Read Online Choose the One You'll Marry by Mary Burchell - Free Book Online

tell your father. Men don’t understand these things. I’ve saved the money from the housekeeping, so it’s my own affair entirely.”
    “Thank you most awfully.” Ruth hugged her mother. “I’m sure it won’t be needed. But if you will feel more comfortable knowing I have it—”
    “I shall feel more comfortable,” said her mother unequivocally. Then the others came in to breakfast, and it seemed almost no time before the sound of a car drawing up outside the house sent Susannah flying to the window.
    “Here they are!” she cried. “Oh, I wish I were going too.”
    “I wish you were, pet,” declared Ruth, as she kissed her little sister goodbye. “But I’ll soon be back, with all the news.”
    Leonard carried her case out to the gate, where Michael Harling stood beside the long gray car, and Aunt Henrietta was discernible, waving and smiling from the backseat.
    While the luggage was stowed away in the trunk, the family clustered around to repeat their goodbyes, and Mrs. Tadcaster said to Aunt Henrietta, “It’s a long drive for you. I hope you won’t find it too much.”
    “I love it,” was the enthusiastic reply. “No drive can be too long for me. I’m never carsick or anything of that sort.”
    “No?” Even as Ruth was getting into the seat beside Michael, she heard the odd note in her mother’s voice and glanced back. “You always used to be, you know,” Mrs. Tadcaster said slowly. “Don’t you remember? That was why, when you came to visit us, you always traveled by train, even though it was an inconvenient journey.”
    Ruth thought that, in the flurry of departure, she was perhaps the only one who heard that slight catch of Aunt Henrietta’s breath. Then there was a gay li t tle laugh from the backseat and Aunt Henrietta said lightly, “Yes—of course. But cars were a good deal less smooth and steady in action in those days. It’s a long time ago, my dear.”
    “Everyone settled?” inquired Michael firmly at this point.
    “Yes, yes. Let’s be going. We have a long journey in front of us, as Eileen says.” For the first time since she had known her, Ruth thought she detected a note of nervous impatience in Aunt Henrietta’s voice.
    “ I’m all right, if the luggage is in.” Ruth managed to smile composedly at Michael, though she felt shaken by the odd little conversation that had just taken place.
    “ Goodbye, goodbye,” cried Susannah, with as much drama as if she were seeing someone off on a three months’ voyage into the unknown. And as the rest of the family stood back and waved, the car started, gathered speed, swept down the road and around the corner, out of sight of home.
    At first Ruth felt disinclined to talk. She was still very much under the impression of her mother’s question and Aunt Henrietta’s not very satisfactory reply. Also, she was not sufficiently at ease with Michael Harling to enter into gay and easy conversation.
    If it had been Angus, now!
    But once they had left Castlemore behind, and were out on the open road, the sense of being on holiday superseded all other feeling, and with a sigh of contentment she relaxed in her seat and smiled, for sheer pleasure in the bright September day, and the knowledge that she was speeding toward London—and Angus.
    “Feeling happy?” Her companion gave her an unexpectedly amused and indulgent glance.
    “I am, as a matter of fact. I just can’t believe I’m really on my way to London. A few days ago I couldn’t have imagined such a trip.”
    “That comes of being a success,” he told her, with a teasing note in his voice, which she had not heard there before.
    “A success?”
    “Yes, of course. Even Angus Everton wouldn’t make you this offer just for the sake of your blue eyes. He’s a good businessman.”
    She didn’t much like that “even Angus Everton.” So she said a little coolly, “He has been a very good friend to me.”
    “I daresay. But even friendship isn’t a passport to his