Bird of Prey by Henrietta Reid Read Free Book Online Page A

as she saw Caroline seated comfortably in an armchair before the fire, obviously an honoured guest in the housekeeper’s room. “Well, I never did! ” she exclaimed. “I thought Mrs. Creed had put you to polishing upstairs.”
    “That’s enough from you, Betty,” Mrs. Creed interjected curtly. “We’ll have an extra cup and saucer, if you don’t mind, and bring in the fruit cake too, while you’re at it.”
    The girl, still staring wide-eyed at Caroline, departed in silence, as though overcome by the novelty of the situation.
    “You mustn’t take any notice of Betty,” Mrs. Creed said primly. “I’ve always considered her an extremely brazen and ill-mannered girl. However, she’s a good worker when she puts her mind to it, so I’m prepared to overlook a lot.”
    Caroline, still a little overwhelmed by the housekeeper’s change of attitude, waited in awkward silence until Betty returned with the extra cup and saucer and a plate of rich fruit cake.
    When she had departed, Mrs. Creed poured coffee and pressed Caroline to a piece of cake. “It’s very good, if I do say so myself, although as a rule I make it only for Mr. Randall. But now to come to what I want to speak to you about! I’ve been thinking things over and I’ve been wondering if you’d like to stay on—let’s say, in a different capacity. There are lots of jobs I don’t trust Betty with, like—well, I never let her wash the good china, for instance. And then she’d be hopeless at fixing flowers and things like that. You could be useful in many ways, like seeing that Mr. Randall’s guests are comfortable when they come to stay and things I haven’t time for.”
    As Caroline sipped the coffee and nibbled at the fruit cake she felt her spirits rise. “Yes, I’d like that,” she said eagerly. Obviously Mrs. Creed was advancing the olive branch and she had no intention of refusing to grasp it firmly.
    But she could see that Mrs. Creed was not listening attentively. She poked the fire and looked everywhere but at Caroline, before clearing her throat and saying a little portentously, “It’s hard to know how frankly to speak to you. After all, you are related to Mrs. Brant, but you don’t appear to be on intimate terms with her.”
    “No, I hadn’t seen her for years,” Caroline admitted. “She’s older than I am, for one thing, and then she’s not a person who mixed much with people in a different social position from herself. I don’t fancy either that she has very strong family feelings,” she concluded thoughtfully.
    “That’s exactly how I visualised the situation.” The housekeeper nodded in a satisfied manner. “And I must say that you can consider yourself lucky that you didn’t get the job of taking on Robin—for a more spoiled and exasperating child I’ve yet to meet! Oh, I grant he looks like an angel, but he’s mischievous and trouble-making. Of course, his mother won’t hear a word against him. I admit that they look as pretty as a picture when they’re together, but the child’s unnaturally precocious as the result of always being in the company of grown-ups. Not that he tries anything with Mr. Randall when he’s here—but then no one tries on anything with the master.”
    Remembering the strange inscrutable expression that had flitted across Randall Craig’s eyes when he had mentioned Grace, Caroline asked curiously. “They know each other fairly well, then?”
    Again the housekeeper coughed, as though preparatory to a confidence, and sipped at her cup. “Well, yes, I should think there’s no harm in telling you, but as far as I can see, Mrs. Brant has her eye on the master as her next husband. Of course she’s very lovely,” she added hurriedly, “so it’s not surprising that a man could fall head-over-heels in love with her, but there’s no doubt about it, it would be a sad day for Longmere if she were to come here as mistress. All her life she has had the best of everything and being used to