no sugar, thank you.”
“Tell me about yourself,” he said when he’d served her and sat down. “You said in your letter that you left school at sixteen. No university?”
“It didn’t attract me. I have two sisters and a brother, who all went.”
“But you were the odd one out? I wonder why.” He gave a sudden grin, which illuminated his face, giving it a mocking look that was unexpectedly pleasing. “Black sheep?”
“Yes,” she said impulsively. “I was the naughty child of the family. Everyone said so.”
“So you and David have something in common. Careful! Don’t choke.”
“I’m sorry,” she gasped. “Went down—wrong way.”
He waited until she was calm again. “What was the matter? Did you mind my saying you and David had something in common?”
She flinched from his penetrating eyes, afraid lest they discern just how much in common she had with his son. “Not at all,” she said quickly. “I’m glad of it. I think David needs just the kind of understanding that I can give him. I know how naughtiness grows out of misery.”
“Was your childhood as unhappy as that?”
“It’s no fun being the black sheep.”
“But that’s all in the past. I’m sure your parents are proud of you now.”
There was a long pause before Melanie said, “I’m not in touch with my family anymore—not for some years.”
He waited to see if she would elaborate on this, but she didn’t. He sat considering her for some moments, a frown darkening his face. Then he said abruptly, “I can’t see you properly there. Come over here.”
He rose and went to the big bay window. She followed him and stood in the light while he studied her. She too could see better now. He was in his mid-thirties, with a stern face that seemed made for authority. His mouth surprised her, being well made and mobile, a mouth that many women would have found attractive. It was relaxed now as he looked at her, and both from his mouth and his dark eyes, she gained an impression that this was an unhappy man. But she had no pity for him. He’d contributed too much to her own unhappiness for that.
“Take your hair down,” he commanded.
“What?” She stared at him. “What difference does my hair make?”
“I don’t make pointless requests. Please do as I ask.”
She pulled the pins from her fair hair, letting it tumble in waves around her shoulders, and stared at him defiantly. He laid his hand on it, taking a strand between his fingers, savoring its silkiness. “It’s lovely hair,” he said quietly.
“I don’t see what my physical attributes have to do with anything,” she snapped.
“I think you do. That’s why you pinned your hair back, to hide its beauty. That’s why you don’t wear makeup, because you want to look severe and professional. It doesn’t work. You’ve got a lovely, delicate face, wonderful green eyes and a figure that must keep the men chasing after you.” He said this in a cool, appraising voice that robbed the words of any tinge of flattery. “And you know as well as I do why I can’t possibly employ you.”
Her heart thundered. She recovered herself enough to say, “But I don’t know.”
“David needs stability. He needs a woman who’ll stay with him through thick and thin. I had in mind somebody middle-aged, a widow or divorcée, perhaps with grown-up children, even grandchildren. You’re a young, beautiful woman, which means you won’t stay long.”
“It doesn’t mean that at all—”
“Oh, come! At your age the natural sequence of events is to fall in love and get married. I don’t want you vanishing in a few months, just when he’s learned to trust you.”
“There’s no question of that,” Melanie said desperately.
“No question?” he echoed, with a satirical look that made her want to scream at him.
“No question whatever,” she said, trying to speak calmly.
“You don’t mean to tell me that there isn’t a man in your life this minute?”
“There isn’t.”
“I don’t believe you. The very gifts that nature gave you are an incitement. They don’t affect me because I’m armored, but other men aren’t. They must be around you like flies around a honey pot.”
“Possibly,” Melanie said, fighting to keep her temper. “But they don’t get invited in. Any of them. Like you, Mr. Haverill, I’m armored.”
“Oh, I see,” he said grimly. “It’s like that, is it?”
“I beg your pardon.”
“When a woman renounces love it usually means she’s suffering from a broken heart. Who is he? Is he going to come back and sweep you off?”
Melanie’s eyes glinted with anger. “Mr. Haverill, this really isn’t any of your business, but—”
“Everything is my business that I choose to make so.”
“But the only time I imagined myself in love was nine years ago. And it’ll be the last. You can count on it.”
There was a long silence. She guessed he wasn’t used to being answered back. Oh, God! she thought, don’t let him refuse!
At last he said, “I’ll have to take your word for that. I want someone who can make David feel safe and loved. Are you the woman who can do that?”
“Yes,” she said, looking at him steadily. “I can do that as nobody else can.”
He was startled by the intensity in her voice. Again he knew the inner prompting to get rid of her. She was dangerous. But he dismissed the notion as fanciful. “In that case,” he said, “let’s go and find him.”
He led her out into the hall, toward the wide staircase.
Careful, she thought. Don’t let Giles Haverill suspect that you’ve been in this house before, that you know your way up these very stairs—the right turn at the top toward the room at the end—it’s the same room, and the door’s shut against you as it was before…
A middle-aged woman in an apron was standing outside the closed door, arguing with someone inside. She looked up as they appeared. “I’m sorry, Mr. Haverill. David’s locked himself in his room again.”
He knocked hard on the door and called, “David, come out here at once. You know I won’t stand for this behavior.”
Melanie bit her lip. She wanted to cry out, “Don’t bully him. He’s only a hurt, confused child.” But she said nothing.
“David.”
Slowly
