Free With All My Worldly Goods by Mary Burchell Page B

Leonora was pale with anger and dismay. “You’re judging the whole thing entirely on imagination instead of facts.”
    Martin shook his head.
    “I’m judging it by all the other times the same stock-in-trade has been used. Can you honestly deny, Lora, that you were tremendously flattered and thrilled to find that this difficult, masterful creature had been tamed by you ? Of course you were. And that’s why you’ve let him rush you clean off your feet.”
    “No, that’s not true,” Leonora exclaimed quickly. “I’m willing to admit that, put in your way, it does sound rather a funny business, but please, please, Martin don’t go jumping to any more conclusions before you have met Bruce. Anything can be made to sound suspicious if you twist it the right way, you know.”
    Martin didn’t answer that at once. He looked at her rather gloomily, and shrugged.
    “Well,” he said at last. “I’ve made my protest and, although of course I don’t expect you to take it at its face value—no girl would if she were in love with the man—I do beg you to think things over again, and in a more critical mood.”
    “I—you really needn’t worry about me like this, Martin.” Leonora spoke earnestly but her voice shook a little with her agitation. “I’m afraid my own first prejudice is partly responsible for your idea of Bruce. But truly it’s a most fantastic picture of him. You’ll see for yourself when you meet him.”
    “Very well, my dear. I can’t do anything but accept what you say. After all, it is true that you know him and I don’t,” Martin said. “I should be honestly glad to find that I was wrong—and in that case I promise to grovel for forgiveness.” And he grinned at her with a shadow of his old manner.
    “Thank you, Martin,” Leonora drew a deep breath of relief. And after that, neither of them mentioned Bruce again.
    Martin, once his outburst was past, made a gallant attempt to bring things back to normal.
    “He’s such a splendid loser that he makes me feel terribly guilty,” Leonora told herself regretfully, and she, too, then did her best to put things on their old, familiar footing.
    In the end, they achieved something like their friendly intimacy of the days before Bruce had come on the scene. And, by the time Martin handed her into the taxi that was to take her home, Leonora felt that everything was almost all right again.
    But the moment she re-entered the house, all the earlier, disturbing part of their conversation rushed back upon her, and she went quickly in search of Bruce, so that his very presence might reassure her. She felt, somehow, that she had been treacherous in even letting Martin say the things he had, and she wanted to kiss Bruce and hold him and feel that everything was secure.
    As she crossed the hall, she heard his voice coming from the library, and then his sister’s in reply.
    Leonora paused a moment at the door, smiling a little because she realized suddenly that they were speaking of her.
    “I think Lora is a dear child,” Miss Mickleham was saying. “But, frankly, Bruce, knowing you as well as I do, I cannot see why you should choose her for your wife.”
    “Can’t you? Then shall I tell you?”
    Leonora couldn’t see Bruce, but she could hear from his voice that he was smiling slightly. And it warmed her to her very heart that, straight on top of her conversation with Martin, she should hear him own to someone else that he loved her.
    “I wish you would,” she heard Miss Mickleham say.
    “Then let me remind you, my dear Agatha, that Lora has one superlative attraction which sets her beyond any other woman I know. She is the undisputed owner of seventy thousand pounds.”

 
    CHAPTER FOUR
    L eonora caught her breath in a sharp gasp as though someone had struck her a blow over her heart. She put out her hand against the wall to steady herself, and for a moment everything went round her.
    She wanted to scream: “Don’t say any more,” but it was