Unknown by Unknown Read Free Book Online Page A

‘One more word and you’re out.’
    ‘It does hear,’ she mocked. ‘Just testing.’ But as he got to his feet she added hastily, ‘I’ll be quiet,’ because although she was sure he wouldn’t carry out his threat she was surprised how relieved she felt when he sat down again.
    Her bruises were aching. They had been all day. She had tender patches all over, particularly where the safety-belt had held her, saving her from worse. But now she seemed to be aching more than ever, and she remembered the lotion for sprains in the first aid cupboard in the kitchen and wondered if that would help.
    With nothing else to do except sit here she could feel each throbbing spot, and she would have to help herself because nobody else was going to. She wished she could have stayed by the fire to administer the treatment, but she would have as soon stripped off in the middle of Piccadilly Circus as in front of Duncan Keld, even if he was blocking her out.
    She nearly changed her mind when she stood in the cold kitchen, and as she peeled off her sweater she felt her skin turn clammy. She slithered out of the straps of her slip and wriggled that down to her waist, then started checking and was surprised that she didn’t look worse. Perhaps the bruises hadn’t come out yet. She felt that she ought to be black and blue, but perhaps her solarium suntan was masking the damage.
    She wrinkled her nose at the pungent smell of the lotion. If it got on her clothes she had no chance of washing them, and she couldn’t bear anything soiled near her skin. Her general feeling of grubbiness was already becoming a phobia with her, and she unhooked her bra and dropped it on the table, then very gingerly began to dab her rib-cage where it hurt.
    She screamed, ‘Get out!’ as the door opened, and the lotion went spinning as she flung her arms convulsively across her breasts, but she could have been fully dressed for all the effect it had on him.
    ‘If you get pneumonia,’ he said, ‘don’t expect me to nurse you,’ and he went to the cupboard and took out a packet of biscuits, then walked out without giving her a second look.
    By this time she was scrabbling back into her slip, and even after the door was closed she went on dressing as fast as though he was in here staring at her.
    Everything stank of the lotion. The bottle was broken and acrid fumes were filling the room. She shouldn’t have panicked like that. Duncan Keld must have seen many a topless girl in his life, both privately and publicly, and her figure was good. She had firm pretty breasts and the last thing in the world she wanted was to turn him on, but it was a sort of insult that he hadn’t turned a hair.
    She finished dressing, pulling her jumper well down over her hips, and buttoning her jacket, then she set about cleaning up the mess, sweeping the glass splinters with a broom on to a shovel and tipping them into a plastic bin that stood by the door. She got a bowl of snow to swab the floor, and another bowl to wash her hands, and by then her fingers were blue and completely without feeling. When she got back to the fire they throbbed almost unbearably for what seemed like ages. A lot of good all that had done for her health, and she sat staring broodingly into the flames.
    Darkness crept into the room almost unnoticed so far as Pattie was concerned. She realised that the shadows were thickening at her back when Duncan Keld got up and lit the lamp. But he kept it on the table where he was working, so she only got a fringe benefit, although the diffused glow could have been quite pleasant, in other circumstances and other company.
    The house, Wuthering Heights, must have been rather like this lodge. Perhaps she could write an article about that, about being snowed in with Heathcliff. She could remember the story, of course, it had been one of her favourite books when she was young, and she looked across at the man sitting in the lamplight, and phrases ran through her mind . .