Perchance to Marry Read Online Free PDF

only surprised that Marcus was able to leave you in England after your engagement last year; in his place, I would have insisted on bringing you home, even then!” A click of the heels, a smiling “ Adios !” and the doctor returned to his car.
    Firm fingers on her arm were guiding Sally round to the other side of the taxi. Dazedly she tried to stop, but Marcus said quietly,
    “Temporarily, it seems, we’re engaged. Say nothing at all to your mother. We’ll talk later.”
    Then Sally was subsiding into squashy old leather and feeling quite boneless and wooly-headed. She turned and met her mother’s smiling glance.
    “What were you talking about out there—a job at the nursing home?”
    “No,” Sally managed. “It’s too soon for that.”
    “Never mind. We won’t think about work for a few days—just wallow in idleness and luxury at Las Vinas.”
    Very clearly, Sally said, “I’m not sure we should go to Las Vinas. We might be in the way.”
    Marcus turned round from his seat beside the driver. “You will certainly stay at Las Vinas,” he said flatly, sounding rather foreign. “We have many rooms and the staff to look after them. It is settled.”
    Settled, thought Sally dazedly. Settled? That cousin of his, the doctor, actually thought that Marcus Durant was engaged to Sally Sheppard! Anything more fantastic it would be hard to concoct, and yet Marcus had let the man go on believing it. Marcus, it seemed, had become engaged last year to someone in England; she should have been on the “Bellesta” with him, but for some reason she had stayed behind. People were mistaking Sally for that woman, and Marcus was ... was letting them.
    The whole thing was incredible and infuriating, and typically, Marcus had masterfully told her to keep quiet about it. Did he think she was a dummy, or something? Did he think ... think ...
    Sally’s teeth were so tightly clenched that they hurt, and she was angry in a way she had never known before. It was frightening.

 
    CHAPTER TWO
    LAS VINAS had been built in spacious days. Pure Spanish in style, its cloistered whiteness spread in a curve round a magnificent paved courtyard where a central pool covered with lilies was only a gracious detail. Palms shaded one side of the courtyard, and here an ornate wrought-iron table and padded chairs were set, and a very old Sealyham snoozed in their shade.
    When Sally, having unpacked in a white and blue bedroom for her mother and in a white and lilac bedroom for herself, came outdoors in a desperate attempt to get back to reality, she found an old servant laying the luncheon table. The woman wore black with a white apron, and she gave an old-fashioned curtsey which made Sally feel a bigger fraud than ever. The situation was impossible.
    She went to the low wall and looked down past a rockery at a sweep of bright flower beds and shrubberies. The cypresses beyond marked the limit of the private garden, and behind them was the white wall that confined it From here it was impossible to see the tall ornamental gates in the arched entrance to Las Vinas, but Sally remembered her own feelings as the taxi had passed under the arch. A rush of panic, chiefly, but also a foolishly hopeless regret that they had met Marcus Durant after that appalling visit in Barcelona. Then, she had felt she hardly knew Marcus; now, she was fatalistically certain that only unhappiness could come from knowing him.
    Oh, dear, and this was such a lovely place. One could be tremendously happy just living in this atmosphere and rambling over the hills and down to the beaches. The miles of vineyards had looked a sparkling green, the people were wholesome and rugged, and there was a British contingent down at Naval Bay, so that one needn’t even feel homesick. And if she could have worked at the nursing home while her mother had some light job in the town, Sally would never have dreamed of asking more from life. It would have been the fullest, happiest existence any girl