Undine -

Chapter 12

'WILL you please try to concentrate on my dictation.'

'I'm sorry, Elizabeth.'

'I'll never get this damned book finished if I have to keep rewriting the drafts due to your errors. Now, shall we continue?'

Sophie nodded absently

'When you're quite ready, my dear.'

Sophie looked up, a bewildered expression on her face.  'Sorry?'

Elizabeth heaved a sigh.   'I'm not going to get much sense out of you this afternoon, am I?'

Sophie bowed her head and doodled absently on her pad.

'I'm being insensitive,' Elizabeth continued. 'You need more time to recover from your ordeal?'

'Thank you, Elizabeth, but I'm fine, honestly.'

'It's good you've decided to take swimming tuition away from this house. I should have insisted right from the start and this might never have happened. Stay away from that lake in future.'

'Michael said it was weed,' Sophie murmured, still staring down at her pad. 'But I told him he was mistaken. I have bruises. I felt so safe. With him.'

Elizabeth stared at Sophie, a pinched tightness to her lips.  'Michael lives in a different world from you, Sophie. He mixes with people who are so removed from the man in the street, I barely understand them myself.  He's not a social butterfly but he's not a home bird either. He comes and goes as he pleases, and rarely bothers to inform those closest to him of his peregrinations. He's... unreliable.'

'I'm fond of him, but that's all.'

'Is it?' Elizabeth's gaze merciless.  'I don't want to see you hurt. Michael cannot give what he doesn't possess; and a girl like you could never give him what he needs.'

Elizabeth's words, though spoken gently and without malice, cut through Sophie's heart with the savagery of a guillotine. To her dismay, tears pricked her eyes, and she averted her head and doodled furiously.

'My dear girl, you're not the first to lose her heart to my nephew.  And you won't be the last. Who could resist him, mmm?  Why, not even me, and I've known him longer than anyone.'

Sophie gazed up at Elizabeth whose eyes shone with an inner light that stripped twenty years from her face.  For the first time, she realised how beautiful this woman must have been in her youth. It was apparent in the slender lines of her body; the large ovals of her eyes and noble planes of her bone structure.  There was a way she had of tilting her chin, a determined set of her petite, square shoulders and the tiny, almost invisible smile that danced at one corner of her mouth when she was amused.

'The others,' Sophie murmured. 'Did they...?'

'My nephew distanced himself, as he always does.'

'The girl you dismissed, she was different?'

'Her name was Catrina.  She was very attractive, very demanding.  Too demanding for her own good.'

'And you dismissed her for falling in love with Michael?'

Elizabeth's eyes were remorseless.  'Who said anything about love?'

Sophie blushed.  'A figure of speech.'

Elizabeth nodded, her face grim.  'Yes, I dismissed her for the stubborn, clumsy streak that controlled her tongue. I dismissed her because I didn't like her.  It was as simple as that.'

Then why don't I believe you, Sophie thought. Why do I feel I'm groping around in the dark?

'Because of Michael?' She insisted, determined to get to the truth.

'Do you think I'm so possessive I'd deny Michael the chance of happiness with a woman of his choice?'

'That's not what I meant...'

'Oh, I know what you meant, girl. You disappoint me.  Don't you know that I love him, can't you see how deep that lies?  If you allow your heart to rule your head with Michael you will be hurt - I guarantee it.'  Elizabeth's tone softened. 'I don't want to lose you, girl.  You're the best personal assistant I've ever had.'

Sophie looked up, her amber eyes filled with an assurance she didn't feel.   'And I don't want to jeopardize that.'

'Good.  Then we'll mention no more of it and see if we can't finish this book between us before the summer's out.'