Free Bride by Arrangement by Rose Burghley Page B

Chloe? Are you marrying him because he’s important to your happiness, and for no other reason?”
    “Yes—yes, I do!”
    David let out a slow sigh, and then he gently released her hand.
    “To me it’s incredible, but then I don’t know much about women ... Your sort, Chloe! Eunice is different. She’s always had what she wanted, and she’s not the type to confuse the issues. She knows not only what she wants, but what is good for her ... But you! You still seem to me a child ... The nervous child at vicarage tea-parties, anxious to help out and do nothing that could earn anyone’s displeasure, and yet not precisely putty in anyone’s hands. You’ve a will of your own, Chloe. And now you say you're in love ... after knowing a fellow a matter of weeks! I waited too long!”
    “I don’t understand you,” Chloe said, speaking with a gentleness that matched his own.
    “No? Well, we’ll forget it now. You say you’re in love with Albertin, and you’re marrying him. At least, that’s the programme at present, but if anything should go wrong, Chloe ... If, for instance, you found out that you were not as much in love as you thought, or Pierre should—no; I mustn’t talk to you like this. It’s not fair. But I thought I had all the time in the world, and apparently you were growing up fast! I thought I only had to be patient ... ”
    Chloe looked at him, suddenly intensely concerned.
    “Oh, but I never dreamed ... Oh, David, I’m so sorry!” she exclaimed. “There are so many girls in the world, and I simply can’t understand why you even thought about me. There’s—there’s just nothing about me to appeal to a man like you, who can pick and choose!”
    David smiled crookedly.
    “Whatever it is about you that appeals to me has obviously made its appeal to de Ramballe,” he commented. “Perhaps you’re a little blind where your own charms are concerned, Chloe! Or perhaps we’re both looking for something slightly different from other men! Whatever it is about you, you’ll be a vicomtesse before long, and you shouldn’t have any more financial problems. Madame Albertin has seen to that in a way. She brought you together, and she has made it possible for Pierre to begin afresh, without any debts and that sort of thing. I hope he realises how lucky he is.”
    Once again Chloe looked down at her hands, but this time she clasped them so tightly in her lap that the nails bit into the soft flesh of her palms. Why was everyone so certain that Pierre had debts? she wondered. And why did they think it necessary for him to begin afresh, and doubt his capacity for appreciating her, or any woman like her?

 
    CHAPTER FOUR
    When at last they returned to Trelas, Chloe was in a state of mind that made her dread the moment when she came face to face with Pierre again, yet the one person she looked for when the train drew in at the station was the slender dark man she was to marry.
    But Pierre, although he knew all about their return, was not at Truro to meet them. A car from High Cross waited for them, and Chloe stepped into it with the others, and felt as if all her worst and secret fears were realised. Pierre hadn’t thought it worthwhile to put himself out and drive across Cornwall to welcome her back. He waited until the car passed under the arch of High Cross, and she was at journey’s end, before he stepped from the shadow of the church-like porch and assisted her to alight.
    She felt stiff, and she was sure that her hat was askew, and there was a shine on her nose. She was wearing one of her new outfits, and she was very conscious of Pierre’s eyes roving over it, and then coming to rest on her face. She didn’t know it, but there was a question in her anxious eyes as they hung upon his.
    Pierre took her by the arm and led her into the house. Eunice followed, her own eyes hard and rather amused as she pulled off her gloves and called to a servant to bring drinks.
    “Why don’t you kiss her?” she