‘Of course you did, darling,’ Margot sounded a little put out, and Helen heard her mother murmur something about hoping the weather was a forerunner of the summer to come.
‘Summers at King’s Green are so peaceful,’ she declared,obviously trying to change the subject. ‘I’m afraid you may find them too peaceful, Mr Manning.’
‘Strange as it may seem, I’m looking for that kind of peace, Mrs Chase,’ he retorted in the curiously harsh tones of someone driven to defend himself. ‘Unlike Margot, I find London lacking in stimulation, and I anticipate the coming summer with more enthusiasm than I’ve anticipated anything for—years.’
‘This summer?’ Helen heard the note of anxiety in her mother’s voice as she reached the open doorway. ‘Oh, but—I—er——’
Her words trailed away at her daughter’s appearance, and there was genuine relief in her expression as she rose from the sofa. ‘There you are, Helen,’ she exclaimed weakly. ‘I was beginning to wonder where you had got to.’
‘Sorry.’ Helen forced a polite smile that encompassed her mother and Margot, but only touched the outline of the man who rose courteously from the armchair he had been occupying. ‘Is lunch almost ready?’
‘Not—er—not until you’ve shown Mr Manning the house, dear,’ declined Mrs Chase firmly, her eyes flashing messages only Helen could interpret. ‘I—er—I should start upstairs, and Margot and I will walk in the garden. Do you think that’s a good idea, Mr Manning?’
‘If your daughter has no objection,’ he essayed, inclining his head, and Helen saw that he was not smiling now.
Silently she led the way across the hall and up the shallow stairs to the first floor. She was conscious of him behind her, of Margot’s antipathy at her exclusion, but she determinedly ignored the personalities involved, and began her recitation.
‘The house was originally begun in the reign of Queen Anne, but its completion was at a much later date. Since then, of course, various alterations and additions have been made, and some major structural repairs were carried out in the late nineteeth century. Its design was partly attributed to a man called Nicholas Hawksmoor, a contemporary of Vanbrugh, who as you know designed Blenheim Palace, and Castle Howard in Yorkshire, but we don’t think it likely, and the fact that it took so long to complete takes it out of his lifetime. The name—King’s Green—isattributed to the fact that in the early nineteenth century, when my great-great-grandfather was alive, the Prince Regent was reputed to have stayed here, on his way to Bath, but again——’
‘Can we cut the thesis?’ Jarret Manning’s cool tones were as incisive as his words. ‘I realise showing me around your home is obviously distasteful for you, and believe me, I can do without the guided tour.’
Helen was too stunned to answer him, and ignoring her offended expression, he opened the door to their left. ‘A bedroom, right?’ he suggested, glancing about its generous proportions. ‘Very nice. Next?’
Pressing her lips together, Helen showed him all the bedrooms on the first floor, including her own, although she had made sure to put all her belongings away so that nothing should signify that this room was hers more than any of the others. The adjoining bathrooms she left to him, saying only that some of the bedrooms had been made over when the plumbing was modernised.
‘There is a second floor,’ she added stiffly, after he had admired the master suite which was presently unoccupied. ‘We don’t use it, so I expect it may be very dusty, but it’s habitable if one needs more rooms.’
‘I don’t expect to,’ Jarret remarked dryly. ‘I see you have some central heating. I hope it wasn’t installed when the Prince Regent came to visit.’
‘No. It was installed after the second world war——’ began Helen seriously, and then stopped when she realised what he had asked. The fact that he had caught her out so easily was irritating, and she indicated the narrow passage that led to the second floor staircase with evident resentment.
‘Don’t you ever relax?’ Jarret enquired, accompanying her back along the gallery to the first floor landing, and when she didn’t answer this, added: ‘I suppose these lighter patches on the walls are where your—great-great-grandfather’s paintings used to hang, is that right?’ indicating the oblong squares visible between the panelled doors. ‘What happened? Are they in storage, did they fall to pieces—or have they been sold?’
‘I imagine you know the answer to that, Mr Manning,’Helen declared stiffly, disliking his perspicacity. ‘Had we a valuable collection of paintings to sell, we would hardly be selling the house, would we?’
‘Not to a philistine like me, no,’ he agreed solemnly, and she glanced sideways at him, sure that he was mocking her again.
‘Why do you want King’s Green, Mr Manning?’ she demanded, halting at the head of the stairs. ‘It—it’s not your—your scene really, is it? Don’t you want a—a pad nearer town?’
He grinned at this, an outright humorous grin that unexpectedly reacted on her like a blow to the solar plexis. She had reluctantly admitted his attraction before, but she had had no idea how irresistible his smile might be. Now, with the lighter creases beside his eyes deepening to reveal laughter lines, and the thin lips parting over slightly uneven white teeth, he was devastating.
‘Oh, Helen!’ he gulped, and the suppressed amusement in his voice briefly distracted her from the realisation that he had used her name. ‘How would you know what my—scene is? And as for my having a pad—God!’ He shook his head, and adopting a distinctly Bogart-like accent, added: ‘Stick to your own territory, sweetheart!’
Helen felt a second’s overwhelming impulse to giggle, but then common sense came to the rescue, and the awareness of what she was doing here and his part in it sobered her instantly.
‘I don’t know what you mean, Mr Manning,’ she affirmed, with all the contempt she could muster. ‘Shall we go downstairs?’
‘In a minute …’ He, too, had sobered, and as she moved to the head of the stairs his cool fingers closed about her arm. They successfully prevented her from moving away from him, and within their grasp she was conscious of his nearness and the disturbing magnetism his smile had generated. ‘Tell me something,’ he said, his thumb massaging her flesh almost without his being aware of it, ‘what did I do to arouse so much resentment? I didn’t ask to come here. I was invited. I was given the obviously mistaken impression that your mother wanted to sell thehouse, but if she doesn’t then I shan’t lose any sleep over it, Miss Chase.’
Helen held up her head. ‘I—why—my mother does want to sell the house,’ she admitted unwillingly.
‘And you don’t?’
‘It’s not my house to sell.’
‘But if it were?’
Helen moved her shoulders helplessly, avoiding those blue eyes which seemed to have the cutting strength of steel. ‘I—I expect I might have to,’ she conceded, and with an exclamation he let her go.
‘But not to me,’ he inferred coldly, and she turned away from him to descend the stairs without giving him a reply.
Several rooms opened off the hall below. The drawing room, the music room, the dining room, the library—Helen did not know which to choose after their contretemps upstairs, and she waited for him to join her before making a decision. Jarret, however, seemed in no hurry to continue, and she had to wait some minutes while he examined the carving on the balustrade.
‘Grinling——’ began Helen reluctantly, only to have him interrupt her words.
‘—Gibbons. Yes, I know,’ he finished sardonically. ‘Only Gibbons died in 1720, so how do you account for that, if the house wasn’t completed until much later?’
Helen’s face flamed. No one