Enter Pale Death(63)
“First, I’d like to take a look at whatever you’re hiding under that dressing,” she said, peering up at his cheek. “Something bitten you?”
Joe exclaimed, as without further warning, she ripped the plaster off. “Good Lord! That’s nasty!” She put up a hand and ran it over the bumps and creases. “There are splinters in there. Wood? Have you been hugging a tree with indecent fervour?”
“Some idiot chucked a log at me. A man with a green face and a green shirt. Yet another person in the county who thinks Joe Sandilands is a bit of bad news.”
“Urgh! You fell foul of Robin Goodfellow? Rustic comedian and resident parasite? You should have run him in. Look, you’d better come into the parlour, sit yourself on a chair, and I’ll get my bag. Tweezers and a spot of iodine should work wonders. You can’t afford to pick up another scar—that would be extravagantly romantic. They’d have to put you in a musical comedy.”
He closed his eyes politely as her swift cool fingers worked on his face, gritting his teeth against the stabs of pain from the probings and the antiseptic, and opened them again when a new dressing was in place.
“You can always tell the crocodiles you got that in a duel. Left cheek scars are all the go in Prussia, they tell me. You can say you’ve just been initiated into Herr Hitler’s élite bodyguard of strutting thugs. They might just believe it. Some of the guests might even approve,” she added darkly. “There’s some speculation as to where exactly Truelove’s sympathies lie. His brother-in-law, married to the older of his two sisters, if I’ve got that right, is a psychologist, a eugenicist or something of that nature, and he’s recently defected to Germany to ply his disgusting trade, did you know?”
Joe grinned. “I’m delighted to say it was my boot up his rear that decided him to leave England in a hurry. I’m collecting enemies in high places, I’m afraid.”
“Well, watch your step up there in that company then. I’m good at grazes and bruises but I have no experience with bullet wounds. Though Pa might be able to help. He served in the war and found he had to extend his skills to human patients as well as equine.”
She snapped her bag closed and was clearly about to send him on his way when he began to blurt. Blurting was the only word for the reckless effusion of nonsense that seemed to be coming from his lips. “Do come, Adelaide! For me, not them! I can’t tell you what a difference it would make. To see a friendly face across the table, to hear a voice that doesn’t crack the glassware. To have someone whose eye I can catch in understanding. Will you change your mind?”
The urgency of his appeal silenced and concerned her. Quick and decisive as he was beginning to judge her, she said, after a questioning stare, “I’m not inviting you up to my room. The contents of it will have to come down to you. Wait a minute.”
After five minutes of rummaging overhead, she clumped back downstairs and dumped the contents of her wardrobe at his feet.
“Three flowery cotton washing frocks,” she announced. “No use at all.” These were thrown aside to form the base of the rejected pile. A cream linen day dress followed. “Women’s Institute Committee meeting … Now this one—long, black, formal. Bias cut. Silk. I wore this for a degree-giving dinner six years ago.”
“That’s certainly a possibility,” Joe said. “Something at the neck, perhaps?… A rose from the garden tucked into a splendid bosom is always a winner.”
“How lucky I am that splendid bosoms are back in fashion again,” she commented drily.
Embarrassed, he struggled to excuse himself. “I couldn’t help noticing the fine choice of roses in your beds when I had them in close-up.” And, helpfully: “I’d suggest white rather than red. The Flamenco style wouldn’t suit you.”
At last she seemed caught by the idea. “I see what you mean. There’s a Snow Queen. Pure white but it’s a bit floppy and yellow in the middle and drops pollen. I’d have half the table sneezing into its raspberry sorbet. Ah! Got it! There’s Swan Lake. Cream, cup-shaped, with the faintest flush of pink in the central bud.” She demonstrated with one hand curving at her neckline.
Joe’s jaw sagged and he swallowed the words he’d been about to release.
They stared at each other for a moment, and then, in a voice tight with restrained humour, she answered his thought. “No, I expect you’re right. One can have too splendid a bosom. We shouldn’t forget the advanced age and state of decrepitude of the guests. The sight of three nipples in a row might just bring on palpitations and I never take my stethoscope out to dinner.”