"Mary Stewart - Wildfire" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stewart Mary)

"We were getting a show ready then, as it happens. But how on earth did he know?"

"Search me," said Alastair cheerily, and then turned to greet the couple who were crossing the hall towards
us. The woman was slight, dark, and almost nondescript save for a pair of really beautiful brown eyes,
long-lidded and flecked with gold. Her dress was indifferently cut, and was a depressing shade of green.
Her hair had no luster, and her mouth drooped petulantly. The man with her was a startling contrast. He,
too, was dark, but his thinness gave the impression of a great wiry strength and vitality. His eyes were blue,
dark Irish blue, and he was extraordinarily handsome, though there were lines round the sensitive mouth
that spoke of a temper too often given rein.

I said quickly: "The name's Brooke, Alastair, not Drury. Do remember. I thought it might be awkwardтАФ"

"I couldn't agree more. Ah"тАФas they came upтАФ"Hart, Alma, this is Gianetta Brooke. Janet, Mr. and
Mrs. Corrigan."

We murmured politely. I saw Mrs. Corrigan eyeing my frock; her husband's blue eyes flicked over me
once, with a kind of casual interest, then they sought the lounge door, as if he were waiting for someone
else.

"I'm going to desert you at dinner, Alma, if you'll forgive me." Alastair made his excuses. "Miss Brooke
and I are old friends, and we've a lot to talk about."

Mrs. Corrigan looked vaguely resentful, and I wondered for a moment if she were going to invite me to
join their table, until I realized that she was hesitating between two evils, the hazard of having another
woman near her husband, and the loss of the society of her husband's friend. She had, in fact, the air of one
for whom life has for a long time been an affair of perpetual small calculations such as this. I felt sorry for
her. Through Alastair's pleasant flow of conversational nothings, I shot a glance at Hartley Corrigan, just in
time to see the look on his face as the lounge door opened behind me, and Marcia Maling drifted towards us
on a cloud of Chanel No. 5. My pity for Alma Corrigan became, suddenly, acute. She seemed to have no
defenses. She simply stood there, dowdy, dumb, and patently resentful, while Marcia, including us all in her
gay "How were the fish, my dears?" enveloped the whole group in the warm exuberance of her personality.
The whole group, yesтАФbut somehow, I thought, as I watched her, and listened to some absurd fish story
she was parodyingтАФsomehow she had cut out

Hartley Corrigan from the herd, and penned him as neatly as if she were champion bitch at the sheep trials,
and he were a marked wether. And as for the tall Irishman, it was plain that, for all he was conscious of the
rest of us, the two of them might as well have been alone.

I found I did not wan! to meet Alma Corrigan's eyes, and looked away. I was wishing the gong would go.
The hall was full of people now: all the members of Marcia's list seemed to be assembled. There were the
Cowdray-Simpsons, being attentive to an ancient white-haired lady with a hearing aid; there, in a corner,
were the two oddly assorted teachers, silent and a little glum; my friend of the boat, Roderick Grant, was
consulting a barometer in earnest confabulation with a stocky individual who must be Ronald Beagle; and,
deep in a newspaper, sat the unmistakable Hubert Hay, dapper and rotund in the yellowest of Regency
waistcoats.

Then Nicholas came quickly round the corner of the stairs, and started down the last flight into the hall.

He saw me straightaway. He paused almost imperceptibly, then descended the last few stairs and came