An Old Enchantment. AMANDA BROWNING
Читать онлайн книгу.
the look in his. They were in love, and Maxi suddenly felt like bursting into tears. Tears of mingled sadness and joy, because this was what she had one day hoped to see.
However, there was no more time for thought, because their approach had been detected. Four smiling faces turned their way, and three smiles faded instantly. The shocked silence that fell hit Maxi like a blow, even though she had been expecting a strong reaction. It seemed from a very long way away that she heard Kerr Devereaux speaking.
‘Sorry I’m late, everyone, but I found a visitor on your doorstep.’
If he had said he’d found an unexploded bomb, she doubted if the shock to her family could have been greater. Their reaction to that shock varied greatly. Sir John Ambro, after remaining frozen, pointedly turned his back and walked into the house without another word. It was a slap in the face that Maxi had expected years ago, but not now, and she caught her breath sharply. As she watched, her mother ran a distracted hand through her hair and turned anxious eyes on her youngest daughter. As well she might, for Fliss had gone rigid, her whole expression one of utter revulsion.
‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded coldly.
‘Now, Felicity, darling, that’s no way to talk,’ Lady Ambro reproved, albeit in a shaken tone, watching the once happy gathering disintegrating around her.
Fliss banged down the glass she had been holding. ‘Of course it is. If she’s back, it can only be to cause trouble! Why else would she pick today of all days?’
‘Hush, darling,’ her mother said again, and turned to her other daughter, fixing a shaky smile to her lips. ‘Maxine, you’ve given us all such a surprise.’
Maxi could feel herself begin trembling badly, as much from tiredness as pure reaction to her reception. She knew Kerr Devereaux must feel it too, for he still had hold of her arm. Although she would rather it were anyone else, she welcomed the tightening of his hold in grudging support. ‘I would have telephoned to let you know I was coming, but—’
‘You knew you’d have been told not to bother,’ Fliss interrupted scornfully, and not without a certain amount of truth. ‘Oh, why couldn’t you have just stayed away for good?’
It was a question that reduced everyone to silence. Almost, that was.
‘Would somebody mind telling me what’s going on? I thought this was supposed to be a celebration?’ the young man at Fliss’s side asked in bewilderment.
Fliss, her lips trembling, turned her face into his shoulder. ‘It was, until she arrived.’
Still patently all at sea, he placed a protective arm about her, staring at Maxi. ‘But who is she? She looks familiar. Do I know you?’ This last was a direct question that Kerr Devereaux chose to answer.
‘It seems to me that introductions are in order. Believe it or not, Andy, this is the very same Maxi Ambro you were at school with. Maxi, meet Dr Andrew Devereaux, my little brother and,’ here he consulted the gold watch on his wrist, ‘as of fifteen minutes ago, your future brother-in-law.’
It seemed it was destined to be a day of shocks, for as Maxi stared at the man who as a boy, she now recalled, had bedevilled her early school days, he was gaping at her. Her fame, it seemed, had gone before her.
‘So you’re...’
‘The black sheep of the family,’ Maxi finished for him, finding defence in attack.
To her surprise he shook his head and smiled broadly. ‘Actually I was about to say that you’re the famous model we see everywhere. I never connected the name with the terror I knew in school,’ Andy declared, and reached out his hand. ‘Pleased to meet you.’
One out of five wasn’t bad, Maxi thought wryly, shaking his hand. Yet she wondered. Could he really be that genuine? Could he really not know who and what she was, what she had done?
‘She’s changed a lot,’ Kerr observed drily, releasing Maxi to go and greet his brother’s fiancée.
‘I’ll say!’ Andy declared with an infectiously boyish grin, to which Maxi couldn’t help responding with a laugh, and Fliss with a wailing cry as she tore herself away from Kerr and fled indoors. ‘Fliss?’ Andy called to her departing back. ‘Darling, what’s wrong?’ When he received no answer, he turned to his brother for elucidation.
Kerr obliged with withering scorn. ‘Andy, for a doctor, you can sometimes be a totally insensitive clod. Maxi is Fliss’s sister. Her only sister.’
Maxi’s smile was instantly wiped away, and, even though her shoulders wanted to sag tiredly, she braced them into something worthy of an army recruit. If there was any advantage to be gained by getting in first, she was determined to take it.
‘Andy, what your brother can’t wait to tell you is that I’m the one who stole Fliss’s other fiancé from her, virtually on the eve of the wedding.’
CHAPTER TWO
THERE followed another of those fateful silences, which seemed to drag on until Maxi’s nerves were at screaming pitch. She was very much aware of her mother’s anxiety and Kerr’s amusement. What she didn’t expect was Andy’s matter-of-fact question.
‘Do you make a habit of stealing other women’s men?’
Taken by surprise, she gave a delighted laugh before uttering an amused denial. ‘No!’
‘I’m glad to hear it,’ he replied soothingly, ignoring his brother’s snort of disgust. ‘Now, wouldn’t you be better sitting down? You appear to be in some discomfort.’ An observation which immediately made her the cynosure of all eyes as, with his help, she hobbled to the nearest chair and sank on to it gratefully.
‘Why, Maxine, you’re limping!’ Lady Ambro declared in concern, and Maxi, who hadn’t wanted to call undue attention to her injury, hastily reassured her.
‘It’s nothing to worry about, Mother, just the lingering results of an accident I had a few months ago.’
‘Were you prescribed pain-killers?’ In the blink of an eye, Andy had donned his doctor’s mantle.
‘I have some in my bag,’ Maxi confirmed, looking around for it before she remembered Kerr had left it with her case.
He was ahead of her, a wintry smile curving his lips. ‘I’ll go and get it for you. Andy, I suggest you stop fussing over Maxi and go and see what’s happening to Fliss.’ It was a gentle enough nudge, but Maxi heard the steel behind it. He didn’t want his brother within a country mile of her.
Andy took it at face value. ‘You’re right, I should have followed her. But I could see Maxi was in pain, and I was distracted.’
An unfortunate admission at which Kerr’s expression became grim. ‘Well, by all accounts, Maxi always was a distracting little devil. However, you can safely leave her to our tender mercies and go take care of my future sister-in-law.’
Although Andy grinned, he must have picked up something in his brother’s tone, because the smile didn’t reach his eyes. ‘Big brother has spoken. I’ll see you later, Maxi. You will be staying, won’t you? We’re going out to dinner tonight, and there’s a party tomorrow. All the family are invited.’
Though she couldn’t explain why, Maxi automatically glanced at Kerr. There was absolutely nothing to be read in his face, and that was telling enough. He wanted her to refuse. He wanted her gone, but a perverse devil wouldn’t let her make it that easy. It had taken a lot to come here, knowing how she might be received, and he certainly had no authority to insist she go. Therefore she sent Andy one of her famous smiles. ‘I’d be delighted to join you,’ she agreed, and watched him hurry away, aware of the contained anger of the man at her side.
‘Well, you certainly know how to break up a party,’ he said shortly, and it didn’t take much for Maxi to mentally add on the