Wild Melody

‘To see Jeremy?’ she asked hopefully.

‘No,’ he said witheringly. ‘To have some breakfast before you pass out on me. I want you leaving here on your own two legs, not carried out on a stretcher.'

Catriona was just about to fling his insulting offer back in his face when it occurred to her how hungry she really was and how much better she would be able to continue the battle if she was fed. So more meekly than she felt, she allowed herself to be shepherded through the hall to the rear of the house and a large shiny kitchen.

It was a poem in gleaming ceramic tiles and stainless steel with gadgets Catriona had only ever seen before in magazine pictures. Remembering the old-fashioned sink and scrubbed wooden draining board back at Muir House, she felt a stab of envy. It seemed so unfair that Auntie Jessie had had to struggle with her work, while this unpleasant man had been living in the lap of luxury with hardly the need to lift a finger for himself.

‘Mrs Birch!’ he called, and the woman who had admitted Catriona came bustling in.

‘Can you organise some breakfast for this starving morsel?’ He indicated Catriona with a casual wave of his hand and she went hot with fury. ‘Bacon and at least two eggs, I think. Oh, and porridge of course. She's from Scotland.'

‘Porridge, sir?’ Mrs Birch gaped at him. ‘Well, I don't know if …'

‘No,’ Catriona interrupted hastily. ‘I don't eat porridge.'

‘Heresy,’ Jason Lord said solemnly, but he was laughing at her, she knew. ‘Well, grapefruit, then, and lots of coffee, Mrs B., and I'll have some as well.’ He turned to Catriona. ‘You'll be quite safe with Mrs Birch. I'm going to finish shaving and get dressed.'

Before Catriona could reply, he vanished.

Mrs Birch was setting out plates and cups and Catriona could already smell the bacon sizzling in the pan.

‘Is there anything I can do?’ she asked shyly.

‘I can manage.’ Mrs Birch gave her a quick glance. ‘I should sit down before you fall down, lovey. You're as white as a sheet.'

Catriona complied shakily. ‘I—I've had rather a shock.'

‘Well, I wondered, though it's not for me to say. I could have told you he doesn't like seeing people so early in the morning. And when I saw that guitar I said to myself, Elsie, I said, she hasn't got a prayer, poor little soul.'

‘My guitar?’ Catriona echoed bewilderedly.

‘He doesn't do musical acts, lovey. It's all current affairs and documentaries. I thought you'd have known that.'

And as Catriona continued to stare at her in amazement, she tutted impatiently.

‘Well, you do know who he is, don't you?'

‘All I know is that he's Jeremy's uncle,’ Catriona admitted.

‘Lord above!’ Mrs Birch cracked the first of the eggs into the pan. ‘He's a TV producer, dear. He does Here and Now on a Monday, apart from anything else. And his documentary on alcoholics last year got an award.'

‘I'm afraid I've never seen much television,’ Catriona said quietly. ‘We didn't have a set at home.'

Mrs Birch was obviously as staggered by this as if Catriona had suddenly grown a second head.

‘Well, there's a thing,’ she said at last. ‘And there was me thinking you were pestering him for a job.'

Catriona coloured. ‘Oh, it's nothing like that,’ she said.

‘I'm pleased to hear it.’ Mrs Birch set half a grapefruit frosted with sugar in front of Catriona and lowered her voice confidentially. ‘You see, dear, the better known he's become, the worse it's got. A lot of girls just think he's the key to fame and fortune and heaven knows what. He knows so many people in television, you see, and one word from him can do all sorts. I'm glad you're not one of them.’ She beamed approvingly at Catriona, then turned back to the cooker. ‘Now you get started, because this is nearly ready.'

Catriona had almost finished her eggs and bacon by the time Jason Lord returned. In a silk-textured dark suit he looked even more forbidding, she thought, and had to fight an urge to flinch as he slid on to the stool next to hers at the breakfast bar.

‘That's better,’ he remarked coolly. ‘You're beginning to look more like a human being.'

Mrs Birch put two steaming cups of coffee down on the bar and hurried out of the kitchen to her other chores.

‘You've placed me under an obligation to you——'

Catriona began stiffly, but he interrupted.

‘Then repay it—please—by going home.'

‘I have no home.'

‘You just thought you'd move in with my nephew.’ His tone was glacial again.

‘No,’ she answered wretchedly. ‘I've told you—we're going to be married.'

He glanced meaningly at her ringless hands. ‘You're officially engaged?'

She hesitated miserably, unwilling to share even part of her precious secret with this man. Then, very slowly, she undid the top two buttons on her white shirt blouse and pulled out the silver chain she wore round her neck. There were two metal objects hanging on it—a small key and a silver ring set with a cairngorm. A cheap enough trinket, but Jeremy had bought it for her one day in Fort William.

‘Until I can afford a proper one,’ he had whispered as he put it on her finger and kissed her. She had thought she would die of happiness, and some of that remembered joy lingered in her face as she extended the ring to Jason Lord in the soft curve of her palm.

There was a long silence. Then, ‘I see,’ he said in a voice devoid of any emotion. She looked at him, puzzled, but his eyes were veiled as he looked down at the thin trail of smoke from the cigarette held lightly between his fingers.

‘You will let me see him, won't you?’ Her voice was pleading.

‘Yes.’ He stubbed the cigarette out with sudden violence. ‘Yes, Miss Muir, you win. I'll take you to him this evening.'

‘Not till this evening?’ She couldn't believe her victory, but at the same time this apparently unnecessary delay jarred on her. ‘Why not now?'

‘Because he's away. He'll be back this evening—his mother's giving a party. I didn't intend to go, but now I will and I'll take you with me.'

‘But I couldn't let you do that,’ Catriona said at once. It was not at all how she had planned to see Jeremy again, at a party against a background where she would be an interloper. ‘I'd be a gatecrasher. And besides, I haven't anything to wear.'

‘The eternal cry of woman, but in your case it could just be true,’ he said, his eyes flicking over her dismissively. ‘And you won't be a gatecrasher. You'll go as my guest. Marion always expects me to bring a girl-friend to her parties.'

Catriona felt a quick surge of revulsion at the idea of being taken for his girl-friend.

‘I'm sure there are other people you'd rather take,’ she said awkwardly.

‘Dozens,’ he retorted. Suddenly he leaned forward and his long fingers brushed the small curve of her breast. Startled, she pulled away, feeling oddly as if she had been scorched by a sudden flame.

‘Don't be a fool,’ he said. ‘Give me credit for a little more subtlety in my approach than that. I'm just curious to know what this is.'

It was the key that shared the chain with the ring.