The Runaway Heart Read online

  She left the telephone box and went slowly back to the table in the restaurant. Garland was still sitting there alone and Sadie and Carl Westenholtz, locked in each other’s arms, were dancing cheek to cheek, oblivious to everyone and everything else.

  Karina sat down. Somehow she did not dare to look at Garland.

  He rose perfunctorily as she seated herself and, bending across the table, filled up her glass with champagne.

  “Well?” he said.

  “Well what?” Karina asked.

  “Who was it?”

  She felt a little frightened, but she forced a smile to her lips.

  “Are you asking me as my employer or as a friend?”

  “I’m asking you because I am curious,” Garland replied.

  “I had an old Nanny once who always used to say ‘curiosity killed the cat!’” Karina said frivolously.

  Garland was obviously not amused.

  “I want to know.”

  “But why?” Karina asked. “It was nothing to do with business, I can assure you of that.”

  “Was it likely to be?” he asked. Then almost angrily he said, “stop prevaricating and provoking me. Why should not you say who telephoned you?”

  “I think,” Karina answered slowly, “because I am independent-minded. I don’t like being ordered about or bullied.”

  “Dammit all! I am not bullying you,” Garland said. “I asked you a perfectly simple question. Who telephoned you?”

  “I will give you a perfectly simple answer,” Karina said. “It was a friend.”

  “I am almost certain who that friend was,” Garland answered.

  He spoke quite angrily and Karina said apprehensively,

  “Don’t make a row. It is so embarrassing.”

  “A row!” he repeated. “I am not making a row or anything else. I am just asking a simple question and for some infuriating, aggravating and stupid reason you will not give me a simple answer. Don’t worry, I know. It was Jim and he is doing this just to annoy me.”

  Karina said nothing.

  She looked down at the table and then at that moment to her relief the Westenholtzs returned. There was no question of any more intimate conversation. Sadie held the table and talked and talked until Karina began to feel that there was nothing else left in the world for anyone to say.

  The cabaret kept her quiet for a little while and then, when it was finished, Garland called for the bill.

  “Carl and I are hoping very much that you will come and see us while we’re in London,” Sadie said to Karina. “We shall be at The Ritz for a week and we’d both appreciate it if you would dine with us next week.”

  “It’s very kind of you to ask me,” Karina said.

  “It will be kind of you to come,” Sadie answered. “Just write down your address and telephone number.”

  “Well, you can reach me during the day at Mr. Holt’s office,” Karina told her.

  “Then that’s just fine,” Sadie said. “Carl has that in his little notebook, haven’t you, honey?”

  “I have,” Carl Westenholtz replied.

  “That’s settled then,” Sadie smiled, rising to her feet. “I will give you a ring and we will fix up a real gay party. Maybe just the four of us. Or perhaps one or two of my special friends who are over here too.”

  Chattering on she walked beside Karina to the cloakroom, where they collected their wraps.

  “If you ask me, he’s going to be just crazy about you,” Sadie said as she put a white mink stole around her shoulders.

  “Who?” Karina asked.

  “Garland Holt, of course,” Sadie replied. “I feel it in my bones that he will be popping the question before you know where you are.”

  “Oh, no, you are quite wrong,” Karina said. “As a matter of fact he is very annoyed with me at the moment.”

  “Don’t you take any notice of that,” Sadie admonished her. “Carl and I will do everything to bring you together and then you will be just as happy as we are.”

  Karina felt that she could not argue any longer, so she just smiled sweetly, thanked the American girl and made a mental reservation that it would be best if she did not go to the party.

  The men were waiting for them in the hall. As the women reached them, Carl Westenholtz looked at his watch.

  “It’s not yet one o’clock,” he said. “What about going on to a nightclub?”

  “Thank you very much, but I must go home,” Karina replied. “I am not used to such late nights and I have to work in the morning.”

  She saw the relief on Garland’s face and knew that he had had enough of the Americans too.

  “Goodnight, Carl,” he said. “I will give you a ring tomorrow about those matters we discussed and you might take a look at the legal aspect.”

  “O.K.” Carl replied.

  Sadie kissed Karina and said several times over again that she intended to ask her to a party. Then at last they had driven away in a taxi and Garland helped Karina into the car.

  He did not speak and, after he had put a big fur rug over her knees, she wondered if he was still angry.

  The car turned out of The Savoy yard into the Strand. There was not much traffic at this time of night and it moved swiftly.

  They had reached Trafalgar Square before Karina said in a small voice,

  “Thank you for taking me out this evening. I have enjoyed it very much.”

  “Carl Westenholtz is a very clever man,” Garland said in a conversational tone. “His wife is a bore.”

  “She was very kind to me,” Karina said, feeling somehow that she must defend Sadie from his condemnation of her.

  “Nevertheless she is a bore,” Garland said. “No woman should be allowed to talk as much as that.”

  “Perhaps her husband has not such autocratic ideas as you,” Karina said a little shyly.

  “I am not as autocratic as you try to make out,” Garland retorted.

  Karina could not think of an answer to this and so she said nothing. The car moved on into Piccadilly, turning up Park Lane towards Marble Arch.

  ‘I shall have to get out soon,’ Karina thought. ‘I wish the evening had not ended like this.’

  She sensed that there was a barrier between them, a coldness that seemed almost tangible in the atmosphere.

  The car drove on. Karina looked out of the window beside her, but all the time she was very conscious of Garland sitting still in his corner of the car, staring straight ahead.

  They reached the narrow street where the Carters’ house was. The chauffeur had difficulty in finding it and they finally drew up on the wrong side a little way down the road.

  “I can’t see the numbers, sir,” he said to Garland. “I’ll get out and look for number twenty-five.”

  “No, no it’s quite all right,” Karina said quickly. “I know where it is.”

  She pushed aside the rug and stepped out into the street before Garland could say anything. Then, as she turned to say ‘good night’, she found that he was beside her.

  “Don’t bother to come with me,” she said quickly. “It’s only a very short distance.”

  “I will walk with you,” he said in that determined and final tone to which she knew that there was no argument.

  She pulled her velvet wrap around her shoulders because there was a touch of frost in the air and they walked back down the empty street and across the road.

  There were not many street lamps and Karina had to look carefully before she was quite certain which house was number twenty-five. It had a small stone portico over the door, which cast a shadow and made it difficult to read the numbers.

  She stopped at the bottom of the steps.

  “Goodnight!” she said a little nervously. “And thank you again.”

  “Give me your key,” Garland replied. “I will open the door for you.”

  He walked up the steps and she followed him, taking her key from the little velvet bag that matched her wrap. He took the key from her and fitted it in the l
ock.

  The door opened easily and he turned to hold out his hand.

  “Goodnight, Karina!”

  “Goodnight,” she answered. “Thank you very much for this evening.”

  There was a moment’s pause while he still held her hand and then she said impulsively,

  “Please don’t be angry. I am sorry if I upset you.”

  She felt his fingers tighten on hers before he released them.

  “It wasn’t your fault.”

  “But it was,” she agreed. “I should have told you at once – and not made a mystery of it. I-I was only teasing.”

  He stood looking down at her. The distant lights glittering on the silver on her dress seemed to be reflected in her eyes.

  “You must take advice sometimes,” he said harshly.

  “I shall be all right,” she smiled. “I can look after myself.”

  “Not where Jim is concerned,” Garland replied.

  Karina turned towards the door.

  “Please don’t let’s discuss it again,” she pleaded almost piteously. “It only makes you angry.”

  She would have gone in, but Garland put a restraining hand on her arm.

  “You have only just met Jim,” he said. “Why do you stand up for him? I want you to believe me when I tell you that he is no good. Can you really have fallen in love with him so quickly?”

  “No, no, of course I haven’t.”

  “But he has made love to you, hasn’t he?”

  “You have no right to ask that sort of question,” Karina said quickly.

  “But he has, hasn’t he?” Garland insisted. “You would not answer me before, but you shall answer this. Jim has made love to you as he makes love to every woman he meets. I know he has!”

  “Then why ask me if you know the answer?” Karina retorted with a flash of temper.

  “You little fool!” Garland said scornfully. “Do you really think that you can listen to what a man like that says to you? Can you really believe a word he says?”

  “I am not saying I believe him or I don’t believe him,” Karina replied. “I only say you have no right to ask such questions or to make such insinuations.”

  “There you are, sticking up for him again,” Garland said angrily. “He has you hypnotised, I suppose. The poor, stupid, innocent little fly from the country who walked into the web that has been nicely spun for her by a town spider! Oh, Karina, do have some sense! You cannot be so stupid as all that.”

  “Please, Mr. Holt, I don’t want to discuss this any further,” Karina said. “You employ me and, while I am in the office, I will do my best to serve you – and to do everything you ask. But what I do outside is my own business, just as my friends – the few I have – are my business too.”

  She tried to move away from his restraining hand, but he tightened his hold on her arm.

  “I am not going to let you go like that,” he said. “I took you out to dinner to get you away from Jim, and yet you had him here before I picked you up, I thought I recognised him in a car driving down the street. He was here, wasn’t he?”

  “All right, he was,” Karina replied defiantly. “There is nothing wrong in that – is there?”

  “It depends what you mean by wrong,” Garland said slowly.

  He stood looking at her as if he was remembering something.

  “Jim had just left you when I arrived,” he said slowly, “and, when I came into the room, you were standing with a flush on your cheeks, your eyes shining. And your fingers were touching your mouth.”

  He spoke as if he was seeing a picture and describing it and then suddenly his fingers bit cruelly into her arm as he said,

  “He had kissed you, hadn’t he? He kissed you just before I arrived.”

  “I won’t listen to you, I won’t!” Karina stormed. “Let me go.”

  She tried to tear herself free, but Garland’s grasp was like a band of steel.

  “He kissed you,” he said again accusingly. “You stupid little idiot. If it’s kisses you want, why take Jim’s?”

  And then, before Karina realised what was happening, before she could cry out or tear herself free of him, his arms were round her.

  He crushed her to him roughly and his lips found hers.

  He kissed her brutally with a violence that seemed to force the very life from between her lips.

  She wanted to gasp for air, but his arms held her closer and closer.

  She felt her lips quiver beneath his, she felt as if his mouth conquered her, possessing her utterly, so that she had no longer any identity of her own but was a part of him.

  And then as suddenly and unexpectedly as he had taken her, he set her free.

  He thrust her from him so that she staggered against the open doorway.

  He turned and walked down the steps and out into the street.

  She could not see him go, she could not think.

  She could only feel that burning, passionate, possessive kiss upon her lips. A kiss that seemed to have seared its way right into her very soul.

  CHAPTER NINE

  “How dare he! How dare he!”

  Karina found herself muttering the words over and over again as she tossed from side to side unable to sleep.

  And yet at the same time she was not really angry, only bewildered, astonished and, within herself, upset in a way that she could not explain.

  She tried to sort out in her mind the tangled relationship between Garland and his cousin Jim and, although she tried to avoid it, her own relationship with Garland Holt.

  Because there did not seem to be any answer to any of the questions that she posed to herself, she rose soon after dawn and started to dress.

  It was then that she realised that she would have to meet Garland again at the office and the colour came flooding into her cheeks at the very thought. How could she face him? How could she speak to him when all night her lips had throbbed because of the violence of his kiss, because they still felt bruised and tender when she touched them with the tips of her fingers?

  She had been kissed twice in the same day!

  She looked at her reflection in the mirror and wondered if she would see any difference. But instead, a very young and rather frightened face looked back at her, the face of a child who does not understand the world she sees opening up before her.

  ‘I cannot go to the office,’ Karina thought in a panic.

  Then pride came to her rescue. Why should she run away? Why should she let Garland Holt think that his unforgivable action had disturbed or upset her in any way?

  It was up to him to apologise, up to him to say that he was sorry for what was an inexcusable act.

  Slowly she finished dressing and then went to look out of the window.

  The pale March sun was glinting through the clouds, but there was a strong North wind, which made people hug their coats around them and hurry by with blue noses.

  ‘He is like the North wind,’ Karina thought.

  She remembered that moment when he had come into the room and she had felt as if he was propelled by some dynamic force.

  “I will not be frightened of him, I will not,” she said aloud and went down to breakfast with her head held high.

  “You’re very early, miss,” Mrs. Carter commented as she entered the kitchen.

  “It’s such a nice morning that I thought I might walk to work,” Karina said on the spur of the moment.

  And when she had said it, she thought that perhaps the wind would blow away the cobwebs of the night before. Perhaps too it would blow away the embarrassment and shyness she felt throbbing beneath her heart, so that, when Mrs. Carter had set bacon and eggs in front of her, she knew that she could not eat a mouthful.

  She drank her tea and nibbled a piece of toast. Every crumb seemed to stick in her throat.

  Resolutely, however, she went upstairs to collect her hat and coat and put on her walking shoes.

  “Goodbye, Mrs. Carter!” she called as she opened the front door, then shut it
behind her with a bang.

  For a moment it seemed to her that she could see Garland Holt standing there, feel his arms suddenly reaching out towards her and feel herself breathless beneath his kiss.

  She almost ran down the road to escape from the ghosts of last night.

  She was the first to reach the office. Beth came in a few minutes later and talked to her while she sorted her papers and put a new ribbon in her typewriter.

  Karina knew that Beth was full of curiosity over Jim, but somehow not even to be pleasant and friendly could she talk about Jim or any other man this morning.

  After trying vainly to coax her confidence, Beth gave up with a shrug of her shoulders.

  “Westie’s late this morning,” she said, looking at the clock. “The hydrogen bomb must have arrived and we didn’t know it.”

  “Is she always on time?” Karina asked.

  “On the stroke,” Beth said.

  Karina finished inserting the new ribbon and, finding that she had nothing to do, sat waiting, expecting Miss Weston to arrive at any moment.

  Time went by. Ten o’clock came, half-past, and she was just wondering whether she ought to go into the outer office and see if there was anything that required doing when the door opened and Miss Weston came bustling in.

  “Oh, there you are, Miss Burke,” she said unnecessarily. “Will you come into the inner office please? I have something for you to do.”

  She did not take off her hat and coat and Karina followed her wondering what was the matter. Miss Weston opened a notebook on Garland Holt’s desk.

  “Take down the names of these appointments for the next week,” she said. “They are all written quite clearly and you will find the addresses and telephone numbers in the book on my desk.”

  Without waiting for Karina to reply she started manipulating the dial of a large safe in the wall. For a moment there was only the click-click of the turning lock and then the door opened and Miss Weston began to collect papers from inside the safe.

  Automatically Karina copied the names on Garland Holt’s engagement pad until at last her curiosity was too much for her. She must know what was happening.

  She had to ask the question.

  “Is anything the matter?”