Sweet Sanctuary Read Free Page B

Sylvia—she just talks about something else whenever the subject comes up. It's like trying to fight fog."
    "So it's just Sylvia's word for it that Mrs. Butler hates her? You really have no idea what your aunt thinks?"
    He looked grimly at the house. "Oh, I have a very shrewd notion. Aunt Elaine can convey a great deal with her silences."
    They entered the house by the back door and Kate found herself in a huge, draughty kitchen. The floor was lined with much-scrubbed pink tiles, worn to a gentle rose colour. A recess held an old kitchen range tiled with old Dutch scenes of blue windmills and little rows of stiff blue tulips. Geraniums lined the windows, their pots cluttering the sills. The Welsh dresser was crammed with plates, some painted with birds and flowers, some in traditional willow-pattern style.
    The cups and saucers were a motley collection, gay and colourful, painted with orange nasturtiums, roses or trailing ivy. Despite the shadowy, spider-haunted corners, the high ceiling and ill-fitting doors, the room had a homely, lived-in feeling, which made it more inviting than the most modern, well-equipped kitchen in the world.
    Under the scrubbed deal table was a basket full of mewing kittens, and Kate fell to her knees to embrace them in delight. They spilled out over her skirt, mild blue eyes shining, claws scratching gently on her coat.
    "Oh, no! Where did she get them from? I never leave this house for a day or two but she. manages to smuggle some animal or other into it!"
    Kate looked up at Nicholas with angry eyes. "Look at them, the darlings! Don't you like kittens?"
    He bent to scratch one behind the ear, and found himself with it on his chest, purring loudly and kneading his shoulder with a curled paw, the minute body shaken with heavenly delight.
    Kate watched him. She saw the gentleness of his hands, the smile in his eyes.
    "They'll have to go tomorrow," Nicholas sighed despairingly. "You will really all have to go tomorrow."

CHAPTER TWO

    When Kate came downstairs the following morning she found the kitchen empty except for the kittens in their basket under the table. A kettle purred on the black range. There was a bowl of fruit in the centre of the table, flanked by a large coffee pot, two cups and a bright yellow egg-cup on a green plate.
    "I thought I heard you moving about," said Nicholas, coming into the room behind her. "Aunt Elaine is feeding the animals. Will you make yourself some coffee and boil an egg?"
    "Am I late?" She looked in consternation at her watch. It was just eight o'clock.
    "We get up very early." He watched her making herself some coffee, putting an egg on to boil, slicing and buttering bread. He was flipping the pages of a newspaper, sipping some coffee which looked half cold.
    "I must go," he said, shouldering into a dark jacket, straightening his tie and picking up a bulging briefcase. "I have to drive to Maiden by nine."
    "Goodbye," she said uncertainly, wondering if she would be gone before he got back. From the way he stood there, looking at her and the kittens with a sort of comic despair, she could tell that his thoughts were somewhat similar.
    "Look," he said roughly, "I'm sorry about all this —you must be furious with Aunt Elaine and myself. I suppose you've had a rough deal. What will you do?"
    She shrugged, carefully peeling an orange with small, slender fingers that shook slightly.
    "I will have to find another job, I imagine," she said flatly, keeping her gaze on the orange.
    "Why did you take a job like this in the first place? What did your family think of such a crazy idea?"
    "I have no family," she told him in a calm voice. One of the kittens scrambled over the top of the basket, falling with a muffled squeal to the floor, and Nicholas fenced it with his foot, very gently, before bending to pick it up and pop it back among its relatives. Then he put down his briefcase and sat down at the table again, propping his head with his hands in a gesture of wry