Miss Debenham's Secret (The Husband Hunters Club 5.50)

When she heard the chair creak as he sat, she looked up with a determined smile, to find his hard eyes fixed on hers. Once he would have smiled and joked but there was no smile there today and, she thought, perhaps not for a long while.

“I wanted to talk about Meredith,” she heard herself say, and was glad her voice was its usual calm and even self. “As you know her fees—”

“Miss Debenham, there is no need,” he tried to stop her. “I’m aware of the situation. I wasn’t before, but I am now. My sister has been very ill and her illness has thrown her family’s financial affairs into chaos. My brother in law isn’t the best manager and he has rather let things slide. But it is all right. Now I am going to pay Meredith’s fees, just until they are able to take over once more.”

Clarissa found herself listening to his voice rather than his words, the sound of them brushing against her, taking her back to a time and a place she’d almost forgotten.

Alistair when she’d first met him outside Mrs. Frobisher’s shop, and then the bonnet he bought for her when hers was ruined, and his face as they clung to the capsized boat. His lips warm on hers. The memories were coming thick and fast and she was struggling to control them.

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She picked up her pen. Put it down again. “Thank you for explaining the situation to me.”

“I’ll make sure the payment is made in the next few days.” His voice was clipped, and she wondered whether he considered her penny clutching. It seemed important to explain. For him to think well of her, despite how ridiculous she knew that sounded after all these years.

“There’s no need to be . . . that is, I wasn’t going to force Meredith to leave. In fact the opposite. She is one of my best pupils and I wanted to do everything I could to see she remained here. It is just . . .” she sighed. “I do not charge exorbitant prices for my pupils. Well, only those who can pay. Towards the others I am more lenient because I want to see them receive the sort of education they deserve.”

Her voice had become earnest and with a shock she realised that the closed expression had left his face and he was smiling. It was the same smile she remembered from long ago, and it softened his features, making him appear younger and less careworn.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his smile turning wry and twisting up one corner of his mouth. “It was just . . . you sounded as you used to in Lyme. So earnest, so full of the effect you could have on young lives, so determined to help.”

“Is there anything wrong with that?” she asked coolly, ready to take offense.

His smile faded. “Nothing, nothing whatsoever. I always admired you for it.”

Admired her? When Clarissa had loved him.

Her heart ached at the memory, as if it was yesterday instead of twenty years ago, the words and feelings of her younger self clamouring to be heard. But she forced them down, forced herself to be calm and cool, the headmistress again.

Clarissa knew she shouldn’t ask anything personal of him and yet it seemed churlish not to. She needed to behave as if all that they felt was in the past, for her at least, and they could chat like old acquaintances.

“And your wife, Mr. McKay? She is well?”

He frowned and then looked away. He appeared uncomfortable and then he looked directly at her. “I am unmarried, Miss Debenham.”

But that couldn’t be right? He had written to her telling her he was to be married. All these years she had imagined him cosily domesticated with some other woman. She realised she was staring at him. “I thought . . .” she began, but her voice trailed off.

He was still watching her with that intense gaze. “I have never married.”

She put a hand to her hair as if to smooth it back into place and found her fingers were trembling. “I thought . . . that is you said in your letter . . . Surely I am not mistaken about that?” she finished, her voice trembling too.

He hesitated. “It was a very long time ago, Miss Debenham,” he replied at last. “I hardly remember what I said.”

That was cruel; he knew it was cruel and she could see he knew it. Didn’t he want to talk about it? Had the woman he planned to marry broken his heart? And yet there was something wrong. She knew it and she realised suddenly that she had known it all along.

“It was strange,” she said, and her eyes were on his, narrowed, searching, “but someone thought they saw you on the Cobb, before your letter arrived, and that you were injured. They were certain it was you but if you had come back to Lyme I thought you would surely have come to visit me. Wouldn’t you? Have come to visit me?”

Alistair glanced away. “They must have been mistaken,” he said woodenly. “Now, I’d best go. There are matters to deal with. Meredith and my sister,” he shrugged.

She wanted him to stay; she was disappointed by his evasiveness but she could hardly insist. They were near enough to strangers. “Very well. I think we are done here.”

He started to get to his feet and she let him, rising too, wondering whether or not to offer her hand. But he wasn’t looking at her; he wasn’t meeting her eyes.

He was at the door before she knew it, turning with a polite bow and then closing it after him.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Alistair’s mouth tightened, harsh lines appearing either side of his lips, a frown on his forehead. He was a fool; he must be a fool to have imagined for a moment that he could meet the famous Miss Debenham with impunity.