Envious Casca by Georgette Heyer Read Free Book Online Page A

surprised. "No. Improving homily from dear Uncle Joe."
    "When?"
    "Last night, after you'd gone to bed."
    "Stephen, did Joe say that? That Nat had made you his heir?"
    He shrugged. "Not as tersely as that. Arch hints, winks, and nudges."
    "I expect he knows. You'd better watch your step. I wouldn't put it beyond Nat to change his mind,"
    "I daresay you're right," he said indifferently.
    She felt a sudden stab of exasperation. "Then why annoy him?"
    His pipe had gone out, and he began to relight it. Over the bowl his eyes glinted at her. "Bless your heart, I don't annoy him! He doesn't like my intended."
    "Do you?" she demanded, before she could stop herself.
    He looked at her, evidently enjoying her unaccustomed discomfiture. "Obviously."
    "Sorry!" she said briefly, and turned away.
    She began, somewhat viciously, to straighten the little candles on the tree. As well as one knew Stephen one still could not get to the bottom of him. He might be in love with Valerie; he might have grown out of love with her; he might even be merely obstinate. But fool enough to whistle a fortune down the wind from mulishness? No man would be fool enough for that, thought Mathilda cynically. She glanced sideways at him, and thought, Yes, you would; you'd be fool enough for anything in this mood. Like my bull-terriers: bristling, snarling, looking for trouble, always convinced you've got to fight, even when the other dog wants to be riendly. Oh, Stephen, why will you be such an ass?
    She looked at him again, not covertly this time, since his attention was not on her, and saw that he was watching Valerie, whom Joseph had drawn into one of the window-embrasures. He was not quite smiling, but he seemed to Mathilda to be enjoying some hidden jest.
    She thought, Yes, but you're not an ass; I'm not at all sure that you're not rather devilish, in fact. You're cold-blooded, and you have a twisted sense of humour, and I wish I knew what you were thinking. Then another thought flashed across her mind, startling her: I wish I hadn't come here!
    As though in answer, Paula said suddenly: "O God, how I hate this house!"
    Stephen yawned. It was Roydon who asked: "Why?"
    She detached the stub of her cigarette from its long holder, and threw it into the fire. "I can't put it into words. If I said it was evil, you'd laugh."
    "No, I shouldn't," he said earnestly. "I believe profoundly in the influence of human passions on their surroundings. You're tremendously psychic: I've always felt that about you."
    "Oh, Willoughby, don't!" implored Valerie, instantly distracted from her tete-d-tete with Joseph. "You make me feel absolutely ghastly! I keep thinking there's something just behind me all the time."
    "Nonsense, young people, nonsense!" said Joseph robustly. "No ghosts at Lexham Manor, I assure you!"
    "Oh - ghosts!" said Paula, with a disdainful shrug.
    "I often think," offered Maud, "that when one gets fanciful it's because one's liver is out of order."
    Paula looked so revolted by this excellent suggestion that Mathilda, to avert an explosion, said hastily that it must be time for tea. Joseph at once backed her up, and began to shoo everyone out of the room, adjuring them to go and "wash and brush up." He himself, he said, had one or two finishing touches to make to the decorations, and he would ask Valerie if she would just hold a few oddments for him.
    The oddments consisted of two streamers, a large paper bell, a sprig of mistletoe, a hammer, and a tin of drawing-pins. Valerie was by this time bored with Christmas decorations, and she received the oddments rather sulkily, saying: "Haven't we hung up enough things, don't you think?"
    "It's just the staircase," Joseph explained. "It looks very bare. I meant to do it before lunch, but Fate intervened."
    "It's a pity Fate didn't make a better job of it," said Stephen, preparing to follow Mathilda out of the room.
    Joseph shook a playful fist at him, and once more picked up the step-ladder. "Stephen thinks me a