some parts of Australia if you think this awe-inspiring. Not man-made monuments of the past, mark you, but none the less impressive for that.’

Davina looked up and he pulled her against him. ‘You’re still cold even with that jacket. Stupid ! Why didn’t you wrap up? Come along, we'll find a warm hollow somewhere and have lunch. What you need is a hot drink. I hope you’ve packed a flask of tea.’

‘Two actually,’ Davina said demurely, then laughed outright as Rex gave her one of his keen glances. ‘I’ve learned your capacity, you see,’ she ended as he gave her a reluctant smile.

The bracken was beginning to brown already up here where the winds blew keenly from the north, but Rex found a sheltered spot where two drystone walls met and spread out the rug. They were neither much inclined to break the silence until their appetites had been satisfied, when Rex sank back, head on folded arms.

He closed his eyes as Davina began to fold away the wrapping papers and uneaten food into the picnic basket. She knew Rex was not asleep as she asked, ‘What made you suddenly decide to take an afternoon off?’

Eyes closed, one mobile eyebrow rose higher than the other as Rex replied, ‘Do I have to have a specific reason for everything?’

Davina looked away, a stem of grass between her lips. She said thoughtfully, ‘I must say I'm a little curious.’ Her eyes returned to his face. ‘Somehow it seemed out of character.’

‘Meaning that I’m a bit of a slavedriver?’ Rex asked, and opened his eyes to meet hers.

Daringly Davina nodded. A small hint of that dimple at the corner of her mouth came and went as she added, ‘I’d like to think it was because you felt sorry for me, but sometimes I get a feeling you don’t give a damn about women, either individually or as a whole.’

‘Trust a woman to get hold of a stick by the wrong end,' Rex responded, and when Davina promptly tickled his chin with the end of the long stalk of grass in her hand and said, ‘That’s exactly what I mean,' he sat up suddenly and grasped her upper arms.

Davina expected a hard kiss as punishment for her audacity, but Rex had frozen, his hands grasping her rigidly upright. ‘Keep quite still,' he ordered through lips only open sufficiently to whisper the three curt words, and as one hand left her arm to reach for the thermos flask standing on the rug, she noticed his eyes were fixed on a spot behind her.

Suddenly she was flung to one side and Rex was on his feet, hitting at some object on the ground near where she had been sitting. Feeling decidedly shaken, Davina got to her feet as he flung down the broken flask.

She walked to his side. ‘Why, it’s an adder,' she said slowly, and gave an uncontrollable shudder.

‘Are they poisonous?’

‘Yes, but there’s an antidote. I haven’t seen one since our minister’s wife was bitten when we were on a Sunday School picnic years ago. She was in hospital for over a week.’

‘Good thing I saw it was about to strike. We must have disturbed it,' Rex said casually, then as Davina continued to gaze down at the dead reptile he turned her to face him.

‘Not going to have hysterics now it’s all over, are you?’ he asked roughly, and she threw herself against him and hid her face in the thick wool of his sweater. As his arms closed as if instinctively around her she said in a muffled voice, ‘No, I’m not, but thanks.’

Rex felt for her face and turned it up. ‘I’ve never seen anyone react so quickly,' she added hastily, her heart beginning to beat in thick uneven strokes at something deep in the hooded eyes looking into her own.

‘Put it down to my early training,' Rex said lightly, and flicked the end of her nose with a careless forefinger. ‘My father taught me how to take care of myself as soon as I was old enough to understand. He didn’t believe in featherbedding, and you need all your wits about you back home.'

Looking up to meet that enigmatical smile, Davina decided Australia was not the only place one needed to keep all one’s wits about one as the sky was blotted out as Rex bent and claimed her lips. But the sensation as if solid ground had fallen away beneath her feet was not so silly as it seemed. When the world tilted back to normal and she opened her eyes her feet really were off the ground, for Rex had lifted her and she was lying against a hard, muscular body.

‘Hadn’t we better be getting home?’ he cocked an impertinent eyebrow. ‘Farr will be wondering what’s happened to us and I promised the boy his first riding lesson before supper.’

Nettled, Davina said sharply, ‘I might agree if you’d just put me down,' when to her annoyance Rex gave her another light kiss and a taunting,

‘You’re so small, I could simply pop you in my pocket,' before lowering her to the ground.

He’d had the last word again!

The
following morning Davina awoke with a sore throat and the beginnings of a headache, which by lunchtime had become the forerunner of a really heavy head cold. Rex, coming in to wash, caught her sneezing and stopped to say, his keen eyes missing nothing of the shivering, the heavy eyes and red nose, ‘I told you you should have worn something sensible yesterday. You've got a chill. Go on up to bed and don’t come down again until I say you may.'

When Rex was in this mood, argument was useless, but Davina had no wish to argue. Bed seemed at that moment greatly to be desired and she wasted no time in undressing and laying her aching head on the cool pillow. She must have drifted into an uneasy sleep, for when she opened her eyes she found a hot water bottle had been slipped under the bedclothes and she felt warm and comfortable. As she stirred, the bedroom door opened and Rex entered.

‘I didn’t think you’d want anything to eat, and in any case you were fast asleep when I last looked in. Farr’s gone and I packed the boy back home so his chatter wouldn’t wake you. Come on, sit up and drink this while it’s hot.’

‘This’ proved to be hot lemon liberally laced with whisky. Leaning on an elbow, Davina grimaced as she sipped it and swallowed the aspirin on Rex’s palm.

‘Haven't you anything more substantial to wear than that flimsy thing?' he barked, and Davina nearly dropped the beaker as she saw his eyes were fixed on the thin cotton nightie, with its shoestring straps and ribboned neckline.

Her eyes flew to his face as hastily she drained the hot toddy, handed it back and pulled the covers up to her chin. ‘I never wear anything else,’ and her face flushed as Rex uttered an exasperated sound. He strode out, to return a few minutes later with a pyjama jacket, and with a sharp, ‘Sit up,’ he bundled her into the jacket, buttoning it across her chest and turning the sleeves up nearly to her elbows.

If Davina had not felt so ill she might have laughed, because she had a pretty fair notion of how she must look in the top of a suit of pyjamas made to fit a man of Rex Fitzpaine’s stature. He gave her no time to comment even if she wanted to, for with a peremptory, ‘Lie down and get some sleep,’ he picked up the beaker and went away again.

But Davina was far too wide awake now to doze off again and she lay listening to the sounds from downstairs. Even with the bedroom door closed, she could imagine Rex's movements, as the kitchen lay beneath. She hugged the hot water bottle and heard the preparation of the meal, a silence while he ate, then the clatter as the dishes were put into the sink. Minutes later the outer door opened and closed, and she heard his footsteps cross the yard.

She was watching the last light fade when the sounds of cars approaching reached her ears. The first was being driven at speed and pulled up beneath her window with a crashing of gears and a screech of brakes which she easily identified as typical of Adele Wickham’s usual method of driving. The second car approached and stopped a good deal more sedately, and as car doors banged Davina heard Rex's voice.

The words were few and too quietly spoken for her to overhear, but A dele's reply was clear. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, darling. We’ve not come all this way to be turned away without so much as a drink. Come on, where do you keep it?’ and the kitchen door crashed open.

The next sound to reach Davina’s ears over the murmur of voices and the sound of an argument taking place was the clink of glasses. So Adele had got her way! Davina could imagine how she would have sailed as she coaxed Rex into giving way, her golden hair glinting and her seductively willowy figure no doubt clad in some eye-catching and very expensive creation.

But footsteps were coming up the stairs and across the upper hall. The door opened to reveal Rex with the young doctor at his elbow.