Witching Hour (14 page)

now she was dressed like a princess.

Even now, she could remember the shock of his violent reaction,

the way his eyes had blazed as he struggled to rise from the chair

to which his arthritis had confined him eventually.

Take off that dress!' he'd rapped. 'How dare you touch those

things! How dare you meddle! You are never to go near them

again—do you hear me?'

The child she had been had fled in tears, shattered by the ruin of

her game of make-believe, and presently her mother had come to

find her and comfort her gently, explaining as simply as she could

that remembered grief sometimes made people behave oddly.

'He loved your grandmother very much and still misses her,'

Elizabeth had explained. 'You gave him a terrible shock, darling,

but he isn't angry with you—not really. He knows you didn't mean

to make him unhappy.' She hesitated. 'You see, my pet, you do

rather look like her, and that made it so much worse for poor

Grandfather.'

The matter had never been referred to again, but Morgana had

never forgotten it, and even after her grandfather's death she had

never been tempted to return and explore the trunks again. They

had been declared taboo, and she was content to abide by that,

although at times she had remembered—and wondered.

Now she said slowly, 'I suppose you think that's very sentimental.'

'On the contrary, I approve of a certain amount of sentiment,

provided it's properly directed,' Lyall told her.

He opened the lid of one of the trunks, and stood staring down,

'Good God,' he said blankly. 'Fashion Down the Ages. If this isn't a

moths' pantry, I suppose a theatrical costumier might be glad of

them.'

Morgana grimaced. 'Perhaps—although I must admit it sounds like

desecration.'

'Well, something has to happen to them,' he said impatiently. 'You

don't want to wear them yourself, surely?'

She gave a slight strained smile. 'No, I was cured of that many

years ago. L suppose that's why I tend to regard these trunks—

everything that's up here as sacrosanct. But nothing is—not now.'

'Is that what you'd prefer?' , he asked. 'The status quo endlessly

preserved? The house crumbling, the bills piling up, your guests

muttering, and these rooms gathering yet more dust and cobwebs?'

'No, I suppose not,' she admitted. 'I realise there has to be

progress.'

'Well, that's a start.' He let the lid of the trunk fall shut, and dusted

off his hands. 'If you want to sort through these things and extract

anything of value—sentimental or otherwise—then do so. I

imagine your mother would have been given any jewellery there

was.'

'Yes, I think so.' Not that there had been a great deal, she thought,

and now there was probably even less. She looked at the trunks

arid thought of all the memories they contained, all the past

happiness and regret, and gave a little shiver as she recalled a vivid

image of her grandfather's face, set in lines of bitterness as he'd

stared at her as if he could not bear the sight of her . . .

'Cold?' Lyall asked sharply. 'It's like an ice-box up here.'

'No,' she said huskily. 'A grey goose walking over my grave, that's

all.'

He said wryly, 'Don't talk of graves, Morgana. You haven't even

started to live yet. Now go on downstairs to where it's warm—or

warmer, anyway,' he amended with a twist of his lips. 'I'll follow

you presently, when I've had a look at the last couple of rooms.'

'From what I remember, they're empty,' she said, not unwilling to

depart. 'Apart from the odd spider,' she added with a slight

shudder.

'And other livestock, I suspect, he said. 'I can't figure whether the

subdued rustlings I hear are birds in the eaves or mice.'

'Ouch!' Her skin crawled at the thought. 'In that case, I'll gladly

leave you to it.' She went out, trying not to hurry, resisting the

impulse to turn and see if he was watching her go.

On the stairs, she paused and took a long, steadying breath. The

atmosphere up in the attics had been almost claustrophobic,

redolent as it had been of the past. And although she hated to

admit it, she found being alone with Lyall for any length of time

too disturbing for comfort. She wished she could say with truth

that he left her cold, that she was totally indifferent to him, either

as a potential employer or as a man, but she knew she would be

deceiving herself. Although she believed profoundly in mind over

matter, she could not gainsay that there was an attraction between

them so strong it was almost tangible. His kisses, the slightest

touch of his fingers on her skin, were already indelibly printed on

her woman's awareness, but this served to increase her resentment

of him rather than lessen it.

She could only hope and pray that he was unconscious of the

emotional turmoil she had been thrown into, but it didn't seem

likely that he was. It was probably all part of a campaign on his

part, she thought angrily, the .words 'Unconditional surrender'

ringing like a knell in her mind. The egotism, the utter conceit of

the man! Did he really imagine that he was that irresistible?

Probably past experience had given him that impression, she

thought sorely. Well, he would learn his mistake. She had no

intention of providing him with a little rural amusement, so that he

could add another scalp to his belt.

She went into her room and snatched up her brush, applying it to

her hair in short angry strokes.

'I will not be just another conquest,' she muttered defiantly, under

her breath, then the violent movements of the brush slowed, and it

slipped from her fingers, unnoticed to the carpet, as she looked at

herself in the mirror, and for the first time faced the poignant

question of exactly what kind of relationship she would want from

someone like Lyall.

'No,' she thought, 'not "someone like". Lyall himself. What do I

want from him?' Her fingers gripped the edge of the dressing table

with painful force, and she closed her eyes to shut out the mirrored

image with the enormous, shining eyes and vulnerable mouth.

But she couldn't shut out the voice that whispered to her in the

depths of her mind, insidiously and insistently. 'What do I want?

Why, all the world and half of heaven. And if he loved me . ..'

She clapped a hand over her mouth as if it had uttered the words

aloud.

She thought in panic, 'No, it isn't true. I must be mad, even to let

myself think these things. I don't mean it.-' And then, as if making

a private, silent vow, 'I'm not going to let this happen. I won't. I

can't.' And then slowly, the final, damning admission was wrung

from her in a kind of anguish. 'I dare not.'

She was very quiet for the rest of the afternoon, so much so that

her mother' asked her anxiously a couple of times if her headache

was still bothering her. She moved like an automaton through the

various tasks she had to do, while Mrs Pentreath chatted cheerfully

about Lyall's plans for the house.

Morgana said yes and no, and nodded or shook her head when she

felt the occasion demanded, but she couldn't infuse any kind of

reality into the performance she was giving. Her mind was

elsewhere, going round and round in circles like a trapped animal,

but always returning to that moment of self-revelation in her room,

and the terrifying implications which led from it.

Terrifying, because she had always considered herself a rational

being, and now it seemed she was far from any kind of reasonable

behaviour or reaction. She had a warm, satisfactory relationship

with Rob, so why, why this awful temptation to taste the dark

delight that Lyall was offering?

It took a conscious physical effort to enter the bedroom which her

mother had allocated for his occupation, and check that everything

was in order. It was a simple action which by now had become

almost automatic, yet Morgana found herself standing in the centre

of the room gazing nervously about her as if she had suddenly

intruded into an alien landscape.

She was still standing there, when she heard voices in the passage

outside and her mother came in with Lyall at her side. She noticed

that he was only carrying one moderately sized suitcase, and hoped

it meant that he was not contemplating a protracted stay.

'Darling.' Her mother's voice broke gently across her thoughts. 'No

towels. What are you thinking of?'

'I'm sorry.' Morgana started almost guiltily. 'I—I'll go and get them

now.' She was careful not to look directly at Lyall as she made her

escape. She couldn't have borne to see in his eyes that he was quite

aware of her inner turmoil and its cause. And she delayed

returning to the room with the missing towels until she was sure

that he had gone downstairs.

He had already set his mark on the room, she thought, as she put

the towels down. There were brushes, and an electric razor in a

leather case lying on the dressing table, and a dark blue silk

dressing gown had been tossed across the bed. But no pyjamas, she

registered without a great deal of surprise. Typical, she supposed,

of his general lack of regard for convention. But this half-resentful

reflection could not disperse an unwanted but potently disturbing

image of Lyall's lean body, warm and naked beneath the rumpled

bedcovers. She turned abruptly and left the room.

When she got downstairs it was to be greeted with the welcome

news that he had gone out. She could have sagged with relief, but

it was important to hide her emotional state from her mother's

perception, so she simply murmured, 'Oh.'

'I've been telling Miss Meakins about Lyall's plans,' her mother

announced. 'She was most interested, and a little relieved, I think.

It wouldn't be easy to find alternative accommodation at this time

of year. People are already booking up for Christmas.'

'And will we be doing the same?' In the depths of an armchair,

Morgana curled her long, slender legs underneath her.

'I hardly think we'll be ready by then,' Mrs Pentreath admitted.

'There's such a lot to do. Just think, darling, proper central heating,

and all those showers. We shan't know ourselves!'

'No,' Morgana said rather wearily. 'That's what I'm afraid of too.'

Mrs Pentreath gave her a quick glance. 'Darling, we can't live in

the past. And even --' her voice broke slightly 'even if—your

father—had lived, things couldn't go on as they were. We might

have lost Polzion altogether.'

'You think we haven't?' Morgana asked quietly. She sighed. 'But I

expect that you're right. There had to be changes, and we could

never have afforded them.' She was silent for a moment. 'Lyall

found a portrait of his grandfather up in one of the attics.'

'Whatever was it doing up there?' Mrs Pentreath reached for her

bag of tapestry work and produced the canvas she was working on.

'Gathering dust in involuntary exile, I suppose,' Morgana returned

drily. 'Mother, what was the quarrel about? The original one

between Mark Pentreath and Grandfather?'

Her mother gave a slight shrug. 'I don't know, dear. No one was

ever prepared to discuss it, as you know. I did ask your father

when we were first married, but he said it had been a triviality that

had suddenly blown up out of all proportion.' She paused. 'But I

often wondered—especially when Giles came back, and there was

all that trouble. Of course, he chose a bad time with your

grandmother so very ill, but he wasn't to know that, poor man. It

was all most unfortunate.'

'Especially in view of current developments,' Morgana said with a

touch of irony.

'What a pity we can't see into the future sometimes.' Mrs Pentreath

searched among her skeins of wool for the colour she wanted. 'Oh,

not as Elsa does, but just enough to make us act—more

responsibly at times. If your father had known then that there

would be a son, and that Giles' boy would eventually inherit the

estate, he might have behaved a little more reasonably.'

'Perhaps, but the Pentreaths as a whole haven't a good record for

reasonable behaviour,' Morgana said flatly. And I'm as bad as any

of them, she thought achingly. Aloud, she said, 'Could the quarrel