Bird of Prey by Henrietta Reid Page A

before appearing in his presence.
    “So you decided to pretty yourself before putting in an appearance, isn’t that it?” Grace put in smoothly. “Naturally, Randall, a girl doesn’t want to appear with her hair standing on end. ”
    Randall Craig ignored this interjection. He stood, his hands behind his back, his eyes piercingly fixed on Caroline, who stood in the centre of the room feeling flushed and awkward at this reception.
    “I don’t expect my staff to be beauty queens,” he said harshly. “In future, when I send for you, I’d be obliged if you’d come as quickly as possible.”
    Caroline’s lips tightened mutinously.
    But again Grace’s soft musical voice interjected, “You forget, Randall, that it was I who wanted to see Caroline.”
    “In that case, I’ll leave you together for your chat,” he said brusquely.
    “Oh no, don’t go,” Grace said swiftly. “What I have to say to Caroline concerns you to a certain extent.” She lowered her eyelids, letting the dark, silky lashes fan her cheeks, and
    Caroline got the impression that, strange as it seemed, the confident Grace was faintly disconcerted and reluctant to proceed.
    “All right, let’s have it.” A faint sardonic smile brushed Randall Craig’s long, rather cruel mouth. “But don’t keep her too long or you’ll have Mrs. Creed reading the riot act.”
    “I can’t say how surprised I was when I heard that you are working here at Longmere. I had the impression that you were going straight home after you left my house. ” Grace began twisting a large opal ring on her finger and studying it intently.
    “I was,” Caroline admitted, “but when Mr. Craig turned up at the station and offered me a job I was only too pleased to take it.”
    “Well, I don’t know how you can be pleased, now that you see how things are here at Longmere. That Creed woman is a perfect dragon from all accounts. It’s beyond me how you can stand it,” Grace said a trifle acidly.
    “If I were you I shouldn’t worry myself unduly concerning Caroline’s welfare,” Randall interjected dryly. “I’m perfectly certain she’s well able to take care of herself, and Mrs. Creed, dragon though she may be, is in her own way fairly just.”
    “But we are sort of cousins,” Grace put in plaintively. “It’s only right I should be concerned that she’s happy in the place she’s working.”
    “Just what are you getting at, Grace?” he asked a trifle grimly. “Don’t think for a moment I’m taken in by this show of cousinly concern for Caroline’s welfare.”
    Again Caroline got the impression that Grace was slightly uncomfortable and that she was taking care to hide this by smiling brightly. “Would you believe it, Randall, but that woman, who was recommended so highly for Robin, has walked out on me. Just left this morning without as much as a good-bye to anyone, and now I’m left in the lurch again! Not that I’d have kept her anyway. She was so utterly cruel to the poor child; boxed his ears, simply because he’d been a little naughty.”
    “What exactly did the little naughtiness amount to?” Randall inquired.
    Grace shrugged. “Nothing at all really. He simply turned on the water sprinkler when she happened to be passing. I’m sure it was completely accidental, but immediately the wretched woman attacked the poor child. He cried for hours afterwards. I was simply furious when I heard the full story, but by then she had gone, without as much as a word of explanation or apology.”
    “I see. and what has all this got to do with Caroline?”
    “Well, I was wondering if I might have her. After all, that’s what she came for in the first place, and she’d be ideal for Robin. She’s young enough to understand a child and make allowances.”
    “Is she indeed?” Randall said coldly. “Then Caroline must have got the wrong impression last night. It seems you told her she would be quite unsuitable: she was too young, if I understand