Читать книгу Wild Melody - Сара Крейвен, Sara Craven - Страница 6

‘LASSIE, are you sure?’ Mrs McGregor, her ample form wrapped securely in a flowered pinny, paused in her task of kneading dough, and stared at the slight figure on the other side of the big kitchen table.

‘Quite sure,’ Catriona Muir said, with a firmness she was far from feeling. ‘I—I simply must get away. The Mackintoshes want vacant possession as soon as possible, and now the house is sold, I feel as if I don't belong there anyway.'

‘Don't belong?’ Mrs McGregor attacked the dough with renewed vigour. ‘Away with you! In your own aunt's house where you were brought up as a bairn?'

‘The Mackintoshes own it now,’ Catriona reminded her with a pang. It still hurt to think of it. The big grey house standing back from the road had been home as long as she could remember. Ever since, in fact, the parents who were just vague pictures in her mind had been killed in a car crash and Auntie Jessie, her father's unmarried sister and Catriona's only living relative, had descended on her and carried her back to the tiny village of Torvaig on the west coast of Scotland.

Now, eighteen years later, Aunt Jessie too was dead, and Muir House—surely, as she herself had ruefully said, the most unsuccessful guest-house in Scotland—had been sold to a Glasgow couple.

‘Aye, they own it,’ Mrs McGregor retorted. ‘But for how long?’ She dropped the dough back into its bowl. ‘If a fine woman like Jessie Muir couldn'a make the place pay, then it's no likely that painted besom and her man will do any better. This is the wrong place for summer boarders, my dear, and that's the truth of it. We're too far away from Fort William and the Islands and the things folk come to see. It's a family house, that. It's crying out for bairns and laughter, and it'll no take kindly to that one and her—improvements.’ Mrs McGregor invested the last word with incredible scorn. ‘A discothèque in the basement! Have you ever heard such nonsense?'

Catriona smiled unhappily. ‘I think she's being a little unrealistic.'

‘And so are you.’ Mrs McGregor folded her arms and gazed at Catriona sternly. ‘Chasing off to England after some laddie that's never given you a thought all year.'

Catriona flushed and her green eyes grew stormy.

‘That's not true,’ she protested. ‘Jeremy didn't come this spring, I know, but he has written to me.'

‘Not for several months he hasn't,’ retorted Mrs McGregor with all the calm assurance of the sister of the village postmistress. ‘And don't jut that Muir chin at me, my lass. There's no one in this village with anything but your good at heart, and they'd all tell you what I'm telling you now. A few moonlight kisses by the sea-loch don't make a marriage.'

She nodded emphatically at Catriona, whose cheeks were flaming.

‘Och, we've all been through it, lassie,’ she went on kindly. ‘First love's a grand thing, but it doesn't last. When it's real love, you'll know, just as I knew with Mr McGregor.'

Catriona looking at the round plump face with its coronet of wispy grey hair and visualising the balding taciturn Mr McGregor had to repress a desire to giggle, in spite of her annoyance. What did Mrs McGregor know of the sweet and tender secret she and Jeremy had shared in that magical few weeks the previous year when he had come to Torvaig on a walking tour and stayed and stayed until his time was up, and he had to return to university?

Thinking of Jeremy with his crisp dark hair and laughing blue eyes brought a tightening to her throat and a mistiness to her eyes. They had shared so much. They had walked, sailed and swum during those golden days that seemed as if they would last for ever.

One night they had attended a ceilidh in a neighbouring village. Catriona, who played the guitar and sang folk songs in English and Gaelic, had been one of the star turns, and later as they drove home in the back of Angus Duncan's van along the narrow single track road with the clumps of grass growing in the centre which was Torvaig's only means of access with the outside world, Jeremy had drawn her close.

‘I never knew you could sing like that,’ he whispered, his lips against her ear.

Catriona, more used to her aunt's affectionate bluntness and the villagers’ forthrightness, had blushed.

‘Oh, it's nothing,’ she said awkwardly.

‘Nothing!’ Jeremy cast his eyes to heaven. ‘My love, in London you'd be a hit. You've got real talent, and you don't even know it. The record companies are always crying out for something new, and those songs you sang in that outlandish language …'

‘The Gaelic is not outlandish!’ Catriona flared. ‘And I wish I could speak it properly instead of just being able to sing a few songs in it.'

‘Okay, okay,’ Jeremy said placatingly. ‘But it does sound strange when you're not used to it. I think that with the proper backing and promotion you could be Scotland's answer to Nana Mouskouri.'

‘I'd be more flattered if I knew who she was,’ Catriona said, resting her head sleepily on his shoulder.

‘Seriously, Trina,’ he put his fingers under her chin, forcing her to look up at him, ‘you shouldn't waste yourself in this wilderness. You'd have far more chance in London.'

‘Wilderness?’ Catriona faced him bewilderedly. ‘But, Jeremy, I thought you liked Torvaig.'

‘I do like it,’ he said. ‘But I like it because you're here. Without you, I wouldn't have spent a second day here. It's too quiet for me. I like some action.'

Remembering this now in the homely warmth of the McGregor kitchen, Catriona felt her spirits plummet. It was the only difference they had ever had. When he had finally gone back to London, he had promised to return the following spring, if he could. But Easter had come and gone and no sign of him, and then shortly before Whitsun, Aunt Jessie's ill-used weak heart had finally given way, ironically enough as she sat watching one of her beloved sunsets over the western sea.

It was Jeremy's parting words that Catriona had remembered in the bewilderment of grief, when she had realised that the house would have to be sold to pay off various creditors, as well as the mortgage which she did not feel capable of shouldering.

‘Here's my address.’ He gave her a folded piece of paper. ‘Keep it safe. If you ever need me, that's where I'll be.'

They had kissed and she had clung to him, her face wet with tears, promising to wait for him. At first his letters had come often and hers returned as eagerly. Then the frequency began to falter, although he still talked of the time when they would be together always. Now, if she faced it, five months had gone by with no word. Catriona had salved her pride by telling herself that Jeremy was busy with his studies and that he had important exams coming up, which, as he'd said in an early letter, could make all the difference to their future together. It was this, and the address carefully treasured in her trinket box at home, that had decided Catriona on her next course of action, now that she was alone.

She looked up from her reverie and found Mrs McGregor watching her concernedly. She smiled back at her.

‘It'll be all right,’ she said. ‘I know it will. I can't bear to stay here with Auntie—and the house—gone like that. And I can't bear to see what the Mackintoshes are going to do with the place either. Besides, London will be an adventure, and Jeremy will be there.’ She smiled again, more gaily. ‘I'll send you a piece of wedding cake.'

‘So I should hope—when you find a husband,’ Mrs McGregor said a trifle caustically.

She confided her misgivings to her husband over supper that evening.

‘But she's set on it,’ she added, and sighed. ‘London's a gey long way to go, just to have your heart broken. I doubt yon poor lassie knows what she's getting herself into.'

A week later, standing completely bewildered in the bustle of Euston, Catriona was wondering exactly the same thing. The noise from the loudspeakers, the roar of the traffic outside, and the shouting and banging on the station itself as trains arrived and departed filled her with unreasoning panic. After the silence of Torvaig, where the hum of the telegraph wires was often clearly audible even in the middle of the day, she felt as if her eardrums would burst. What was worse, everyone but her seemed to know exactly where they were going. She followed the crowd to the barrier and gave up her ticket.

Outside in the sunlight, she felt even more uncomfortable. Jeremy's address was tucked safely in an inside pocket of her leather shoulder bag, but she had no idea how to get there. Awkwardly she shifted her rucksack on to her other shoulder and leaned her guitar case against a newsvendor's stand while she tried to take stock of her surroundings. Most of the money she possessed in the world—just under two hundred pounds—was safely locked up in a small cashbox in her rucksack, but she had kept a few pounds in her handbag for emergencies. Catriona decided ruefully that the first emergency was now. Picking up her guitar, she walked purposefully to the queue of people waiting for taxis. But when her turn came, she found to her astonishment that she was calmly elbowed out of the way by two smartly dressed men. She stood indignantly on the pavement watching the last cab draw away, and a certain grimness crept into her expression. As another cab pulled up, a fur-coated woman stepped forward, brushing Catriona aside. Catriona swung her rucksack and there was a startled yelp as its bulk encountered the fur coat. The woman tottered, momentarily off balance, and Catriona squeezed past. ‘Mine, I think,’ she said, pushing her guitar case on to the back seat. She sat back feeling a little guilty at her discourtesy, but at the same time faintly victorious. If this was how Londoners conducted themselves, then a Muir could do just as well!

‘Where to, ducks?'

‘Oh.’ Catriona produced Jeremy's slip of paper and pushed it through the glass partition. The driver looked at it and whistled. ‘It's quite a way.’ He turned and studied his passenger, from the attractive mass of curly dark hair on her shoulders down over the duffel coat and slim-fitting levis to the well-worn brogues. ‘It'll cost you.'

‘I have money.’ Catriona lifted her chin at him.

‘Suit yourself, love,’ and he let in the clutch.

By the time the journey was over, Catriona was too sick with nervousness to worry over-much about the amount on the meter, although one corner of her thrifty soul registered a momentary squeal of outrage as she handed over the fare and added a generous tip.

‘Shall I hang on?’ asked the driver, apparently moved by the unexpected gesture.

Catriona looked up at the house where the cab had halted. It was not quite what she had envisaged, being a narrow terraced building with peeling stucco. The paintwork needed renewal, and the front garden was untended. Almost unconsciously Catriona's nose wrinkled. It was not the rendezvous she would have chosen for an ecstatic reunion with Jeremy. She bit her lip uncertainly. She wished now she had written to him in advance telling him that she was coming. She acknowledged now, standing in the dirty street, that she had been secretly afraid that he might try to deter her. For a moment she found it hard to remember even what Jeremy looked like, and again that odd sense of panic gripped her. She turned to the driver hesitantly.

‘Perhaps—you would wait.'

She mounted the short flight of cracked steps and rang the bell.

‘Probably not working, love,’ the driver called. ‘Bang on the door instead.'

Catriona complied with his advice, and after an endless moment or two the door was flung open. She was confronted by a thin woman in a soiled blue nylon overall, her hair in rollers under a yellow chiffon scarf.

‘No vacancies,’ she snapped, and made to close the door again.

Catriona stepped forward with a determination that she was far from feeling.

‘I'm looking for one of your tenants, a Mr Jeremy Lord.'

‘Are you now?’ The woman's eyes appraised Catriona suggestively, lingering for a moment at her waistline. ‘Well, you're too late, dear. He's gone.'

‘Gone? Where?’ Catriona felt the world spin round her. This was one development she had failed to take into account in her planning. Jeremy had told her she would find him here and she had believed him. She fought to remain calm.

‘He left about three months ago. A nice Indian gentleman's got the room now.’ The woman waited for a minute. ‘Well, if that's all, dear, I must get on.'

Catriona moved impulsively. ‘Did he—was there any forwarding address?'

‘Now let me think. Some do, and some don't, of course. And there's a few who don't want to be traced.’ She gave Catriona a malicious smile. ‘But I'm sure that won't be true in your case, ducks. You wait here, while I see.’ She disappeared to the rear of the musty hall and went through a door.

Catriona, fighting her tears, stood forlornly on the step. What if there was no address? She supposed there would be a hostel somewhere she could go to for the time being. Perhaps the driver would know. He seemed kind. Yet at the back of her mind were all the warnings she had ever heard about trusting strangers in big cities. She had never felt more alone, even at Aunt Jessie's funeral, for there the unspoken sympathy of the rest of the village had been like a rock for her to lean on. Here there was no one and nothing if Jeremy could not be found.

‘Here we are, lovey.’ The woman was coming back, flourishing a piece of paper. ‘Mr Lord—11 Belmont Gardens. I thought I could recollect him saying where he was moving to.'

‘Oh, thank you.’ Catriona took the paper, realising that the woman's hand was remaining outstretched. For a moment she wondered if she was expected to shake hands, then she realised. Flushing, she dug into her shoulder bag and produced a pound note. Before she could say anything, it was gone from her hand and tucked away into a pocket of the nylon overall.

‘That's very good of you, dear, very good.’ The woman beamed at her. ‘Now, if you were wanting a room, my first floor front is giving notice this week.'

‘No,’ Catriona said quietly. ‘No, thanks. I must be going now.’ And she ran back down the steps to the waiting taxi. She gave the new address to the driver.

‘It's from the sublime to the gorblimey with you, girl,’ he commented, as the cab drew away. ‘Dead posh, Belmont Gardens.'

Catriona didn't find this piece of information particularly encouraging either. She realised for the first time how little she really knew about Jeremy and his background. She knew that he was an only child, and that both his parents were living, but little more.

It had never occurred to her during those happy sun-soaked days in Scotland to probe too deeply. Nor had she speculated too much while they were apart. She had preferred to remember the warmth of his kisses, and the glow in his eyes when he looked at her in that secret way that seemed to shut them off from the rest of the world even when others were there. These things were somehow more real than Jeremy's family, Jeremy's friends and the rest of his life in London in which as yet she had no part.

She realised of course that she would have to accept her part in them, but Jeremy had fitted so easily into her background that she had few doubts that she would slot as quickly into his. Now she was not so sure.

Looking out of the cab window, she realised the area they were in now was a marked improvement on the one where Jeremy used to live. Here the rows of houses were tall and spacious and trees edged the streets in neat lines.

The taxi turned right, swerving into a small square. In the centre of the square was a tiny railed-off park, with lawns, seats and flower beds. The houses that surrounded it were tall and elegant with delicately wrought iron railings in front of them. Many of them had window boxes filled with gay flowers, and Catriona could not help a little cry of pleasure and surprise.

‘Told you so,’ the driver commented smugly. He drew up with a flourish. ‘Here we are, ducks—number eleven. Shall I bring your gear up?'

‘I—I can manage, thank you.’ Catriona was feeling nervous again. As the taxi drew away and vanished round the corner, she felt almost as if she just lost a friend. Her palms felt moist and she wiped them down the sides of her jeans, before shouldering her rucksack and picking up the guitar case.

‘Here we go,’ she thought, gazing up at the white façade of the house. A scarlet front door confronted her and as she counted the six immaculate steps which led to it, she noticed a gleaming brass bell surmounted by a name-plate in the wall.

The stark black lettering on the card seemed to leap out at her. ‘J. Lord,’ she read with relief, and pressed the bell.

Almost immediately she heard steps inside the house, and her stomach muscles contracted. She licked her dry lips, controlling her instinct to run away as quickly as she could, now that the moment of truth was here.

But it was a small woman, neatly dressed in a dark frock and apron, who opened the door this time, and looked at her inquiringly.

Catriona tried to speak with an assurance she was far from feeling.

‘Mr Lord, please.'

‘Well, I don't know, I'm sure, miss.’ The woman looked at her searchingly, taking in the shabby coat and the rucksack. ‘Is he expecting you?'

‘Yes,’ said Catriona, mentally crossing her fingers. It wasn't really a fib, she told herself. Jeremy had said she could come at any time. ‘Please tell him Miss Muir is here.'

The woman held the door open and stood back to allow Catriona to enter. ‘Come in, Miss Muir. I'll tell Mr Lord. Perhaps you'd like to leave your luggage in the hall.'

Catriona felt almost embarrassed to do so. It was a spacious hall with a black and white tiled floor and gleaming white walls. A carved chest stood against one wall supporting a tall Chinese vase. She put her rucksack and guitar in a corner, where she hoped they would not be noticed, and followed the woman to a door on the right.

‘Will you wait here, miss?’ the woman asked, and Catriona nodded speechlessly. She had never seen such a room. The walls were covered in a heavy cream paper and this colour was repeated in the thick fitted carpet. The floor-length curtains and luxurious suite were in a matching fabric which combined shades of sapphire and jade, and Catriona, who had always been told by Aunt Jessie, ‘Blue and green should never be seen,’ gasped at the effect this produced. The few other pieces of furniture—some occasional tables and a rosewood cabinet—were obviously antique and a cream marble mantelpiece bore a collection of exquisite Chinese porcelain dogs.

Catriona began to feel bewildered. What had Jeremy to do with all this luxury? She had never thought that he might be rich, but what other explanation was there for a life-style which was beyond anything she could have imagined? The shabby chintzes of Muir House had never seemed so far away.

Desperately she stared around. Oh, why had she come? What a fool she had been! There was no place for her here. The contrast between her own near-pennilessness and her present surroundings was a humiliation. And worst of all, one of her shoes had left a dirty mark on the carpet.

Tears sprang to her eyes, and she hurried towards the door, but almost simultaneously it was flung open, and Catriona halted with a gasp.

Regarding her was a tall man. He was wearing a dark silk dressing gown, and a towel was flung carelessly over one shoulder. His feet and legs were bare and one lock of damp-looking black hair hung down across his forehead. He put up a hand and brushed it impatiently away from the coldest grey eyes that Catriona had ever seen.

‘Who are you?’ she asked shakily. It was too much! The long journey, the lack of sleep, the first disappointment, and now this utter stranger looking her over as if she were an unprepossessing remnant on a bargain counter.

‘That's rich, coming from you,’ he commented, in a voice that matched his eyes. ‘According to you, Miss—er—Muir, I'm expecting you.'

Catriona fought back the tears that were threatening to overwhelm her completely.

‘Not you—Jeremy,’ she said dolefully.

‘Jeremy?’ He gave her a long look, then closed the door behind him. ‘I suppose I should have known. And what brings you here?'

Catriona stared at him helplessly. ‘Doesn't—doesn't he live here?'

‘No, by God, he doesn't,’ was the forcible reply. ‘What gave you that idea? Did he? I'll break his damned neck if …'

‘No—oh, no. It was his landlady—his ex-landlady, that is. She said he'd left this as a forwarding address. And when I saw his name on the card at the door, I assumed …’ Her voice tailed away uncomfortably as he looked her over with a certain grimness.

‘Not his name, young woman. Mine. And this is my flat, and down the hall is my bedroom where I now propose to return now that this little misunderstanding has been cleared up. I did agree that Jeremy could have his mail sent on here for a short time, but that was over long ago.’ He opened the door and held it, waiting for her to pass through. ‘So if you'd be good enough to collect that weird clutter in the corner of the hall, we can go our separate ways.'

In spite of her distress, Catriona's temper began to rise. She had never been treated so summarily in her life before. Aunt Jessie wouldn't have behaved to a stray dog like this man was treating her, she thought furiously. Her first reaction was to do as he requested and stalk out of his house and his life without a backward glance. And yet he could obviously help her to find Jeremy, which at the moment seemed more important than salvaging her pride.

‘I'm sorry to have intruded,’ she began awkwardly. ‘If you would just give me Jeremy's present address, I'll be happy to leave you in peace.'

‘Out of the question,’ he said abruptly. ‘Good morning.'

‘What do you mean?’ Catriona faced him, openly indignant. ‘Are you saying you won't tell me where he is?'

‘Very perceptive,’ he said smoothly, and Catriona longed to slap him hard across that dark sneering face. ‘Now, on your way, my little orphan of the storm.'

‘I'm not——’ Catriona began to deny hotly, when it struck her with the suddenness of a blow that he was quite right. She was an orphan now. She looked at him mutely, unable to restrain her tears any longer.

‘Oh, for God's sake,’ he said bitingly. ‘Do you think I haven't had that trick tried on me a hundred times? Only it's never worked in the past, and it's sure as hell not working now, darling.'

‘I'm not your darling!’ Catriona rubbed her eyes vigorously with a scrap of handkerchief she had found in her coat pocket. ‘I think you're despicable!'

‘No doubt you do. But just remember, you got yourself in here under false pretences, so don't start complaining when the going gets tough.’ He gestured her towards the door.

‘It wasn't false pretences,’ Catriona protested. ‘I asked for Mr Lord. I thought it would be Jeremy.'

‘And instead it was me.’ He pushed his hair back from his forehead again, almost wearily. ‘A nasty shock for you, no doubt, and my advice to you is to go back where you came from as quickly as possible and get over it.'

‘I can't go back,’ Catriona said quietly. ‘What's more, I came here to find Jeremy and I won't leave until I've seen him. And he'll not be very pleased when I tell him how you've treated me,’ she added, a little vindictively.

But far from being perturbed, he merely smiled faintly.

‘I don't think I have much to fear from that quarter,’ he said. ‘Tell me, why do you want to see him so urgently?'

‘That's my business.’ Catriona tilted her chin defiantly.

‘On the contrary, you've also made it mine. Besides, his mother has been on at me for years to take a proper avuncular interest in the boy. Oh, I forgot,’ he added satirically, as Catriona's eyes flew startled to his face. ‘I didn't introduce myself, did I. I'm Jason Lord, Jeremy's uncle.'

‘I didn't know Jeremy had an uncle,’ Catriona said numbly.

‘Well, he didn't tell me about you either, so we're quits. Well, Miss Muir, I'm waiting.'

Catriona thrust her hands into the pockets of her coat to hide the fact that they were shaking. She met Jason Lord's scornful grey eyes with a flash of her green ones.

‘In that case he probably hasn't told you either that we're in love and going to be married,’ she said.

He had been lounging rather negligently against the door, but at that he stiffened instantly. His eyes went over her again, not with the same contempt as before, but assessing her, almost stripping her, while the colour rose in her cheeks.

‘You're going to marry Jeremy,’ he said slowly. ‘What in hell's name gives you that idea?'

‘He did. Last summer.'

‘Which was a long time ago.’ He looked at her wryly. ‘And where was this—er—troth plighted, may I ask?'

‘At Torvaig.’ He still looked blank, so she explained, ‘It's a little village on the west coast of Scotland. It's not very well known, but Jeremy found it while he was touring, and he stayed on.'

‘I'll bet he did!’ There was an almost savage note in the muttered words.

‘Now will you let me see him?’ she begged.

‘No.’ He spoke almost reflectively. ‘In fact I think it's even more imperative that you use the other half of your return ticket and take yourself back to Torvaig and forget you ever knew Jeremy.'

‘I'll do nothing of the sort!’ she raged. ‘I have a right to see him. I've come to London and I'm staying no matter what you say.'

‘Look,’ he came to stand in front of her and gripped her arms tightly, his eyes bleak as a winter's day, ‘I'm telling you for your own good. Forget him and go home. Can't you take my word for it that it's the best thing to do?'

‘I wouldn't take your word for what day of the week it was,’ Catriona said angrily, and his hands fell away from her so quickly that she swayed a little, feeling oddly dizzy.

‘What's the matter?’ he asked.

‘I—I'm sorry. It's so warm in here.'

‘Not that warm. Have you had anything to eat?'

‘I had a few sandwiches on the train.’ How long ago that seemed, she thought tiredly.

‘That must have been a great comfort,’ he said sarcastically. ‘Well, you'd better take that appalling coat off and come with me.'

‘To see Jeremy?’ she asked hopefully.

‘No,’ he said witheringly. ‘To have some breakfast before you pass out on me. I want you leaving here on your own two legs, not carried out on a stretcher.'

Catriona was just about to fling his insulting offer back in his face when it occurred to her how hungry she really was and how much better she would be able to continue the battle if she was fed. So more meekly than she felt, she allowed herself to be shepherded through the hall to the rear of the house and a large shiny kitchen.

It was a poem in gleaming ceramic tiles and stainless steel with gadgets Catriona had only ever seen before in magazine pictures. Remembering the old-fashioned sink and scrubbed wooden draining board back at Muir House, she felt a stab of envy. It seemed so unfair that Auntie Jessie had had to struggle with her work, while this unpleasant man had been living in the lap of luxury with hardly the need to lift a finger for himself.

‘Mrs Birch!’ he called, and the woman who had admitted Catriona came bustling in.

‘Can you organise some breakfast for this starving morsel?’ He indicated Catriona with a casual wave of his hand and she went hot with fury. ‘Bacon and at least two eggs, I think. Oh, and porridge of course. She's from Scotland.'

‘Porridge, sir?’ Mrs Birch gaped at him. ‘Well, I don't know if …'

‘No,’ Catriona interrupted hastily. ‘I don't eat porridge.'

‘Heresy,’ Jason Lord said solemnly, but he was laughing at her, she knew. ‘Well, grapefruit, then, and lots of coffee, Mrs B., and I'll have some as well.’ He turned to Catriona. ‘You'll be quite safe with Mrs Birch. I'm going to finish shaving and get dressed.'

Before Catriona could reply, he vanished.

Mrs Birch was setting out plates and cups and Catriona could already smell the bacon sizzling in the pan.

‘Is there anything I can do?’ she asked shyly.

‘I can manage.’ Mrs Birch gave her a quick glance. ‘I should sit down before you fall down, lovey. You're as white as a sheet.'

Catriona complied shakily. ‘I—I've had rather a shock.'

‘Well, I wondered, though it's not for me to say. I could have told you he doesn't like seeing people so early in the morning. And when I saw that guitar I said to myself, Elsie, I said, she hasn't got a prayer, poor little soul.'

‘My guitar?’ Catriona echoed bewilderedly.

‘He doesn't do musical acts, lovey. It's all current affairs and documentaries. I thought you'd have known that.'

And as Catriona continued to stare at her in amazement, she tutted impatiently.

‘Well, you do know who he is, don't you?'

‘All I know is that he's Jeremy's uncle,’ Catriona admitted.

‘Lord above!’ Mrs Birch cracked the first of the eggs into the pan. ‘He's a TV producer, dear. He does Here and Now on a Monday, apart from anything else. And his documentary on alcoholics last year got an award.'

‘I'm afraid I've never seen much television,’ Catriona said quietly. ‘We didn't have a set at home.'

Mrs Birch was obviously as staggered by this as if Catriona had suddenly grown a second head.

‘Well, there's a thing,’ she said at last. ‘And there was me thinking you were pestering him for a job.'

Catriona coloured. ‘Oh, it's nothing like that,’ she said.

‘I'm pleased to hear it.’ Mrs Birch set half a grapefruit frosted with sugar in front of Catriona and lowered her voice confidentially. ‘You see, dear, the better known he's become, the worse it's got. A lot of girls just think he's the key to fame and fortune and heaven knows what. He knows so many people in television, you see, and one word from him can do all sorts. I'm glad you're not one of them.’ She beamed approvingly at Catriona, then turned back to the cooker. ‘Now you get started, because this is nearly ready.'

Catriona had almost finished her eggs and bacon by the time Jason Lord returned. In a silk-textured dark suit he looked even more forbidding, she thought, and had to fight an urge to flinch as he slid on to the stool next to hers at the breakfast bar.

‘That's better,’ he remarked coolly. ‘You're beginning to look more like a human being.'

Mrs Birch put two steaming cups of coffee down on the bar and hurried out of the kitchen to her other chores.

‘You've placed me under an obligation to you——'

Catriona began stiffly, but he interrupted.

‘Then repay it—please—by going home.'

‘I have no home.'

‘You just thought you'd move in with my nephew.’ His tone was glacial again.

‘No,’ she answered wretchedly. ‘I've told you—we're going to be married.'

He glanced meaningly at her ringless hands. ‘You're officially engaged?'

She hesitated miserably, unwilling to share even part of her precious secret with this man. Then, very slowly, she undid the top two buttons on her white shirt blouse and pulled out the silver chain she wore round her neck. There were two metal objects hanging on it—a small key and a silver ring set with a cairngorm. A cheap enough trinket, but Jeremy had bought it for her one day in Fort William.

‘Until I can afford a proper one,’ he had whispered as he put it on her finger and kissed her. She had thought she would die of happiness, and some of that remembered joy lingered in her face as she extended the ring to Jason Lord in the soft curve of her palm.

There was a long silence. Then, ‘I see,’ he said in a voice devoid of any emotion. She looked at him, puzzled, but his eyes were veiled as he looked down at the thin trail of smoke from the cigarette held lightly between his fingers.

‘You will let me see him, won't you?’ Her voice was pleading.

‘Yes.’ He stubbed the cigarette out with sudden violence. ‘Yes, Miss Muir, you win. I'll take you to him this evening.'

‘Not till this evening?’ She couldn't believe her victory, but at the same time this apparently unnecessary delay jarred on her. ‘Why not now?'

‘Because he's away. He'll be back this evening—his mother's giving a party. I didn't intend to go, but now I will and I'll take you with me.'

‘But I couldn't let you do that,’ Catriona said at once. It was not at all how she had planned to see Jeremy again, at a party against a background where she would be an interloper. ‘I'd be a gatecrasher. And besides, I haven't anything to wear.'

‘The eternal cry of woman, but in your case it could just be true,’ he said, his eyes flicking over her dismissively. ‘And you won't be a gatecrasher. You'll go as my guest. Marion always expects me to bring a girl-friend to her parties.'

Catriona felt a quick surge of revulsion at the idea of being taken for his girl-friend.

‘I'm sure there are other people you'd rather take,’ she said awkwardly.

‘Dozens,’ he retorted. Suddenly he leaned forward and his long fingers brushed the small curve of her breast. Startled, she pulled away, feeling oddly as if she had been scorched by a sudden flame.

‘Don't be a fool,’ he said. ‘Give me credit for a little more subtlety in my approach than that. I'm just curious to know what this is.'

It was the key that shared the chain with the ring.

‘That's just the key of my cashbox,’ she said a little nervously.

‘Cashbox?’ he queried, with raised brows. ‘What cashbox?'

So perforce Catriona found herself telling him about Auntie Jessie and the sale of Muir House.

‘So when all was settled I had about two hundred pounds altogether. I spent some of it of course on my ticket and on a taxi today. But the rest is in a box in my rucksack,’ she added, noticing with alarm that he was frowning again.

‘You've been carrying all the money you possess in the world around London with you all morning!’ he said with ominous calm. ‘And supposing you'd been robbed? Dear God, girl, you're not safe to be allowed out!'

‘I can look after my money and myself,’ Catriona said indignantly.

‘Can you now?’ he said softly. ‘So much so that you blunder into a strange man's flat, make all kinds of demands and stay for breakfast without any thought of what you might have to give in return.'

‘I'm quite willing to pay you——’ she began, but he silenced her by placing an authoritative finger on her parted lips. An odd shiver ran through her. She had never been touched, she told herself, by anyone she loathed as much as him.

‘But supposing I asked for payment in kind rather than cash?’ His eyes held hers and she was aware that her breathing had quickened involuntarily.

‘I'd scream for Mrs Birch,’ she found herself saying with amazing calmness.

‘You assume she'd be on your side. Well, she probably would. She has a weakness for waifs and strays.’ With an insouciance that infuriated her, he let the key and ring drop back inside the neck of her shirt. They felt disturbingly warm from his fingers and again she felt that unaccountable shiver.

‘Well,’ he slid off the stool, ‘studio for me, and bed, I think, for you.'

‘Bed?’ Catriona gasped.

‘Of course. Don't tell me you got much sleep on that train last night.'

‘No—but I can't sleep here.'

‘Why not?’ he asked. ‘And don't start behaving like an hysterical virgin. I've already told you, I'm going to work. I'll get Mrs Birch to wake you around two-thirty and I'll be back at three to take you shopping.'

‘Shopping?'

‘Must you repeat everything I say?’ he said with studied patience.

‘But I don't need to go shopping.’ Catriona thought desperately of her small store of money. She could not go to Jeremy completely empty-handed.

‘Oh yes, you do. You need a party dress,’ he said coolly. Before she could argue, he was gone, and a moment later she heard the front door slam.

Catriona leant on the breakfast bar. Her head was throbbing, and she pressed her finger tips against her forehead with a little sigh. He was everything that was detestable, she thought, and he seemed to take a perverse delight in unnerving her. Only the thought that when evening came he would take her to Jeremy stopped her from grabbing up her things and running away as fast as she could.

‘Come along, lovey.’ Mrs Birch's voice was kind. ‘A nice lie down is what you want. You'll feel better in no time.'

Catriona found herself in a small bedroom furnished in muted browns and yellows with a thick continental quilt on the single bed. It was incredibly soft and warm and she felt an almost sensuous relaxation as she stretched out under it.

‘A good sleep,’ Mrs Birch was saying somewhere a long way off. ‘A good sleep.'

Catriona slept.