Free Love is for Ever by Barbara Rowan Page B

square. And I knew I hadn’t passed you on the road. I couldn’t think what on earth had happened to you.”
    "But why should anything happen to me?" she demanded in return. “I’ve merely been exploring. And why are you here, anyway, apparently waiting for me?”
    “I am waiting for you. I’ve told you I’ve been waiting twenty minutes. And it is not a good thing to go exploring on your own.” She smiled at him with real amusement. “Rubbish! ” she dismissed this. "On an island like Sansegovia? I’ve been discovering some delicious old houses, and those by-ways are cool as tunnels. They’re also quite medieval.”
    “They are,” Dominic agreed; "but if you wanted to inspect them you should have asked me to accompany you. It is not at all the thing for a young woman of your age, dressed as you are, to wander about streets like that alone. I hope you won't do it again,” with so much severity that she thought at first it was merely assumed. “Give me your word that in future you will be more circumspect, and let me know when you desire a little sightseeing.”
    “But—” she began; and then his eyes told her that he was quite serious. She looked down at her inoffensive shorts and blouse. "I can’t see that there’s anything wrong with the way I’m dressed.”
    “There isn’t—for the beach,” he said.
    “I see.” She looked up at him as if he interested her. “You mean that the ladies of Spain wouldn’t go about in public places looking as I’m looking—nor even the ladies of Sansegovia? Well,” her eyes crinkling a little in the harsh glare, and twinkling at the same time. “I feel quite respectable—and, in any case, I’m English!”
    “Meaning that in England you go about as you please, and there is no one to interfere with what you do? Quite!” his voice still very curt. “But I wasn’t only thinking of your appearance, respectable or otherwise, and while you are my grandmother's guest you will not behave as if you were still in England. You will allow me to know what you propose to do, in order that an eye can be kept on you.”
    “But you have Martine to keep an eye on!” She didn’t quite know why she said it as she did, with a faintly dry, faintly amused note in her voice, and she saw his expression grow really cold, as if she had presumed where he had not dreamt she would presume. “And how can you possibly keep an eye on us both?”
    “Martine is not likely to cause me the kind of anxiety you are likely to cause me,” he told her, leaving her with the feeling that there was something inexplicable and unsatisfactory about such an answer. And then he turned and walked back to the car. “In any case, Martine doesn’t come under discussion at the moment,” opening the car door for her, “and she is safely at home with a headache. I drove her back because the headache came on suddenly on the beach. And then I came to look for you.”
    “I see.” She settled herself on the comfortably sprung seat, clasping tanned hands about her slim bare knees. She only just prevented herself from adding: “While the cat’s away the mice will play!” with a little smirk which she felt sure would annoy him.
    “I wonder just what you do see?” he replied, and climbed into his seat and started up the car without once looking towards her.
    Jacqueline sat very silent for a few minutes, and then she murmured:
    “It was very kind of you to come and meet me.” “Not at all. And, in any case, my intention was not merely to meet
    you. We had a good hour and a quarter before lunch, and I thought there would be time for me to drive you to San Agariu in order that you could visit your father’s grave, and leave perhaps a few flowers there. I all but purchased the flowers while I was waiting for you.”
    “Oh!” Jacqueline exclaimed. And then, in a voice that was really soft with gratitude: "How—how kind of you to think of it! But,” she added, “I could hardly have gone there dressed