THEY DINED AT a table in the window and as the restaurant overlooked the quay, they had a splendid view of the liner berthing for the night and its passengers streaming ashore. The little town was lighted now, although the mountains beyond the fjord still had their snow-capped summits gilded with the very last of the sun. It was a little paradise, thought Becky, sipping her sherry and staring out at it all. She turned when the Baron spoke; he was sitting opposite her, his elbows resting on the table, his hands clasped before him. He had nice hands, large and well-shaped and with well-kept nails; they looked, she decided, very dependable.
‘Daydreaming?’ he asked idly, and she went a little pink because she must have seemed rude, ignoring her companions.
‘No, just a bit overcome with the scenery.’
He nodded. ‘We’ll go across to Hjertoya beach tomorrow—it’s on that island straight ahead. You swim?’
She nodded. ‘But I haven’t got a swimsuit.’
‘And I want a bathing cap,’ declared Tialda. ‘We’ll go out early, Becky, and get them.’ She picked up the menu. ‘What shall we eat?’
The food was mouthwatering; Becky settled for crabmeat cocktail, chilled strawberry soup, Virginia ham with rum and raisin sauce with a salad on the side because the Baron assured her that that was essential to her good health, and by way of afters blueberry pie with whipped cream. She and Tialda drank a delicious white wine, but the Baron took red wine with his tenderloin steak and brandy with his coffee. They went for a stroll afterwards; just along the main street, past the modern town hall and the whitewashed church above it.
‘We’ll go in there tomorrow,’ promised the Baron. ‘It was rebuilt after the Germans destroyed it during the war—it’s beautiful.’
Becky wandered along in a pleasant dream. It was cool and she hadn’t got a jacket with her because she hadn’t got one; and who would dream of wearing a navy blue cardigan with the flowered shirt and the lacy blouse? And when the Baron wanted to know if she were warm enough she was quite emphatic about saying that she was, and if his mouth twitched a little at seeing her little shivers, she didn’t see it.
They took a water taxi across the fjord to the bathing beach the next morning, and Becky had never been so happy. She was a good swimmer and the water was surprisingly warm. She forgot that her swimsuit was a cheap one-piece, its complete lack of glamour highlighted by Tialda’s expensive beach outfit, she forgot that her future was precarious to say the least, she even forgot the amused glance the Baron had flung at her as she had waded into the water and struck out into the calm blue waters of the fjord; just for the present, life was everything she could wish for. She tired presently and turned on to her back to rest, and found the Baron idling alongside her. ‘Who taught you to swim?’ he wanted to know.
‘My father.’ She remembered the look of amusement and turned over and began to swim back to the beach. ‘I’ll go and keep Tialda company,’ she called as she passed him. But she couldn’t escape him; he kept beside her without difficulty, so that they arrived at the beach together to find Tialda half asleep in the sun. ‘Oh, good,’ she greeted them, ‘you’re back—I’m dying for something long and cool to drink. Tiele, be a darling and find something,’ and when he had gone: ‘There’s a café half way up the beach. Becky, what a wonderful swimmer you are.’ She chuckled. ‘You’ve surprised Tiele—I expect he thought you could only paddle like me.’ She rolled over and smiled at Becky who had dropped on to the sand beside her. ‘Gosh, I’m hungry! I hope Tiele buys something to eat as well.’
He had; they drank lemonade and munched delicious outsize buns, thick with currants and then had one more swim before taking the taxi back again for lunch. And in the afternoon they strolled through the town to the church, where Becky wandered off by herself to enjoy its whitewashed walls and small vivid stained glass windows and the big colourful cross behind the simple altar—quite different from the cathedral at Trondheim but in its way just as magnificent. She found the others outside presently, sitting on the wall of the terrace overlooking the town and the fjord with the mountains beyond. There were roses everywhere and their scent filled the still warm air, and Becky, sniffing appreciatively, said: ‘Oh, I’d like to come back here—I always imagined Norway to be cold and grey, and it’s not at all…’
‘It is in the winter, although this is one of the warmer spots, that’s why the roses are so abundant— Molde is called the Town of the Roses, did you know that? Becky, do you want to do any shopping? Tialda wants some hand-painted woodwork, supposing we go and look for it now?’
And so the day passed pleasantly enough, and the day after it, and Becky made the most of every minute of them. Right at the back of her mind was the unhappy thought that the Baron was a little bored by it all; he was charming and thoughtful and patient, but every now and then she caught that faint look of amusement on his face when he looked at her. She was annoyed by it but sad too; she could just imagine what he thought of her: a dowdy girl who wore cheap clothes and didn’t know how to make the best of herself—and she wasn’t really like that, but after two years of no money, no make-up and nothing new to wear it was difficult to splash out, for always at the back of her mind was the fear that it wouldn’t last; that she would find herself with no job and no money again, and he was so secure himself that he would never have known the insecurity that not having money brought with it.
They went back on the fourth day after a last lunch overlooking the quay and the lovely fjord, the boot filled with painted wooden knick-knacks which Tialda had taken a fancy to, and a great armful of roses which the Baron had bought just to prove, he pointed out, that they had been to Molde. And Becky had bought something too; a delicate glass vase to hold one rose; it had been expensive but she hadn’t been able to find anything else, and besides, the Baroness seemed to have everything she could possibly want.
She found herself in the front seat beside the Baron when they left, to be entertained by him with a gently amusing conversation for the entire journey, and when, at the end of it, she tried to thank him for her holiday he just as gently ignored her, so that after one or two attempts she gave up, sensing his faint impatience with her.
‘I’m glad you enjoyed it,’ he observed carelessly. ‘And now you face the herculean task of getting my mother organised to leave the day after tomorrow.’
Which somehow reduced her to the status of a wage-earner in his household. Which, after all, she was.
Indeed, she was kept so busy upon her return that she hardly saw him or Tialda during the next day. The Baron had friends to visit in Trondheim and took Tialda with him, and as he was out for dinner on the following day and was so late for lunch that she had it alone, by reason of Doctor Iversen’s visit, she saw him only briefly. But they met unexpectedly only a few hours before they were to leave; the Baroness had told Becky to have an hour or two off while she enjoyed a last gossip with her sister, and Becky had seized the opportunity to go to the cathedral just once more. And there, standing quietly in a corner admiring its sombre magnificence, she had been joined by the Baron. He said nothing at all, only nodded, faintly smiling, and after an awkward moment or two she had given an abrupt nod in answer and walked away. But he had been at the door when she reached it and together they crossed the flagstones and went through the gate which led to the front of the cathedral.
‘I hardly expected to find you here,’ remarked the Baron.
It seemed that he intended to walk back with her. ‘Why not?’
‘I should have imagined that a last round of the shops would have been more to your liking.’
‘Why?’
He stopped to look at her in surprise. ‘Well, girls like shopping, don’t they? Don’t you?’
‘I love it,’ declared Becky promptly, ‘but I can see shops in any town, but I can’t see Trondheim Cathedral anywhere but here.’ She walked on briskly, annoyed with herself because she had sounded like a prig and annoyed with her companion for not saying another word until they reached the house, when all he said was: ‘We leave directly after lunch, so will you do the last-minute chores now? Someone will be up for the luggage in about ten minutes.’
She had whisked upstairs and in the teeth of the Baroness’s complaints that she hadn’t finished with her jewel case, beauty box, a selection of hats—one of which she still had to decide upon—and several pairs of shoes, she did as her employer had asked and then changed into uniform, rammed her hair under her cap in a very severe fashion, and trod downstairs to search for the handbag the Baroness had left somewhere but couldn’t remember where, and when she met the Baron in the hall she gave him such a stern look that he opened his eyes very wide indeed. Tialda had seen the look as she came out of the sitting room and when Becky had gone back upstairs she slipped a hand into her brother’s arm, grinning up at him.
‘What does it feel like?’ she wanted to know. ‘You’re—how old? thirty-eight—and ever since I can remember girls have fallen over themselves to get you interested. You’ve never bothered with any of them—well, not many, anyway, and here’s Becky…’
‘I’m not interested in Becky either, Tialda.’ The Baron’s voice was soft and very gentle and his sister said hastily:
‘I didn’t say you were, so don’t come the big brother over me.’ She giggled: ‘All the same, she’ll make some man a very good wife one day; he’ll have to put his slippers on in the house and exercise the dog and bring her tea in bed—oh, and of course she’ll have children, very well behaved ones.’
The Baron frowned faintly, but his voice was light. ‘Which is more than we can expect from your brats; you were a most unpleasant little girl.’
She beamed up at him. ‘Wasn’t I? But I’m nice now.’ She reached up and gave him a sisterly peck on the cheek. ‘There are an awful lot of nice girls around,’ she wheedled. ‘Surely there’s one you fancy?’
‘I fancy any number,’ he told her blandly, ‘but not to marry. Besides, I’ve no time for a wife—there is so much work…’
‘Pooh! You find time to take Nina van Doorn out—she only has to pout at you and roll those eyes. It would save a lot of time and trouble if you married her…’
‘Would you like that, Tialda?’
‘No—I can’t stand the girl, but that’s natural, she outshines the lot of us with all that gorgeous hair, we none of us stand a chance. I wonder how Becky will feel when she sees her…’
‘Why Becky?’
‘I don’t suppose you’ve looked at her long enough to see that she’s plain—nice eyes, but her face is too thin and pale, and she drags all that hair back… Oh, well, I must go and throw the last few things in, I suppose.’
Tialda wandered off, leaving her brother staring at nothing and frowning again.
It said much for the Baron’s powers of persuasion that the party left exactly at the time he had suggested. His mother, never very punctual and used to having her own way, had thought of a dozen things which had to be done at the last minute; friends she wanted to say goodbye to once more, even a letter to write, to all of which her son had a suitable answer, so that the Rolls, with Becky and her patient in the back, the luggage safely stowed and he driving with Tialda beside him, took the road south in the early afternoon sunshine.
Because of the Baroness’s leg, still in plaster, and her dislike of long car journeys, they travelled only as far as Otta, about a hundred and fifty miles away, and here they put up for the night. The Baroness was inclined to be demanding in a charming way and already declaring that she ached all over, was giddy from looking at so many mountains and convinced that she would be unable to go on the next morning. Becky soothed her in a motherly fashion, put her to bed and saw to it that she had her dinner brought to her there, and then, because she was still a little querulous, suggested a game of cribbage. They were deeply immersed in this when the Baron and Tialda came to enquire why Becky hadn’t gone down to dinner and it seemed sensible to relinquish her chair to the Baron and go with Tialda, who declared that she was quite able to eat her dinner for a second time if Becky wanted company.
And all the Baroness’s discomforts had disappeared by morning. The Baron waited patiently while Becky helped her patient to ready herself for the day, stowed her into the car carefully, and set off once more. They had the whole day before them, which was a good thing since they had a great distance to go; Kristiansand was some three hundred and eighty miles distant and the roads, although good, were in many parts mountainous, but as the Baron pointed out, he had done the trip several times, he knew the road and provided they stopped frequently for his mother’s benefit, he saw nothing out of the way in attempting such a long trip in country where half that distance was considered a fair day’s driving. And he was right; there was little traffic as it was early for the tourists and the Baroness, kept amused by Becky, felt no discomfort. They stopped in Drammen for lunch and Brunkeberg for tea, and arrived at Kristiansand in good time to rest before a late dinner. And the following morning there was no hurry; they were to go on the midday ferry to Hirtshals, drive the hundred and fifty odd miles to Vejle and go on again in the morning.
Another three hundred and fifty miles; Becky doing sums on the back of an envelope was staggered at the amount of ground they were covering. Normally, she supposed that they would have all been bone-weary by now, but they stopped frequently and had nothing to do each evening but have their dinner and go to bed, although it wasn’t quite as easy for her as all that, because her patient needed a good deal of attention at the end of the day and exercises had to be done, however unwilling the Baroness was to do them. But the Baron showed no signs of tiredness. He drove superbly and nothing appeared to disturb his calm. The journey had been well organised before they set out and he knew exactly when and where to stop, and although he took it for granted that Becky would have her hands full he was careful of her comfort. She wouldn’t have missed their journey for all the tea in China. She was sorry that it was almost over and her job with it, as the Baroness was making steady progress; within a week of their return she would have the plaster off and exchange her crutches for a stick and then, Becky supposed, she wouldn’t be needed any more.
That the Baron would find her a job she never doubted, but working in hospital might not be as pleasant as living in the lap of luxury with the Baroness. She consoled herself with the thought that she would have Bertie and Pooch again and it would be fun making a home for the three of them. She had no reason to complain, she told herself firmly, and concentrated upon seeing as much of Denmark as possible as they drove down from the ferry. It was entirely different from Norway and as on parts of the road at least there was no speed limit, she managed to get only brief glimpses of the country, but in the towns and villages where the Baron had to slow down, she had ample chance to look around her. Everything was very neat and clean and she admired the rolling farmland with beech woods and pine plantations dotted here and there, and she was charmed with Vejle although she saw very little of it. The Baroness was tired and cross and it took Becky a long time and a good deal of her patience to settle the little lady for the night. But she was her charming self in the morning, eager to start, for as she pointed out to Becky: ‘We shall be home this evening, my dear. I know it’s quite a journey, but Tiele has promised that I shall eat dinner under his roof tonight.’
‘Isn’t it your roof too?’ asked Becky.
‘No—I lived there while my husband was alive, but now I live in our town house in Leeuwarden— quite close, you know. But Tiele wishes me to spend the night at Huis Raukema.’
So they set off once more on the last lap of the journey; another three hundred and sixty miles, six hours’ travelling, the Baron assured them, and frequent stops. ‘For we have all day to kill,’ he pointed out. ‘It’s not yet eleven o’clock and I told Willem to expect us in time for dinner.’ He looked at Becky. ‘Someone should have warned you that I enjoy driving. On my own I should have travelled much faster…’
‘I am enjoying the journey very much,’ Becky told him sedately.
It was exciting to cross into Germany and then later, into Holland at last. The country looked rather like Denmark although the farms were larger with enormous barns at their backs and great herds of cows grazing in the flat water meadows. They bypassed Groningen and once clear of the city took a country road running north, side by side with a wide canal, but after a while the Baron turned off to the west, cutting across the flat countryside until they reached another canal bordered by trees. It was a peaceful landscape with small villages, each with its church dominating it and dykes encircling the lowlying land. Leeuwarden lay somewhere ahead, Becky supposed, but there was no sign of it at present. Perhaps this was a short cut…
The Baron, who had been travelling fast along a familiar road, slowed the car presently and Becky, watching the canal slip past them, exclaimed with delight when she saw the narrow arm of water leading from it. It was lined with trees too and as well as that there were cottages along the water’s edge, half hidden from the road and in the distance a church. ‘Oh, that’s really very pretty,’ declared Becky to no one in particular.
‘You like it? That’s where we’re going,’ said the Baron. He kept on driving though and it was a minute or two before he turned into a narrow lane which led off the road towards the canal and the village on the other side of the water. They had to cross a bridge to reach it, a quaint affair which opened for boats and barges to pass; Becky was still looking back at it as they reached the first few cottages.
The village was small, peaceful and pretty, its church large enough to accommodate ten times the number of its inhabitants. The road wound past it and into a small wood fenced in, and after a minute or two the Baron turned the car for the last time into a sanded drive between thick shrubs and trees. ‘Home,’ said the Baroness softly.
Home, decided Becky, peering in front of her, was a place of splendour, standing proudly at the end of the drive; a large square house backed by a semi-circle of trees—one of every species, she thought flippantly, gazing at their variety and lowering her gaze to take in the velvet lawns and the flower beds blazing with colour. The drive ended in a sweep and the Baron brought the Rolls to a gentle stop before the shallow steps leading to a massive porch and double doors, already opening. Becky got out, bent on making herself useful, and while Tialda ran excitedly up the steps she gathered the Baroness’s bits and pieces and followed the Baron at a more sober pace. There was an elderly man at the door, but beyond a brief reply to his greeting, the Baron with his mother in his arms didn’t pause on his way. He crossed the lofty wide hall, with Willem ahead of him to open one of the many doors leading from it, and strode through it with Becky on his heels, very wishful to stop and look around her but not daring to. Just inside the door he paused for a second, which did give her a chance to see that the room was large, beautifully furnished and despite that contrived to look cosy, but when she heard him speak she brought her gaze back to the broad shoulders in front of her.
‘Nina!’ said the Baron in a voice she hadn’t heard before. ‘I didn’t expect you to be here.’
Becky heard a trill of laughter and skipped a couple of steps to one side so that she could see round the massive back before her. In the centre of the room stood a girl—a beautiful creature with golden hair brushed into the fashionable untidy mop, and exquisite features. She was wearing a dress of some soft material in palest blue with a full skirt and a tiny bodice which showed off her slenderness to perfection and she was smiling confidently across the room at the Baron.
‘Is it a lovely surprise?’ she wanted to know, quite sure that it was, and waited while he made his mother comfortable in one of the straight-backed armchairs by the open french window before crossing the room and lifting her face to his. Becky looked away as he bent his head to kiss her and wished that she wasn’t there. This couldn’t be his wife; he had never mentioned one—his fiancée, then…
‘Nina,’ said the Baron formally, ‘this is Miss Rebecca Saunders who is looking after Mama. Becky, Juffrouw Nina van Doorn.’
The girl murmured something in her own language and Becky’s face went wooden because she guessed it was something about her, but then Juffrouw van Doorn smiled and said How do you do so pleasantly that she decided that she had been mistaken, but she had no opportunity to think about this as the Baron went on smoothly: ‘Becky, will you go upstairs and make sure that my mother’s room is quite ready for her? You’ll find someone in the hall to take you up—I’ll bring the Baroness up in ten minutes. She should have supper in bed, I think.’
Becky was only too glad to escape. Somehow it wasn’t quite what she had expected, but of course after the carefree weeks with the Baroness, she had rather forgotten her position in the household. And she had wanted to go at once to see Bertie and Pooch. She swallowed disappointment and went out of the room to where a nice-faced middle-aged woman was waiting.
‘Sutske,’ she said, and smiled, and Becky put out a hand.
‘I’m the nurse,’ she said, hopeful that she would be understood.
‘Zuster Saunders,’ nodded the housekeeper cheerfully, and beckoned her to follow.
The staircase was at the back of the hall, its graceful wings branching left and right to the gallery above. Sutske didn’t hurry and Becky had time to look about her as they went, her head over one shoulder as they climbed. The hall was square, its crimson wall hangings divided by white-painted wall pillars picked out with gold, a circular window in the roof high above her head lighted it and the polished wood floor was spread with thin silk rugs. It looked very grand, and the gallery when they reached it was just as grand; the walls were all white here and in place of rugs there was a thick crimson carpet. Becky paused a second to look down into the hall before following the housekeeper to one end of the gallery where that lady opened a door and ushered her inside. This was to be the Baroness’s room, then, a vast apartment with windows on two walls, a canopied bed, a number of very comfortable chairs, a marquetry tallboy and a graceful sofa table under one of the windows with a triple mirror upon it.
Left alone, Becky, in a panic that the Baroness would arrive before she was ready for her, turned back the bed, plumped up the pillows and went to see what was behind the three doors in the room. A bathroom, splendidly appointed in the same soft pinks and blues as the curtains and coverlet, an enormous clothes closet, in which she saw that the Baroness’s things for the night were already disposed, and the last door, leading into a small lobby with another open door at its end. Another bedroom which would be hers, she surmised, much smaller but every bit as charming. She didn’t waste time exploring further, but went to put out soap and sponge, her patient’s night things, and lay her brushes and combs on the dressing table. And just in time, for the door was thrust open and the Baron walked in, carrying his mother.
He didn’t speak to Becky, only nodded vaguely before he went again, and his mother said dryly: ‘Now he can go back to Nina…’ She stopped and went on in quite a different voice: ‘Dear Becky, you have everything ready—I’m a little tired. Tiele says something on a tray—he told Sutske to send it up in about an hour.’
Perhaps Becky was more tired than she knew, but the hour seemed very long, and indeed by the time the Baroness was sitting up in bed with a dainty supper on the bed table before her, she was as worn out as her patient and a good deal more hungry, and over and above that was the urge to go in search of Bertie and Pooch. No one had mentioned them yet, and with the beautiful Nina downstairs it was hardly likely that the Baron would remember them. After what seemed an age the Baroness was settled for the night and Becky, leaving one small lamp alight, went softly from the room with the tray.
It was very late, possibly everyone had gone to bed and although Tialda had been in to say goodnight some time ago, declaring that she was going to bed too and reminding Becky that there would be some supper for her downstairs, Becky had not the least idea where to go for it. If she found the kitchen there might be coffee, though, and at the same time she would have a quick look for Bertie and Pooch…perhaps it wasn’t quite the thing to prowl around the house in that fashion, but she felt that she had excuse enough; besides, she wasn’t likely to meet anyone.
She met the Baron; he was coming in through the front door as she gained the last stair and since she could hear the whine of a receding car, she concluded that his visitor had just left. He frowned when he saw her and said: ‘Good lord, are you still up?’
It would hardly be her ghost and she was tempted to say so. ‘Yes,’ she told him briefly, and made for the back of the hall where she had noticed a baize door.
‘You don’t have to carry trays in this house.’ The Baron’s voice had an edge to it.
‘There’s no one about,’ she pointed out matter-offactly.
‘Then I’ll ring for someone…’
Becky quite forgot who he was. ‘Indeed you won’t,’ she told him roundly. ‘Getting people out of their beds at this hour—do you know how late it is?’
He didn’t need to answer, for the great Friesian wall clock creaked into life and chimed midnight in a mellow old voice. ‘You’ve had supper?’ he asked carelessly as he turned away. ‘No.’
He was beside her then, taking the tray from her. ‘My dear girl, what a thoughtless man I am!’ ‘No, not really—Tialda came and told me that there would be supper downstairs for me; your mother was very tired—too tired to settle easily. She’s asleep now.’
He stood looking down at her, the tray balanced on one hand. ‘I’m afraid I have neglected you all. We will go to the kitchens now and see what we can find.’
Becky was suddenly cross as well as tired, nothing had been quite what she expected; the grandeur of the house and she had thought that at least someone would have mentioned Bertie and Pooch. ‘Thank you,’ she said snappily, ‘I shall do very well—I’m not in the least hungry,’ which was a lie, ‘but I should like to know if Bertie and Pooch are all right, Baron.’
‘Oh, God—that too! Forgive me, Becky. Of course they’re all right—I’ll take you to them now.’
He put a hand on her back and swept her along and through the baize door, down some steps and into a large kitchen, equipped to the last skewer and still somehow looking delightfully old-fashioned. There was an Aga stove along one wall and on the rug before it were Bertie, Pooch and a Great Dane. All three animals turned round, half asleep, and then bounded to their feet and rushed across the kitchen, the Great Dane to hurl herself at the Baron, Bertie and Pooch to cover Becky with joyful licks, pushing and shoving her in their efforts to greet her properly after such a long time. She sank on to the floor and let them have their way while the tears ran down her cheeks. They hadn’t forgotten her, and very soon they could set up house somewhere and she wouldn’t have to leave them again. She forgot her companion completely, but presently he bent down, plucked her to her feet, ignoring the tears and remarked cheerfully: ‘There’s coffee—it’s always on the stove in case I have to go out at night—and I’ve found some rolls and butter and cheese and there’s a salad in the fridge.’
He sat her down at the scrubbed wooden table in the middle of the kitchen and poured coffee for them both while the Great Dane trod quietly at his heels.
Becky drank some of the coffee, wiped her eyes and found her voice. ‘Thank you very much, Baron, for taking such good care of them.’ And at his noncommittal grunt: ‘What do you call your dog?’
‘Lola.’
‘Why do you call her that?’
‘What Lola wants, Lola gets,’ quoted the Baron. ‘She rules this place with a rod of iron, although she’s as gentle as a lamb. Your two get on very well with her.’ He buttered a roll and put some salad on a plate. ‘And now eat your supper—such as it is.’
Becky ate, with Pooch on her lap and Bertie sitting as close to her as he could get, the Baron plying her with food and coffee while he carried on a conversation which really needed no reply from her, which gave her time to resume her usual composed manner. But presently she had had enough and began to pile the supper things tidily.
‘Oh, leave that,’ he spoke impatiently, ‘someone will see to it in the morning.’
Becky went on collecting plates and cups and saucers. ‘My stepmother and Basil did that—left things for the morning. You have no idea how beastly it is to come downstairs and find a lot of dirty crockery to wash up.’
‘No, I haven’t, and I can assure you that there are sufficient staff in my household to find the task bearable—and may I remind you, Becky, that this is my house and I do exactly what I wish in it, and I expect its other occupants to do as I ask.’
His self-assurance was a little daunting. She said uncertainly: ‘Oh, you do?’ and beyond gently laying the china in her hands on the tray, she stopped what she was doing. There was no point in annoying him; she seemed to do that easily enough anyway. She got up, wished Bertie and Pooch goodnight and directed them back to their rug, and went to the door where she turned to say: ‘Goodnight, Baron.’
‘Why do you persist in calling me Baron?’ he asked testily.
‘Well, you are,’ she said reasonably. ‘Thank you for my supper and for taking such good care of Bertie and Pooch.’
He had been sitting at the table but he reached the door at the same time as she did. ‘Tiele, perhaps?’ he asked persuasively.
‘Certainly not—you’re my employer, and it wouldn’t be right.’
He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Please yourself.’
He bent his head suddenly and kissed her as she passed him.