Free Dear Tiberius; (aka Nurse Nolan) by Susan Barrie Page A

in the little room that gave access to the terrace, and that had once been a part of the drawing room. So she opened the door and switched on the light to retrieve it.
    Instantly she regretted what she had done, for instead of being empty the room contained two people. They were standing very close together, near the window, and with the abrupt switching on of the light one of them turned swiftly
    toward Lucy. She wore a white dress that billowed around her like a white mist, and was ornamented with large golden roses, and her hair was a living flame of red. Her eyes were brilliantly green, and angry.
    “ Oh! ” she exclaimed, and she sounded as if she was speaking through clenched and faultless white teeth. “ So you add spying to your other accomplishments, do you. Nurse Nolan? Well...! ” and she threw off the restraining hand of Francis Burke from her shoulder, and swept into the middle of the room to confront Lucy. “ I ’ ll see to it that Sir John hears about this! ”
    Lucy looked at her as calmly as she was able.
    “ I ’ m sorry. Miss Harling, if I ’ ve interrupted something private, but this room is not usually used by anyone, and for that reason we keep Miranda ’ s wheelchair in here. ” She looked toward the chair, with its neatly folded camel ’ s hair rugs reposing on the seat, standing against the wall, but Lynette did not follow the direction of her glance. “ I came to recover a book I left on the chair this morning, but naturally I didn ’ t know there was anyone in here. ”
    Lynette had all the appearance of being about to say something almost violent, but instead she bit her lip until it very nearly bled, and then turned to the man who was now standing uncomfortably at her elbow, and looking at Lucy with something like apology in his distinctly nice eyes.
    “ Come along, Francis! ” she ordered. “ We might as well go back to the drawing room. In this house, apparently, it is impossible to be at all private! ”
    And she swept past Lucy without even glancing at her again, while Francis Burke followed more slowly, and even offered to switch off the light for Lucy once she had recovered her book and was herself moving toward the door. But Lynette called to him imperiously over her shoulder, and he went with a slight, helpless shrug that spoke volumes to Lucy, who recognized that where the dancer was concerned, at any rate, he had practically no will of his own.
    Lucy went thoughtfully upstairs to her room, and for a long time after she reached it she stood by the open window, in the star-pricked darkness of the early autumn night, looking out at the lake that shimmered like a pearl where the stars were reflected in it. And presently the French windows immediately below her were thrown outward, and Miss Harling and her host stepped out onto the terrace. Lynette now had a mink stole around her shoulders, over the drifting white gown, and she was clinging to the arm of Sir John, whose gaze seemed to be compelled by the sheer mystery and magic of the lake.
    But Lynette was talking to him with little expressive movements of her hands as they moved toward the head of the terrace steps, and Lucy found herself wondering what she was talking to him about. Was it likely that she was telling him about the hour or more that she had spent alone with Francis Burke in the small drawing room?
    Lucy was quite certain she was not, but it did occur to her that she herself might figure in the conversation. And then she sighed suddenly as she watched the two figures—the one not actually tall, but with a masculine grace and ease of carriage that was beginning to awake something like a faint admiration in her own heart, and the other a sylphlike creature who always seemed to be enacting one of the roles she danced, as light as gossamer on his arm—treading the shaven surface of the lawn in the direction of the lake.
    But she could not have told anyone why she sighed.

 
     

CHAPTER NINE
    For more t han a