The Gift of Happiness Read online

  Just then he turned his head and regarded her from under lowered brows, his face stern and unsmiling. His eyes widened as he took in her own huge eyes with the strange alarm set in the darkened green. “I’m sorry,” he said abruptly. “It won’t happen again.” With that, he strode down the hall and disappeared into his own room. He didn’t see her hand half lifted to him in a tentative, silent denial, nor did he notice her shoulders droop in a dejected slump as she quietly opened her own door and went inside. She was hard put to explain the dejection herself.

  The next morning, she rose late, and by the time she was downstairs there was no chance of seeing Luke before he went to work. She didn’t know if she was happy or sad about that.

  Marian and Jana were enjoying a comfortable talk when she entered the kitchen. She helped herself to a glass of milk and popped some bread in the toaster, and then sat down with the other women.

  Jana grinned at her impishly. “Luke told me to tell you that he made a reservation for two at the Regency,” she commented carelessly, and then abandoned the role of a disinterested messenger and asked her happily, “Oh, Katherine, what are you going to wear? He said to be ready by eight.”

  She smiled at this as Marian grumbled, “Wish someone would take me out once in a while!”

  “Are you going dancing?” Jana asked her. “Good heavens, I haven’t been dancing in years!”

  “Come on,” Katherine protested laughingly. “It can’t be that long. You aren’t old enough! You are certainly attractive enough!”

  “My dear,” Jana replied with a smile, “just how old do you think I am?”

  “Well, I don’t know.” She shrugged. Her eyes searched Jana’s amused face. “I know that you’re older than Luke, and that he’s—what, thirty-five, -six?”

  “Eight, love,” Marian put in with a grin. “Luke is thirty-eight, although you’d never tell by looking at him.

  She was quite shocked at this and couldn’t help exclaiming, “Good God! Why, then,” she turned her eyes to Jana, “you’ve got to be around…forty?” Jana’s smile grew larger, and Marian chuckled softly. “Forty-one? Come on, you’re pulling my leg! Forty- two? You can’t be any older than forty-three! I won’t believe it!”

  “I am,” Jana stated with a great show of satisfaction, “forty-nine, as of last month. I’m eleven years older than Luke. He was, in a quaint term, an ‘accident’ that turned our mother’s hair completely gray and had our father going to an early grave.”

  Later, as she was up in her room and washing her hair, Katherine couldn’t help but be depressed on thinking over the conversation of that morning. She had no idea that Luke was so much older than she, and kept thinking how young she must appear to all of them.

  She must seem so immature to him! The problems that had once been monumental to her, an insurmountable obstacle, must have been tiringly childish to him. And when her thoughts turned, inevitably, to the events of the night before, she almost cringed with embarrassment.

  In this discouraged and dejected mood, she started to ready herself for her evening out. She went down the hall, having asked Jana earlier if she could borrow her steam curler set, and stayed to ask her advice on the dress she was going to wear. “It’s not,” she told Jana with a touch of sarcasm, “as if I have so many choices, but do you think this will do?” Holding up for inspection a dark gold dress that had a bit of shine to its slinky material, she searched the older woman’s face for approval.

  “Very nice,” Jana replied, coming over to finger it with an appreciative hand. “Hold it up in front of you—there, like that. You know, it’s just the right color for you. It seems to bring out all the gold lights and the reddish color in your beautiful hair. Go and put it on, love, and by the time you get back here the curlers should be hot enough. I’ll help you roll up your hair, if you want.”

  Katherine did want, and she hurried down the hall to slip on the dress. The silky material caressed her skin and slipped into place with a little rustle. The shoulder straps were thin, and the neckline low. There was practically no back at all to the dress, and though the front was thick enough, she knew that there could be no mistake about whether she was wearing a bra or not. She stopped long enough to put on a pair of filmy thin tights that lent a glistening silver sheen to her slender legs. Then she grabbed her pair of gold sandals and hurried back to Jana’s room.

  She paused for a moment on the threshold, a slim and yet delicately rounded young woman, with fine graceful lines to her long legs and a way of walking that had Jana’s eyes following her bemusedly as she crossed the room with a fluid motion. Katherine stood in front of the other woman quietly, turning once for good effect. “Will it do?” she asked anxiously, hurrying the turn so that she could glance at Jana’s face. That lady laughed and hurried over to give her a tight hug.

  “Will it do? My dear, you look absolutely delightful!” Jana took Katherine into her own private bathroom. “I’ll just roll your hair up for you, and then you can run off and put on a little make-up while the curlers cool and your hair sets.”

  Cunningly applied blusher emphasized her high cheekbones even more strikingly, and her eyelids, stroked with a distinctive gold-brown shadow, made her green eyes glow vividly. Black mascara, a touch of eyeliner and a bronze lipstick glazing her well-shaped lips completed her toilette. She quickly unrolled the cold curlers and brushed her abundant hair briskly. After shaking her head violently, she threw her hair back and surveyed it critically. It would do. A few squirts of hairspray to help hold it in place, and she was quite ready.

  A knock sounded at her door. “How does a glass of sherry sound before we leave?” a deep voice vibrated through the closed doors, reaching, she felt, to her bones.

  As she opened the door and looked him full in the face, his voice faded into silence. They stared at each other for a long, long time. She seemed to be having trouble with her breathing. That’s a strange way for him to be affecting me, she thought dazedly. She looked him up and down, taking in the black, slim-fitting suit with the slightly shimmery gray shirt and black tie, and the sleek well-brushed hair. There was a faint blue tinge to his brown skin along the jawline that would never go away after shaving. Her eyes traveled back to his expressionless face. He was looking white.

  “Are you all right?” she felt urged to ask. He shook his head impatiently, looking very suddenly quite normal.

  “Of course I am. Don’t I look all right?” was his reply, as he backed away from her door to let her past him into the hall. She could have replied to that with a very positive, vehement affirmation, but merely contented herself with a slight nod.

  Downstairs, he let her precede him into the library where the two women sat, sipping small glasses of amber liquid. Both turned at the pair’s entrance. “Oh, my dear!” Marian exclaimed approvingly. “You look positively enchanting! Doesn’t she look lovely, Luke?”

  “Yes,” he replied, moving over to a low cabinet with two full glasses sitting on it. He picked up both, handing one to Katherine before drinking from his own. She murmured her thanks and sipped appreciatively. Then she moved over to the large leather couch to sit at the edge closest to the other women, crossing her slim legs with an easy grace. She glanced quickly at Luke and found him staring straight ahead of himself, apparently at nothing, and sipping his sherry with a peculiar, rigid expression. She turned back to Jana to listen to what that lady was telling her.

  “Oh, Katherine, I almost forgot to ask you! Did you remember that you asked me to make an appointment at the hospital for the removal of your stitches? (What a pity your hand is bandaged tonight, dear!) Well, when I was at the hospital this afternoon, I overheard that the personnel department will be accepting applications tomorrow for positions as nurses’ aides, and I immediately thought of you! Of course, you would probably have a much more exacting role than that of a mere volunteer! I was just wondering if you might possibly be interested in something like that?”

  “What a splendid idea!” Katherine s
aid, smiling dazzlingly at Jana and Marian, the beauty of which made both ladies blink. “Do you know, that might be just the thing for me! I probably wouldn’t want to make it a career, but it would certainly be the right start. Oh, Jana, I think I would like to apply! When did you manage to make my appointment for?”

  “Two o’clock tomorrow afternoon. It’ll just take five minutes to get the stitches taken out, and then we can go to the personnel department and you can fill in your application form while I go on to work. I’m supposed to be there at two-thirty. Would you mind driving back to the house in my car, and coming back for me at six-thirty?”

  “Oh no, of course not!” she instantly replied, her eyes traveling over Marian without really seeing her. She was wrapped up in sudden possibilities, but her eyes came back quickly to Jana. “But what if they don’t hire me? I mean, I have no experience whatsoever, and can think of no reason why they should! I think I’m getting a little depressed at the thought!”

  “No problem.” Jana smiled at her, as she airily waved away this minor difficulty. Her blue eyes rested on Katherine kindly. “Just put me down as a personal reference, dear. They’ll hire you.”

  “But—” she began, protesting at this blithe assurance, until she saw the look in Jana’s eyes. “Oh.” She paused a moment. “I see.”

  “Do you, love? You see, I’ve been very good to the Memorial Hospital in Frankfort, both with my time and especially with my money. Yes,” her eyes twinkled at Katherine, “I think you do see, after all.”

  “Katie-bug.” Luke’s voice was very quiet, but she heard him immediately, and turned to look at him. He regarded her face thoughtfully. “Perhaps we should be leaving, since the reservation is for eight-thirty,” he suggested. She rose quickly and put her empty glass on the tray nearby. He ran an eye down her slim frame. “Do you have an evening wrap?”

  “Oh, do you think I need one?” she asked in dismay. “I didn’t think to bring one from home, and it’s been so warm for July.”

  “It is supposed to cool off quite a bit tonight,” he said, and turned to Jana. “Would you mind lending Katherine your sable jacket for tonight, love?”

  “Of course not!” She was already on her feet. “My very thought, Luke. I’ll be right down with it.”

  After Jana had pressed the meltingly soft fur coat into Katherine’s reluctant hands, they said their good nights to the two women, Luke telling them that it was possibly going to be very late before they returned.

  He was silent as he handed her into the low-slung sports car, and later when he drove unsmilingly through the streets. She ventured a few glances his way, wondering at his strangely unapproachable mood, but said nothing.

  When he pulled into the car park of the well-known and quietly elegant restaurant, Katherine was made more nervous by his silence than she would have been comfortable to admit. She gladly got out of the car and draped the sable jacket around her shoulders while Luke stood near, watching. He asked her, “Ready?” and she nodded, vaguely noticing the arrival of a dark saloon car that parked not far away.

  Luke put a hand under her right elbow and walked with her to the entrance of the restaurant, moving forward and opening the door for her politely and passing through after her. He left her for a moment to announce their arrival while she, having been to the restaurant before, went to a dark corner that surprisingly led to a hall with a public phone, the cloakrooms, and a lit doorway which was the coat room. She handed the jacket to the quick attendant with a murmured thanks and took the ticket he gave her in return. As she turned back to go down the semi dark hall, she bumped hard into a large bulk. She looked up with a politely phrased apology and found herself staring into the eyes of a stranger, who looked considerably startled and almost thrust her aside to hurry down the hall. She stared after the man reflectively and with some astonishment, and only belatedly remembering that Luke must be waiting for her in the restaurant’s foyer. She turned and hurried back the way she had come.

  He was standing in conversation with a vivacious-looking little brunette who was talking and gesturing animatedly. Just as she rounded the corner, he looked up, a tall, straight figure in black, with his proud-looking head still a little inclined toward the pretty woman by his side to whom he had been listening. His dark eyes met hers and he smiled. The brunette, catching sight of Katherine walking their way with her long, graceful, compelling stride, seemed to melt away out of existence. Katherine never spared the girl a glance, and Luke moved forward to take her slender bare arm in his warm and easy grasp.

  “Our table’s ready,” he murmured in her ear, and they both moved to the floor where the tables were tastefully arranged to give the illusion of separateness and privacy to each. They stood poised just for a moment in the frame of the arched doorway, the one figure dark and almost broodingly handsome, and the other like a living flame. Then, as they saw where the hostess was leading them, both moved simultaneously forward with a fluidity and grace, and a natural continuity in their movements that had heads turning, looking, watching them pass. Katherine was by no means disconcerted by the obvious attention that she and Luke were receiving. This type of recognition was something that she was very used to, and in fact would have missed if it had not been there. A slight smile hovered around her full, beautifully formed lips, but other than that she ignored the other tables.

  The hostess led them to a rather more secluded table than the others, and Katherine sank into the chair that Luke held for her with a smile of thanks. He pulled out the other and sat down also, smiling his first real smile of the evening full into her receptive eyes. It was quite something; he could turn on enough charm to coax a badger out of its hole if he wanted to. It made her blink.

  “You know,” he said softly, his eyes twinkling, “you quite disappointed me back there.”

  This made her blink. “Back where?” she asked in confusion. “I didn’t mean to do anything.”

  “Don’t worry,” he said, starting to laugh a little. “It wasn’t intentional, I know.” He looked into her mystified eyes for a minute, and then relented. “I was expecting a rather different reaction when you saw that precious little brunette, but to my surprise you didn’t even acknowledge the girl’s existence! You didn’t have any curiosity as to who she was?”

  She looked amused. “Okay, who was she?” she asked obligingly.

  He threw back his head and laughed harder. “Love, I have no idea! She just came up to me and started talking!”

  “It’s just as I thought.” She shrugged it away, tossing her gleaming hair behind one shoulder. “Nobody important to me.”

  “Now you have disappointed me!” He shook his head despairingly. “I was hoping for some show of jealousy in those green eyes, some little indication of emotion! You’ve broken my sorry heart, Katie.” As she laughed at Luke’s welcome, light-hearted change of mood and sent her eyes casually, idly around the occupants of the dining room, she caught sight of the man who had bumped into her in the hall, his gaze upon her, his manner anything but casual. Alert, speculating, and sharp, yes, but not the gaze of a man merely admiring a good-looking and strange woman. Her eyes widened in surprise and some alarm, and she dropped them to her empty place setting in consternation. Unless she was grossly mistaken, she had seen that man somewhere before. Just where, she couldn’t place, but she had seen him somewhere.

  “What is it?” Luke asked her sharply, catching sight of something in her face that evidently alarmed him, and he leaned forward to grasp her hand.

  That brought her eyes back up, this time to look at him, and she replied quickly, “Nothing! Nothing at all. I’m hungry, aren’t you?” Her tone was light, but her eyes were troubled.

  Chapter Seven

  “Don’t give me that.” He was not, she saw, so easily put off, and his grip on her uninjured hand tightened. “Tell me, Kate. What’s troubling you?”

  “It’s really stupid,” she began in a low voice. Her eyes traveled away from his and started inspecting the table�
��s furnishings. “This fellow who bumped into me in the hall and quite rudely pushed me away even after I had apologized, is sitting just behind your left shoulder, alone, and he is staring at me very hard. It’s just a little uncomfortable, that’s all, no big deal.” Her eyes once again met his and found him reassuringly calm. “Dumb?”

  “Of course not. What does he look like?” he asked idly, releasing her hand and leaning back in his chair nonchalantly.

  “It’s the funniest thing, but I think I’ve seen him before—oh!” she exclaimed as she casually looked over to the table where the man had been sitting. She sat upright in astonishment. “He’s gone!” She quickly glanced all over the restaurant’s dining room, but he was nowhere to be found.

  “Perhaps,” said Luke, sounding bored, “he finished eating and left for the evening.”

  She searched the table with her eyes and looked at him with the beginnings of frostiness. “You think,” she said coldly, “that I’m making all this up, don’t you? I’m not. Why is there an open menu where he was sitting? Why should he leave in such a hurry?”

  “I am most certainly not thinking that you have made all this up,” he replied with a maddening calm. “And I cannot guess why the fellow would get up and leave before eating. Perhaps he just changed his mind?”

  Her green eyes threw silent and virulent sparks at him, which had the opposite effect that she wished: he smiled in amusement. “Do you know,” she said reflectively, “that I think you are being quite provokingly odious?”