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

straight across the hall.

"Alastair," I said, under my breath, furious to find that my throat felt tight and dry.

Alastair turned, saw Nicholas, and took the plunge as smoothly as an Olympic swimmer.

"Hi, Nick!" he said. "Look who's here.... Do you remember Janet Brooke?"

He stressed the surname ever so slightly. Nicholas's black brows lifted a fraction of an inch, and
something flickered behind his eyes. Then he said: "Of course. Hello, Gianetta. How are you?"

It came back to me sharply, irrelevantly, that Nicholas was the only person who had never shortened my
name. I met his eyes with an effort, and said, calmly enough: "I'm fine, thank you. And you?"

"Oh, very fit. You're here on holiday, I take it?"
 "Just a short break. Hugo sent me away... ." It was over, the awkward moment, the dreaded moment,
sliding past in a ripple of commonplaces, the easy mechanical politenesses that are so much more than
empty convention; they are the greaves and cuirasses that arm the naked nerve. And now we could turn
from one another in relief, as we were gathered into the group of which Marcia Maling was still the radiant
point. She had been talking to Hartley Corrigan, but I could see her watching Nicholas from under her
lashes, and now she said, turning to me: "Another old friend, darling?"

I had forgotten for the moment that she was an actress,

and stared at her in surprise, so beautifully artless had

the question been. Then I saw the amusement at the back

of her eyes, and said coolly: "Yes, another old friend.

My London life is catching me up even here, it seems.

Nicholas, let me introduce you to Miss Marcia MalingтАФ

the Marcia Maling, of course. Marcia, this is Nicholas

Drury." тАЮ

"The Nicholas Drury?" Marcia cooed it in her- deepest, furriest voice, as she turned the charm full on to
him with something of the effect that, we are told, a cosmic ray gun has when turned on to an earthly body.
But Nicholas showed no sign of immediate disintegration. He merely looked ever so slightly wary as he
murmured something conventional. He had seen that amused look of Marcia's, too, I knew. He had always
been as quick as a cat. Then Hartley Corrigan came in with some remark to Marcia, and, in less time than
it takes to write it, the whole party was talking about fish. The men were, at any rate; Marcia was watching
Hartley Corrigan, Alma Corrigan watched Marcia, and I found myself studying Nicholas.

He had changed, in four years. He would be thirty-six now, I thought, and he looked older. His kind of
dark, saturnine good looks did not alter much, but he was thinner, and, though he seemed fit enough, there
was tension in the way he held his shoulders, and some sort of strain about his eyes, as if the skin over his
cheekbones was drawn too tightly back into the scalp. I found myself wondering what was on his mind. It