Bride by Arrangement

CHAPTER ONE

It had been a very trying day for Madame Albertin. It had also been a very disappointing day.

Her nephew had not arrived in time for lunch, and the conflicting instructions she had issued to the cook about the meal had resulted in its proving a fiasco. And on top of that the meringues ordered specially for tea had remained unconsumed, and the hour for aperitifs (which, apparently, Pierre never missed if he could help it!) had come and gone, and so had dinner. And now it was late evening, a high gale had sprung up, and the sea was lashing itself into a fury at the foot of the cliff on which Trelas Manor stood.

Madame Albertin drew aside the curtains and peered into the night, and admitted sadly that it was highly unlikely Pierre would arrive at this late hour.

“Unless, of course, the dear boy has been held up.” Her small, faded face looked hopeful. “Some accident to the car ... Perhaps a puncture.”

“There are always garages to attend to punctures,” Chloe reminded her a little cruelly. Or she felt she was being unnecessarily cruel when she saw the way her employer appeared to crumple.

“Yes.” Madame Albertin sighed heavily. “How very naughty of Pierre! ... But, as you know, he is my one real weakness.” She looked across the width of the room at Chloe, her companion, with smooth fair hair shining in the lamplight, and a
r
ather unnaturally serene expression for one who was still very young. “Although, of course, I’m very fond of you, too, my dear,” with a sudden smile. “Very fond! You’re one of the reasons why I am so anxious to see Pierre.”

She began to look vague, and Chloe realised it was high time she retired to the restfulness of her room. She pressed the bell for the housekeeper, a dour Scotswoman known as Bertha McClay, and when the latter arrived she started to tut-tut and scold, and took Madame Albertin by the arm and propelled her very firmly towards the foot of the stairs. Clutching at her ropes of pearls, Madame Albertin ascended the stairs as they wound in a graceful curve ahead of her, and behind her Mrs. McClay muttered resentfully of young men who hadn’t any manners, or any sense of duty or the fitness of things.

Chloe stood watching them until they disappeared from her sight, the two figures in black, both with white hair. They disappeared into a gallery into which the lovely white staircase flowed, and then she was alone in the hall, with the swinging bronze lantern casting a golden light all about her, the mellow rugs like islands of colour on the highly polished floor, and logs burning gently in the wide fireplace. And the inclement night outside.

She, too, wore black, because Madame Albertin was so fond of it, and as she looked down into the fire it became her in a way that fitted in with her surroundings. She would never be beautiful or striking, and no man would fall in love with her looks alone; but she was slender and graceful—a little too slender, actually—and her face had character. A wide brow, slightly fly-away eyebrows, greenish eyes with very dark lashes, and that smooth, pale hair. Very pale, and soft as floss silk.

She looked tranquil, but she wasn’t feeling tranquil just then. She was feeling furiously indignant with a man she had never met, and wondering why anyone as basically sensible as Madame Albertin had any time for him.

In the six months that Chloe had been employed by Madame Albertin he had sent his aunt a couple of post-cards, telephoned her once from Paris when he was short of cash, and promised to visit her at the earliest opportunity. Today he should have arrived—everything was ready for him, including a whole suite of rooms, and they had heard nothing of him. When Burton, the elderly manservant, came through the green baize door which led to the kitchens to add another log to the fire, she said to him in a constrained voice that she didn’t think there was any point in keeping the fire in any longer.

He looked at her rather oddly.

“It’s only ten o’clock, miss, and I’ve known Master Pierre since he was a lad.”

“You mean that he
might
arrive as late as this?”

“He might.”

“But—but surely he could have telephoned...
?”

The butler made a movement with his black-clad shoulders. “It probably wouldn’t occur to Master Pierre, miss.”

Chloe uttered an impatient sound.

“You make him sound as if he were a schoolboy coming home for the holidays! He’s a man, isn’t he?—A man in his thirties?”

“Master Pierre will be thirty-five next birthday.”

“Well, good heavens!” Chloe felt bereft of words. And they still called him Master Pierre! ... “He’s old enough to be married, with a whole heap of responsibilities, and a family growing up around him.”

Burton smiled still more strangely.

“I couldn’t imagine Master Pierre with a family, Miss Meredith, nor even a wife. He’s not the type to take kindly to responsibilities. A bit of a rover is Master Pierre, and he’s half French. Not that I’ve anything against the French,” somewhat hastily. “Madame’s husband was French, and Monsieur Albertin was a very proper gentleman. Very kind, and very generous, and settled down nicely in the home. It was always Madame’s home, of course, she having the money ... But in France they don’t talk about fortune-hunters. If a man marries money he’s being sensible.”

“And Monsieur Albertin was sensible? And made Madame happy at the same time?”

“Oh, very happy,” Burton agreed enthusiastically. “They were an ideal couple, and stayed happy until he died. If he had any little—foibles, shall we say?—she overlooked them. Madame was always a broad-minded woman, and that kind attracts happiness. That’s why she’s so devoted to this nephew of hers, because he reminds her of her husband.”

“But so far he hasn’t married? Not even for money?”

“I should say that when he does marry it will be for money. Madame has a scheme
... She told me about it the other day.” Burton, who was a very trusted manservant, looked at Chloe as if there was something about her that intrigued him, and then he added his other log to the fire. A shower of golden sparks flew up the broad chimney as his foot drove it home, and he dusted his hands fastidiously. Then, once more, his eyes dwelt thoughtfully on Chloe. “It would be nice if we could have a wedding at Trelas,” he observed.

“Well, I should think it’s quite unlikely your Master Pierre will come here tonight...” she began. And then she stared
u
nbelievingly as a car shot up to the front of the house, rounding a corner of the rhododendron-lined drive as if a thousand demons were after it. Rain glistened on its long bonnet, its hood was soaked with the outpourings of the heavens. A man alighted and ran round to help a slender figure step out into the inclement night, and the slender figure clung to him.

Chloe could see her white hands clutching at his arm, her silver-fair hair—as silver-fair as her own, unless it was the moonlight—practically torn from her head as she bent it beneath the force of the wind; and the masculine figure in tweeds laughed as if the elements excited him as he dragged her towards the porch.

Half dragged and half carried, because of her absurd little teetering heels, and the miniature lakes in the surface of the drive.

Then came a violent hammering at the stout oak of the front door, and Chloe and the butler looked at one another.

“What did I tell you?” Burton said.

“You’ll have to prepare another bedroom,” Chloe answered. “There’s a lady visitor.”

When Burton at last got the heavy door open, Pierre Albertin carried a dripping girl into the hall.

She was wearing an entirely inappropriate silk suit, and it was clinging to the slightness of her body, and her delicate oval face was chalk-white with exhaustion. Her hair was not the light gold hair Chloe had decided it must be, but a burning russet in the mingled firelight and lamplight, and her eyes were deep and dark like violets. She smiled apologetically at Chloe, and with extraordinary sweetness considering the state of her exhaustion, and said as Pierre depos
ited her in the lap of a settee:

“I’m so sorry if I’m going to make everything wet! This is such a lovely house!”

There was a certain vacuousness in her voice, but Chloe put it down to the deep mauve circles under her eyes. In spite of being taken aback, and in spite of bounding resentment with Pierre for thrusting someone unknown upon them at this hour, she moved forward to the side of the settee and helped the other girl to remove her sodden shoes.

“Who are you?” Pierre demanded, staring hard at Chloe.

Chloe stared back at him.

“I’m Madame Albertin
’
s secretary and companion.”

A look of disbelief stole into the velvet-brown eyes of Pierre. They were tawny-brown, like sherry, and his face was brown, also—a fascinating and superb tan, as if he haunted winter
resorts like the islands of the Caribbean, or South Africa. His hair was thick and black, and inclined to curl crisply.

“And what would my Aunt Abbie want with a secretary?” he demanded, a trifle jeeringly. He shook the wet from his hair. “A companion; yes, perhaps. But you’re not old enough for a companion. Or you don’t look old enough.”

Chloe felt something like fury leap along her veins.

“I hope, and believe, I’m old enough to be a perfectly good companion,
and
secretary,” she informed him. And then she added: “Your aunt has gone to bed. It is so late we no longer expected you.”

“I’m sorry.” But the flash of white teeth revealed little penitence. “We got hung up the other side of Launceston, where we stopped for dinner, and I’m afraid we took a long time over lunch, too. But there didn’t seem any particular reason to hurry.”

“Except that your aunt was expecting you!”

“Quite.” He tilted his head to one side and regarded her with insolent interest. "Except that my aunt was expecting us, little Miss Prim! And you do look terribly prim to me!”

“You could have telephoned,” Chloe reminded them severely. “That would have prevented a good deal of anxiety.”

“Oh, come now,” Madame Albertin’s nephew murmured, moving nearer to her, while Burton put a footstool under the violet-eyed girl’s small wet feet, and then hastened to a tray of drinks to provide them with something stimulating. “You’re behaving as if my aunt really flew off the handle, and I know very well that she didn’t. She isn’t like that.” His eyes narrowed, grew glittering, menacing, the velvety softness fleeing away altogether. “Aren’t you rather usurping a position that isn’t yours? I don’t know who you are—that is, I don’t even know your name!—but, whoever you are, you’re not the mistress here, and instead of standing there looking as if your personal comfort has been disturbed why don’t you help my friend remove her wet things?”

“You forget that we weren’t expecting her.” Her chin went up, and a faint colour dyed her cheeks. “A room hasn’t been prepared for her.”

“Nevertheless, one will have to be prepared for her.”

He went across to the settee, and stood beside it.

“Are you very wet, darling?” he enquired, in a kind of amused drawl.

“Soaked through to the skin,” she declared, but she curled herself up like a contented kitten in the fireglow, and rubbed her cheek against his sleeve. “However, I’m getting beautifully warm, and it’s very cosy here.”

The butler interposed.

“I’ll see that a room is got ready for you at once, Miss—er
...
?”

“De Lisle,” she answered, smiling. “Fern de Lisle. If you go to the theatre, or watch television, you must have seen my playing small parts in dreary little plays that never really arrive anywhere. I’ve masses of talent, but no luck—that’s me!” And that was the reason why the small, delicate, puckish face was familiar, Chloe thought, as she swallowed the choking sensation in her throat because a man for whom she had waited all day—and to whom she hadn’t yet been properly introduced—had rebuked her in front of two other people as if she was some sort of a housemaid in the employment of his aunt. No wonder she had been prepared to dislike him from the moment that his aunt mentioned his name!

But, with the choking sensation only partly got rid of, she offered: