Ellis Peters - George Felse 06 - Black Is The Colour Of My True Love's Heart by Ellis Peters Read Free Book Online Page A

solicitous whisper, drawing their heads together round him like swarming bees to their queen. He made an artistic job of it, and sighed at his own cleverness. “What a situation! And here we are over the week-end, stuck with it! No, don’t misunderstand if I let Lucien get away with murder just now. I figure he’s got more than enough on his mind, without my turning on him as well, just because he takes his soreness out on me. My shoulders are broad, I can take it.”
    They shifted and glowed, worshipping. They murmured that it was really big of him to look at it that way. They promised faithfully that they’d keep his confidence. And within minutes they were dropping off from the edge of his circle to spread the news.
     
    The girl with butterfly glasses peered through the brick-red fringe that came down to the bridge of her nose, and her short-sighted eyes glistened. She had relayed the tale four times already, and it got better every time. Her fellow-missionaries were circulating with equal fervour round the room, avoiding only the august vicinity of Edward and Audrey Arundale, whose position, among this largely under-twenty assembly, remained very much that of the headmaster and his wife, and effectively froze out gossip. The only other islands immune from this industrious dirt-washing were where Lucien Galt moved aloof, abstracted and tense, with Felicity faithful at his elbow, and where Liri Palmer sat withdrawn and alone. Every other soul in the room must be in the secret by now.
    “… madly in love,” said the girl breathlessly, “and then it all blew up in their faces, just two weeks ago. They had a terrible row.
She
broke it off, but
he
was just as mad with her. Well, you can imagine what a fight between those two would be like. So they parted, and they haven’t seen each other since, not until to-day. And now suddenly she turns up here, where
he’s
got an engagement for the weekend. Just as if she’s following him…”
    “How do you know all this?” asked Tossa sceptically.
    “Dickie told us. He knows them both well, he’s worked with them before. You can be sure it’s quite true. If you ask me, she’s come to make mischief if she can.”
    “She certainly didn’t seem to be in any conciliatory mood,” admitted Dominic, ”when she laid off just what she thought of him, to-night.”
    “She didn’t, did she?” Delighted eyes blinked behind the butterfly glasses and the curtain of hair. “It’s thrilling, really, because when you come to think of it, she actually
threatened
him! She said if she couldn’t have him, nobody should. And did you know? – they had some sort of a brush before they came in here. No, honestly, I’m not making it up! She
bit
him!”
    “Oh, go on!” said Tossa disbelievingly. “People don’t go round biting each other, not even the folk element.”
    “All right, if you don’t believe me, take a look at his left wrist. You’ll see the marks there, all right.” Her voice sank to a conspiratorial whisper, drunk with the pleasures of anticipation. “You don’t suppose she really came here to try to
kill
him, do you? I mean, she as good as
said
…”
    “No,” said Dominic flatly, “I don’t suppose any such thing. One minute you’re telling us she gave him the push, and the next that she’s carrying a torch for him, and will see him dead before she’ll let anybody else have him.‘’
    “Well, they could both be true, couldn’t they?” said the girl blithely, and went off to spread the news farther.
    “And the devil of it is,” said Tossa, looking after her with a considering frown, “that she could very well be right. They’re getting good value for their tuition fees this time, aren’t they?”
    “Now don’t you start!” protested Dominic. “Don’t forget this has all come from Dickie Meurice, and you said yourself he must hate Lucien, so what’s odd about his drumming up all the trouble he can for him? But it’s just a load of personal