Dinner came, and Houston’s cheerfulness made Blair
feel terrible, but she knew the uselessness of trying to talk to her sister about anything.
When the telephone rang during dinner, Gates told the maid to tell whoever it was that no one was going to talk on the newfangled thing. “Think they have the right to make you talk to them just because they can make that thing ring,” he grumbled.
Susan came back into the room and her eyes were on Blair. “It’s very important, the caller said. I’m to say it’s a Miss Hunter.”
“Hunter,” Blair said, her soup halfway to her mouth. “I’d better answer it.” Without asking Mr. Gates’s permission, she half ran to the telephone.
“I don’t know any Hunters,” Gates was saying behind her.
“Of course you do,” Opal said smoothly. “They moved here from Seattle last year. You met him at the Lechners’ last summer.”
“Maybe I did. I seem to remember. Here, Houston, have some of this beef. You need fattening up.”
“Hello,” Blair said tentatively.
Instead of Alan’s voice as she expected, she heard Leander. “Blair, please don’t hang up. I have an invitation to extend to you.”
“And what do you plan to do to Alan this time? You’ve used guns, horses, you’ve nearly drowned him. Did you know that we played tennis today? You could have thrown balls at him or hit him with the racquet.”
“I know that my conduct hasn’t been the best, but I’d like to make it up to you. I’m going to be on call all day tomorrow to handle any emergencies that come up, and I have several patients in the country that I need to see. I thought you might like to go with me.”
Blair couldn’t speak for a moment. To spend the entire day doing what she was trained for? To not have to loll about, going from one pastime to another, but to learn something?
“Blair, are you there?”
“Yes, of course.”
“If you’d rather not, I’ll understand. It’ll be a long day, and I’m sure you’ll be exhausted by the end of it, so—.”
“You pick me up whenever you need to. I’ll be ready at the crack of dawn, and tomorrow we’ll see who gives out first.” She hung up the telephone and went back to the table. Tomorrow she’d be a doctor! For the first time in days, she didn’t feel the burden of the weight of responsibility for hurting her sister.
* * *
Nina Westfield heard the pounding on the door for some minutes before someone answered it.
A white-faced maid came into the parlor, her hands trembling. “Miss, there’s a man out here, he says he’s Mr. Alan Hunter, and he says he’s come to kill Dr. Leander.”
“My goodness. Does he look dangerous?”
“He’s just standin’ there and bein’ calm, but his eyes are wild and…he’s very handsome. I thought maybe you might be able to talk to him. He doesn’t look like the killin’ kind to me.”
Nina put her book aside. “Show him in, then get Mr. Thompson from next door to come over, and send someone to get my father. Then send someone to keep Lee at the hospital. Invent an illness if you have to, just keep him away from home.”
Obediently, the maid left, and in a moment she escorted Mr. Hunter into the parlor.
Nina didn’t think he looked like a killer at all, and she extended her hand to him in friendship, ignoring the maid’s gasps when she closed the door to the room. When Mr. Thompson showed up a few minutes later, Nina sent him home, saying that it had all been a mistake, and when her father came, she introduced Alan and the three of them sat and talked until late.
Unfortunately, no one thought about Leander, who was trying to help the man who’d been their family butler for sixteen years. The butler was writhing with pains that no one could pinpoint, although Lee kept trying. And every time Lee left the room, the butler called the Westfield house and was told that the dangerous man was still there, so the butler went back and developed a new symptom.
Which was why Leander got only four hours sleep before the first emergency call came in, and since it was four thirty he hesitated to awaken the entire Chandler family, and instead he climbed the tree to get into Blair’s bedroom.
Chapter 11
There was only the faintest hint of bluish-gray dawn when Leander climbed the tree and crossed the porch roof to Blair’s bedroom. He felt like a schoolboy about to get caught in a prank. Here he was, twenty-seven years old, a doctor; he’d spent years in Europe; had visited some of the grand salons, but now he was climbing a tree and slipping into a girl’s bedroom as if he were a naughty boy.
But when he entered the room and saw Blair outlined by the thin sheet, he forgot all inhibitions. The last few days had been miserable. He’d found her and knew that, as he wanted his own soul, he wanted this woman, but he could see her slipping away from him. Something about her made him clumsy, awkward, and everything he did was wrong. He’d tried to impress her, tried to make himself look good compared to that incompetent, weak, frightened little blond mouse she thought she loved. Lee knew Hunter wasn’t man enough for her.