The Made Marriage by Henrietta Reid

I’m an utter infant? Anyway, if they know anything about you, they must realise that you’re much too wrapped up in Laragh to have any other interests. They can rest assured that our relationship is strictly platonic.’ At his look of mild amazement at this outburst she added tartly, ‘And I trust the toast this morning was to your satisfaction !’
    Owen applied a light to his pipe and raised his eyebrows. ‘Toast! I wasn’t aware I had made any complaints concerning your toast-making abilities.’
    ‘You said yesterday that the eggs weren’t boiled long enough,’ she retorted a little lamely.
    ‘Nor were they! However, allow me to congratulate you. This morning they were perfectly cooked.’
    Kate knew enough about her employer by this time to know that he was deliberately provoking her.
    ‘By the way,’ he added when he had puffed his pipe until it was burning to his satisfaction, ‘Doretta rang up last night to say s he’d like to come along today for her cookery demonstration. Is that all right with you ? ’
    Kate, who had been on the point of lifting up the tray, laid it down again. ‘Doretta coming today?’ she asked flatly.
    Suddenly all fight seemed to leave her. Somehow or other she had been hoping that the idea would die a natural death and nothing would come of the arrangement. But she should have known the Italian girl better. Doretta’s actions were coolly calculating, and Owen was now her target.
    ‘But you didn’t tell me,’ she protested. ‘I’d have got the ingredients in.’
    ‘She phoned late last night and I presumed you were safely tucked up in bed.’
    Yes, it would be typical of Doretta to ring late, Kate thought; the soft warm night forming a romantic ambience as their voices sped to each other out of the darkness.
    ‘As to the ingredients, Doretta made a point of saying that she would bring them with her. There’s some special shop in Limerick Where she gets her Italian goods and she was sure you wouldn’t know them.’
    Kate picked up the laden tray in silence and headed for the door.
    As he opened it for her, he said casually, ‘It was thoughtful of her, wasn’t it, to save you the trouble of shopping for the things?’
    Kate glanced up and for a moment their eyes met. His expression told her nothing. His eyes were the same colour, she told herself, as the steely glint of the ploughshare with which he cultivated Laragh. But she, on the contrary, realised that her eyes were bright with anger.
    ‘ You mustn’t let Doretta’s visit upset you,’ he remarked. ‘It’s obvious she’s anxious to make friends and it would be pleasant for you to have a companion while you’re here.’
    Yes, and pleasant, no doubt, Kate fumed inwardly, to afford the beautiful Doretta an opportunity to drop in at Laragh any time the fancy took her. She did not trust herself to speak but, tight-lipped, scuttled past him with the tray.
    Luckily for herself, Kate did not see the faint smile that touched her employer’s lips as he followed her hurrying figure and left the house by a side door. His new domestic help, he was realising, was not one to dissemble her feelings, and it was fairly obvious Doretta’s visit was not welcomed by her and he felt faintly intrigued to discover how s he would react when Doretta temporarily took over her kitchen. She was a strange, variable little creature, he thought, a little like that ridiculous Bedsocks of hers who now sat sunning herself on the wall, regarding Owen with a little of the wary suspicion of her mistress.
    ‘Bedsocks, you bad cat,’ he admonished her. ‘You must stop scraping up the seedlings in the kitchen garden, otherwise you’ll get seriously in Dan’s bad books.’ Carelessly he put a hand over Bedsock s ’s seal-smooth coat, then gave a little exclamation and used an uncomplimentary epithet as Bedsocks darted out a paw and raked her claws down his hand.
    Ruefully he sucked the red weals. ‘I shouldn’t be surprised if your