All the Long Summer Read online

  All the Long Summer by Lucy Gillen

  The only complication in Isa's new job was that it brought her into the centre of the antagonism between her employer, Toby Carmichael, and his enemy, Chris Burrows.

  Isa found both men attractive — but why couldn't they leave her out of their quarrels? And which one of them was telling the truth?

  Printed in Canada

  OTHER Harlequin Romances by LUCY GILLEN

  1507—MARRIAGE BY REQUEST

  1533—THE GIRL AT SMUGGLER'S REST

  1553—DOCTOR TOBY

  1579—WINTER AT CRAY

  1604—THAT MAN NEXT DOOR

  1627—MY BEAUTIFUL HEATHEN

  1649—SWEET KATE

  1669—A TIME REMEMBERED

  1683—DANGEROUS STRANGER

  1711—SUMMER SEASON

  1736—THE ENCHANTED RING

  1754—THE PRETTY WITCH

  1782—PAINTED WINGS

  1806—THE PENGELLY JADE

  1822—THE RUNAWAY BRIDE

  1847—THE CHANGING YEARS

  1861—THE STAIRWAY TO ENCHANTMENT

  1877—MEANS TO AN END

  1895—GLEN OF SIGHS

  1908—A TOUCH OF HONEY

  1928—GENTLE TYRANT

  1930—WEB OF SILVER

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  Original hard cover edition published in 1975 by Mills & Boon Limited

  ISBN 373-01958-0

  Harlequin edition published March 1976

  Copyright © 1975 Lucy Gillen. All rights reserved.

  Except for use in any review the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic. mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the permission of the publisher.

  All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the Author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly Inspired by any individual known or unknown to the Author, and all the incidents are pure invention.

  The Harlequin trade mark, consisting of the word HARLEQUIN and the portrayal of a Harlequin, is registered in the United States Patent Office and in the Canada Trade Marks Office.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Isa sat, nervous but controlled, on the very edge of the chair and tried not to listen to what was going on in the office behind the solid dark door the other side of the filing cabinet. Several times during the last fifteen minutes voices had been raised in there and had penetrated as far as the waiting-room, and each time Isa had involuntarily glanced up and met the interested gaze of the young man behind the desk in the corner, then hastily looked away again.

  Isa was used to being looked at, but there was not only appreciation in the clerk's eyes but speculation as well, and she was uneasy about that. No girl who is a petite five feet two and possesses a better than average figure is surprised when men look at her, but somehow Isa disliked the implication behind the present scrutiny.

  Her own long lashes hid eyes that were more violet than blue, and dark brown hair framed a small oval face, with a small and somewhat retrousse nose. Her mouth was full and soft and looked as if it smiled a lot, although at present it looked rather disconsolate.

  She was trying not to listen to what was plainly quite a violent quarrel, for all it sounded a bit one-sided, and it was something of a shock to her to hear such a thing taking place in a respectable soli-

  citor's office. Just as obviously the young man at the desk was trying to hear and not succeeding, a fact he conveyed by pulling a face when she caught his eye again.

  A female voice was clearly audible, raised yet again and, although Isa could not make out the words, it was plain that the woman, whoever she was, was furiously angry. The man's voice was quieter but more dominant suddenly, persuasively deep and controlled, and did not so far sound angry. That voice, if the young man behind the desk was to be believed, belonged to Mr. Toby Carmichael himself, the man she was waiting to see.

  Once more she inadvertently caught the young man's eye and saw that he was smiling, a curiously knowing smile that Isa instinctively disliked. `Won't be long now," he promised, and Isa wondered how he could be so certain.

  Whatever he had based his supposition on, however, proved to be quite accurate, for sure enough only minutes later the door of the inner office opened, and a woman came out. She was tall and dark and somewhere in her mid-thirties, Isa guessed, with long elegant legs and slim ankles set off by expensive shoes, and when she turned she enveloped Isa and the rest of the small room in a -waft of expensive perfume.

  It seemed out of character somehow for a woman who looked as she did to be appealing to anyone, but she was doing just that to the man who followed her out. Her expression was completely at

  variance with the angry voice of a few minutes before, and yet there was no doubt it was the same woman.

  "Toby," she said in a low, slightly sulky voice, "you will come, won't you?"

  The man, as yet invisible to Isa because of the intervening cabinet, sounded more pacifying than reassuring, and Isa's curiosity took a fresh turn. Obviously the quarrel had been more concerned with intimate matters than professional ones, and that puzzled her. "I'll try, Sylvia," he said, one hand on the woman's silk-clad shoulder. "Now please will you go? I have to see someone and I'm late already!"

  "Oh?" Sharp dark eyes registered Isa's presence at last, tucked away behind the filing cabinet, and the rather gaunt features hardened as she was subjected to a swift and critical appraisal.

  The man came into view at last, looking down at Isa from above the cabinet, a glint of speculative amusement in his eyes. They were blue eyes, somewhat deeply set, and they regarded her for several seconds before he spoke. "Miss McLean?" he asked, and Isa nodded.

  Mr. Toby Carmichael wasn't in the least like she had visualised him to be. She had seen him as a fairly successful solicitor, since he had his own chambers, and she had expected him to be older, quite a bit older in fact, and certainly much more staid than he appeared to be. Of course, her knowledge of solicitors was strictly limited to old Mr. Greylord who had administered her aunt's estate,

  but, somehow he had fitted the picture of family solicitor perfectly.

  Judging by what she could see of him at the moment Toby Carmichael was no more than thirty-four or five years old, and those glitteringly amused eyes regarding her from above the filing cabinet did nothing to suggest that their owner was staid—rather the reverse, she suspected.

  The woman who had come out of the office with him gave Isa no time to identify herself more fully, nor did she leave as she was so obviously expected to do. Instead she looked down at Isa with a definite glint of suspicion in her eyes and her head held back so that she looked at her down the length of her nose. It was a brief, critical appraisal and suggested that Isa's immediate departure would be preferred. Then she turned again to Toby Carmichael and raised an elegant brow.

  "Not a new secretary, surely, darling," she said in a low and distinctively husky voice. "You still have clear old Miss Clayton." She looked across to where the door of another small office stood open, its desk deserted, and frowned. "Where is Miss Clayton?" she asked suspiciously.

  "Having a day off!" The answer was brief and curt, and Isa suspect
ed that Mr. Toby Carmichael was not the most patient of men. "Now will you please leave, Sylvia," he insisted quietly but firmly. "I have an appointment!" He completely ignored what could have been another protest by his visitor and walked around the cabinet to where Isa sat small and uncertain on her chair, and extended one

  hand in invitation. "Will you come in now, Miss McLean?"

  Isa's legs felt suddenly and strangely weak as she got to her feet, and she tried hard to forget that this job was her first ever, and that this man was not at all as she had expected her first employer -to be, always supposing he found her suitable, of course.

  She wished suddenly that she had put on something a little more impressive than the gold-coloured tricel suit she had felt so right in at first. And her low-heeled brown shoes would have impressed the man she had expected to see, but this man would probably have quite a different taste in lady's companions.

  Someone like old Mr. Greylord would have been comfortingly paternal and understanding, but Mr. Toby Carmichael was much too boldly self-confident, and there was something about him that she found quite disturbing.

  It did nothing for her self-confidence either to know that the dark woman was watching with suspicious eyes as they walked into Toby Carmichael's private office, and Isa prayed that reaction would not cause another outburst like the one she had heard earlier. The faint murmur of protest she made when he carefully and firmly closed the door on her was completely ignored, and Isa found the gesture almost ruthless in its deliberation. In fact she even felt briefly sorry for the woman, whoever she might be, for there was no doubt that the young man in the outer office had not only witnessed but also enjoyed her humiliation.

  Fingers rapped briefly and impatiently on the heavy wooden door, but he ignored it and followed Isa across the big, darkly luxurious office. There followed a faint murmur of voices, then silence, and Isa thought there was a trace of a smile on Toby Carmichael's mouth as he indicated a chair set one side of a large highly polished desk.

  "Please sit down!" he invited, and Isa slid gingerly on to the polished leather seat, curiosity and nervousness mingled in the look that followed him as he walked round the desk and stood before the tall, narrow window for a moment with his back to her.

  Taking advantage of his preoccupation, Isa took the opportunity to study him. He stood with his hands turned backwards on his hips, pushing his jacket out behind him, while one foot tapped softly on the bare boards that bordered the carpet, apparently too concerned with something else for the moment to give her his attention.

  He was taller than she had expected, unlike old Mr. Greylord who was short and stocky and given to wearing rather shabby tweed suits that did not fit him very well. This man was slim, with lean hips and a narrow waist, but broad-shouldered, and his tailoring was excellent and obviously expensive.

  He wore a dark grey suit and a white shirt, both of which fitted him to perfection, and the tie she could just see from where she sat looked like pure silk and was conservatively dark, as his profession demanded.

  His hair was darker than her own and worn fairly

  short, but it looked thick and healthily glossy where it swept back from a broad forehead. His feet were planted slightly apart in a posture that suggested not only self-confidence but arrogance, which was something she had not even thought of, and she realised she would have to do some serious rethinking on the subject of solicitors.

  He turned from the window suddenly and caught her unawares, still studying him, and again she caught that glint of laughter in his eyes, as if her discomfiture amused him. For several nerve-shattering seconds he said nothing, but regarded her steadily, then he nodded, as if he had suddenly made up his mind, and came and stood the other side of the desk.

  "Ah, yes, Miss McLean," he said, as if he had only just remembered she was there, and she felt her colour rise when she was suddenly raked again with that arrogant and speculative gaze. "Miss Isabella Mary McLean, right?"

  "Yes, that's right, Mr. Carmichael."

  Her letter of application was on the desk in front of him, she noticed, and she felt herself shivering with nerves as he glanced down at it briefly without picking it up. She was at a disadvantage too because the light from the window fell on her own. features and left his in partial shadow. "You're a trained nurse?" he asked, and Isa shook her head, her stomach curling in dismay as she anticipated the first obstacle. Her letter told him she was untrained, and she saw the question simply as a possible excuse for turning her down.

  "No, I'm not actually trained," she said, licking her lips anxiously. "I told you in my letter, Mr. Carmichael, I—"

  "Oh yes!" He picked up the letter at last and read it through briefly, then sat himself behind the desk, leaning back in his chair and looking at her from the shadow of half lowered lids, a trace of amusement still lingering round his mouth, or so it seemed to Isa. "Have you done this sort of thing before—professionally, I mean?"

  Isa hesitated, finding it difficult to confess that her sole experience had been in looking after Aunt Carrie for years. If only he would simply read her letter through he would have all the same information he was now asking for verbally. "I looked after my aunt for five and a half years," she explained, her tongue again flicking nervously over her lips as she felt his eyes on her. "She wasn't really ill, but she wanted company and a little taking care of. Your—your advert didn't say a trained nurse was required."

  "It doesn't call for a trained nurse," he agreed quietly, his chin resting on steepled fingers. "But—" Broad shoulders shrugged expressively. "You look a bit young to take on the burden of an old lady."

  "I'm twenty-three," Isa assured him, wishing once again that she could do something about her deceptively juvenile looks. "And I'm quite used to the work, Mr. Carmichael."

  He regarded her steadily for another moment or two, then he smiled, a smile that showed in his eyes and crinkled them at their corners in the most

  intriguing way. "You really want this job, don't you?" he asked, and Isa flushed at the idea of having been so easily read.

  "I —I haven't done anything since my aunt died," she said cautiously. "And I have—I mean, I want to go on with the same kind of work if I can."

  "You have to work?" The question was quietly put, but she felt herself resent it, probably quite unreasonably. Ever since her father died and left her and her mother much worse off than they realised, she had been sensitive about money.

  Aunt Carrie had taken them into her home, she was Isa's great-aunt in fact, but the old lady had expected plenty in return for her charity and they had never been allowed to forget it. Isa's mother had hated it and had left the house as soon as an offer of marriage enabled her to be free of her aunt, leaving Isa behind to cope with the old lady as best she could. In fact she had got on quite well with Aunt Carrie, despite her difficult character, but Aunt Carrie too had died penniless and since Isa had to work, she could only try and do the only thing she knew.

  "Yes," she said in a small clear voice that carried a hint of defiance, "I have to work, Mr. Carmichael."

  "And you like working with elderly people?" Again she nodded, unwilling to confess that it was all she could do. "Even if they're not the sweetest disposition in the world?"

  Immediately she recalled Aunt Carrie's wrinkled, petulant face and sighed inwardly. "I'm used to a

  rather trying old lady." she admitted, and again that swift glimmer of amusement showed in his eyes.

  "My grandmother is rather more autocratic than trying," he told her frankly. "And I'm not at all sure she wouldn't eat a little thing like you for breakfast, but if you're prepared to risk it—" An eloquent shrug completed the sentence and for a moment Isa stared at him unbelievingly.

  "You—you mean I've got the job?" she asked breathlessly.

  "If you want it!"

  "Oh, I do!" She immediately regretted her rather naive enthusiasm, especially when she saw how it amused him.

  "Can you start right away?" he asked, an
d Isa nodded, still too stunned to speak. She had not looked forward to staying with Mrs. Garfield very long, for her first choice of a. landlady had proved even more of an ogre than Aunt Carrie had ever been and Isa was frankly scared of her. "You know you will be living in?"

  Again she nodded. "Yes, Mr. Carmichael," she said. "I expected that."

  The blue eyes slid over her in a slow, compelling scrutiny that was both eloquent and disturbing, then he smiled. "And you don't mind?" he asked quietly.

  "No, of course not, I expected it." It was difficult to keep her voice steady in the circumstances and she wondered why he had thought fit to press the question of her living in—there was surely no alternative if she was to care for an old lady and

  act as her companion.

  He was nodding his head, one finger touching his mouth as if to hide the hint of smile there. "I live with my grandmother." he informed her softly, and was obviously waiting for some reaction from her.

  For a moment Isa coped with a sudden and unexpected increase in her heartbeat, then she swallowed hard and tried to appear as if it was no surprise at all. "I didn't know that," she said in as cool a voice as she could summon.

  "And?" One dark brow flicked upwards and he was watching her closely as she replied.

  It was something she had not anticipated and for the moment it had surprised her, but it was quite feasible that he shared his grandmother's home since he had taken on the responsibility of finding her a companion, and it need make little difference to her own position.

  He was almost bound to be out for most of the day, and probably most evenings too, unless she had misjudged his character. That sultry, dark-haired woman with whom he had been quarrelling was an indication of the kind of life he led, she thought, and for a moment envied him the kind of freedom she had never had herself.