Free Fugitive Wife by Sara Craven Page A

Briony
    suspected she would be dismayed to find her niece stil in occupation when she returned. It had after al been planned only as a temporary arrangement. She wondered again about Jenny, who she knew shared a flat with two other girls. Would they have room for a fourth? she wondered rather dispiritedly. And would they even want her? Or she could always contact one of her former schoolmates, she supposed
    reluctantly.

    She was stil in this indecisive state when she went to work the next day and learned quite by chance that Logan had returned. It was Miss Johnson of al people who gave her the news, tutting angrily as she entered the cuttings library.

    ‘I do not approve of files going out of the building.’ she was muttering. opening and closing the drawers of her desk with little slams, an idibsyncrasy of hers which Briony had noticed before when she was upset.

    ‘I do not approve. And of course none of the messengers can be spared. They’l have to go in a taxi―there s nothing else for it. A
    complete waste of time and money !’

    She glanced up and caught Briony watching her m some surprise. ‘Get on with your work,’ she snapped.

    ‘I’ve finished, actualy.’ Briony spoke with some reluctance, knowing the admission was likely to lead to some foul and unnecessary cross-indexing task.

    ‘I see.’ Miss Johnson tapped a pencil against her teeth.

    ‘Then I suppose you wil have to do. One of the foreign news reporters on the Courier is just back from Cambodia, and he wants al the background files taking round to his flat, if you please, and Mr. Mackenzie who one would have thought would have known better has
    actualy authorised it.’

    Briony’s heartbeat seemed to be behaving in a strange, unpredictable manner.

    ‘Which of the reporters?’

    Miss Johnson stared at her frostily. ‘Logan Adair―if it matters.’ she snapped. ‘My concern is the inconvenience to this department. You’d better look out the necessary files and take them round at once.

    Get a receipt for the taxi fare and claim it at the cashier’s desk when you return.’ She glanced at her watch and her mouth set in resentment.
    ‘I suppose there’l be barely time for you to get back before the office closes. When you’ve delivered the files, you may go home. But be punctual in the morning.’ she added hastily, as if afraid that this concession on her part might lead to excesses of tardiness on Briony’s. She would have been shocked to the core if she had known that the most junior member of her department was not listening to a word that she was saying.

    Briony’s hands were shaking as she sought out the files, and even when she was actualy sitting in the taxi which was taking her to Logan’s flat, she found it difficult to believe that it was al realy happening.

    Inwardly, she was shaking like a leaf. And yet there was no reason why she should be nervous, she told herself. She was simply doing a job, that was al. Heavens, she hadn’t even angled for the chance to take the files to Logan’s flat.

    And though she could tel herself that he had probably forgotten completely the circumstances of their last disastrous encounter, she had not.

    Outside the door of the flat, she took a deep breath, then rang the bel. There was a prolonged silence. For a moment she thought it had al been a mistake and that there was no one there, and she experienced a pang of something which hovered between regret and relief. She was on the point of turning away when she heard a sound inside the flat and the door swung open.

    Logan was standing there, and her first thought was that he looked ghastly. He was pale under his tan, and his eyes were over-bright and slightly bloodshot as if he was suffering from a fever. They narrowed slightly in disbelief as he looked her over.

    ‘What the hel are you doing here?’ His voice was hardly encouraging, and the words were slightly slurred.

    ‘I brought these.’ She held out the files, and he stared