Read Online Over the Blue Mountains by Mary Burchell - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Mary Burchell
Tags: Harlequin Romance 1960
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to know and like this place! It’s Martin’s country now and soon it will be mine. England will always be home—but I like this place. I like the feeling of vitality and experiment—and those skyscrapers rising on the skyline—and that wonderful, wonderful bridge. It’s like the embodiment of the strength and determination of a new country.
And now she was glad she had come—even if she had only twenty pounds or so in her cruelly depleted bank account. Tomorrow she would see Martin, and they would be able to talk over the future together, and it was inconceivable that they would not find some solution that would mean their being able to be near each other—even perhaps to marry right away.
The departure next morning was not an easy one. For one thing, everyone was pretending so hard that things were what they were not that it was dreadfully hard to arrive at a nice compromise between amiable pretence and brutal fact.
Aunt Katherine was perhaps the most to be pitied. She had been so sure that by cleverly banishing Juliet to Tyrville she would be putting hundreds of miles between her and Max Ormathon. And now, instead of that, Max was putting hundreds of miles between himself and the Burlett family (at least temporarily), and his sole companion on the journey was to be Juliet.
Verity could hardly bring herself to speak to her mother—much less Juliet—after this piece of miscalculation. And yet, of course, there was the urgent necessity of preventing either her father or Max himself from guessing that she and her mother were anything but good-temperedly indifferent to the new arrangement.
It was all a great strain. And amused though she was by the poetic justice that had punished her cousin and her aunt so appropriately, Juliet was herself glad when all the embarrassing goodbyes had been said.
She was genuinely sorry to have to leave her uncle, for she had a peculiar conviction that he needed some sort of sympathetic help, which she would have been very willing to give if it had lain in her power. But, without knowing him better, she could not, of course, decide what his need was and it seemed now that she was never likely to be in a position to know that—still less to find if she could be of any comfort to him.
All she could do was bid him goodbye in as warm and affectionate a tone as the circumstances permitted. And then she got into the car beside Max Ormathon, and they drove away, threading a path through the welter of early morning traffic that filled Martin Place and King Street.
Not until they were clear of the worst of the traffic and heading for the historic township of Parramatta did Max Ormathon address more than a casual word of explanation or description to her. But when a comparatively open road lay ahead of them, he glanced at her with a dry little smile and said, “Tell me something, will you?”
“If I can—of course.” Though she was faintly put out by his expression.
“Why were you so anxious not to have my company today?”
“But I—I wasn’t!” protested Juliet, blushing, to her great annoyance.
He laughed, skeptically but good-humoredly.
“You said you would much rather go alone,” he reminded her.
“But I only meant...” She hesitated and bit her lip.
“Do tell me what you meant,” he prompted a little maliciously.
“I only meant that I didn’t want to put you, or anyone else, to the trouble of accompanying me when it was unnecessary,” Juliet stated firmly, and was annoyed when he merely went on smiling.
“Don’t you believe me?” she asked sharply, though she would have preferred to have enough self-control not to press the matter further.
“Not altogether,” he said regretfully.
“But why not? It’s the very obvious explanation.”
“Your cousin didn’t seem to think so.”
“Verity?” Juliet was startled and looked it.
“Ah, does that ring a bell?” he inquired, again with that touch of malice.
“No. It does not,” Juliet
And now she was glad she had come—even if she had only twenty pounds or so in her cruelly depleted bank account. Tomorrow she would see Martin, and they would be able to talk over the future together, and it was inconceivable that they would not find some solution that would mean their being able to be near each other—even perhaps to marry right away.
The departure next morning was not an easy one. For one thing, everyone was pretending so hard that things were what they were not that it was dreadfully hard to arrive at a nice compromise between amiable pretence and brutal fact.
Aunt Katherine was perhaps the most to be pitied. She had been so sure that by cleverly banishing Juliet to Tyrville she would be putting hundreds of miles between her and Max Ormathon. And now, instead of that, Max was putting hundreds of miles between himself and the Burlett family (at least temporarily), and his sole companion on the journey was to be Juliet.
Verity could hardly bring herself to speak to her mother—much less Juliet—after this piece of miscalculation. And yet, of course, there was the urgent necessity of preventing either her father or Max himself from guessing that she and her mother were anything but good-temperedly indifferent to the new arrangement.
It was all a great strain. And amused though she was by the poetic justice that had punished her cousin and her aunt so appropriately, Juliet was herself glad when all the embarrassing goodbyes had been said.
She was genuinely sorry to have to leave her uncle, for she had a peculiar conviction that he needed some sort of sympathetic help, which she would have been very willing to give if it had lain in her power. But, without knowing him better, she could not, of course, decide what his need was and it seemed now that she was never likely to be in a position to know that—still less to find if she could be of any comfort to him.
All she could do was bid him goodbye in as warm and affectionate a tone as the circumstances permitted. And then she got into the car beside Max Ormathon, and they drove away, threading a path through the welter of early morning traffic that filled Martin Place and King Street.
Not until they were clear of the worst of the traffic and heading for the historic township of Parramatta did Max Ormathon address more than a casual word of explanation or description to her. But when a comparatively open road lay ahead of them, he glanced at her with a dry little smile and said, “Tell me something, will you?”
“If I can—of course.” Though she was faintly put out by his expression.
“Why were you so anxious not to have my company today?”
“But I—I wasn’t!” protested Juliet, blushing, to her great annoyance.
He laughed, skeptically but good-humoredly.
“You said you would much rather go alone,” he reminded her.
“But I only meant...” She hesitated and bit her lip.
“Do tell me what you meant,” he prompted a little maliciously.
“I only meant that I didn’t want to put you, or anyone else, to the trouble of accompanying me when it was unnecessary,” Juliet stated firmly, and was annoyed when he merely went on smiling.
“Don’t you believe me?” she asked sharply, though she would have preferred to have enough self-control not to press the matter further.
“Not altogether,” he said regretfully.
“But why not? It’s the very obvious explanation.”
“Your cousin didn’t seem to think so.”
“Verity?” Juliet was startled and looked it.
“Ah, does that ring a bell?” he inquired, again with that touch of malice.
“No. It does not,” Juliet
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