A Place of Storms Read Free Page A

wouldn't be able to recall. Some of the men she's been involved with…' Aunt Marian shuddered slightly. Her eyes looked shrewdly at Andrea. 'I know you don't think Peter is very exciting, dear, but he'll be so good for Clare, believe me he will.'
    Andrea forced a smile. 'Yes, I do believe it I just wish that he was a little more…' she paused, searching for the right word.
    'Demonstrative,' her aunt supplied. 'I thought so too at first, but now I'm not so sure these outward displays of affection mean a great deal. Clare seems perfectly happy with the situation. She says Peter is shy, and she may be right. It would certainly explain his rather stiff manner sometimes.'
    'Perhaps you're right,' said Andrea, setting her cup down on the small table in front of her. 'How is Uncle Max?'
    'Behaving very well—avoiding stress and doing what he's told,' his wife said affectionately. 'And Clare's happiness has helped his peace of mind as well. He's even talking of giving up the board altogether and retiring early. He would like to have more time to devote to his charity work, and I'm all for it.' She lowered her voice. 'I don't suppose I should be telling you this, but there's talk of a knighthood in the next Honours list—something he's always dreamed of.'
    'But that's wonderful!' Andrea forgot other worries momentarily in her pleasure for her uncle who had given so much of his time for children's charities in recent years. 'And of course, I won't mention it to a soul. Is it definite?'
    'Almost, I would say,' her aunt conceded smilingly. 'As long as nothing happens to spoil it for him.' She sighed. 'That's one of the reasons I'm so delighted about Clare. Your uncle's very old-fashioned in some ways, you know, and he has very strong views on the honours system and all it stands for. He wouldn't countenance anything that might bring it into disrepute. And I've always known that if Clare had ever done anything really—foolish, something that might cause a public scandal—these gossip columnists can be quite unscrupulous, dear—then he wouldn't accept the knighthood.'
    'You can't be serious.' Andrea stared at her aunt, her brows wrinkled frowningly. 'Uncle Max can't still regard himself as responsible for Clare's dottiness. She's a grown woman.'
    Aunt Marian gave a slight smile. 'If she were a grandmother, I don't think it would alter his attitude in the slightest degree. He doesn't approve of this decline in morals they talk about. He feels people in public life should set an example—he always has done.' She sighed. 'Of course, I've never breathed a word of this to Clare herself. I didn't want to burden her with that kind of responsibility, but I don't know whether I was right. Anyway, she's found Peter, so I no longer have any worries on that score.'
    Andrea looked at her aunt for a long moment, registering the air of serenity that hung almost tangibly about her. Could she really sit back and see that destroyed? she thought despairingly. Clare was a fool, but marriage to Peter might be the salvation of her, after all.
    She got up, forcing a smile.
    'Excuse me, will you? I've just remembered—there's something I have to tell Clare.'
     
    Andrea pulled the car into the side of the road, applied the brakes and sat for a moment with her eyes closed. Then she twisted round in her seat and stared back grimly, assimilating almost with disbelief the road she had just ascended.
    The late October sun hung low over the valley, and she could see the road like a thin white ribbon winding along the valley side, disappearing at intervals into sheltering clumps of bare trees. On one side of her there had been a towering wall of forbidding black rock, on the other an un-fenced drop down to the gleam of the river far below her. She was thankful that the long drive from Paris had given her a chance to at least familiarise herself with the car before she was faced with these conditions, and she had clung to the wheel with grim determination as she