Rachel Lindsay - Heart of a Rose by Rachel Lindsay

Author:Rachel Lindsay [Lindsay, Rachel]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2010-11-01T19:52:17.592000+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

IT was a difficult letter Rose had to write to her father, but as she read it through she felt the bad news of her accident and lameness was compensated for by the announcement of of her engagement to Lance Hammond.

Not that great wealth would make any difference to her father's appreciation of a man, for he would never consider a fat bank balance of prime importance to happiness. But there was no doubt he would be pleased in the belief that she had at last fallen in love, and the reply she received from him was characteristic; a brief telegram saying: "COMMISERATION ACCIDENT STOP. CONGRATULATIONS ENGAGEMENT. STOP. ARRIVING IMMEDIATELY LOVE DAD."

Desmond Tiverton was as good as his word for two days later the nurse ushered him into her room.

"It was wrong of you not to let me know immediately the accident happened instead of waiting all this time," he said as he bent and kissed her.

"I didn't want to worry you." She patted the side of her bed. "Come and sit next to me. It seems ages since I saw you."

"It is ages," he said, doing as she asked. "And a great deal seems to have happened to you in the sunshine. What's he like?"

"Lance, you mean?"

"Who else?"

She hesitated. She had been aware that her father would want to know as much about Lance as possible, but he had arrived more quickly than she had anticipated and she was mentally unprepared.

"Why the hesitation?" Desmond Tiverton asked. "I've never known you short of words before."

"I've never been in love before." She forced herself to give a light laugh. "It's an awfully difficult question to answer, Dad. I'd rather you waited and saw Lance for yourself."

"I must say I'm very curious. I've read a great deal about him. Wasn't he engaged to some other girl not so long ago?"

It was a question Rose had dreaded but there was no way of avoiding it.

"It was a very short engagement," she said quickly. "When he met me he—"

"Hey, hey! I'm not criticizing your young man, I merely made a casual remark."

"I'm sorry. I guess I'm too sensitive where Lance is concerned. But I love him so much that I can't understand other people not feeling the same!"

Desmond Tiverton suddenly looked extremely relieved. "I'm glad you're so vehement, poppet. I wouldn't like to think you were marrying him because he's a millionaire."

Rose looked at him in astonishment. "But how could you think a thing like that? Money's never been important to me."

"I know. But atmosphere does strange things to people, and living in a luxury hotel the way you were—"

"Until my accident the people I mixed with were the people I worked with," she said dryly.

Too late she realized the implication of what she had said. "I — I knew the man who works for him as his secretary. Alan Dawson."

"I see." Her father shrugged. "It all seems to have happened rather quickly — but I suppose love is different these days. Maybe the atomic age has speeded things up! Still the main tiling is that you're in love.

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