LITMIR.BIZ

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halted awkwardly. “This is Colonel Frenshaw’s house, Joel,” she protested. “I can’t invite you in without his permission.”

      “Oh, no?” Joel regarded her coldly. “Did you tell my father that, too?”

      Rachel sighed. “Your father — knows Colonel Frenshaw.”

      “Ah, I see.” Joel’s mouth was sardonic. “A fellow-conspirator.”

      “Oh, don’t be so ridiculous, Joel!” Rachel’s nerves were stretched to screaming pitch. “I’ll go — go and tell the Colonel you’re here. I’ll — ask him —”

      “Don’t bother.” Joel passed her and opened the porch door. “Come on. You’re not stalling me any longer.”

      Rachel gave him an angry look as she passed him, and then they were standing in the shadowy hall of the building, and the door was closed behind them. She didn’t know what to do. The house seemed quiet, dead. She knew Colonel Frenshaw rested in the afternoons. Dared she risk taking Joel up to her suite of rooms without first telling him?

      “Let’s go!”

      Joel was impatient and with reluctance she removed her coat and dropping it on to the chest in the hall, began to mount the staircase. Her rooms were on the first floor. This had been a major concession on the Colonel’s part when it was first discovered that Sara had a tendency to run high fevers with what seemed to be only minor complaints. Before that, they had occupied rooms on the second floor, as did Hanson, the Colonel’s secretary. She knew that initially Andrew Hanson had resented what appeared to him to be a show of favouritism, but when he realised the logic behind it, he had soon recovered. Rachel understood the jealousy he felt for his privileged position in the household, but she was not about to usurp that position. He had no cause for alarm. At that time nothing would have induced Rachel to consider marrying anyone. Now, it was different. It had to be different.

      She was conscious of Joel following her, looking about him with interest. She felt she would never be able to repay the Colonel’s kindness towards her, and that was why bringing a man, any man, into his house without his permission seemed a betrayal of his confidence in her.

      She turned left at the first landing and walked to a door at the end of a hall. She entered an attractively furnished living room. Opening from this room were four other doors — her bedroom, Sara’s, a small kitchenette and the bathroom.

      Joel halted in the doorway to the living room, supporting himself against the jamb. “Cosy,” he commented harshly. “Where is she?”

      “She may still be sleeping!” retorted Rachel defensively, tense and distraught, dreading the moment when he must see the child for the first time. Sara was not a pretty little girl. She was too pale and angular, and if she took a dislike to someone as she had to Andrew Hanson, she could be most disagreeable.

      But even as Rachel stood there, putting off the inevitable, Sara’s bedroom door opened and Sara herself stood blinking in the aperture, her small jeans crumpled, her tee-shirt bearing evidence of the egg she had had at breakfast. Straight dark hair, painfully like Joel’s own, hung to her thin shoulders, and her sallow cheeks and curiously dark eyes were unmistakably Kingdom in origin.

      “Mummy?” she complained, looking frowningly towards the tall stranger lounging in the opposite doorway. “Mummy — you woke me!”

      Rachel gathered herself, hardly daring to look at Joel. She had heard his swiftly indrawn breath when he first caught sight of his daughter, and his frown was a facsimile of Sara’s. “I — I’m sorry, darling,” she managed, going towards the child. “I — er — well, someone’s come to see you.”

      “Who?” Sara’s long lashes flickered. She sounded mutinous, and there was no welcoming smile to soften her sulky features.

      Joel moved then. “Me,” he stated ungrammatically, advancing into the room and closing the door behind him. “Me, your — er —” He halted as he glimpsed Rachel’s horrified expression, and she had the feeling he was deliberately baiting her. “A friend of yours,” he amended.

      Sara looked suspiciously up at him. “I don’t have any friends,” she muttered uncompromisingly.

      “Don’t you?” Joel came down on his haunches beside her. “I’m sure you do.” His face was almost on a level with her own. “What about — the Colonel — and Mr. Hanson?”

      “I don’t like Andrew!” retorted Sara rudely. “And the Colonel’s too old!”

      “Andrew?” probed Joel, and Rachel said: “Andrew Hanson,” with some reluctance. “Ah, yes, I know.” He didn’t sound surprised. “And of course, there’s no one else for you to play with, is there?”

      “I don’t play many games,” stated Sara with childish candour. “I get tired. I’m a cripple, you see.”

      “What!” Joel straightened then, his eyes blazing in his dark angry face. “What does she mean?” he demanded. “What have you kept from me?”

      Rachel shifted from one foot to the other. “N-Nothing. Nothing.” She sighed. “I — Sara has a minor blood deficiency, that’s all.” Oh, God forgive me, she prayed silently. “It’s being treated.”

      Joel looked unconvinced. “What’s wrong with her blood?”

      “I’ve told you, it’s not important.” Rachel looked down at Sara pointedly, and Joel compressed his lips. “Please, Joel, not now!”

      “And who called you a cripple, Sara?” he asked at last, and the little girl looked anxious.

      “Mummy?” she said questioningly.

      “I expect it was the Colonel, Joel,” interposed Rachel hastily. “Old people tend to say things…”

      “No, it wasn’t the Colonel,” said Sara thoughtfully. “I heard them talking at the hospital. This man said: Where is she? and a woman said: Who? and this man said: The little cripple. I heard them.”

      “Oh, Sara, they might not have been talking about you,” exclaimed Rachel, and Joel said: “What hospital, Sara?”

      “The hospital in Whitstone,” she answered. “I go every —”

      “That will do, Sara,” Rachel interrupted her, her face burning now. “Joel, don’t you think you’ve said enough —”

      “I want to know more about this!” he muttered, scowling, but she spread her hands.

      “Joel, please. Don’t make trouble, I beg of you!”

      “What’s the matter, Mummy?” Sara had sensed that the two adults were not sympathetic to one another and she scowled at Joel. “Why are you looking at Mummy like that?” she demanded fiercely. “Why did you come here? You’re not my friend. You’re only pretending. I don’t even like you!”

      “Sara!” Rachel was forced to put a restraining hand on the little girl’s shoulder. “Sara, that was rude. Tell — tell Mr. Kingdom you’re sorry at once.”

      “I don’t have to!”

      Shrugging off her mother’s hand, Sara went across the room to where several dolls were upended in a small metal pram. Joel watched the child closely and Rachel found herself watching Joel, gauging his reactions. What did he think of her, this child who until today he had not even known existed? Did he find her unattractive? Was he disappointed that she was not a chubby pink and white creature, with doll-like eyes and curling hair? Yet Sara had so much more to offer — her loyalty and affection, her agile mind and undoubted intelligence, and most of all — that wealth of love which until now had been directed solely towards Rachel herself. For a moment Rachel allowed herself to wonder how Sara might react if she ever learned that Joel Kingdom was the father she believed dead. A grown-up Sara might find it unacceptable that Rachel had kept this fact from her over the years. Would she understand that because of what

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