House of Storms Read Free Page B

exclaimed her mother, 'you do say the most astonishing things at times. Miss Hartway looks a sensible young woman to me; neat and clean, with sensibly arranged hair. Not every girl wants to be chased all the time.'
    'Are you going to be chaste instead, Miss Hartway?' Zandra mocked. 'Quite frankly I wouldn't want your job on a gold plate; I'd go out of my mind having to type all those words, all those pages, with Jack suddenly deciding to make changes in the text. He isn't the easiest man in the world to work for, you know.'
    'I expect he's a perfectionist where his work's concerned,' Debra murmured. 'His books reveal it.'
    'Enthralled by his books, are you?'
    'I certainly admire them,' Debra admitted.
    'You'd better not get enthralled by Jack him¬self, isn't that so, Mama?'
    'I've no intention—' Debra felt herself flushing at the very idea.
    'All our intentions are good ones to start off with.' Zandra frowned moodily, as if recalling her marriage. 'Have you worked for our kind of family before?'
    'I've only ever worked at the office,' Debra replied, not really intimidated by Zandra who, despite her mocking tongue, had a certain fascination which seemed to be a family trait. 'This is my first venture as a private secretary.'
    'Then you're new to an Old Line family?'
    'Yes, Miss Salvador.'
    'We have our roots in the rollicking days of the corsairs who used to sail into Cornish waters and take whatever plunder they could lay hands on, including any likely-looking females. You may have heard how Bride's Cove came to get its name?'
    Debra broke into a smile. 'Yes, your brother once wrote a book about your famous ancestor.'
    'Infamous,' Zandra corrected. 'The daring Don Rodare became a sea rover because in Spain he climbed a certain royal balcony and visited a lady he shouldn't have visited. Following that escapade he had to make a bolt for it, so he took to the high seas and became as successful at pillaging as he had been at seducing ladies in high places.'
    'Zandra,' her mother spoke in a flustered way, 'I wish you and Jack weren't so fond of bringing up the subject of that man.'
    'I thoroughly admire the memory of the rogue,' Zandra laughed. 'I'd like to have known him, and 1 like to think that Rod and I have some of his genes in us.'
    'Rodare certainly has,' Lenora agreed. 'I'm in no doubt that your half-brother has inherited a number of his traits. I'm relieved that Jack is more like my family.'
    Upon mentioning her son, Lenora's eyes grew moist and she drew a lace-edged handkerchief from the white cuff of her well-tailored dress and touched it to her nose. 'Jack was always such a clever boy and I pray that Dean will take after him. Clever men, unfortunately, do have a tendency to make mistakes about women, it's a well known fact.'
    Debra found herself silently agreeing with this observation, for men of intellect did seem drawn to girls who were the opposite. But the name Rodare conjured an image of the Don. Though Nanny Rose had chatted about the family, she hadn't mentioned that Jack had a half-brother. As he didn't live at Abbeywitch, he was probably married and resident elsewhere.
    It was certainly a fascinating family . . . rather like the cast of a play, its members a little more handsome and assured than their audience.
    'Have you formed an opinion of Abbeywitch?' Zandra's voice suddenly broke in on her thoughts, edged by the condescension of someone who had grown up in grand surroundings and took them for granted.
    'It's fascinating,' Debra replied. 'I've been told that sections of an ancient abbey have been built into it.'
    'Perfectly true. The fireplace in the drawingroom is constructed from abbey stone, and some of the bedroom terraces are paved with it. And Jack's den, where you are working, is actually the cell where the priest of those days had his living quarters. We're rumoured to have a ghost, and a cousin of Mama's insists that she has seen it, but she's a rather dotty old dear who has never had a man in