Free Long Summer Day by R. F. Delderfield

She was wearing a light blue riding habit, hitched at one side, a white silk blouse frilled at the throat to give the impression of a stock and was bareheaded, her dark hair gathered in a broad grey ribbon. Her eyes matched her costume exactly, her nose was short and straight and her small but very resolute chin had a large dimple an inch below a small, red mouth. But what impressed him more than her good features or bearing, was the texture of her skin, which was pale and waxlike, very firm and entirely without blemish. Her hair, removed from the strong rays of ruby light that flooded the windows, would have seemed jet black, giving the taut skin of her cheeks and forehead an almost phosphorescent glow. She was not much above five feet in height but the cut of her habit, enclosing a small waist and emphasising the upward sweep of her breasts and downsweep of her sturdy thighs, added a fictitious inch or so to her figure.
    He stood staring at her and she stared back, one hand gripping the curtain, the other holding a riding switch, and perhaps thirty seconds passed before she said, sharply: ‘Who are you? What are you doing here?’ The voice betrayed no trace of fear, or even surprise, only a leashed and rather daunting anger.
    He said, uncertainly, ‘My name is Craddock, Paul Craddock. I’m looking over the house. Mr Rudd, the agent, gave me the key,’ and he held it up as though it had been his ticket of admission and she was the janitor. She considered him and the key for a moment but her expression did not relent. She still glowered at him, as though he had been a strange male who had blundered into her bedroom, so he tried again, this time a little hoarsely, for his throat was dry and his heart was pounding.
    ‘I arrived this afternoon, Rudd and I rode over from the station.’
    ‘Why?’
    She spat the word at him so sharply that it converted his uncertainty into indignation.
    ‘Why not? My father’s trustee has an option on the estate!’
    Her expression softened and there was curiosity in the eyes.
    ‘Does he intend buying the place? Buying the estate as a whole?’
    ‘He might,’ Paul said, ‘and on my behalf but it’s far from settled yet.’ Then, tentatively, ‘Do you live here? Rudd said the house had been empty for some time.’
    Her eyes left him for the first time since he had entered the room. She glanced first at the bare floor, then out of the window.
    ‘No,’ she said, less aggressively, ‘I don’t live here. I used to come here a great deal; some time ago, before … before the war!’
    Her reluctance to speak the word gave him a clue. He said, lightly, ‘Ah, you knew the Lovells then?’
    ‘Of course!’, and that seemed to be all the information she was prepared to give for suddenly she seemed to slump a little, as though bored with the conversation. After a pause, however, she went on, ‘I must go now, it’ll be dusk before I’m home. I’ve got a horse in the yard and four miles to ride. I’m sorry I startled you, I should have asked Rudd for the key. I only came here to look at some furniture.’ Then, in a few long strides, she was past him and before he could think of an excuse to detain her she was half-way along the passage, her high-heeled riding boots clacking on the bare boards. A door banged somewhere behind the kitchens and after that there was silence, a slightly eerie silence he thought, as though she had been a ghost and he had imagined the encounter.
    He crossed to the window asking himself impatiently why a chance meeting with a pretty girl in an empty house should disturb him, both emotionally and physically. She was obviously here without authority and had probably decided to bluff. He wondered briefly how she had managed to unlock the back door and why she should have seemed so resentful of him. She had, he decided, been musing and had made her way to this particular room for that purpose. Her pose over there by the window had betrayed as much and his sudden