Читать книгу High of Heart - Emilie Loring - Страница 7

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Con was smiling at her own absurdity as she entered the great lounge furnished with rich oak and walnut, hung with family portraits. There were mullioned windows at each end and a large stone fireplace. Angela Corey, in a frock the color of wood violets, was presiding at a silver-laden tea table. She was talking to a guest. Who was the woman? Did the pomp and glitter outside belong to her? She was beautiful, as a work of art is beautiful, with evidence that plumpness was lurking round the corner ready to pounce if she increased her intake by so much as one calorie. Her black costume, which accentuated the rose-leaf perfection of her skin and the size and luster of three strands of pearls, was chic to a degree. Her smart hat revealed hair that was a metallic red. She looked to be in the early thirties, if one didn’t notice the hardness of her eyes and her expression of discontent. Those eyes knew the world from A to Z, Con decided, and felt a little shiver of aversion.

She looked at Angela Corey whose lovely face reflected the inner radiance of her spirit. She was so poised, yet determined, so worldly-wise and yet so tender. She had such deep-rooted convictions as to morals and manners, such a firmly grounded code of conduct that just looking at her was like feeling the security of a rock under one’s feet in a heaving sea of uncertainty.

“Oh, here you are, Connie,” Angela Corey greeted. “Lady Hanford has been waiting to see you.”

The violet eyes of the woman on the Sheraton sofa stared at Con. She’s about as responsive to my smile as a face on a postage-stamp, the girl thought. Did she go white under her rouge, or did I imagine it? Have I insulted her high position by keeping her waiting?

“But, the Honorable Miss Trent is so worth waiting for. She is so lovely,” purred Lady Hanford. Her voice and inflection out-Britished the British. “Really my dear, the rotogravures which followed the announcement of your arrival in the Court Circular, haven’t done you justice.”

“Rotos!” Con exclaimed.

“Oh, we have such things in our tight little isle. Did you think that the granddaughter of Major General Lord Vandemere Trent-Gowan could materialize out of space without attracting the attention of the world of society?”

“But, I didn’t come out of space. It was the United States, in case you care. That’s enough tea, Angel, you know I like my brew strong of hot water.”

“Do sit here beside me, my dear, and tell me whom you saw at the Towers?” Lady Hanford urged.

Con took the seat she indicated on the sofa. “Lord Gowan, of course and—and others—” She swallowed a ripple of laughter as the close-up of the butler and footman dancing madly round the fighting dogs, flashed on the screen of memory.

“Oh, here you are, Tim!” Angela Corey exclaimed, as her son entered looking like a fair-haired young god in white tennis flannels, if young gods ever wear tennis flannels. She presented him to the guest who held out her hand and looked up with half-closed eyes.

“Nice boy. I adore boys—like this one,” she said in a voice that brought the color to Tim’s pale face. “Really, my dear Mrs. Corey, what a charming family you have. I hear that there is still another son?”

“Yes. We expect Peter to arrive at any moment. He brought over his car and is motoring from London.”

One would think from her eyes and honeyed voice as she smiles up at him that Tim had swept her off her feet, and he looks as stunned as if a ghost from his past had popped up, if ghosts pop, Con thought, with a queer sense of panic. He dropped into that chair as if his knees had given way. Oh, dear, has he tired himself over lawn tennis?

“Mr. Timothy, do use the courts at my home, Fordham Manor,” Lady Hanford invited. “My husband was awfully much older than I and now that he is gone, I find I crave the companionship of youth.” Her sigh expressed a wife who had been in chains, misunderstood. It was a masterpiece. “I shall plan for you to meet some of the young people of the county, Miss Trent, and a dinner for you, Mrs. Corey. Really, my dear, aren’t you thrilled to have this charming house put at your disposal? It must seem luxurious to you,” she added as she rose.

“It is delightful but we’re not absolutely grubby at home,” Angela Corey replied coolly. “Must you go? Good afternoon.”

Lady Hanford left the room in a wave of perfume and the whisper of taffeta with Tim in attendance. Con seated herself at the piano. Under her fingers the keys gave forth a soft accompaniment to her voice.

“ ‘If it’s love you’re after, perfume’s your silken snare,’ not original in case you care, Angel. I’m quoting an ad which seemed to fit our departed guest to a T. Hasn’t this instrument a marvelous tone? The boys will love singing to it.” She chuckled, “ ‘Really, my dear,’ you certainly put that red-haired glamour-woman in her place, plenty hard.”

Angela Corey’s cheeks burned bright pink.

“I couldn’t help it. Her tone was so patronizing, so maddeningly superior that when I thought of our perfect Red Maples—”

“You drew your trusty blade and stabbed her through the heart,” supplied Tim who had returned to the room. “She’s pretty darn fascinating, isn’t she?”

It wasn’t like Tim to fall for a girl at once, to say nothing of an older woman. With a panicky attempt to curb his enthusiasm Con responded quickly:

“If you like that sort of fascination she has the sort of fascination you’ll like. I’ll wager the aforementioned blade couldn’t penetrate that woman’s heart, it would turn the point. It’s marble. I wonder why she was so anxious to know whom I saw at Trentmere Towers.” She left the piano and perched on an arm of the sofa. “I could feel her tenseness as she asked the question.”

“Whom did you see?” Angela Corey asked and picked up a mass of rose-color wool she was knitting into a cardigan.

“First a footman in maroon livery. Then Major General Lord Vandemere Trent-Gowan, and then, ‘Listen my children and you shall hear.’ Whiskers had followed me, so I foolishly allowed him to enter the house. I had caught my first glimpse of Lord Gowan standing like a stone image before the fire when, before we had a chance to introduce ourselves, whiz-bang, an ugly bulldog shot from somewhere and met Whiskers head-on in the middle of that baronial hall. A footman pulled off the bulldog—while I hung onto the terrier’s tail, thinking all the while ‘Suppose it comes off! Suppose it comes off!’ Looked at in retrospect it was terri—bly funny.” Her laugh was like music.

“You think it’s funny that you mixed into a dog fight, don’t you? You might have been horribly bitten. I call it darn foolishness, Slim. You’re a terribly reckless person. You dash into a situation without stopping to think where it’s coming out.”

“Perhaps that’s what makes me so nice.”

“All right, treat it as a joke, some day you’ll find it’s a pretty grim one. Ever heard that one about millions of the living being already dead?” Tim tapped his forehead significantly. “That’s you? Why did you take the dog into the house?”

“I thought he would break the ice.”

“And here he is,” Tim exclaimed as the terrier slunk into the room, bearing the marks of the fight in a torn ear, a half-closed eye and a bandaged breast. “Looks to me as if the ice wasn’t the only thing which broke. What did you do to the bull, poor little fella?” he asked tenderly as the dog jumped to the window seat and looked out.

“Peter must be within fifty miles, Whiskers is watching for him,” Con said. “To continue the saga of the first visit to my ancestral acres, after the smoke and din of battle had cleared, I introduced myself to my grandfather, served tea, then Mrs. Bunthorne, the housekeeper, made a timely entrance and personally conducted me through some of the rooms. Last but not least, Captain Ivor Hardwick appeared. Sounds like the personages of a play in order of their appearance, as printed in a theatre program, doesn’t it?”

Tim helped himself liberally to plum cake.

“Ivor Hardwick. He’s the guy who will have the title and would have had the estate if you hadn’t stopped playing with the angels, isn’t he, Con?”

“He is. As far as I am concerned he may still have it. How long had Lady Hanford been here, when I came in, Angel?”

“Perhaps half an hour.”

“She’s a knockout, isn’t she?” Tim observed with a faraway look that brought back Con’s apprehension. “She’s got the come-hither eye. But you didn’t like her, did you, Mother? I wish we had a record of your voice when you said, ‘We’re not absolutely grubby at home.’ It dripped icicles.”

The color of Angela Corey’s face deepened.

“I’m sorry I was so gauche as to show my feelings, Tim, but the woman irritated me. Before you two children came in I felt as if I were on the witness stand being cross-examined.”

The terrier dashed for the door.

“And who had the temerity to cross-examine you, Mrs. Corey?” inquired a voice.

“Peter! Peter! You’ve come!” Con rejoiced.

As his mother met him at the threshold he bent his head and kissed her. He looked down at Con who had slipped an arm under his. As his eyes met hers something in them seemed to overflow into her heart and surge up in tears.

“How’s everything, Con?” he asked quickly.

“Everything’s fine, now that you are here. Sit down and I’ll bring your tea. You must be tired.”

“Tired! I feel like the World Champ on the eve of defending his title. I’m in the pink of condition. I slept all the way over on the ship, almost all the way. That’s what one gets from going four years without a vacation while dynamiting the underworld.”

He settled back in a deep chair near the fire. The terrier whined and tried to climb into his lap. “What the dickens happened to you, Whiskers?”

“The British Lion and the American Eagle staged a showdown,” Con explained. “Nothing serious.” As she met Tim’s accusing eyes she asked before he could reveal her part in the fight, “Isn’t this an adorable old house?”

“It is. This lounge is great. I like that portrait of the woman in white satin and yellow rose above the mantel, if there is more rose than satin. And a piano! All the comforts of home. The place lives up to Neale’s description. By the way, he motored from London with me. He’d had a summons from Trentmere Towers. Something to do with the man who had expected to inherit. He’ll get the title anyway; Neale anticipates a fight with him about money.”

“With Ivor Hardwick. He won’t make trouble!”

“What do you know about Captain Hardwick, Con?”

Tim chuckled.

“When man-eating Corey speaks in that tone, step right up on the witness stand, gal, and swear you will tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but.”

Peter ignored his brother’s teasing.

“Have you met Hardwick, Con?”

Con bit her lips to steady them. Peter hadn’t seen her for two weeks and instead of seeming glad to be here he was cross-examining her.

“I have and I like him. Like him better than any man I’ve ever met. Something tells me that my dream prince has come at last! Stop me if I’m wrong,” she added flippantly.

“So that’s the way it is. After turning hangers-on away in squads, at long last she meets the man she’s been waiting for,” Tim proclaimed theatrically. “Curtain on act one!”

“Pipe down, Tim. So you like Ivor Hardwick, Con? All right, you like him. Now what?” Peter demanded.

“Now, if your problem child may step down from the witness stand, she will dress for dinner.”

She flashed out of the room before Peter could reach the threshold and stop her. His eyes followed her flight up the stairway before he returned to back up against the mantel.

“Whew!” Tim exclaimed, “what started the fireworks? You ask a question. Fuse to a bunch of rockets. You don’t suppose she really fell for that Hardwick guy? That it’s some of that love-at-first-sight film stuff, do you? I’ll nip that in the bud, quick. Can’t have her going British on us. Hi, Slim!” He took the broad stairs two at a time.

“Peter, what is wrong with Captain Hardwick?” Angela Corey asked anxiously.

“Everything, Mother. Neale told me coming up that although Lord Gowan makes his cousin once removed a generous allowance he’s always in debt. That’s why Neale was sent for today; Lord Gowan refuses to settle up for him again. I gathered that Captain Ivor is one of those men who has put nothing into the world and has tried to beat it at every turn. His reputation for financial fair dealing is decidedly frayed around the edges, and he’s deep in an affair with a widow—in fact, a double widow—whose husbands come under the head of late, not former, and each of whom left her a substantial fortune. She’s stuffy rich, that’s Neale’s word, not mine, and besides being infatuated with the man she covets the position that being mistress of Trentmere Towers would give her. Con’s coming must have put a crimp in that possibility, because Lord Gowan is planning a marriage between Ivor Hardwick and his granddaughter which will consolidate title and estate.”

“Peter! Did Clive Neale tell you all that on the way from London?”

“He did. I had a hunch he was warning me. That’s why I was too troubled to be politic when Con said she had met her ‘dream prince.’ ”

“But, you know Connie well enough to know that if she had met her ‘dream prince’ she wouldn’t talk about it.”

“I know, Mother, but Neale told me a lot of stuff that won’t bear repeating, so when Con said she liked the Captain I went haywire. Can we stand by and let her marry a man who will break her heart? It’s such a loyal heart.”

He rested an arm on the mantel and looked down into the fire.

“How does she fit into the life here?” he asked.

“Apparently she is thrilled by it.”

He turned, hands thrust hard into his pockets.

“And she belongs to it and it belongs to her. Remember the sentence you left unfinished when I told you that my engagement to Lydia was broken? You said ‘I’ve been terrified for fear that sometime you’d wake up and realize that you really love—’ you meant that even then I loved Con, would want her for my wife, didn’t you? Well, I waked up with a bang when she kissed me that epoch-making day at Red Maples when Lydia broke our engagement and Clive Neale appeared. I knew that after ten years of brotherly affection I was desperately in love with her. I want her. But, how can I ask her to give up this life of luxury and pomp to which she really belongs?”

Angela Corey slipped her hand under her son’s arm.

“Try not to think of it at present, Peter. I suppose I might as well tell the west wind to stop blowing. We must leave Connie uninfluenced to make her choice between the home of her father and the home of her adoption. If she suspects that you love her—”

“She might choose me out of gratitude, you mean? Looks as if it would be nice going, doesn’t it? If I let her know I love her, I may ruin her life. If I don’t she may fall for that rounder, then it is sure to be ruined.”

“She will know, Peter. Try as you may to conceal your emotions, your eyes will carry messages and open a line of communication between her heart and yours and if she finds she loves you, all the titles and estates in the world won’t hold her on this side of the Atlantic, unless you decide to make her interests here yours and become a British subject. We all make compromises with life.”

“A British subject! You mean live here? You’re crazy! Give up my work at home? I’m committed to it.”

“It is such dangerous work, Peter. You wouldn’t let me know, but I’ve heard that certain members of the underworld have threatened to ‘get’ you.”

“Who told you that stuff? Those racketeers are out to ‘get’ anyone who opposes them. If you stop to figure up the number of them there are in the United States and the number whom they put on the spot, the figures are not startling. Sometimes I get so boiling mad at the way they slip through the nets spread by the Intelligence department that I fairly ache to get after them myself. I have views on how they might be caught. But conviction, not detection, is my work. You wouldn’t want me to shirk a job for which I’m really fitted, would you?”

“N—no, Peter.”

He put his arm about her shoulders and drew her close.

“That-a-girl! Don’t worry about me. Carry on, Mother. I haven’t told you before, but it’s as sure as anything can be in the world of politics, that I’m to be District Attorney next autumn. Not even for Con would I let down the men who have worked for me nor give up the chance to do something constructive for first, my state, and then the country at large, which I know I can do.”

“As long as you are you, it does sound impossible to renounce your citizenship, doesn’t it? Whatever the outcome, we want Connie to make the choice which will lead to the happiest, richest life for her, we are agreed on that, aren’t we, Peter?”

“We are. But if she chooses Ivor Hardwick there will be darned little happiness for her. As I told you, he’s up to his neck in a messy affair with a widow. A Lady Hanford.”

“Lady Hanford! She was here this afternoon. When Connie came into the room the woman’s eyes were so cold and calculating that I was startled. Her ‘affair’ with Captain Hardwick explains her antagonism. She’s afraid she will lose him and Trentmere Towers to our lovely girl.”

“She’s not half so afraid as I am, Mother. The title which might have been her father’s may make a powerful appeal to Con.”