Substitute Bride by Margaret Pargeter Read Free Book Online

and her mother had found Helen much worse than they had expected, and her doctor had warned she might not have long to live.
    'Don't contact me unless the old girl pops off,' Blanche had instructed calously, while threatening dire repercussions should Emma dare divulge her whereabouts to anyone else.
    Emma, hearing Rex tooting loudly at the door, as if running off with another man's fiancée wasn't something to keep quiet about, had been inclined to go and confront him.
    He and Blanche might be a well matched pair, but at least Rex wasn't engaged to someone else. Somewhere under all that worldly, sophisticated boredom might lie one spark of decency.
    'Don't you dare!' Blanche had hissed, as Emma hesitated, clearly guessing her intentions.
    'It might be worth a try.' Emma had stared at her cousin bravely.
    'What if you succeeded?' Blanche had mocked. 'Would you offer to take my place? Somehow I think you'd find Paris a bit too much for you.'
    Ignoring the other girl's scorn, Emma frowned. Hadn't Blanche known she had been there several times? Emma's father had sometimes taken her to Paris during school holidays to stay with a relation of her mother's. Once they had spent Christmas there. Her mother's cousin had owned a rather grand house—she probably still did. Ruefuly, Emma glanced down at her work-worn hands, wondering wryly what the so elegant Clarice would make of them. She remembered her as distinctly grande dame and very beautiful. There had been a time when Emma feared her father might be thinking of marrying her, and, though nothing had come of it, they had never gone back after Clarice had married another man.
    While she had stood there pondering over the past and hesitating, Blanche had picked up her smart suitcase and gone, leaving Emma to realise unhappily that she had lost the only chance she was likely to get of making either Blanche or Rex change their minds.

CHAPTER THREE
    Rick Conway didn't ring, after al. He arrived in person the morning after Blanche left, ten days before he was due back.
    The shock was almost too much for Emma. He didn't bother to knock, which might, she thought, have given her intuition time to warn her. It seemed grossly unfair that the first intimation she had of his presence was when he opened the kitchen door and walked in.
    In view of the terrible seriousness of the situation, Emma had great difficulty in restraining a hysterical laugh when he asked casualy, 'How is it, if you're in the house, you're always to be found in the kitchen?'
    She was too stunned to answer that. She had just been out in the fields with coffee for Jim and had been about to have her own before starting on the account books. 'You aren't supposed to be here!' she whispered.
    'Wel, I can't think of anywhere else I'd rather be at the moment,' he drawled. 'Where's Blanche?'
    'Bl—Blanche?' In his rather expressionless face she sensed tension, but it couldn't be as great as her own.
    Suddenly his eyes narrowed alarmingly as he threw off his coat. 'If she's out tell me where. And I don't want any more coat. 'If she's out tell me where. And I don't want any more stories about not knowing!'
    Oh, God, how did she get out of this one? Behind Rick's tension was determination. It stood out a mile. Joining it, as she stood gaping at him like a landed fish, was suspicion, which warned her she must act quickly if she was to avert worse. 'I—I think she's gone abroad, but don't ask me where.'
    'Exactly what you said last time,' he rejoined grimly, 'only this time you've decided to have her abroad.'
    'How would I know exactly where she's gone?' Emma gasped, her grey eyes flashing, knowing suddenly that aggression might be her only defence. 'It's none of my business and I don't ask. You'd better try London, her agency or somewhere. I'm busy—so if you'll excuse me?'
    She would never have believed that in grasping her and whipping her off her feet, Rick could have acted so swiftly.
    One moment she was standing, defying him,