Brittle Bondage Read Online Free PDF Page A

entertained your friends—and hers?”
    “So that’s the reason for the pleated brow. You bother quite a lot with other people’s feelings, don’t you? I hope you regard mine as rather important, too.”
    “Well, naturally.”
    “How important?”
    Almost imperceptibly she moistened her lips. “More important than my own.”
    Speculatively he looked into his glass. “You needn’t concern yourself about Thea—she knows me.” A pause. “Are you happy at Bondolo?”
    “Of course. Anyone would be happy here. There’s beauty everywhere and you’re so generous. I’ve everything I could possibly want.”
    “Have you?” His tone was baffling, but he changed it, to add: “Some time soon you must take over the housekeeping. You’ve done it in England, so it shouldn’t come hard.”
    “I’d like to. With servants to do everything, one feels somewhat superfluous.”
    “No woman is superfluous in her own home,” he said decisively. “She’s mostly the hub of it.”
    He finished his drink and drew a small flat case from his pocket. At the pressure of his thumb the lid snapped back, and Venetia was staring at a pair of exquisite earrings, each a glistening pearl in a circle of tiny diamonds, which winked provocatively.
    “Like them?” he asked.
    “They’re dazzling,” she whispered, smiling yet fearful. “Are they for me?”
    He laughed briefly, not wholly with amusement. “For no one else. Put them on.”
    Gently she lifted one from its white satin bed and fitted it over the lobe of her ear, but her fingers quivered too much to tighten the minute platinum screws.
    “Let me,” he said.
    She stood very still, conscious of his knuckles first against one side of her neck and then the other. They weren’t clumsy, but their movements were hard and sure. He held back his head, regarding the effect.
    “They age you about six months, but I hoped for more. Come into the hall and see yourself.”
    In the oval mirror set in a wrought-iron frame she examined her reflection. Blake’s face showed above hers, lean and tanned, the eyes grey and inscrutable, his mouth slightly mocking. After the first moment he did not look at the earrings, but met the reflection of her eyes. She turned away and found him close.
    “They’re very lovely, Blake. Thank you.”
    “Not worth a kiss?”
    After an instant she raised her lips. He shrugged and touched his mouth to her cheek, bent lower, and kissed the side of her neck.
    “I believe I hear a car,” he said. “Let’s go outside.”
    Venetia quelled a shaky sigh. Ten days alone with Blake had taught her never to question his reactions in perilous moments, because although he caused those moments, he also managed, somehow, to get her over them. It was silly, but she seemed to think that a miracle would happen if he’d only take her into his arms. Why couldn’t they behave like an engaged couple—gently make love and exchange promises?
    Out on the veranda he slipped a hand through her elbow. The trees stirred with a soft wind. Last night it had rained and today new buds had opened, adding to the heavy scent of the nicotiana below the wall; from the orchard drifted the unmistakable perfume of late orange blossom. Away in the stables a horse whinnied, and Blake said:
    “That’s Ginger. A horse is never happy when he’s too fat. You don’t exercise him enough.”
    “I would, if you’d let me go out with you before breakfast.”
    “You’re not up to that yet. Wait till you’ve been here longer. Are you cold?”
    “No.”
    “Why did you shiver?”
    “It wasn’t with cold. Are they never coming!”
    His grip of her arm was reassuring. “Stop worrying, you little idiot. They’ll all adore you and bear you down with good advice. Here’s a car. I’m not mistaken this time.”
    It wasn’t Margery and Cedric, but it hardly mattered. Within the next quarter of an hour the sixteen guests arrived, some of them from Ellisburg, eighteen miles away, and others from an