Fascination Read Online Free Page B

you do, Miss Merrill?’
    She smiled, took the hand extended to her, and knew that she and the boy were going to be friends. Luisa, however, was more undecided, her wide hazel eyes fixed on Hydee’s face as if she were unable to take them from it. The moment was tense, with Hydee aware of what lay in the balance. Standing immobile, the marquês watched his daughter intently through partly narrowed eyes.
    ‘Say how do you do to Miss Merrill,’ he ordered when eventually the silence stretched to the point where Hydee was plainly becoming uncomfortable.
    ‘How do you do… Miss Merrill?’ A small hand was outstretched obediently. Hydee took it and found it to be cold. This, and the child’s long hesitation, convinced her that the post was lost.
    She looked unhappily at the marquês who, after telling the children to go out again into the garden, turned to her with a kindly smile and said, much to her surprise, ‘It would seem that Ramos has taken to you, senhorita. Luisa has always been more reserved in her manner, but she will come round eventually.’
    ‘You mean,’ faltered Hydee, stunned, ‘that you are willing to engage me as nanny to your children?’
    A silence followed, unfathomable and profound. And when presently the marquês spoke, her question had been ignored. ‘For the present, Miss Merrill, it will be enough that you become used to the children, and they to you. Tomorrow morning I must leave for London, as I have business to conduct there. I shall return here on Saturday and stay with you and the children over the weekend.’ That was all; his tone had changed, a quality entering it that was final and implacable. The lordly Marquês Carlos de Alva Manrique did not intend to be questioned, even though he must be aware of Hydee’s bewilderment. She bit her lip in vexation, feeling cheated—snubbed, even—and the merest hint of anger rose within her. However, she had no difficulty in hiding it, and for the next few minutes she and the Marquês chatted amicably enough, with Hydee answering several personal questions he asked but avoiding the delicate matter of her broken engagement.
    He had expressed what seemed to be sincere regret that she was alone in the world, but Hydee felt he was not really sorry for her loss—on the contrary, she sensed that he was glad she had no one of her own. She naturally allowed her thoughts to stray to what Ellie had said, and to recall vividly her suspicions. Well, it would seem that any explanation of the mystery must wait until the weekend, when the marquês returned to Surrey.

Chapter Four
    The next few days passed quickly, and before she quite knew it, Hydee was eagerly looking forward to the following day—Saturday—when the marquês would be returning to the house of his late wife’s friend. During the time she had been staying in Doreen’s home, Hydee had learned a good deal about the marquês, but little about his late wife. For it had been clear right from the start that Doreen was reluctant to talk about her friend and, therefore, Hydee had refrained from putting questions to her. Hydee was not so obliging when it came to the subject of the nannies which the children had had in the past, though. Doreen, being ready to enlighten Hydee, told her about the first one, who was Portuguese.
    ‘She fell in love with Carlos almost immediately. It was so absurd, as she knew that Eunice had been dead less than a month.’
    ‘The marquês—he’d be furious, naturally?’
    Doreen nodded. ‘He soon sent her packing. The next one was also Portuguese, coming from a well-to-do family who’d come into hard times. But she hadn’t lost any of her arrogance, it seemed. I was over at the Palacio de Manrique—I went for a holiday just after my divorce came through,’ she went on to explain, straying from what she had been going to say. ‘I was feeling low at the time, even though the decision to separate was mutual. We couldn’t get along and so we decided to make the