Silent Nights by Martin Edwards Read Free Book Online Page B

sincerity that I think her both beautiful and charming. We were very glad to ask her here, and her singing is a great pleasure to us.” He hesitated for a moment before continuing. “You must forgive us cautious old people if we think the engagement just a little bit precipitate. As Aunt Blaxter was saying today, you can’t really know her very well on such a short acquaintance, and you know nothing at all of her people.”
    Kenneth mentally cursed Aunt Blaxter for a vinegar-blooded old killjoy, but did not express any part of the sentiment aloud.
    â€œWe must have another talk about your great affair later,” Churt went on. “Now come along to the library. I am just finishing a game of chess with Sir James Winslade, and then we’ll go and find where Miss Norah is hiding.”
    He stopped at a table in the passage that led from the hall to the library, and took a bunch of keys out of his pocket. “She was sending you a letter, so there can be no harm in our rescuing it out of the bag.” He unlocked the private letter-bag and turned out a pile of letters on to the table, muttering an occasional comment as he put them back, one by one, in the bag, in his search for the letter he was looking for. “Aunt Emma—ah, I ought to have written to her too; must write for her birthday instead. Mrs Dunn—same thing there, I’m afraid. Red Cross—hope that won’t get lost; grand work, the Red Cross. Ah, here we are: ‘Kenneth Dale, Esq., 31, Valpy Street, London, S.W.’ ’’ He tumbled the rest of the letters back into the bag and re-locked it. “Put it in your pocket and come along, or Winslade will think I am never coming back.”
    He was delayed a few moments longer, however, to admit the servants on their return from the village, and he handed the bag to one of them to be taken to the post-office.
    In the library Sir James Winslade was seated at the chess-board, and Churt’s private secretary, Gornay, a tall, slender figure, with a pale complexion and dark, clever eyes, was watching the game.
    The secretary greeted Kenneth rather frigidly, and turned to to Churt. “Have the letters gone to post yet?”
    â€œYes; did you want to send any?”
    â€œOnly a card that I might have written,” Gornay answered, “but it isn’t of any consequence”; and he sat down again beside the chess-players.
    Churt had the black pieces, black nominally only, for actually they were the little red pieces of a travelling board. He appeared to have got into difficulties, and, greatly to the satisfaction of Kenneth, who was impatient to go in quest of Norah, the game came to an end after a few more moves.
    â€œI don’t see any way out of this,” Churt remarked, after a final, perplexed survey of the position. “You come at me, next move, with queen or knight, and, either way, I am done for. It is your game. I resign.”
    â€œA lucky win for you, Sir James,” Gornay observed.
    â€œWhy lucky?” Winslade asked. “You told us we had both violated every sound principle of development in the opening but could Black have done any better for the last few moves?”
    â€œHe can win the game as the pieces now stand,” Gornay answered.
    He proved the statement by making a few moves on the board, and then replaced the pieces as they had been left.
    â€œWell, it’s your game fair and square, all the same,” Churt remarked good-humouredly. “I should never have found the right reply for myself.”
    Gornay continued to study the board with attention, and his face assumed an expression of keenness, as though he had discovered some fresh point to interest him in the position. At the moment Kenneth merely chafed at the delay. It was an hour or so later only that the secretary’s comments on the game assumed for him a vital importance that made him recall them with particularity.
    â€œIf the play was