That Tender Feeling by Dorothy Vernon Read Free Book Online Page B

Heathcliff. Yet why not? They were in the same line of business. She seemed to recall a letter some years ago from her father saying that he’d rubbed shoulders with Heathcliff—except that he called him Cliff—in his travels.
    â€˜Sorry, you’ve just lost me.’
    â€˜It’s not important. It was a bad line. I thought Miles said Australia. Obviously I was mistaken.’
    â€˜I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about.’
    â€˜No, of course not.’ He still looked dreadful. His color was bad, and he seemed somewhat dazed. He was, of course, still suffering the effects of his malaria attack, and this would naturally account for his confusion. She was disturbing him needlessly over a mere triviality. ‘What is important is to get you comfortable,’ she stated with determination.
    â€˜How do you propose to do that?’ He wasn’t quite back in form, but that suggestive leer was a good try.
    â€˜Now you can stop that nonsense, Heathcliff.’
    â€˜Cliff,’ he said.
    â€˜Yes, Cliff.’
    Suddenly, she realized she could call him Cliff and think of him by that name, as well. Heathcliff was the man who had terrified her in childhood. Miraculously, over the years, she had become a match for him, but she hadn’t realized it till this moment. Seeing the chink in his armor tonight, during his attack, had done this for her. That glimpse of weakness had made him seem more approachable; he was no longer a superhuman being to cringe from in awe and fear. Perhaps more gifted than most—brains, looks, great physical strength and character—but when it got down to basics, he was just an ordinary man, with man’s human flaws in his makeup. He was subject to the weaknesses life inflicts on mankind just the same as every other mortal being. He was, and always would be, Cliff to her now.
    â€˜You haven’t answered my question,’ he said, the touch of mockery in a voice that lacked its usual vigor and sounded as shaky as he looked.
    â€˜Perhaps these will answer it for you,’ she said, holding up the pajamas and sheets she’d got out in readiness.
    â€˜Stop fussing. I don’t need clean pajamas and a change of sheets.’
    â€˜Of course you do. You are being stupidly stubborn. You will be much more comfortable, I assure you.’
    â€˜You are being impossibly dictatorial. I can’t abide a bossy woman.’
    He was scowling. He obviously liked to be thought superior to other men, above human weakness and frailties. It didn’t please him at all to have his vulnerability exposed like this, but it pleased her enormously. It made a most agreeable change to have the shoe on the other foot, and she was enjoying having him at her mercy.
    Giving the sleeve of his offending pajama jacket a tweak, she said: ‘You wriggle out of your ’jamas while I see to the sheets. I promise not to look.’
    â€˜You vixen. I’ll get you for this, I swear it.’
    â€˜Of course, if you don’t feel capable of undressing yourself, I’ll help,’ she said, blissfully unperturbed by his threat.
    â€˜Like hell you will.’
    â€˜Tut-tut. What unexpected modesty. You’ve got nothing underneath that I don’t know about.’ It was so funny that she was almost hysterical with laughter.
    The more amused she got, the less he liked it.
    â€˜If I didn’t still feel groggy, I’d call your bluff, you immoral wench.’
    If he hadn’t looked as if he’d fall over if she as much as breathed on him, there wouldn’t have been any bluff to call. She’d have been off like a rabbit out of a trap.
    â€˜I could use a glass of water,’ he announced sullenly. ‘My throat’s so dry I feel as though I’m spitting feathers.’
    â€˜I’ll get you one,’ she said, and went to do just that.
    She had to go downstairs for a glass. When she returned, he was sitting in the