And No Regrets by Rosalind Brett Read Free Book Online

from work? I can go alone.”
    “ You’d get a shock if I took you at your word,” he laughed.
    “ I’d make it, though.” She tilted her chin.
    “ Sure you would, Girl Guide.” He gave her pointed chin a mocking brush with his fist. “Enjoyed seeing your spouse at work?”
    “I feel for you, having to work so hard in this heat.” Her face still seemed to feel his touch, and the bones of her shoulders ached for his hands upon them in loving discovery. She replaced her topi, pushed her linen blouse into the waistband of her riding trousers, and gave a little shudder of secret pleasure as he brushed a fly from her arm. He climbed out of the lorry and went over to his men to select a couple of boys to accompany her on the walk back to the house.
    I n the compound a few weeks later, Clare was brooding like any English housewife over the growth of her garden, when Ross came striding down the path towards her. It was barely two hours since he had left. Suppressing fears of snake-bite or some other evil—he jeered if she jittered—she waited till he reached her. “Hello,” she said. “What are you doing here?”
    H e ran a couple of fingers down the collar of her dress. “I couldn’t stay away from you,” he grinned.
    S he wished it were true! She pointed to a tall plant with wide, bushy leaves stuck, yucca-wise, on the end of a thick stump. “You wouldn’t think it possible an honest English cabbage seed could produce a monstrosity like that, would you?”
    “ You must have mixed the seeds,” he drawled.
    “ I’m certain I didn’t,” she retorted indignan tl y.
    “Then his roots have got mixed up with someone else ’ s — funny how that can happen.” For a few minutes he seemed inclined to linger. It was pleasant here now that the mist was gone and the sun not yet malicious. Clare insisted on his admiring her flowers and reaching down some sprays of jacaranda.
    “B elieve it or not, there was a reason for my returning this morning,” he said. “The Pryces are coming.”
    “ Oh? Who are the Pryces, and how do you know?” She gazed up at him under the wide brim of her grass hat.
    “ My foreman heard they were on the way and told me. Mr. and Mrs. Pryce are missionaries.”
    “ Are they nice?” She was naturally interested because i t was such ages since either of them had seen another white woman.
    H e shrugged. “I guess you’ll like them ... though I’d rather they’d stayed away.”
    “ Why, do they make trouble in the village?” she asked.
    “ No, it isn’t that. The inhabitants forget them as soon as they’re gone.” He turned to walk down the track at her side. “We’re getting along on our own. We don’t want others butting in.”
    A t the house steps, he said: “They’ll be here before dark, so it will be dinner for four. And I’m rather afraid they’ll expect to stay in the house this time, with you here.”
    “ That should work out ... all right,” she was too preoccupied with thoughts of food and entertainment to really take in what was at the back of his reluctance to have these people stay overnight.
    “ They pitched camp at the edge of the village before,” he grunted. “I only saw them in the evenings. Clare, this means you’ll have to turn out of your bedroom as it’s the only one with two beds. We’ll—have to put a camp bed in mine.”
    W ords that scattered her housewifely thoughts at once. She gazed up at him, speechlessly. He nodded. “The world outside is moving in on us, Clare. Mrs. Pryce likes to gossip—”
    “ You mean she’d think it funny if I made up a camp-bed in the living-room,” Clare murmured, her heart pounding. “Your room is small, Ross. We can make the excuse that we’d stifle in there together.”
    “ It could be stifling, all right,” he muttered, kicking at a tussock of weed near the steps. “I hope they don’t stay more than one night—and now I’ve wasted long enough!”
    W hen he had gone, she had the boys freshen