Or, 'What time should I awaken you in the morning, and would you like me to drive you to work?'' Intrusion is, ' 'Where are you going and what time will you be home?''
Lee laughed at his clowning, but she could sense the vein of seriousness beneath it as well, and she was glad. If Daniel had really learned to tread carefully with his daughter things might yet come right for them.
His next words seemed to prove it. 'And by going softly I actually get told quite a lot.'
'You applied the scholar's brain to the problem, huh?'
'No, it was you,' he said. 'You showed me the way. Bless you, Lee. Everything's going to be fine, thanks to you.'
He drew her close. 'They'll be here in a minute,' she murmured.
'Then kiss me quickly,' he said against her lips.
The sound of the key turning in the front door made them spring apart self-consciously. There came the sound of urgent whispering from the hall, then Phoebe and Mark came in together, their arms entwined, their eyes shining. Phoebe threw herself forward into her father's arms.
'Oh, Daddy, I'm so happy,' she said ecstatically.
'That's wonderful, darling. Is it anything special? A new assignment?'
'No, it's much better than that. We're engaged.'
Daniel stiffened. 'What did you say?'
'Mark and I are going to be married. He asked me this afternoon and he's given me the most beautiful engagement ring. Look.'
She held up her left hand to show off the ring that flashed there. Daniel stared at it for a moment. Then he said in a hard voice, 'Take it off.'
'Daddy?' Phoebe backed away, startled by the instant change that had come over her father.
'Take it off. Now. And forget any idea of an engagement. You're sixteen, for Pete's sake! What's got into you?'
'I'm in love,' she cried. 'And I'm going to be married.'
'Over my dead body.'
'You can't stop me,' Phoebe said defiantly.
Daniel's face set. 'I'll stop you if I have to lock you in this house until you see sense.'
'Daniel, be careful,' Lee said warningly. She could have wept with despair at the way all his new-found subtlety had deserted him in this crisis. He was once more the autocratic patriarch who'd learned nothing.
He rounded on her. 'Don't say you approve of this. Why don't you tell that feather-brained daughter of mine what happens to girls who marry at sixteen?'
'Because you're not letting anyone else get a word in edgeways,' Lee cried. 'I'm as appalled as you are, but this isn't the way.'
'Then tell me what the way is,' he said through gritted teeth. 'Tell me how to get some sense into a girl who's been given too much of her own way too soon and thinks she can do any damned thing she wants.' Before Lee could answer he'd swung back to Phoebe. 'I told you to take that ring off,' he said in a biting voice.
'I won't. It's mine. I don't have to do what you want.'
'The hell you don't!'
'Don't talk to her like that,' Mark said.
Daniel seemed to notice him for the first time. 'I might have known it would be you who'd cause all the trouble,' he said. 'You've been bad news from the first. Who do you think you are to want to marry my daughter? A student who hasn't even finished his education. What are you going to live on-or didn't you bother to think about anything so mundane?'
'I'm making enough for both of us-' Phoebe said.
'So you're going to live off your wife,' Daniel demanded of Mark in a voice full of contempt.
'I won't need to,' Mark told him. 'I've got money of my own. It'll support us until I'm earning.'
'Sure it will. All of fourpence a week.'
'A bit more than that actually,' Mark said. 'Why don't you ask Lee the exact amount? She's my trustee.'
Under Daniel's hard gaze Lee coloured and said, 'Dad left Mark thirty thousand pounds two years ago. With interest, it's grown.'
He stared at her. 'But you wouldn't let him have it now? It's unthinkable.'
'Of course not.'
'Once I'm married she'll have no choice,' Mark said.
'So there's nothing to stop us,' Phoebe said.
'Now there you're wrong, young woman,' Daniel told her. 'I will stop you, and make no mistake. I mean every word. Give him that ring back.'
'No,' she whispered.
'Give it back.'
'Daniel, don't!' Lee said desperately. 'It doesn't make any difference whether she returns the ring or not. It isn't a ring that makes an engagement.'
Daniel flung her a black look. It held the same condemnation she'd seen that first time, when Phoebe had defied him about modelling, only now it was far worse.
'All right,' he said quietly. 'I'll deal with that later.' He turned on Mark. 'Get out of my house. And stay out. Don't come near my daughter again if you know what's good for you.'
'Go home, Mark,' Lee said.
'Not while Phoebe wants me,' he said firmly.
'Please go, Mark,' Phoebe said through her tears. 'I'll see you tomorrow.'
Lee saw Daniel's face tighten, but before he could speak she silenced him with a warning shake of the head. Phoebe fled the room, and after a moment Lee followed her upstairs. She found her lying full length across her bed, sobbing bitterly.
'I hate Daddy,' she choked. 'Why can't he understand?'
'But he does,' Lee told her, sitting down and patting her shoulder. 'He understands all sorts of things that you don't know about. He doesn't want you to get hurt.'
'Your dad's only trying to do what's best for you, love,' was what her mother had said.
'But I love Mark. I want to marry him and be with him for ever,' Phoebe cried.
'Phoebe, you're sixteen and Mark's nineteen. In a few years you'll be different people. You don't know what you'll feel then.'
'You're just saying that to stop me. But you said I was entitled to make my own decisions.'
'In your career, not about marriage.'
'Oh, Lee, I thought you'd understand. You married at my age-'
'That's why I don't want to see you make a mess of your life as I did. It was a terrible mistake. The biggest mistake I ever made.'
'But you had the courage to follow your heart,' Phoebe cried. 'I've always admired you for that.'
Lee sighed and buried her head in her hands. After a moment she looked up and said quietly, 'It wasn't courage. It was stupidity. The only good thing to come out of my marriage was Sonya. The rest was a nightmare.'
'But Mark and I are different,' Phoebe said, using the age-old words.
'Maybe you are, but it won't hurt to wait a bit. It wasn't very kind to hurl it at your father like a bombshell. Cool it for a while, for his sake.'
'He had no right to tell me to give my ring back.'
Lee looked at the ring sparkling on the girl's finger. It was a beautiful creation of rubies and diamonds.
Dismayed, Lee put its price at around a thousand pounds. So that was where Mark's extra credit had gone.
'If you love Mark, you won't want to hurt him,' she suggested. 'He got into serious debt to buy this, and it's going to be a struggle for him to pay it off.'
Phoebe looked stricken. 'I didn't think.'
