The Chain of Destiny by Betty Neels

Author:Betty Neels
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 1989-07-26T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIX

SUZANNAH STOOD in front of the dressing-table looking-glass and studied her reflection. It didn’t please her. Her coat was a useful brown; it had been a good one some years ago, but it was faintly threadbare around the cuffs and down the front, and the brown dress beneath it did nothing to improve her appearance. She tucked a leaf-green scarf into the collar of the coat and, cold weather or not, decided not to wear the only hat she had: brown again and presumably prudently purchased with an eye to its usefulness rather than any pretentions to fashion. At least her gloves and handbag were passable. She wished suddenly that she hadn’t accepted the professor’s invitation, but it was too late to change things now and, thinking about it, he hadn’t given her much chance to refuse. At this very moment he might be wishing that he wasn’t to be saddled with her for a whole day.

His thoughts weren’t quite as drastic as that; but as he drove through den Haag to pick her up he wondered why on earth he had asked her out. They had never had a real conversation, and for all he knew she would be tongue-tied, or, worse, chatty, and yet he found himself wishing to know more about her. And her eyes were beautiful. He thumped the door-knocker of the van Dijls’ house and went in.

Suzannah came down the stairs, outwardly calm. She had been to see Julie, sitting up in bed enjoying her breakfast, and that young lady had thoughtlessly remarked that brown was all the wrong colour for Suzannah. ‘You should wear green or that lovely greeny-blue tweed’, she observed blithely, ‘and of course you could wear black with that hair. Still, I don’t suppose Guy will take you anywhere where he’ll see anyone he knows.’

Suzannah had been quite unable to answer this; she had ducked out of the room and waited a moment before going down to the hall, rather pale with suppressed rage and humiliation. She crossed the hall to where the professor was standing and said good morning in a tight little voice, wanting very much to turn and run, only he said just the right thing. ‘It’s a cold, dark day and that hair of yours is like a ray of sunshine.’ His smile was so warm that she found herself smiling in return, and suddenly the brown coat didn’t matter at all.

In the car, sitting beside him in the greatest comfort, she was told to take the map from the pocket beside her. ‘We shall go to Utrecht and then Appeldoorn and Zwolle, Kampen Sneek, across the Isselmeer, then across to Bergen and down the coast to Haarlem, across to Hilversum, then down the river Vecht—that’s a beauty spot—and back here.’

‘All in a day?’

‘Holland is a small country, and we have eight or nine hours.’ He smiled at her again, and she knew that the day was going to be fun, after all.

A few miles out

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