Read Online The Rouseabout Girl by Gloria Bevan - Free Book Online

until I had everything cooked, so I lit the fire to keep the food warm. Better make the most of a good meal, Jard, now that you’ve taken on a new cook — you know something?’ Suddenly she had flung around to face Lanie. ‘I just can’t believe you haven’t been stringing a line to Jard and Sandy to get yourself a job.’ The dark eyes were bright with malice. ‘I saw that flour promotion contest advertised in the newspapers and you didn’t have to cook a thing, all you had to do was to send in a bread recipe. Admit it, now!’
    ‘I know, but —’
    ‘What a joke!’ Once again Paula broke into laughter. Well, if that was the way she wanted it, Lanie thought hotly, she would give the other girl something to laugh about. ‘That’s right. Sandy — ’
    ‘Sandy? Already?’ Paula raised her brows in simulated surprise. ‘Did you hear that, Jard?’
    Lanie’s cheeks were pink, but she w asn’t beaten yet. 'Sandy offered to bring my electric range with me.’ She added airily, ‘I thought I might as well use my prize cooker.’ At least, she thought with some satisfaction, she had put a stop to Paula’s peals of laughter. How could such an att r active-looking girl have so harsh a voice? she wondered.
    ‘Your—what?’ Paula was gazing towards Lanie incredulously. The next moment she appeared to pull herself together. ‘That won’t be much use to you when the power goes off, like it did tonight! It was just lucky for everyone that I happened to be here to put on a meal for them on the open fire.’
    Everyone, Lanie queried inwardly, or Jard? Oh well, it was really no concern of hers. It seemed to Lanie that the other girl couldn’t take her gaze from Jard’s face. No wonder he’s so arrogant, she mused, if this is the way girls treat him in his little neck of the woods. Hanging on to his every word with rapt attention. But not this girl!
    He was taking no part in the conversation as he stood at the sideboard, riffling through a pile of envelopes propped up on the shelf. All at once he glanced up from his correspondence to eye Paula enquiringly. ‘Where’s Clara got to tonight?’ His tone sharpened. ‘She’s not ill, is she?’
    Clara? Lanie was fitting the puzzle together. Wasn’t she the housekeeper Sandy had told her about? Her thoughts were in turmoil. So this must indeed be Jard’s home.
    Paula shrugged her shoulders. ‘Don’t ask me! I don’t know what she’s so uptight about. She says she has a headache, but I think she’s just sulking in her room. Wouldn’t you think she’d be grateful to me for helping out here tonight?’ Moving towards the leaping flames, she lifted the lid of a casserole standing on the bricks at the side of the hearth. ‘Instead of getting up on her high horse and taking herself off to her room — Not,’ she flashed Jard a brilliant smile, ‘that it makes much difference whether she’s here or not. What she does around the place is negligible.’ She turned a face flushed with the flames. ‘Ready when you are, Jard!’
    ‘Sorry, girl.’ Lanie became aware of Sandy’s contrite tones. He had picked up her travel bag. ‘Afraid I’m not much of a host. I’ll show you to your rooms and you can have a quick brush-up before dinner.’ He guided her through a door and out into the darkness of a long passage. ‘Your quarters are a bit away from the main part of the house. Edna likes it that way. She’s left all her things just as they were, but that shouldn’t worry you too much.’ They moved through a back door and out into the starshine of the moonless night, then they crossed a grassy strip and approached a low timber dwelling. They climbed two steps, then Sandy flung open a door. ‘Wait here a minute .’ He strode ahead of her into the room, then struck a match and put a light to a candle on the dressing table. Even in the dimness Lanie realised it was a room of spartan simplicity, simply furnished, and smelling faintly of furniture polish. Beneath