Kingdom Lost by Patricia Wentworth Read Free Book Online Page B

eyes were bright and her lashes wet; there was colour in her cheeks.
    â€œWhy did you say that?” she cried.
    â€œBecause I hope you won’t be disappointed.” The words were rather flung at her.
    â€œYou mean something horrid—you mean you’d like me to be disappointed so that I’d think how nice you were and want to be back on the yacht! And you’re not nice at all—you’re horrid !”
    Austin Muir folded his arms and leaned against a stanchion.
    â€œYou say that because you don’t like being told the truth—women never do—they always want someone to butter them up and tell them lies so that their feelings shan’t get hurt.”
    â€œI don’t want to be buttered and told lies.”
    â€œYes, you do.”
    â€œI don’t!” Her cheeks burned. She stamped her foot.
    â€œWell then, what about a little truth for a change? Personally, I think it’s unmoral to tell lies. I told Barclay all along that you ought to know the truth; but he simply shirked it because it was unpleasant. That’s Barclay all over.”
    Valentine’s left hand clenched on the rail.
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    Austin jerked his head back.
    â€œWhat’s the use of it anyhow? I call it rotten to let you go on believing a lot of fairy tales right up to the last minute. It’s bound to end in your getting a most awful jolt.”
    Valentine began to feel frightened; she stopped feeling angry. That was one of the things that frightened her. The colour began to leave her cheeks. She said,
    â€œWhy don’t you tell me what you mean?”
    â€œI’m going to, because I think you ought to know. Look here, Valentine, do you really suppose that these relations of yours are going to be glad to see you?”
    â€œOh! ” said Valentine. She might have cried out just like that if she had slipped and fallen.
    â€œWell, is it likely they’re going to be pleased?”
    She recovered her breath.
    â€œAunt Helena said in her letter—”
    â€œTwenty years ago! Have a little sense and think what it’s going to mean to have you turning up like this. Barclay says there’s a place—a house, you know, and land that belongs to it—a good bit of land. Well, they’ve lived there for twenty years. Barclay says there’s money. Well, they’ve had the spending of it for twenty years. Then you turn up, and they’ve got to hand over the place and the money and everything. And you’re fool enough to think they’re going to be pleased.”
    He stopped, and there was a silence. He had not meant to say so much. His heart thumped against his side. He was angry; but he didn’t know why he was angry.
    â€œI don’t want to take anything away,” Valentine said in the smallest thread of a voice. “I don’t—” The thread of voice broke.
    â€œHow can you help it?” said Austin scornfully.
    â€œI won’t take anything away.”
    â€œYou’ll have to.”
    â€œI won’t. I only want them to be pleased—to like me. I thought they’d be pleased.” She made one of her sudden movements and caught his arm. “Austin, you were being horrid! Say you were just being horrid! Say you didn’t mean it! Austin —say it isn’t true!”
    She pressed upon him, shaking his arm to and fro.
    He began to say, “It is true”; and then quite suddenly he found that he wasn’t speaking at all, and that his other arm was round her. He felt her strain away and then lean forward against him. He heard himself say angry, broken things.
    â€œYou’ll go away—you don’t care a damn—why should you—I haven’t got a bean—you’ll go away—you’ll never think of me again.”
    The hands that had been shaking his arm closed on it convulsively. She was trembling in his arms, shaking and sobbing as if she had been no