Free Sweet Sanctuary by Charlotte Lamb

coolly.
    "You really don't like her, do you?"
    There was a little pauses Helen grinned, lifting her slim shoulders in a shrug. "Never could stand the sight of her—I hate being patronised."
    "She's very beautiful."
    "She knows it? That's most of the trouble—she's like the Lady of Shalott. She's looked into the mirror for so long that she couldn't bear the sight of life itself. She's self-obsessed."
    Kate pushed her plate away. "Poor Nick!" She said it lightly, but her heart was heavy.
    "Oh, yes, poor Nick—marriage with Sylvia will be perfect hell, I imagine." Helen frowned. "Unless somebody enlightens him about her, before the knot is tied."
    Kate hardly heard her. She was staring across the room, her brown eyes wide and vulnerable. Nick had just come into the Copper Kettle. He was closing the door, his back towards her, and for a brief second Kate could look at him without being observed.
    Then he turned, and she felt her heart begin to thud against her ribs, so that she was scared someone would hear it. Her throat felt dry and rough. Her hands were damp with sudden nerves.
    What's the matter with me? she asked herself irritably. I'm behaving like a schoolgirl. Vaguely she recalled what Helen had said—was that what was happening to her, was she infatuated with Nicholas, as Helen had been at sixteen?
    She brushed the thought away angrily. With an effort she looked at him, smiling calmly.
    He stood in front of her, staring at her, the grey glance skimming from her shining brown head to her elegant new shoes. Then he grinned at Helen. "Are you responsible for this transformation? She's a different girl!"
    "You approve?" Helen watched him curiously.
    Nicholas open his mouth, then closed it again. An odd expression passed over his face. After a moment, he smiled. "You're to be congratulated. You've altered her beyond belief."
    Helen laughed. "You'll soon have young men queuing up at Sanctuary for the honour of taking her out!"
    Nicholas sat down suddenly. "No doubt," he agreed brusquely.

CHAPTER FIVE

    Nick was very quiet as he drove back to Sanctuary. From beneath her half-closed lids Kate watched him, sidelong, his profile silhouetted against the pale dusk of the evening sky. The spring sunshine had evaporated. The dew was falling. A faint, delicious odour still clung to hedge and field, that untraceable scent of spring which is compounded of flowers, new grass and burgeoning leaf.
    In this shadowy atmosphere Nick looked suddenly unfamiliar once more. She remembered, with a pang, how he had seemed to her when they first met. How inexplicable are our first impressions, and how hard to pin down later, when constant contact has erased that first clear imprint. How had she seen him then? The executive type, smooth and well-groomed, with a sardonic expression?
    Well, she thought wryly, watching him, that was still what he looked like to the casual stranger, no doubt. He was wearing his office clothes, well-tailored, expensive and breathing an air of success. The dark hair was brushed down. The eyes, staring at the road ahead, were a wintry grey as they contemplated some mental problem or other. His well-cut mouth had a sardonic twist to it at this moment, too, as if those thoughts were ironic and made him contemptuous.
    Only now she knew what lay beneath this off-putting exterior. He could shed this skin with a shrug of his broad shoulders. The man about town, the successful architect, could in a second become a countryman, casually dressed and relaxed, tolerant, easygoing and charming.
    Which was the real man? she wondered suddenly. Was Nick really happier at Sanctuary, in his old clothes, tramping over the fields with Punch, Patch and Poppy? Or was this the real Nick, this elegant stranger with the cool, withdrawn expression, who drove without speaking to her and was a hundred miles from here in his thoughts?
    Perhaps that was the real reason for his involvement with Sylvia, that relationship which so disturbed his aunt?