Highland Mist by Rose Burghley Page A

all planned.”
    “My mother’s got it—planned?” She wrinkled her brows in amazement. “You must have misunderstood something she said.”
    “And good little girls always do what their mothers tell them!” with a mocking twist to his lips.
    Toni’s brows wrinkled still more, and then her expression grew quiet and thoughtful. What was Celia’s game? And what had she said to Euan MacLeod to mislead him into believing there was a plan for her to marry Charles? When there was no plan at all, and Charles was Celia’s property! “Charles is an old friend,” she said stiffly.
    “You said that before,” he remarked.
    “And I mean it.” She moved away from his arm, or tried to, for he wouldn’t allow it, and ordered her to keep still.
    “The storm is passing, and the sun will be out in a minute. Don’t be so touchy on the subject of this man Henderson. I gather you’ll pine away if he doesn’t arrive this week-end? But he will, for it’s obvious he can’t keep away from you, either, and that’s why I predict you’ll be married some time this summer.”
    She dragged herself away from his arm, and he let her go and grinned at her crookedly.
    “Your mother called it May and December, but I don’t think that’s quite kind. He isn’t more than five years older than I am—perhaps less—and you’ll probably start growing up quite soon. Although with a mother who still looks about nineteen there isn’t as much hope of that as there might be!”
    With which curt observation he strode out of the summer-house, and she saw that the sun was shining. More, she could feel it warming her through and through, and she took off his coat and handed it back to him without opening her lips or uttering a sound. In a remote kind of silence they walked back to the house, and there Celia was waiting for them and looking petulant because she had been left alone for fully half an hour.
    “I can’t think why you wanted to go wandering about before lunch,” she said to Toni. “Mrs. Briggs has shown me my room, and I’ve done some unpacking, but I think you ought to come and look at yours, because I’ve an idea I might like to change over with you. Mine is on the weather side of the house, and you know I can never sleep if there’s any disturbance in the night. That storm just now, if it had happened at night, would have kept me awake for hours in my present room. And I’m sure you don’t mind in the least which room I have, do you, Euan?” she asked, smiling at him sweetly.
    He shrugged his shoulders.
    “Of course not. You must settle the matter between yourselves.”
    “So sweet of you,” she murmured, “to give me the room with the bathroom. But Toni’s is such a sunny room, and I love sun?!”
    “And Miss Drew doesn’t?” Euan said, rather dryly.
    Celia sent him rather an inscrutable look from her glorious dark blue eyes. They were eyes that seemed to be deliberately searching his face, and were just a tiny bit baffled.
    “Oh, call her Toni,” she said, as she had said more than once before. “I do hate this awful formality between friends.”
    “Host and guests,” he corrected her, looking oddly formal himself. “There are at least a dozen bedrooms here, so if you don’t like the ones you have you must take your pick. The entire house has been cleaned from attic to basement, so they’re all ready for occupation. And some of them get the full benefit of the morning and afternoon sun,” he added to Toni.
    She thanked him.
    “I’ll probably keep the one I’ve got. Or the one Mummy doesn’t like.”
    His blue eyes looked up at her from the foot of the stairs. They were hard and mocking and, surprisingly, just a little contemptuous. And why he should hold her in contempt she couldn’t think. Until she remembered:
    “ Good girls always do what their mothers tell them !”
    She flushed.
    “I’ll probably pick a sunny room.”
    His eyes continued to mock her.
    “What initiative!” he commented. And