Nurse Linnet's Release by Averil Ives Page A

Fairy Kintyre!”
    Linnet felt herself blushing again, and she was still blushing a little when Roger re-joined her.
    “Isn’t it just like a ‘high hat’ to try and pinch one’s girl,” he grumbled, taking her by the arm. “But I’ve got some chicken sandwiches over here, and something to drink as well. Come on, and let’s do justice to the excellent manna provided.”

 
    CHAPTER I X
    They slipped out of London on a morning when spring had suddenly ceased to be spring any longer, and had become summer over night.
    Linnet sat in the back of Dr. Shane Willoughby’s car, and she looked very neat and trim in her uniform. Diana sat beside him at the wheel, although she would probably have been much more comfortable on the back seat, which was superbly sprung, with a light rug over her knees and cushions at her back. But she insisted that she was feeling almost normal, that she liked sitting in the front, and that Dr. Willoughby would find it dull if no one sat beside him.
    She glanced archly sideways at him as she spoke. She made no attempt to conceal the fact that he interested her, and that the thought of sitting beside him for an hour and more pleasantly excited her. She was wearing a long, loose oatmeal-coloured coat over her exquisitely-cut suit, and her hair reached in a golden cloud to her shoulders. Violets were fastened to the front of the expensive-looking coat, and their perfume kept drifting back to Linnet’s appreciative nostrils.
    They left London about eleven o’clock, and reached their destination shortly after twelve. Dr. Shane Willoughby drove carefully, and without any burst of speed, as if he realized that he had a valuable cargo aboard in the person of Mrs. Carey, and his car was so comfortable that it was obvious she enjoyed the drive.
    Briar Cottage, when they arrived there, instantly aroused Linnet’s admiration. It was the kind of cottage house-agents love to get hold of and advertise, accompanied by illustrations, in the glossy magazines. Beginning life as a farm worker’s cottage three or four hundred years before, it had been added to and added to, improved beyond all recognition, until it now provided Sir Paul Loring with an extremely comfortable and convenient week-end home.
    It stood surrounded by a garden so gay with flowers and strips of emerald lawn that Linnet’s eyes actually sparkled with her appreciation, and inside there was such a genuine wealth of old oak that she recognized Sir Paul, knew something, at least, about furniture. His housekeeper had lunch all ready for them, and the table in the dining-room was bright with lace table mats, flowers and silver.
    But Diana decided that she was just a little bit exhausted when the doctor had handed her out of the car, and lunch was held up while she recovered in a deep arm-chair, and an aperitif was brought to her. She did look a little pale, Linnet admitted, and she was so thin that there seemed to be literally nothing at all of her, but also she plainly intended to make the most of having Dr. Shane Willoughby on hand and ready to be completely attentive.
    After lunch Linnet tucked her up in bed in her attractive room with the latticed windows and the dressing-table standing in a petticoat of highly-glazed chintz which matched the quilted bedhead, and then went downstairs a g ain and out into the garden, where she found the doctor smoking a pipe on the lawn.
    “Do you object to this?” he asked, as he pulled forward a chair for her.
    “On the contrary, I like the smell of it,” wrinkling her nose a little. “But I wasn’t going to sit still. I want to explore that little wood there,” indicating a copse at the bottom of the garden.
    “Very well, I’ll explore with you.”
    When they stood in the heart of the little wood the scent of fresh growing things surrounded them like incense. It was very dim, and cool, and a little enchanted. It only needed the voice of a nightingale to lift itself up suddenly to fill the place