Love in High Places by Jane Beaufort

he perfectly understand what your plans are for her?”
    “Of course, darling.” But he tried to draw her close to him again, and kiss her with anguished sympathy. “Valentine, if you really were Cinderella, and I were a prince with a kingdom to offer you, it would be yours at this very minute, and all our problems would be solved. But I’m a man who lives largely by his wits — oh, not entirely, for I have a certain amount of money! — and you have suffered more than most young women of your age. It’s not your fault that you have to work for someone like Lou, but if only the circumstances were different ... If only I could offer you a future that would be a secure future for both of us! ... ”
    “If only I were Lou, and not Valentine, there would be no complications, is that what you mean?” she asked, and struggled to get out of his arms.
    “There is only one Valentine,” he told her sharply. “There will always be only one Valentine!”
    But having remembered in time the woman who paid her her salary Valentine fought to get away from him. She had never been so ashamed in her life — or so sickened because she had been weak — and the memory of her weakness lent strength to her struggles. If she didn’t get away she might be weak again, and already she could see the flush rising up in his face, and the glitter of annoyance in his dark eyes because these stolen moments were to be ruined by her attack of conscience. His fingers hurt her as he gripped her strongly, and his arms were brutal as he crushed her once more up against him.
    “Valentine,” he ordered, “don’t be ridiculous! I love you, and you love me, and that’s all that matters! Valentine! ...”
    But she twisted all ways to avoid him, and he knew he was hurting her soft flesh. Nevertheless, his mouth clamped down on hers again, and this time he forced her lips apart and kissed her until the pine tops swayed above her, and the whole world rocked round her. She was forced once more to cling to him, and they stood swaying dizzily on the edge of a drop that was like a plunge into infinity, and the fire of a desperation that was coursing through his veins lighted such a responsive one in hers that when at last they had to tear their lips apart in order to draw breath her golden eyes were as black and strained as his own, and they neither of them had any noticeable tan at all.
    He was rather white around the mouth.
    “Oh, Valentine,” he breathed, “how could you be so stupid ? How could you think we could ignore this ? ”
    But, to his utter stupefaction, she raced away from him through the pine wood, through the denseness of the little twilit place, and — heedless of the drifts beside the track, and the unseen rocks and tree-roots — went sprawling full-length in the very middle of the path as he recovered himself sufficiently to race after her. In a panic, as she lifted herself and saw him standing above her, she made an unwary movement and rolled down a slope and into a little hollow, and she was lying very still when he threw himself down on his knees beside her.
    “Are you hurt? Liebling, you’re not hurt, are you?” he implored. His voice was shaking, his face white and stricken, and he lifted her gently into his arms.
    She shook her head. Her cap had fallen off, her curls were brilliant against the snow, but her face was paler and more bewildered than ever.
    “No. No, I’m perfectly all right.”
    He cradled her tenderly as if she were a baby, stroking the tousled hair, and bringing colour back to her cheeks, with the warmth of his fingers. And then she put back her head and looked upwards into his eyes. They had the same strange, intense darkness of a few minutes ago — an all-enveloping darkness — and behind it were several flickering fires. For although she had shocked him by running away — shocked him still more when she fell — his need of her was still paramount.
    It was frustrated passion that was flickering at the