A Flight To Heaven by Barbara Cartland Read Free Book Online Page A

thought, ‘he does like me!’
    She looked up once again and this time she smiled at him.
    Mervyn Hunter raised his brows and sat back in his chair. His thin lips curled as he returned her smile, but his grey eyes remained quite cold.
    Chiara’s cheeks felt hot and she knew that she must have been blushing. She wished now she had not smiled.
    She dropped her gaze to her plate and tried to keep it fixed there. She thought of Arthur and the way that his expression was gentle and warm whenever he looked at Elizabeth. There was nothing at all gentle about the way Mervyn Hunter smiled at her.
    “I would like to propose a toast!” he was saying now in his dry sardonic voice. “To a blossoming young lady who promises to be every bit as pretty as her lovely Mama!”
    He raised his glass and now his eyes were narrowed so that Chiara thought he was like a cat about to pounce on a bird.
    “Oh, no, really – please don’t – ” she began, before she could stop herself.
    But Lord Darley then gave a little cheer and raised his glass too and then everyone stood up to toast her.
    The rest of the meal was agony for Chiara.
    Mervyn Hunter now had a permanent smile on his lean face.
    She managed not to look at him and then suddenly she felt something touch her foot. She jumped and could not help but raise her eyes to him and now Mervyn Hunter was laughing at her.
    He reached out again, pressing her toes with his booted foot and Chiara shuddered and, in spite of herself, rose from table.
    “What is it, darling?” her Mama asked and then to Chiara’s great relief, she suggested that it might be time to retire to the drawing room.
    “Let’s make ourselves a little more comfortable, ladies,” she said. “I am sure that the gentlemen will enjoy a cigar or two in the smoking room.”
    Lady Duckett settled down for a snooze, propped against the sofa cushions and Lady Fairfax turned to her daughter.
    For a moment, Chiara thought she was going to ask about what had happened at table and that she would be able to tell her mother about Mervyn Hunter’s behaviour.
    But Lady Fairfax was oblivious of her distress.
    “Chiara – Lord Darley has been to Italy – several times! Isn’t that marvellous? He says he almost wishes he was an Italian himself. We have so much in common, I cannot quite believe it!”
    Her Mama’s face was glowing with happiness and Chiara could not bear to interrupt and spoil her pleasure.
    It was not long before the door opened and the drawing room was suddenly filled with men’s loud voices and the strong scent of cigar smoke.
    Chiara’s heart suddenly jumped as Mervyn Hunter approached her and drew up a chair so that he was sitting facing her.
    “You are a very modest little thing, aren’t you?” he said, his voice very quiet, so that no one else could hear. “Why so shy?”
    Chiara turned to her Mama, but Lady Fairfax was standing in front of the fireplace her hand in Lord Darley’s, laughing and talking.
    Mervyn Hunter leaned forward, his face as close to hers as it had been on the day they first met. She tried to move back, but she was trapped in her chair and there was no escape.
    His cold grey eyes were fixed upon hers and Chiara could not look away.

CHAPTER FOUR
    “Why won’t you look at me?” Mervyn Hunter said so softly that no one else in the room could hear him. “A short while ago at luncheon you were all smiles and now you will not even meet my eyes.”
    Chiara longed to jump up from her chair and run out of the drawing room, but he was leaning so close to her that, if she stood up, she would almost be in his arms.
    “What have I done?” he asked, staring intently at her with his pale grey eyes. “Have I said something to upset you?”
    “No.”
    Chiara shook her head.
    “Aha!” he smiled. “I’ve got it! It was our little game under the table, wasn’t it?”
    She could not help giving an involuntary shiver, as she remembered his heavy foot pressing against hers.
    “But why