Nurse Linnet's Release by Averil Ives Read Free Book Online

food was good and the service excellent, and he hoped and believed she would approve his choice.
    Once inside she knew that it would have been impossible to disapprove of it. Their table, obviously booked beforehand, was in a discreetly tucked away corner, and there were some deep wine-coloured carnations decorating it, and even more discreetly shaded lights shone down upon them. The waiter already had champagne cooling in an ice-bucket beside their table, and when Linnet noticed this she was not at all sure whether she was pleased or not.
    “But how did you know I would be free tonight?” she asked, as soon as the ordering was over and the waiter had withdrawn.
    Guy Monteith smiled in the way that made his mouth appear very definitely crooked.
    “Because I took the trouble to find out about your off-duty periods before I left the nursing-home.”
    “But I might—I might have arranged something else for tonight!”
    “You might,” he agreed, and this time although he smiled his eyes rested upon her in such a way that she felt a sudden burning colour rise up in her cheeks. “But I told you I would ring you in a fortnight—and I didn’t think you would have anything else fixed up. In fact, I was sure you wouldn’t.”
    She looked down at the soup that had just been placed in front of her, and for the first time in her life a feeling of excitement deep down within her actually made her hand shake so much that she was terrified to reach out and pick up her glass lest the fact that her fingers were so unsteady should become plain to him. And it was only as the result of a tremendous effort of will that she finally forced herself to grasp the fine stem of the wine-glass.
    “You haven’t told me yet whether you’re really feeling better,” she said, deliberately avoiding his eyes.
    “Much better,” he assured her. “In fact, completely fit again. I don’t quite know why I went down with that dose of malaria so soon after arriving back in England—unless it was that I couldn’t wait to meet you!”
    “At that time you didn’t even know that I existed.”
    “No. But I do now!”
    “How long have you been back in England?” she asked quickly.
    “Just over three weeks—but it seems a life-time, somehow! Strange how one can live a life-time in just a few days, and yet other periods of one’s existence drag themselves out interminably! Since I went into Hertfordshire to stay with my mother every hour has seemed like twenty-four hours, and the days were even difficult to get through. I wanted to come rushing back to London.”
    “But you didn’t do so,” she said, as calmly as she could, “because that would have disappointed your mother, wouldn’t it? I’ve no doubt she was looking forward to your visit for weeks before you got back to England.”
    “Yes, I think she was,” he agreed, twirling the stem of his own wine-glass. “But then I happen to be her only son.”
    “And she lives alone?”
    “Alone except for a companion, and the staff who have been with her for years. Our house is called Lady’s Mead. It’s a very attractive Queen Anne house with some rambling, earlier bits. If you like old houses I’ll take you down there one day and show it to you. And I’d also like you to meet my mother.”
    “Would you?” She looked across the table at him in surprise. “Was she very concerned about your bad bout of malaria?”
    “I didn’t tell her much about it, but I told her about you.”
    “Oh!” she exclaimed.
    His eyes gleamed at her, and his mouth twisted a little in a fashion she could not understand.
    “Next week I go to Scotland, and I’ll be away three weeks,” he said. “Those three weeks will seem like another eternity! But tonight I want to talk about you, Linnet, and nothing else—I want to forget everything else but you!”
    “But I’m not at all an interesting subject for discussion,” she assured him a little faintly, and was glad that the waiter interposed to bring a