Authors: Unknown
John Miller, she noticed, had turned away towards the bar in the comer of the room, carrying Eleanor Barlow’s empty glass, and Katie felt bound to admire the model’s quick recovery. “If you’ll excuse me, Sir Janus,” she smiled sweetly at the older man, ignoring the bland smile of her tormentor, “I’ll go and keep an eye on John and on my drink.”
“Of course, Eleanor.” Sir Janus inclined his white head in his customary half bow. “I shall look forward to talking to you again shortly.” As the thin, elegant back disappeared into the crowd he turned his gaze to his young grandson. “James,” he said, quietly enough for Katie not to hear, “please control your rather bizarre sense of humour; it’s not always conducive to good manners.”
“Neither was she!” Fran heard, and hotly defended her cousin. “Talking like that to Katie, as if she and I were a couple of five-year-olds! She’s not so very much older than we are, anyway.”
Her grandfather smiled indulgently at the small brown face, bereft of its customary freckles but still freshly childlike. “Eleanor is used to a much more sophisticated world than ours, my sweetheart,” he said. “I dare say we do seem a little naive to her sometimes.”
“I don’t see why,” Fran persisted, her eyes dark with resentment. “We aren’t exactly country bumpkins.”
Sir Janus smiled at her angry face. “Don’t let it spoil your party, Fran,” he said softly. “Enjoy yourself and see that Katie does too, won’t you? I shall go and join the seekers of refreshment at the bar.”
Fran turned to Katie with a smile as her grandfather crossed the room. “I see you share my feelings about la Barlow,” she said. “She always treats us as if we were something inferior.”
“Except big brother, of course,” Jamie grinned. “Eleanor’s had her eye on John, without success, I may say, for a very long time now.”
“Poor John !” Fran turned her round blue eyes on her cousin’s handsome head bent, attentively it seemed to Katie, over Eleanor Barlow’s. “She’s not his type at all.”
“Oh. I’ve no patience with poor John,” Jamie said with a touch of his brother’s impatience. “Come on, Katie, will you eat, drink or dance first?” He whirled her away from Fran before she could protest and propelled her across the room. “What’s it to be?” he demanded as they approached the bar and buffet. “Are you eager for sustenance or will you come to my arms?” His dramatic posture made her want to smile, but she responded as solemnly as he had asked.
“I have no need of food or wine,” she told him as she slid into his arms and was whisked on to the dance floor. “All I need is your strong arms to enfold me.” She felt suddenly lighthearted and a little crazy as they laughed together. Jamie, she felt, was a perfect tonic for anybody’s ego.
“Wonderful girl!” he breathed in her ear. “We’ll waltz through life together.”
‘There
is
just one drawback,” Katie said, bringing them to a sudden standstill. “This happens to be a quickstep.” She was aware, as their abrupt halt almost caused a collision with the following couple, of John Miller’s vivid blue eyes watching her across his partner’s sleek blonde head and an imp of mischief made her lower her own black-fringed grey eyes flirtatiously, The response was scarcely encouraging and she flushed as the cold gaze swept past her as if she had not been there.
After several more dances, some of them rather more energetic than graceful, Katie felt more than ready for the delayed refreshment she had been promised. “I suddenly have a longing for something long and cold,” she told Jamie, who had refused to give her up to dance with anyone else, despite his grandfather’s frequent signs that he should. “Please, Jamie, will you get me a drink ?”
“Reluctantly,” he said, sighing deeply. He was still in the same somewhat silly mood and he bowed over her hand as he left her to go to the bar. “I think,” he said solemnly, “that I shall chain you to the wall until I come back.”
She laughed lightly, her cheeks flushed with the warmth of the room and the exertion of dancing. “If you don’t hurry with that drink, you’ll
have
to,” she retorted. “I shall faint from thirst.”
She moved nearer to the open french windows that led on to the terrace and breathed the sea-cooled air gratefully, leaning back against the window frame.
“Miss Roberts.” She started nervously, having heard no one approach, and looked up at John Miller. The rather arrogant head was held high so that he looked down at her from under half closed lids, his eyebrows tilted interrogatively. “May I?”
She gazed at him for a blank second, not realising what he was asking her. '
“Oh,” she lowered her own gaze as she realised that he was asking her to dance, and with her heart fluttering uneasily, she went into his arms and on to the dance floor.
‘‘You seem to find my brother’s company very amusing,” he said, as if it was an accusation. His arm held her not quite tightly, but hard enough about her that she could not easily raise her head and look at him.
“He’s fun,” she said, her voice edged with resentment at the implied criticism of both herself and Jamie. “I like Jamie.”
“Most women do,” he said briefly and with the same impatience he always seemed to display. “But don’t let it go to your head.”
She did look up this time, leaning back against his arm and finding the blue eyes alarmingly close and as cold as ice, his straight mouth set firm. “I won’t ask what you mean by that, Mr. Miller,” she hoped her voice sounded as angry as she felt, “but I have no intention of letting anything go to my head. Contrary to belief, at least some people’s belief, I am
not
a schoolgirl.”
“I certainly hadn’t thought of you as one,” he said. “I was merely telling you not to take my brother seriously. Whatever he may say on the spur of the moment, he doesn’t mean it seriously.”
“Never?” she challenged, her eyes sparkling with her anger. “I can’t think how you and Jamie can be brothers,” she said, trying not to raise her voice. “You’re so different. He’s so warm and friendly and you—”
He crooked his straight mouth into a sarcastic smile, “And me?” he challenged in turn.
She looked into the cold, icy blue of his eyes and shook her head.
4<
You’re—you’re an iceberg,” she said flatly. She could see Jamie near the spot where he had left her, a tall, inviting-looking drink in each hand and a worried frown on his good-looking face as he searched the dancers for her. He spotted them as they came nearer and pulled a rueful face at her which made it difficult for her to retain the brittle anger she felt for his brother. She would have liked to finish the dance then and rejoined Jamie, but if her partner saw his brother he made no acknowledgement of the fact but took her past him and round the floor again before the music finished.
With one hand under her elbow he steered her across the floor between the other dancers, then halted her suddenly, his eyes glitteringly intent as he looked down at her. “Don’t get too involved with Jamie,” he said more softly than his usual impatient staccato. “I wouldn’t like either of you getting into anything you’ll be sorry for.”
She gazed at him for a moment, unbelievingly. “Jamie is old enough to take care of himself,” she said, her face flushing angrily. “He doesn’t need looking after, and neither do I.”
“I think you’re wrong,” the clipped impatience of his voice made her furious. “Jamie
does
need someone to look after his interests, he has far too much money and a penchant for pretty girls.”
She trembled with anger then, her hands tight at her sides and her grey eyes dark with temper. “I don’t know what I’ve ever done to offend you, Mr. Miller, but I resent you talking to me as if I were the latest in a long line of gold-diggers, only interested in Jamie for his money. Well, for your information I happen to like Jamie, and I like Fran too, and I wouldn’t care if neither of them had a penny in the world, they’d
still
be my friends! Now will you stop trying to run our lives for us!”
The coldness of the blue eyes chilled her as she wrenched her arm free and walked away from him to where Jamie waited, not a little intrigued by their obvious wrangling. “What came over big brother?” he asked as she joined him, taking her drink gratefully.
“He was warning me,” she said, still smarting under the injustice of his brother’s implication.
“About me?” Jamie rounded his blue eyes innocently, until they looked remarkably like Fran’s. “I hope you didn’t take him seriously; anyone would think I needed a keeper.”
‘Don’t you?” she twinkled at him over her glass, her humour restored by his company.
He finished his drink, his eyes fixed on her steadily, and put his empty glass down on a chair. “Put that drink down,” he said, “and come outside.”
“Not until I’ve finished my drink,” she protested. “I’m thirsty!” But he took the glass from her fingers and set it down beside his own. “Jamie!”
He made no reply but took her arm and steered her through the open french windows and on to the coolness of the terrace. It was shadowed out there and several whispered cautions betrayed other couples enjoying the cool air and the moonlight in their own way.
Jamie guided her down the few steps to the deeper shadows of the lawn below and beyond the rustling darkness of the tall beech trees to the rose garden, his grandfather’s pride and joy. The heavy scent of the roses made the warm night air as heady as wine and Katie felt a twinge of uneasiness as Jamie’s hand on her arm urged her further away from the lights and laughter of the party. Remembering his brother’s warning, she halted suddenly, not wishing to have John Miller proved right, yet reluctant to mistrust Jamie.
“The roses smell heavenly.” She spoke for the first time since they left the house, her voice as matter-of-fact as she could make it, her head bowed over the sweet perfumed roses.
He stopped beside her, his hand still on her arm, and turned her to face him. “And you
look
heavenly,” he whispered, his hands caressing the soft skin of her arms as he held her and looked down at her, his eyes shining in the moonlight, taking on a strange, unnatural glow. “Jamie—” she tried to keep him from holding her too tight by keeping her hands between them, her open palms flat against the smoothness of his jacket. “Perhaps we’d better go back,” she ventured, and wondered at her own reluctance. Jamie laughed, a short, harsh sound that startled her with its unfamiliarity, and a moment later he held her so tightly that she could scarcely breathe, his mouth hard and relentless on hers until she felt her head spinning dizzily. She could only remember John Millers words as she fought to free herself. ‘Don’t get too involved with Jamie. I wouldn’t like either of you getting into anything you’ll be sorry for.’ “Jamie, stop it, Jamie!” she heard her own voice as from a distance as she tried to break his almost savage grip on her. “Jamie!”
“Let her go!” John Miller’s sharp command had more effect than her own pleadings, and she moved gratefully out of reach as Jamie turned to look at his brother.
“Now don’t be a spoilsport, big brother,” his voice was dangerously quiet and very like his brother’s. “Katie isn’t a baby and neither am I.”
The vivid blue eyes flicked for a moment in her direction. “I suggest you go back to the house,” John said tersely, and turned back to Jamie, as taut and tense as a coiled spring.
Katie flushed at the tone of his voice and at the manner in which he had spoken, almost ordering her to return to the house. She stood her ground stubbornly and was conscious of Jamie’s smile of triumph as she did not move. “You see,” he said to his brother, “I’m not such a baby.”
“You little idiot!” The words, she realised with a start, were addressed to her, and the arrogant face was turned in her direction. For a moment they both watched her and she understood suddenly what her stubborn refusal to leave must look like to the elder brother. Jamie, on the other hand, must be thinking that her former reluctance had been merely pretence and would expect to meet little or no opposition when his brother had left them.
She turned her grey eyes from one to the other of them, poised nervously with her hands together, then suddenly she lifted her long dress and ran like a beautiful white ghost across the moon-dappled lawn to the house.
Fran saw Katie come in from the terrace and smiled at her as she passed, dancing with a short, rather babyfaced young man who held her with enthusiastic clumsiness. As the dance ended she left her partner and came across to Katie, a questioning expression on her face. “Having fun?” she asked, her freckles reappearing through her light make-up as the evening wore on.
Katie nodded, but glanced anxiously out across the moonlit gardens as she smiled. “Yes, thank you, Fran,” she said, not altogether convincingly, and saw Fran follow her glance.
Her fine brows drew into a frown and she put a hand on Katie’s arm. “Is something wrong?” she asked anxiously, and looked around for her cousin. “Where’s Jamie?”
Katie looked fondly at the coltishly attractive face and smiled reassuringly. “He’s in the garden,” she said lightly. “I think he’s cooling off.”
“Oh,” a look of understanding and resignation crossed Fran’s face as she looked again out into the garden. “I suppose it’s—oh, bother Jamie!” she finished exasperatedly. “I might have known he’d be up to his tricks if I took my eyes off him for a minute.” She watched her friend’s face anxiously. “I’m sorry, Katie, but I gather you managed to escape; he just can’t resist pretty girls, that’s the trouble. Still,” she smiled her irrepressible smile, “you can manage him.”
“Actually his brother managed him,” Katie said, wondering if she should have mentioned John Miller’s unexpected appearance.
“John?” Fran’s blue eyes widened incredulously and then, to Katie’s surprise, she laughed.
“Fran,” Katie protested, “they were both very angry with each other when I left them. I only hope they don’t—”
“I hope they do,” Fran interrupted recklessly. “I hope John will knock a little sense into Jamie; but,” she added, “I don’t suppose it will happen. John can handle most things without resorting to violence; he’s very like Janus.”