Marcus and Sara arrived in the kitchen together, which meant that Maggie was able to get away with offering him a cool ‘good morning’ under cover of Sara’s chatter.
Over breakfast, nothing was said about their interview the previous night. In view of his half-sisters’ very obvious delight at having her home, there was very little Marcus could say, Maggie acknowledged cynically.
He obviously had a good relationship with them, but he was their guardian as well as their half-brother, and it was obvious to Maggie, listening to the conversation, that he was quite a firm disciplinarian.
Neither of the girls seemed to resent it, though, and since it was equally obvious that he cared very deeply for them Maggie suspected that they had their own way of getting round him when they really wanted to.
Both of them kissed him naturally and affectionately as they gathered up their jackets and schoolbooks.
‘Don’t let him bully you into leaving when we’re gone, Maggie,’ Susie warned her, grinning at him. ‘He’s had a horrid temper since he had his accident.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Maggie told her lightly, focusing on Marcus’s shuttered face. ‘I’m quite definitely here to stay.’
She saw from the grim way Marcus’s mouth tightened that he knew exactly what she meant, but would he also know how much heart-searching had gone into that decision? Probably not. He might even see it as simply a rather childish way of defying and irritating him, but in reality…
In reality, despite her anger over the way he had treated her last night, inwardly she still felt the weight of her guilt. Inwardly she still yearned to wipe out the past and to share with him that closeness they had once known. When he smiled at the girls, she felt so shut out…so cold…so hurt…
Horrified by what she was thinking, she tried to push her thoughts away, hurrying the girls with their preparations and rushing into an unsteady and rather muddled speech about her intentions of making an appointment to see the headmistress, and then going on to do some shopping.
‘If you’re going shopping, you’ll need some money,’ Marcus interrupted her, reaching awkwardly into the pocket of the tweed jacket he was wearing.
As he did so, his crutch fell to the floor. Maggie automatically dived towards it at the same time as Marcus himself reached out to rescue it, his unplastered fingers brushing hers as they closed round the crutch.
Instantly her body burned, shocking tingles of sensation racing up her arm. Her heart started to pound frantically, her pulses thudding out a message which she told herself was fear and shock.
‘I think I’ve got enough. We can sort it out when I get back,’ she told him huskily, quickly withdrawing from contact with him.
Only when she was safely at the door did she turn to face him and demand rawly, ‘I take it I have your permission to tell the school that I shall be taking charge of the girls?’
They had both gone out ahead of her and she could hear their voices ringing on the still summer air outside in the courtyard.
Marcus looked at her steadily for a long time. She held her breath, half expecting another battle.
‘Would it make any difference if I withheld it?’ he asked at last.
‘Not to my decision to stay, no,’ Maggie told him, adding quietly, ‘but when it comes to what I shall tell other people…’ Her face went pale, but she faced him squarely. ‘I’ve learned my lessons well, Marcus. Too well to ever again commit the folly of lying.’
She saw from his sharp intake of breath and darkening gaze that she had caught him off guard. A muscle pulsed in his jaw and she could almost feel the tension invading him as though it were her own.
‘Maggie,’ he said at last, ‘about last night…’
Now it was her turn to experience tension, but she refused to give in to her desire to flee.
‘It didn’t work, Marcus,’ she said instead. ‘You can’t frighten me into leaving.’
‘Frighten you…’
An odd look crossed his face, an almost yearning, anguished look that made her heart almost stop beating and her feet propel her four or five steps towards him. And then abruptly she stopped.
Are you crazy? she asked herself mentally, and, turning on her heel, she left before she could do anything even more foolish.
* * *
IT WASN’T VERY FAR to the convent school, which was housed in a Victorian mansion some fifteen miles away.
Maggie was a good driver. Marcus had taught her, and she was used to the winding country lanes. Even so, she was surprised to see how much the volume of traffic had increased in the time she had been away. However, they reached the school in good time. Maggie parked the car and, while the girls went off to find their friends, she hurried towards the main door to the school.
Inside it was much as she remembered: the familiar smell of chalk and disinfectant. Black-robe