Night again, and the moon a mere rag among hurrying clouds. Alone in the dark little room, Christina jumped up suddenly, alerted by a sound below. Merely the clink of metal on stone—a simple little domestic sound, but it must mean that the moment of crisis had come. The gang were here, digging up their second load of smuggled goods.
Was Tissot with them? If he was, she might as well say her prayers; he could not afford to let her survive. If he was not, she had a chance, a slender one, if she could only convince them as she thought she had Pete. Well, at least it would not be long. She felt along the window ledge for the broken-toothed comb Madge had lent her, and tidied her hair as best she might. The look of a lady and an air of command might help her—if she was not already beyond help.
Time ebbed by. Presently there was a commotion in the yard below. The train of borrowed pack animals must be getting under way. Many a marshland farmer would wake tomorrow morning to find one of his horses missing—and the next day find it back, with an offering of brandy or tea as pay for its use. Would she wake tomorrow morning?
Could they have forgotten all about her? There were unmistakable noises now of the convoy getting started. Or—was M. Tissot waiting, so that the smallest number of men would witness her murder, before he disposed of her? Now—now there was a noise on the stairs, the key turned heavily in the lock, Pete stood outside, lantern in hand. “Come,” he said, “we want to talk to you.”
“And about time too.” Behave as if nothing was the matter. Sweep past him and walk downstairs, head high, as if he was bound to stand back for her.
He did. She led the way, pushed open the door at the foot of the little stairs and found three masked men waiting in the main room of the house. Her heart leapt. Surely the masks spelt hope? And at least from their build she was sure that none of them was Tissot. Having observed this, she moved forward with apparent calm into the room. It looked unwontedly comfortable, with a fire blazing on the hearth, tallow dips in bottles casting a comparatively good light, food and a squat bottle on the makeshift table. A quick glance at the three men showed them flushed under their masks, but probably not drunk—yet.
She moved over to the room’s one passable chair and sat down. No sign of Madge. Doubtless she had been shut in with the children when the gang arrived. “Well?” she said.
“These are my friends.” Pete had closed the door of the stair behind him and put down his lantern. “They want to hear what you have to say—about him.”
“The Frenchman? Gladly.” She told it over again in full, calm detail. At last, she spoke directly to the tall mask she had recognized as the leader among them. “I’m a Tretteign. I know my friends. I’ve promised Madge”—here a glance for Pete—“I’ve promised her an inn on one of the roads into town. If we can all forget what has happened, I think I can offer you something still better.”
“Prove it.” This was, comparatively speaking, an educated man, and her task so much the easier.
“You’re all patriotic Englishmen, I know. That’s why I’ve told you about M. Tissot, about what you have unwittingly got yourselves into. Well—don’t you see, here’s your chance of free pardons for anything you may have done …” Leave it as vague as possible, pretend to know nothing of the loaded beasts that were now making their darkling way across the marsh. “The whole country is invasion mad—and with cause. Catch M. Tissot—a known French agent, hand him over to the authorities as publicly as possible—you’ll be the heroes of the hour—everything else forgotten. Would you be glad of a chance to turn”—what word to use? Well—chance it—“respectable?”
At least, she had made them think. They were conferring together now in voices so low that she could hear nothing, try as she would. But—she heard something else that they missed in their preoccupation. Someone was moving about, very stealthily, outside. M. Tissot himself? Madge, perhaps, or one of the gang on some nefarious purpose of his own? Or—Ross, come to look for her? Against all reason she believed this. Useless to tell herself that Ross was in France, very likely dead or in prison.… Something in her was perfectly sure that he was outside that window now, a darker shade in the darkness, looking in.
Suppose she was wrong. Suppose it was Tissot who would fling open the door any minute now. She clenched her teeth. Get it wrong and she was as good as dead. But her mind had made itself up. Resolutely, she looked away from the window, with its telltale flicker of movement, lest her eyes should draw someone else’s to it.
The conference in the corner was growing more heated. Voices rose. “Too dangerous,” said one. “She knows me,” growled Pete. So much for Madge’s little inn on the London road. They were advancing on her now; she rose to her feet to meet them.
“I’m sorry.” The one who acted the leader sounded as if he might even mean it “You must see that you know too much.”
“Nothing I can’t forget” Play it out to the last moment, keep their attention on her and believe … believe with all her heart that Ross was outside, waiting the moment to burst in. No hope, judging by the slow, reluctant advance upon her, but in him.
“An accident,” said the leader. “One of the gravel pits. So—handle her carefully.” Again that note of regret, almost of apology. “We’ll make it quick.” They were all around her now, and she could smell fatigue and fear, sour from their bodies. One of them caught her hands and twisted them expertly behind her back. “Drowning,” said the leader. “A bucketful of water. Quick.”
If she could only see their eyes. Something inhuman about these masked faces made appealing to them doubly hard. “It’s all true, what I’ve told you.” She kept her voice steady. “Word of a Tretteign. I’m giving you the chance of your lives. You’re fools if you let it slip.”
‘Then—we’re fools.” It was final. “Quick, you.”
Movement behind her. The bucket of water? With a sudden wrench she pulled free of the hands that held her, stood clear and stared them down with huge, contemptuous eyes. “Fools!” She spat it at them. “And murderers. Who shall have the privilege of drowning me? I’ll not make it easy for you, I promise. I’ll make it something you’ll remember as long as you live. We Tretteigns walk, you know. One of us haunts the Dark House already. I shall walk always beside you, reminding you of the chance I gave you, that you had not the wits to take. Your hands will tremble, you’ll remember me and miss your aim when you most need to be steady. Then you’ll know I am there, with the curse of the Tretteigns upon you.”
“Damn you.” For a moment, she had shaken them, but she had also made them angry enough to kill. She could see it in the way they moved forward.
Glass crashed behind her. “Very still, all of you.” Ross’s voice. “I’ll shoot the first man who moves. Quick, Chris, here to me.”
She was there already, where he leaned in through the window that was too small for him to pass. “Take the pistol from my belt. Steady now.” He had felt her tremble, but could not know that it was less from fear than from the electric shock of his touch. “Don’t get between me and them. I thought you’d never give me a clear line of fire. That’s it.” She had done as he told her. “Now, you cover those two.”
“Yes.” She had the gun cocked and ready in a hand as firm as his own.
“My cousin’s as good a shot as I am.” His voice controlled a little ripple of movement in the room. “I’d go on keeping still, if I were you.”
“That’s all very fine.” The leader was standing rigid where Ross’s voice had halted him. “But you know you can’t get her out of here.”
It was all too evidently true. To get to the door, Christina would have to move between Ross and the smugglers. They would have her instantly as a hostage.
“No,” Ross said cheerfully. “It’s too bad, isn’t it? I can really see no alternative to shooting the lot of you. Unless, perhap, you can suggest one? I find myself less cold-blooded than you. I don’t mind letting you live, if you can show me how I can safely do so.”
“Be damned to you!” As the leader sprang forward, Christina shot him in the leg.
“Admirable.” Not a tone’s difference in Ross’s voice. “I’ll cover the rest of them, Chris, while you reload. And now, my friends, I hope you see that we mean what we say. There are only three of you now, to all intents and purposes. Do you want to go on till there is only one?”
“Let them go, I say.” This was Pete. “You wouldn’t really hurt us, Mr, Ross? I never wanted to harm her, I promise I didn’t.”
“No? You just went with the crowd?” His voice was deadly. “Then you can go with the crowd now.” He was taking aim.
“No, Ross, wait.” Christina kept her steady aim fixed on the man who had fallen to her share. “His wife’s been good to me. I’d like to spare him, if you think we can.”
“Do you hear her?” Ross spoke directly to Pete. “You were fetching a bucket of water to drown her, like a sick kitten, and she would like to spare you. Well—will you make it possible for us?”
“God, yes. What must I do?”
“Tie up your friends. Then we can talk.” And, when Pete hesitated for a moment. “Or be shot, all of you, as your leader has. He looks as if he could do with some help, by the way. He’s bleeding fast If you care.”
“I care about myself.” Pete again.
“Good. Then move forward, take the rope that lies so conveniently ready on the table—for you, I suppose, Chris?—and tie them carefully. Very carefully. Remember, we are watching.”
The others swore at Pete horribly as he went to work, and Chris, watching, thought that poor Madge would need to go farther than London if she was to be safe in her little inn. “Don’t worry, Pete,” she said. “You shall go to America, you and your family. You’ll not regret this day’s work, I promise.”
Beside her, Ross laughed. “You’re incorrigible, Chris. Think about yourself, for a change. As for these curs, I like your plan for them best”
“Mine?”
“I’ve been listening for some time, waiting my chance. You’re right, of course. They’re fools, and murderous ones, but they’re marshmen, for all that. And—chris—I got them into this—it’s my duty to get them out.”
“Duty of a Tretteign?” She could not keep the smile out of her voice.
“Yes, if you like. Ah, that’s better.” The two remaining masked men were now securely tied, while their leader lay on the floor, blood pouring from the wound in his leg. “Now, you”—to Pete—“sit down on that chair, your hands on the table, and listen as if your life depended on it. Which it does.”
“Yes, sir.” But his eyes kept flickering toward where Ross still leaned in at the window, as if they expected something.
“Ross! He’s watching for someone.” And then, to Pete. “You sent for M. Tissot?”
“He did.” Pete glanced toward the wounded man.
“He may be quite near,” Christina said. “And—not alone.”
“Quite so. And very convenient—for us. Keep him covered, Chris, I’m coming in.”
Absurd to feel so bereft when the comforting warmth of his shoulder moved away from beside her. But she held her gun steady on Pete, keeping an eye at the same time on the wounded leader. “Don’t move.” She had seen him gather himself together. “I mean it.” A crash in the next room told her that Ross had burst in a window. Now he opened the door and came to stand beside her.
“So Tissot’s coming here. Very well, now’s the time to make up your minds.” He spoke to the three men impartially, ignoring their wounded leader on the floor. “Which side are you on? French or English?”
“He’s really one of their’s?” Pete was now the spokesman.
“Yes. You should have believed Miss Tretton. I can give you no better proof than she did, but I advise you to accept it. And—time’s running out. Do I tie you up too?”
“No, dammit. I’ll believe you, Mr. Ross. What do we do?”
“How soon will he be here?”
“Any moment now.”
“And how many?”
“Only two others.”
“Good. In that case I think we’ll need no help from our friends here. Help me get them out of sight, will you?” And, when they had been stowed, protesting, in the dark and noisome scullery, “Now, Chris, you’re a prisoner, remember. Sitting at the table, very despondent, with Pete guarding you. The pistol under the table where it won’t show but ready cocked. Pete, you’ll stand by to let them in and tie them up as I disarm them. And, one more thing, I promise you, word of a Tretteign, if you betray me, I’ll kill you.”
“He won’t,” said Christina. “His wife and children are upstairs. Are they safely locked in, by the way?”
“Of course. What d’you take me for?”
“A fool.” But she said it without malice.
“Hush!” Ross had already placed himself in the corner of a big cupboard where he would be invisible from the window.
“Here they come.”
No secrecy about his arrival. M. Tissot expected nothing but friends. They could hear horses ridden rapidly up to the house, a little bustle of dismounting, and then a loud knocking on the door that led directly into the kitchen.
“Don’t forget that I’ve got you covered.” Ross whispered his warning as Pete moved across the room to open the door.
In a few moments, Tissot and another man entered the room—doubtless the third would be out holding the horses. “Where are the others?” Tissot had taken in Christina’s forlorn appearance with a glance and moved forward confidently into the room.
“Where you’ll soon join them. That’s right.” Ross’s gun had sent both men’s hands automatically into the air.
“The devil! When did you get back?” You had to admire Tissot’s coolness.
“Last night. Tie them up, Pete. Obliging of you to bring horses. Do any of the rooms in this wretched house lock, Christina?”
“There’s one upstairs.” She shivered a little at the memory. “And, I suppose, the one Madge is in.”
“Yes. Fetch her, would you, and the children?”
“What about the man outside?”
“You’re right. We should deal with him first. You keep watch here while I bring him in. There must be something I can tie the horses to.”
Twenty minutes later, it was all settled. The two sets of prisoners were securely tied and deposited in separate locked rooms, with Madge downstairs as guard. Christina had offered to stay with her, since Ross refused to trust Pete so far, but he had been firm. “You’re taking no more risks tonight, Chris. I never want to go through a day like this one again. I don’t care if the whole lot of them escape, so long as I have you safe.”
“They won’t escape.” Madge had settled her two sleepy children in blankets on the floor. “I’ll kill them first.” She meant it “You’ll not forget my inn, Miss Tretton?”
“Don’t worry, I won’t. I owe her my life,” she explained to Ross. “They’d have killed me when they caught me, but for her.”
“Don’t speak of it. When I got back and found you missing …” He stopped. “There’ll be time to talk of that. The question now is, how are we to get you to Trevis’s headquarters?”
“I’ll ride of course. What a fortunate thing it’s dark. You and Pete will just have to ride on ahead. This dress is past praying for anyway. Don’t look so worried. I’ve ridden astride often enough when I was a girl. I can manage.”
“I think you can do anything.” Pete was busy untying the horses and, just for a moment, they were alone together. “Chris! When I thought you dead—I wanted nothing but to die too. I’ve been—almost mad, I think, all day, looking for you from one of the smugglers’ hideouts to the next. If I’d not found you—”
“I’m very glad you did.” Pete had the horses ready now. “I would have been dead, I think, in five minutes. And drowned in a bucket, too, like that poor Duke of Clarence. Only water instead of wine. A dreary end.”
“Don’t talk about it. I don’t believe I’ll ever feel safe to let you out of my sight again.”
“That’s going to present its problems. Oh, thank you, Pete …” He had brought the smallest of the three marsh ponies for her to mount “I can manage perfectly by myself.” This to Ross, who was still close beside her.
“That’s the worst of it. I know you can. But you’re not going to, Chris. Here. Up with those skirts.” And as she obediently scooped up tattered muslin, he lifted her in strong arms that made nothing of her, and set her in the saddle. Then, instead of letting her go, he pulled her close against him. “I’ve done a lifetime’s thinking today, Chris.” Pete had gone back into the house and the two of them were alone there in the dark. “You’re what I need. You’re all I need. Be honest with me, Chris, here in the shadow of death. Tell me you feel it too. It can’t be one-sided, this passion that runs through me when I hold you thus. Admit it, Chris! Tell me it’s not.”
“Dear lunatic …” She stopped. Almost, with his arms close around her, she had poured it all out, had said, “I’ve loved you always,” but something female, something she owed to her mother, stopped the words on her tongue. “And Sophie?” She made it light, teasing.
“Sophie!” His arm, closer still around her waist, told her he knew she had yielded. “How dare you, Chris! That was a folly, a nothing.… What did you call me? Lunatic? Well, that’s about it. I was moonstruck, crazy … If you’ll just forgive me, Chris, and bear with me …”
“Well … I’ll try.” Teasing now.
“You’ll do nothing of the kind.” His arm moved up, to find her head and bring it ruthlessly down to meet his. “I’m not asking you, Chris, I’m telling you.” His lips left hers at last. “You’re mine. To hold you like this—God, Chris, if you knew what it cost me not to speak before I left for France. But I had no right.”
“And now?”
“I’m past caring. When I found you missing—thought I’d never see you again—everything was suddenly quite simple. Horribly simple. Nothing else matters, now I’ve found you. We’re part of each other, you and I. It’s a fact … there’s nothing to be done about it.”
“No?” Again she kept it light, would not let herself tell him how long she had felt this.
“Do you know”—oddly, his next words echoed her thoughts—“the strange thing is—I know now—it’s all been madness. I’ve been yours ever since that first night we met. Do you remember, Chris?”
“Of course I do. I bit you.”
“Vixen! Bite me now, if you dare.” Once again, she surrendered, was engulfed in his kiss. Emerging, shaken and with lips that hurt, she was aware for the first time of Pete, now anxiously hovering.
“Ross! Darling! We should be going.”
“My dear”—for a moment longer he held her close—“call me that, and I’ll do anything in the world—except leave you. But, you’re right. Here, Pete, my horse!”
“I’m sure I wish you very happy, the both of you.” Pete brought the third horse forward. “If I’d only a’known, miss, I’d never a’let it happen—any of it. Mr. Ross’s young lady …”
Christina could not help laughing. “Madge saved me because she thought I’d start a school for her children, and Pete would have because I was your young lady, Ross. Can no one love me for myself alone?”
“No one but me, and I, poor fool, can’t help myself.”
“I said you were a lunatic. But, Ross, what are we going to do?”
“Marry.”
“Yes, love—and then?”
“Oh—I see.” He seemed to come back from a distance. “Of course, you don’t know. I came back by way of London. Ride on a little, Pete.” And then, when he was out of earshot. “I’ve done what Pitt wanted. Re-established his chain of agents and brought him news. Villeneuve will be out again any time now, but, please God, he’ll find Nelson ready for him. And—I’ve got my commission. That’s why we must be married at once. I may have to go any day.”
“Then I’ll come too.”
“What? Impossible. The ardors of a campaign—”
“Well, really, love, look at me now. Don’t you think I might be safer, with the British Army to protect me, than here on the marsh with your smuggler friends about?”
“Oh—as to them. We’re going to take care of that. Pete and his friends caught Tissot, remember.”
“Oh they did, did they? How odd, I thought it came about quite otherwise.”
“I can’t help that. Here, Pete, I want to talk to you.” And from then until they reached the army post he coached them ruthlessly in the story they were to tell. “You, of course, my love,” he concluded, “are much too gravely shaken by your experience to say anything at all. You will leave it to Pete and me.”
“Should I have a mild case of hysterics, do you think, for good measure?”
“If you do, I promise I’ll beat you, there and then. You should have seen the hysterics Sophie was having when I got to the Grange.”
“Oh dear—they must be so anxious. Let’s get home as soon as we can.”
“I promise you, love, we will.”
He was as good as his word. Christina had refused even to dismount, pleading that remounting would be too much to bear. “Besides, something tells me I’m best out here, in the dark.”
It seemed hardly any time that she sat her tired horse, exhausted herself, but inexpressibly content. Then Ross was back, with Trevis full of anxious inquiry at his side. She brushed it away. “There’s nothing wrong with me that a good night’s sleep won’t cure.”
“Gallant!” said Trevis. “At least, thank God, we can send you home by carriage. Here it comes.”
“Now that is good news.” Ross was already beside her, to lift her in one powerful movement from the saddle and carry her over to the carriage that had drawn up beside them.
“There.” He deposited her with loving lack of ceremony on the seat and turned back to Trevis. “You’ll lose no time?”
“We march directly.”
“Good. You’ll let me know—I only wish I could come too.”
“In the morning. And I shall hope for good reports of you, Miss Tretton.”
“Thank you.” The carriage was moving forward at last. Ross’s arm reached out, found her in the darkness and pulled her against him so that her head rested against his shoulder. She let out a little sigh of pure happiness as its current ran strong between them once more. Almost too strong. “Ross?” Her voice was teasing.
“Yes, love?”
“Did you really want to go with Trevis and his men?”
“Well—yes”—the strong arm held her closer than ever—“and no. I would not leave you now for anything in the world—but, I confess I would be relieved to know that that woman had obeyed orders.”
“Madge? What orders?”
“I told her to let the smugglers free when she heard the soldiers coming. It will rather spoil our story if she fails to do so.”
“So it will.” She could not make herself care about it. Her head drooped lower on his shoulder. “What a waste …” She was asleep.
She waked when the carriage stopped, and was vaguely aware of Ross carrying her indoors, of anxious faces, of exclamations, and, above all, of Ross, ruthlessly making his way through the little crowd of excited, questioning women and up the stairs to her room, where he deposited her on her bed. “Sleep well, my love.” Their third kiss—ecstasy—but she could not keep her eyes open. Someone pulled off the shoes Madge had lent her. More exclamations, and Ross’s voice, “In the morning. Leave her in peace now.” Then blessed darkness to plunge fathoms down in sleep.
Waking at last to happiness and broad daylight, she winced as her bruised feet felt the floor, and limped across to the window. The marsh below was awash with sunshine, the sea sparkled, the old house was warm with the feeling of another winter safely over. “It’s spring,” she thought, “and I’m home. And … Ross.” Now, thinking of him, she could not dress fast enough. No time to ring, and wait, and answer Betty’s questions. So much to do today, so much to settle, and through it all, the warm glow of happiness, and Ross.
Now, surely, she heard his voice. But raised in anger, in her grandfather’s room. Ross, angry, today? No time to wince as she forced swollen feet into her softest pair of kid slippers. She opened her door and heard her grandfather’s furious voice:
“This is no time for marrying, for engagements … Pah! I tell you, we’ve lost the Grange!”
“I don’t understand.” This was Ross, calmer now, his voice raised to carry above a babble of female ones. Were they all there then? Greg was hanging about outside the half-open door of her grandfather’s rooms. His anxious face lit up at sight of her. “Miss Christina! He ought to be stopped. He’s had bad news. I’m afraid …”
“Yes. I can hear.” Greg stood aside and she crossed the room to put a gentle hand on her grandfather’s shoulder as he made to rise from his chair, his own hands shaking on the cane he used to steady himself. “Don’t, Grandfather. It’ll be all right, I promise you.”
“‘All right!’ she says. Because you and Ross are in a fool’s paradise of happiness everything in the world must be rosy. But you’re wrong, girl. I tell you, as I’ve just told them, we’ve lost the Grange. Here, read it if you don’t believe me, and mock me if you must.” He pushed a letter into her hand. “But I say again, I’d a right to do what I wished with my own. It’s not my fault if it’s all gone wrong. How was I to know this cursed war would drag on forever? We’re ruined, I tell you, ruined.”
“Don’t, Grandfather.” She could feel him shaking under her steadying hand. “Aunt Tretteign, hush! There’s no need for hysterics. Sophie, fetch Grandfather his pills.”
“No! I tell you, I want to die. All my life I’ve worked for the Grange, loved it, lived for it when none of you thought of anything but yourselves, and now—this. I’ll not live to see it go.”
“But, Grandfather, it’s not going. Here, for my sake, take your pill, drink this and listen to me.”
“What do you mean, it’s not going? Can’t you read, girl?” But he took the pill in his shaking hand and swallowed it with a little of the water she held for him.
“It looks bad, I agree.” She dropped the letter carelessly on a side table. “But I promise you, it’s not so bad as it looks. Do you feel better now? Can you stand another shock—a pleasant one, I hope you’ll think it?”
“What do you mean?” His voice was easier. She had contrived, as she intended, to lower the tension in the room.
“That I’ve a confession to make.” Her eyes met Ross’s across the room. “I had meant to tell Ross first, since it concerns him. You’ll forgive me, Ross?”
“Anything.”
“Well then.” It was oddly difficult to say it now. “Grandfather, you must forgive me too. You see, I promised Father. He … he wanted, more than anything for me to be happy. He said that to be sure, to be safe, I must come and live here for six months before I told you.”
‘Told me what, girl?” He was beginning to shake again. She must make it quick.
“Grandfather, that I’m rich, quite dreadfully rich. Will you forgive me?”
“I don’t understand.” He had aged appallingly since she saw him last. “Rich? You can’t be. How?”
“D’you remember how Father used to go off to Battle to work in the iron mines there?”
“Of course I do! Quite unsuitable for a Tretteign, and so I told him. But what’s that to the purpose?”
“Just this.” There was no way she could sweeten it for him. “After Mother went, he gave up trapping. I don’t think he could bear it any more, alone in the wilds. I’m sorry, Mother.” Their eyes met in friendly comprehension across the room. “He went down to Pennsylvania. And, Grandfather, he discovered an iron mine. When he died he was one of the richest men in the Union. It’s all right, Grandfather. We can pay off this”—a light tap made the letter unimportant—“buy back the land you’ve had to part with—we’ll still be dreadfully rich. I don’t entirely understand about iron, but it seems to be excessively important.”
“It’s important all right.” This was Ross. “Have you still control, Chris?”
“Through my man of business. Yes. You must advise me what I should do.”
“Wash your hands of the lot of us!” Violently. “You’re an heiress. What should you be doing here?”
“Ross! I came home, don’t you understand?” And I met you on the marsh. But don’t say that. Just give him time.
“He’s right” Explosively from the old man. “What have we done for you, that you should spend your fortune on the Dark House?”
“Taken me in. Liked me a little, I hope. Don’t you see—I came here, an American, a stranger. Now—I knew it when I thought I might never see it again—the Dark House is my home. It doesn’t matter what you say, Grandfather, we’re going to keep it. If we can keep the iron mine, too, so much the better, but what’s an iron mine compared to the Dark House?”
“But—for me? I can’t let you.” He was shaking again.
“I didn’t say for you.” She had thought hard about his. Her eyes appealed to Ross for understanding. “For all of us, the Tretteigns. You made Ross and me get engaged, remember, back before Christmas, because you wanted an heir for the Grange. Well, we save the Grange … for the heir.”
“Well I’ll be damned,” said Ross. For a moment his eyes met hers, angry and challenging. Then, deliciously, like sunshine, laughter crept into them. “Chris.” He came across the room to her. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself.” But his arm was around her again, warm as sunlight, warm as happiness.
“Oh, I am.” She raised her face to his. “Forgive me, Ross?”
“Well …” Slowly, as his head bent to hers. “What else can I do?”
“Upon my soul,” said Mrs. Tretteign, “I was never so shocked in my life.”