LITMIR.BIZ

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bottom button of his waistcoat was fastened, but his jacket was unfastened. Raking back the thick straight hair that was inclined to fall across his forehead, he regarded the two antagonists wryly, waiting for an explanation, and Caryn waited for ‘Angel’ to act entirely out of character.

      ‘I didn’t go to the agency, Tris!’ she declared. ‘I don’t know what this woman’s doing here, but she’s not from Llandath.’

      Caryn silently acknowledged the girl’s attempt to classify her. Angel, if that really was her name, was younger than she was, but twenty-four didn’t exactly put one in the middle-aged bracket.

      Tristan Ross had listened expressionlessly to what Angel said, and now he turned to Caryn. ‘Is that right? Are you not from the Llandath Agency?’

      ‘I never said I was,’ Caryn ventured slowly, and then when Angel began to protest, added: ‘Not to you anyway. You—just—assumed that.’

      His mouth turned down only slightly at the comers. ‘All right, I’ll assume some more. You chose not to enlighten me because you wanted to get in here, is that right?’

      ‘Oh, I’d have got in here, Mr Ross,’ declared Caryn levelly, ‘whether you assumed I was from the agency or not.’

      ‘Is that so?’

      She barely acknowledged the edge of steel that deepened his voice now. ‘Yes, that is so.’

      ‘I see.’ He glanced frowningly at the two other women. Then: ‘You sound very sure of yourself, Miss—Mellor, is it? Or is that assumed, too?’

      To her annoyance, Caryn coloured again. ‘Yes, as a matter of fact it is. My name is Stevens, Caryn Stevens. Loren Stevens’ sister.’

      She watched him carefully as she said her sister’s name, but it aroused no great reaction. A flicker of his eyes was all the notice he gave it, and then he shrugged and said:

      ‘Forgive me, but I’m afraid I don’t see the connection. Why should the sister of a girl who left my employ more than six months ago want to see me? Or are you looking to take over your sister’s position?’

      Caryn gasped. ‘How dare you!’

      At last she aroused some reaction, and the thin lips tightened ominously. ‘How dare I?’ he demanded harshly. ‘Come, Miss Stevens. I think this has gone far enough. Either tell me what in damnation you want or get out of here!’

      Caryn gazed at the two women watching them so intently. ‘I would rather say what I have to say in private,’ she declared unevenly.

      ‘Would you?’ He made no attempt to dismiss their audience. ‘Well, I wouldn’t. Whatever it is, spit it out. Here! Where I have some witnesses.’

      Caryn licked her lips. This was not what she had intended. She shrank from exposing her sister before two strangers. It was bad enough having to tell him. She could not bring herself to speak the words in front of anyone else.

      ‘I—I can’t,’ she said at last. ‘I—I won’t.’

      Tristan Ross’s teeth ground together. ‘Miss—Miss Stevens: I don’t know why you’ve come here, but I should tell you that I have no secrets from either my daughter or my housekeeper.’

      ‘Your—your daughter!’ Caryn swallowed convulsively.

      ‘Angel—Angela. Angela Ross. Didn’t your sister tell you about her?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘Or about Marcia?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘You don’t have to worry about her carrying tales, or isn’t that what’s troubling you?’

      So the woman couldn’t speak! Caryn felt a rush of sympathy, but then she gathered her small store of confidence about her. She straightened her spine, but even in her wedged heels he topped her by several inches, which was a disadvantage, she found. However, she had to go on:

      ‘Mr Ross,’ she said slowly, ‘what I have to say concerns my sister, not me. Please—’ She hated having to beg. ‘Give me a few minutes of your time.’

      Impatience hardened his lean features. ‘Miss Stevens, I’ve just spent an uncomfortable half hour interviewing a man who refuses to admit that he’s a bloody Communist, and I’m tired! I’m not in the mood for play-acting or over-dramatisation, and if this has something to do with Loren then I guess it’s both—’

      Caryn’s hand jerked automatically towards his cheek, and he made no attempt to stop her. The sound of her palm rang in the still room, and only his daughter’s protest was audible.

      Tristan Ross just hooked his thumbs into the back waist-band of his trousers under his jacket and heaved a heavy sigh. ‘Is that all?’ he enquired flatly, but Angela burst out:

      ‘Are you going to let her get away with that?’ in shocked tones.

      In truth, Caryn was as confused as the other girl. The blow administered, she was disarmed, and they all knew it.

      With a sense of futility, she would have brushed past him and made for the door, but his hand closed round her arm, preventing her from leaving.

      ‘Not so fast,’ he said, and she noticed inconsequently how the red weals her fingers had left in no way detracted from the disturbing attraction of his dark features. Such unusually dark features with that light hair. The hair he had obviously bestowed on his daughter. His daughter! For heaven’s sake, why hadn’t Loren mentioned that he had a grown-up daughter? Did he have a wife, too? Was that why …

      ‘Where do you think you’re going?’ he demanded, and she held up her head.

      ‘I—I’ll write to you,’ she said, saying the first thing that came into her head, and he stared at her frustratedly.

      ‘Why? What have we to say to one another? If Loren has something to say why the hell didn’t she come and say it herself?’

      Caryn’s jaw quivered. ‘Loren is dead, Mr Ross. Didn’t you know?’

      At last she had succeeded in pricking his self-confidence. His hand fell from her arm as if it burned him, and feeling the blood beginning to circulate through that numbed muscle once more, Caryn felt a trembling sense of awareness. She was too close to him, she thought faintly. She could almost share his shock of cold disbelief, feel the wave of revulsion that swept over him.

      ‘Dead!’ he said incredulously. ‘Loren—dead? My God, I’m sorry. I had no idea.’

      ‘Why be sorry?’ Angela spoke again. ‘She was nothing but a nuisance all the time she was here—’

       ‘Angel!’

      His harsh interjection was ignored as Caryn added bitterly: ‘Why pretend to be sorry, Mr Ross? You never answered any of her letters.’

      ‘Her letters?’ He shook his head. ‘All right, Miss Stevens, you’ve won. We’ll go into my study. We can talk privately there—’

      ‘You’re not going to talk to her, are you?’ Angela’s dismayed protest rang in their ears, but Tristan Ross just looked at his daughter before walking past her out of the room.

      Caryn hesitated only a moment before following him. This was what she wanted, wasn’t it? Why then did she feel so little enthusiasm for the task?

      They went across the hall and down a passage that descended by means of single steps at intervals to an even lower level, and he thrust open a leather-studded door and stood back to allow her to precede him inside.

      The room was only slightly smaller than the living room, with all the books Caryn could have wished for lining the walls. Paperbacks there were in plenty, as well as every issue of the Geographical Magazine for years past. A honey-brown carpet supported a leather-topped desk, a pair of revolving leather chairs, and several armchairs. A smaller desk in one corner

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