Authors: Unknown
“He’s old enough to know his own mind,” Katie said more sharply than she intended.
“All right, all right!” Jamie held up a conciliatory hand. “You two seem to have formed a mutual protection society! ”
They heard footsteps crunching on the gravel drive next door and then the sound of a door closing quietly. “Why doesn’t he live at the house with you?” Katie asked without quite knowing why, and Jamie laughed softly.
“Big brother has a strong streak of independence,” he said. “He only came back to live down here a couple of months ago and I doubt if it will be permanent. He lives and works in London normally.”
“Paints, you mean?” Katie frowned curiously.
“No, my sweet,” he teased her, “he’s in business of some sort, which he keeps pretty dark, from me anyway, but he seems to have been taking it easy down here for the last couple of months, so perhaps he’s given it up,” he shrugged. “I wouldn’t know.” He tapped her on her nose with one finger, smiling. “Unlike you, my sweet Kate, I’ve never bothered to ask.”
“I’m sorry,” she flushed at his gentle chiding, “I shouldn’t have asked, it’s none of my business, of course.”
“Why not ask?” he said casually. “I suppose it does seem a bit strange with John living so near yet not staying at the house; still,” he shrugged again, “there’s no accounting for big brother, he never did toe the line like the rest of us.”
“He’s a strange man,” Katie said, half to herself. “He’s such a mixture of—” she sought the right words. “One moment he’s so cold and distant, unfeeling and almost rude, and then the next he’s gentle and—and kind.”
“With Fran, you mean?”
“Yes,” said Katie, not quite truthfully.
“He’s very fond of Fran,” Jamie said, and added, “But then everybody is. She’s a nice kid.”
“Not such a kid, Jamie,” Katie said softly. “She’s only a year younger than I am.”
“Mmm,” he said as if he had not considered the matter before, “I suppose she is.”
Shopping in Sea Bar did not necessarily involve spending a lot of money, although Fran always seemed to spend enough when the two girls went into the town for the day. Parking was something of a problem though, because Fran borrowed her grandfather’s car for the trips, Jamie refusing to entrust his smaller car to her, and the big Humber was not easy to park.
It was as they left a car park, having been unusually lucky to find a place almost right away, that Fran drew Katie’s attention by a tug at her arm. “Do you see what I see?” she asked, and pointed to a rather ostentatious-looking sports car, its upholstery a vivid, eye-catching blue contrasting with the white bodywork and leopard skin steering wheel cover.
“A bit gaudy,” Katie remarked, wrinkling her nose.
“But not for Eleanor Barlow,” said Fran,' and Katie looked again at the dazzling colour scheme of the car.
“Eleanor Barlow’s?” She eyed with new interest. “Yes,” she said slowly, “it looks a bit like her taste.”
“I wonder if she’s shopping, too,” Fran mused, and led the way into the crowded High Street, that jostled and buzzed with holidaymakers. “Where shall we go first, Katie?”
“I leave it to you,” said Katie, and as usual they found themselves on the sumptuous premises of a large store and wandered happily round its enticing sections chattering blithely, until hunger and exhaustion forced them to seek refuge in the restaurant on the top floor. The windows gave uninterrupted views of the town below and the sea beyond it, and Katie never tired of gazing out at the panorama whenever they were lucky enough to get a table near a window.
“Don’t look now,” Fran nudged her out of her reverie, “but la Barlow is over on the other side of the room.”
Katie drew her eyes away from the view and sought the blonde head of the model among the crowded tables. “I see her,” she said at last, as she caught sight of the thin, rather sharp features with their tipped amber eyes, so like a cat’s.
“And with a strange man,” Fran said with satisfaction. She looked aslant at the couple across the restaurant and raised her fair brows in approval. “He’s quite attractive, too, isn’t he?”
“I don’t think so,” Katie disagreed, albeit a trifle uncertainly. “Too sleek-looking.”
“No,” said Fran, studying them from behind the cover of the menu, “sort of sultry-looking, I’d say—a dash of the Arabian nights, I shouldn’t wonder.”
Katie drew a frown with her brows as she, too, surreptitiously looked at the man. Although it was difficult to judge while he was sitting down at the table, Katie thought he looked as if her would be tall and from what she could tell he was slender in build, but powerful-looking about the shoulders. His hair was black and well oiled, waved almost to the point of being crinkly, and his wide, dark eyes paid compliments to his companion with every flick of the long black lashes. His hands, she noticed, were long and slender and moved with a certain nervousness as he talked, and Katie wondered why he looked familiar.
“You’re taking quite an interest in him considering you don’t like his looks,” Fran teased.
“I don’t,” Katie said thoughtfully. “I just can’t remember where I’ve seen him before.”
“Oh, really?” Fran turned wide-eyed interest on her friend. “Do try to remember, Katie, please!”
“I
am
trying,” Katie said, “but it’s no use, if ever I try to remember anything I only succeed in forgetting it more.” She gave her attention to the menu. “I shall probably remember if I don’t try so hard,” she said. “Let’s forget about Eleanor Barlow and her boy-friend, I’m hungry!”
It was while she was eating the last of her fruit sundae that the memory came back to her, and then prompted unconsciously by Fran. Eleanor Barlow and her escort had already been seated when Katie and Fran came into the restaurant, so that they had finished their meal a little before the two girls.
“Presents,” Fran said suddenly, her eyes again on the other couple. One of the man’s long, beringed hands pushed a paper-wrapped package across the table, the hand still covering it until his companion took it under her own hand and dropped it rather hastily into her handbag.
“I expect models get plenty of presents,” Katie said, watching the elegant blonde pull on her gloves. “Jewellery and chocolates, all the rewards of sinful living,” she laughed at her own dramatics.
“That package is too small for chocolates, it must be jewellery,” said Fran practically, and blinked her surprise when Eleanor Barlow rose and left the table, while her erstwhile companion still sat there smoking a cigar. “That’s funny,” she said. “She’s gone and he’s still there.”
“Mmm,” Katie followed the model’s progress as she crossed the restaurant, “and she hasn’t gone to the ladies’, she’s gone out altogether.”
Fran shrugged. “More fool her,” she said. “The Arabian knight is still with us.” She tossed back her fair hair the better to see him. “He is rather attractive, Katie, he looks like an Eastern prince or a sultan, something exotic.”
“That’s it!” Katie’s eyes shone with triumph as she remembered. “Sultan! That’s where I’ve seen him before, the sultan’s palace.”
Fran stared at her curiously. “Are you dreaming,” she asked anxiously, “or has the heat been too much for you?”
“No, you goose,” Katie explained patiently. “The ‘Kismet’, where Jamie took me to dinner the other night—while we were talking to John and Eleanor Barlow in that rather grand hall, your Arabian knight was standing by the door of the casino, looking as if he owned the place.”
“Which he probably does if la Barlow has anything to do with him,” Fran said nastily.
“But she just walked straight past him when she was with John,” Katie protested, “as if she didn’t know him.”
“Well, dear,” Fran smiled patiently, “it would hardly have been diplomatic to make eyes at the boy-friend when she was with John, would it?”
“No, I suppose not,” Katie admitted, searching in her handbag for her purse.
“You know,” Fran said as they left the restaurant, “I think I see a chance to prise Eleanor loose from John, and I must get Jamie to take
me
to the ‘Kismet.’ He never has.”
“Oh, Fran, you wouldn’t tell John about this, would you?” She frowned at her friend’s determined expression. “It’s rather unkind.”
“Cruel to be kind,” Fran retorted. “We don’t want la Barlow in the family, and that’s what she’s set her sights on, only John doesn’t seem to see it. Jamie doesn’t like her,” she added inconsequentially.
“I gathered that,” Katie smiled. “But it isn’t Jamie that’s concerned, it’s John, and he may be serious about the girl. If he is he won’t take kindly to having his illusions shattered by you.”
“Oh, stuff!” Fran said airily. “I don’t believe John ever had any illusions—besides,” she set her freckled face into what Katie termed her Dennison look, “I know what’s best for him.”
Fran’s chance came earlier than she hoped, for John Miller was at the Dennison house when they arrived back during the afternoon, loaded with parcels and chattering gaily. Sir Janus turned benevolent eyes on them and smiled. “Like pretty birds,” he said, looking at their flushed faces and shining eyes.
“As noisy, too,” his grandson said dryly, and pulled Fran’s long hair, not looking at Katie.
“Ah, hello, John.” Fran widened her eyes ingenuously as she looked at her cousin. “It wasn’t you that Eleanor was dashing off to meet, then. I thought perhaps it was.”
“No,” he smiled at her, unaware of her motives, and Katie felt suddenly guilty, as if she would hate to see him hurt. “I expect she had to get back to London in a hurry,” he said. “She’s pretty busy.”
“Perhaps,” Fran looked at him from the comers of her eyes, judging the moment. “But fancy deserting that gorgeous man she was with. He was fascinating, wasn’t he, Katie?”
“You
thought so,” Katie said, her cheeks flushed. “If you remember I thought he was too sleek and said so.” She was feeling angry with Fran for choosing this moment, in front of a stranger, to tell her cousin about his girl’s double dealing, and she wished she was no part of it.
“Generous, too," Fran went on, undeterred. “He gave her a present.”
Katie watched his face as Fran spoke and saw only curiosity there. “A present?” he queried, and looked at Fran’s lively, attractive face closely. “What sort of present?”
“Oh, a package about so big,” she made a small oblong with her hands, about the size of a necklace case. “We thought that it
must
have been jewellery,” she said complacently. “It was too small to be anything else.”
“Interesting,” he said slowly, his blue eyes narrowed, and Fran gave Katie a look of rather doubtful triumph.
“We thought so,” Fran said blithely, and Katie shook her head involuntarily at being included, aware as she did so that he was watching her.
He glanced briefly at his grandfather before turning to the door. “I’ve just remembered, Janus,” he said quietly, “I should have made a phone call before I left the house. May I use your phone?”
“Of course,” the old man assented, and turned his attention to the two girls. “Fran," he looked at his granddaughter’s frankly disappointed face and at Katie’s flushed with embarrassment, ‘what are you trying to do now? Oh, I know,” he stemmed her protest, “that little scene was intended to produce some sort of reaction, unless I’m very much mistaken. I’m not such a complete fool as to miss that fact—and neither, I may add, is John.” He put an arm round each of their shoulders and looked from one to the other with his shrewd eyes. “Now what are you two girls up to?”
“Oh, Katie isn’t up to anything,” Fran admitted honestly. “It’s all my idea; Katie doesn’t want to hurt John’s feelings.”
Sir Janus tightened his arm on Katie’s shoulders in a brief hug. “I’m glad to hear that one of you has some consideration,” he said, frowning at his granddaughter. “And you would do better to leave John to handle his own affairs in his own way, Fran. Don’t interfere.”
“What did I do?” Fran turned ingenuous eyes to him. “I only told him that we’d seen la Barlow lunching with a rather gorgeous man.”
“Then let that be sufficient,” Sir Janus told her. “Don’t mention it again to John or anyone else.” He hugged them both briefly and looked at the heap on the long settee. “What on earth have you been buying in Sea Bar? I shall be surprised if Barner’s aren’t bereft of stock after your little expedition!”
Eleanor Barlow was momentarily forgotten as they opened their purchases and spread them over the settee, so engrossed that Fran failed to notice John return. He flicked a brief glance at them from the comer of his eye and drew his grandfather aside to speak to him quietly, out of earshot of the girls. Sir Janus nodded his head at whatever he was told and put a hand briefly on the younger man’s shoulder, almost in a gesture of caution, Katie thought, casting them a surreptitious glance. She had a tingling, unpleasantly cold sensation in her stomach that made her anxious, though she could not have said why.
Aunt Cora was delighted with the dainty gloves that Katie had brought her from Sea Bar. “They’re lovely, Katherine!” The new and unaccustomed softness about her aunt pleased her; in the last few weeks she had become quite fond of the old lady and liked to bring her a small gift whenever she went shopping with Fran.
“They’ll go with your grey coat, I thought,” Katie said.
“They will,” her aunt agreed, turning her hands over to admire the gloves. “Thank you, my dear.”
“Thank
you,”
Katie smiled at her. “It’s a small return for all you’ve done for me.”
“Did you enjoy yourself?” Aunt Cora asked. “I know you usually do when you go with Fran.”
“We always do,” said Katie, and frowned slightly, remembering Fran’s unkindness to her cousin.
“Did you see anyone you knew?” Her aunt always asked the same question and usually Katie’s answer was negative.
“Yes,” her frown puzzled her aunt. “Eleanor Barlow was in Earner’s when we were having lunch.”
“Oh,” the old lady nodded understanding, knowing Katie’s dislike of the woman. “With John Miller?”
“No. No, she wasn’t,” Katie shook her head. “She was with a man from the ‘Kismet’, the place Jamie took me to the other night. I think he must be the manager of the place or something.” She wrinkled her nose in distaste. “Fran finds him quite attractive, but to me—” she pulled a face, “I don’t know; I just don’t like the look of him.”