Читать книгу In Want of a Wife? - Кэтти Уильямс, CATHY WILLIAMS, Cathy Williams - Страница 8

LIZZY watched the headlights of the Range Rover draw closer, searching her out. This wasn’t the tired old four-by-four which had been left by the side of the road. This was a shiny black monster and not much fancy guesswork was needed to figure out who was behind the steering wheel.

‘You mustn’t try and walk here!’ Rose had exclaimed in horror when Lizzy had explained the situation to her on the phone. ‘You’ll collapse!’

‘I’m not some kind of pathetic Victorian maiden,’ Lizzy had been quick to point out, whilst acknowledging that her sister was right. There was no way she could walk to Crossfeld with the snow coming down in barrels and she was too far from her own house to risk turning back.

‘I’m sure Louis wouldn’t mind. He had a new car delivered; it would take him no time at all. Will you be okay waiting?’

‘I could probably give it another try,’ Lizzy had ventured optimistically, but the suggestion had fallen on deaf ears. Now as she waved to the car, making her presence known, she almost wished that she had pressed a bit harder.

‘Are you completely mad?’ Louis swung his long body out of the car, fighting against the brisk wind. ‘What the hell possessed you to pull a stunt like this? Get in the car!’

Lizzy gritted her teeth together. Unlike the last time, when he had been on the receiving end of her help, he was dressed for the weather now. Thick jeans were tucked into black, fur-lined wellies and under the padded waterproof jacket she suspected that there were several layers of clothes. He was a fast learner.

‘I can’t leave my bike.’ She folded her arms and stood her ground.

‘And that would be because …?’

‘It’ll be ruined.’

‘Tough. You should have thought of that before you decided to come haring out to Crossfeld House to rescue your sister. Who, by the way, doesn’t need rescuing.’ He flung open the passenger door. ‘I’m giving you to the count of three, and if you’re not in you can bed down here for the night.’

‘You wouldn’t dare!’

‘If I were you, I wouldn’t put that to the test. I was called out from an important conference call to rescue the damsel in distress. I’m not in the prettiest of moods.’

Lizzy climbed into the car. She should, of course, thank him for coming out to rescue her, but gratitude stuck in her throat; she stared ahead in stony silence.

‘I’m sorry to have interrupted your conference call,’ she eventually managed through stiff lips.

‘You’re a lunatic.’

‘It’s not the first time I’ve ridden my motorbike in snow.’

Louis glanced across at her. She was soaking wet, except for her hair, which she had managed to shove underneath the helmet. Not even the leather jacket, the boots and the scarf had protected her against the onslaught of the weather.

‘I’m amazed your parents let you out of the house,’ he gritted.

‘I’m twenty-three. They couldn’t very well stop me.’

‘Which, of course, gives you the right to drive them out of their minds with worry?’

‘Oh, please! I didn’t think you cared about my parents or the state of their minds.’ She shot him a sideways glare.

‘You’re headstrong. You’re opinionated. You’re arrogant.

And you shoot your mouth off without bothering to stop and think first. Little wonder that your mother’s given up on your chances of marriage.’

Lizzy thought she would explode. She could feel herself beginning to hyperventilate with rage and she breathed in deeply, counting to ten.

‘You’re entitled to your opinions,’ she said in a controlled voice. A brief silence pooled around them. ‘I may be a little headstrong, and a little opinionated, but I certainly am not arrogant.’

‘You were arrogant to think that your sister couldn’t survive a night at Crossfeld without you storming in to her rescue.’

Lizzy squashed the surge of discomfort his remark provoked. Of course she hadn’t been arrogant in thinking that she would be doing Rose a favour by showing up at Crossfeld to give her moral support; that was what sisters were all about. But she didn’t ask you, a little voice whispered in her head. If she had wanted your support, wouldn’t she have asked for it?

‘Rose isn’t like me,’ Lizzy muttered. ‘She isn’t well equipped when it comes to looking out for herself. She gets upset easily and she never, ever fights back.’

‘So you thought you’d jump on your motorbike and get to Crossfeld so that you could do her fighting for her.’

‘What’s wrong with looking out for the people you care about?’

‘Nothing, but sometimes the people you care about are perfectly capable of looking out for themselves because they’ve moved on without you even realising it.’

‘If you’re telling me that Rose doesn’t need me to look out for her then maybe you should see that Nicholas doesn’t need you to look out for him.’

‘You’re right. Maybe he doesn’t.’

He glanced sideways at her and her heart lurched as their eyes met in the silvery darkness.

‘What are you saying?’ Her heart was still in stop-start mode and her voice was high and breathless. ‘That you accept Rose and Nicholas as an item?’

‘I’m saying that I can’t picture you being a teacher.’ Louis moved the conversation swiftly along. What had he been saying—that he might be in the process of having a re-think because the bristly, outspoken woman next to him had managed to make him think outside the very tidy little box over which he had always had complete control? His mouth tightened in automatic rejection of that idea.

‘Really. I mean, how do you cope with rebellious pupils without exploding? And I can’t picture you wearing a suit to work.’

‘A suit? Teachers don’t wear suits!’ But she couldn’t help feeling hurt at the comment. He couldn’t picture her wearing a suit because she didn’t register as feminine as far as he was concerned. He had looked shocked to see her in a dress the night before. Did he think that her entire wardrobe was comprised of jeans, checked flannel shirts and leather jackets topped off by a black helmet and boots with lots of buckles?

‘I love the kids,’ she said brusquely. ‘They’re not complicated or judgemental and I can handle their high spirits. I’m in charge of the seven-and eight-year-olds—they’re responsive and if they get a little over-excited I’m very good at dealing with it. And for your information,’ she tacked on belatedly, ‘I’m not a complete disaster when it comes to guys. In fact, there are some who don’t like simpering women who only know how to say yes; some men happen to like women with opinions and ideas. And the reason I chose to come to Crossfeld was because Jessica and Eloise are snooty and horrible and I was afraid that they might be giving my sister a hard time. I figured she could do with a sympathetic shoulder.’

‘From the looks of it, Nicholas is extremely sympathetic …’

‘That’s different,’ Lizzy muttered. ‘Besides, I wanted to get out of the house. Maisie and Leigh have friends over and they were driving me crazy.’

She stared out of the window and shivered, only suddenly realising just how cold she was and just how foolish it had been to get on that bike and think she could make it to Crossfeld in near-blizzard conditions.

She would phone her parents just as soon as she got to Crossfeld. They had never given the impression of ever having been worried about her. About her younger sisters, yes, because they had grown up getting into scrapes, and things had hardly improved, although the scrapes all seemed to involve boys now. And about Vivian, yes, because she was a do-gooder who always managed to find good things to do in very risky places and she didn’t have the sense of humour to be able to laugh herself out of them. And of course about Rose, who was so placid that life and all its messiness seemed a constant threat. But about her, not really. Straddled between three stunningly pretty sisters and one extremely virtuous one, Lizzy had taken hold of the reins of independence from a very young age and had never let go.

Crossfeld House was now approaching, just an imposing blur through the densely falling snow.

‘Is there a great deal of work to do on the place?’ She broke the silence.

‘Enough to keep a building crew very busy for at least a year,’ he said, pulling up in front of the house as close as he could possibly get to the front door so as to avoid having to manoeuvre over the treacherous courtyard.

‘Good Lord. That’s going to cost a fortune!’ she exclaimed involuntarily. ‘And to think I shall probably have to dive into my paltry savings to get my bike repaired once it’s been fished out of the snow drifts.’

‘The repairs will be on me,’ Louis said drily, wondering whether that was what she had been aiming at with her remark, but the look of horror she shot him was sufficient to tell him that he couldn’t have been further from the truth.

‘Don’t be ridiculous. I would never, ever accept a single penny from you.’ Lizzy opened the car door and slammed it behind her. ‘And I hope you didn’t think that I was fishing for hand-outs.’ She folded her arms and stopped to glare at him.

‘Accept the offer, Lizzy. If you felt that you had to come rushing over here for Rose, it was because of what I said, so in a peculiar way I’m partly to blame for the fact that your motorcycle is currently in the process of being buried under ten feet of snow. Besides—’ he reached past her to insert his key in the lock of the rather grand oak door ‘—it’s hardly as though it’ll break the bank.’