Witching Hour (20 page)

'Oh, they've gone back to London, but as far as my mother's

concerned he has "eligible bachelor" written all over him, which I

suppose he is on the face of it.' He sighed again. 'I wish he'd go

away. Isn't he afraid that van Guisen-Lyall may collapse in a heap

without him?'

'I don't think so,' Morgana gave a rather tight little smile. 'He

spends at least an hour on the telephone each morning in the

office, and there's a stack of mail for him every day. I think he

manages to keep in touch. But I wish he'd go too. In fact I wish

he'd never come here.'

It wasn't the truth. It would never be the truth again, but she

justified her remark by wishing that it could be. The fact was that

before Lyall came she had only been half alive. And when he went

away again there would be a bitter, aching gap in her

consciousness.

'Well, he'll certainly be here for the party,' Rob was saying. 'He's

taking Elaine. Are you sure you wouldn't like to go?'

Recklessly she said, 'Yes—why not? It might even be fun at that.'

'And you could do with some jollification.' Rob peered at her.

'You've been looking a little peaky just lately, my love. It's

understandable, of course, but I've been worried about you. You

need taking out of yourself.'

He was trying to be kind, she knew, so she smiled at him, and let

him hold her hand, and later he would want to kiss her and she

would yield because she didn't want to hurt him, not that she had

any desire to have his mouth on hers. His touch meant less than

nothing to her now, so with each and every kiss she had to

dissemble, because he was now showing every sign of wanting to

carry things further each time they saw each other.

She knew she wasn't being fair to him. It would be kinder to tell

him gently that she couldn't see him again. She could make some

excuse about the pressure of work at the hotel which he could

believe or not as he chose.

Yet she was reluctant to do it. Rob was her shield, the defence

behind which she could hide her feelings for Lyall.

Being half of a recognised couple afforded her some protection.

Once that was gone, she would be totally vulnerable, and Lyall

would look at her and know the truth.

He might be amused—after all, it was quite amusing that his

casual ploy had had such devastating results. But it wasn't what he

had intended, she was sure. If she'd been a different sort of a girl,

she might have responded to his advances and enjoyed the

relationship which followed, • within its limitations. But she knew

now that she wanted Lyall without limits of any kind, and that

anyway she wasn't the type for a 'here today, gone tomorrow'

lover. It would be torment to have him, and then lose him, just as it

was torment to imagine him with Elaine.

But it was a torment she had to hide at all costs. His amusement

would be hurtful enough, but his pity would be a thousand times

worse.

Seeing him at the party, escorting Elaine, would be like biting on

an already aching tooth, she thought unhappily, but it would be no

worse than sitting at home alone, giving full rein to her

imaginings.

And Rob's admiration, his desire for her company, was a salve to

her bruised emotions. She wouldn't have been human not to feel

that. So she would go to the party with him, and wear the brightest

smile there, and no one would be allowed to guess that her heart

was breaking.

She was mad, of course, and she knew it, to be yearning after a

man who was still a stranger to her, and who would probably have

remained a stranger even after the ultimate intimacy. She didn't

fool herself about that. There had been no real warmth, no gradual

knowledge, no touching of the spirit in what he had been offering.

But it would have been better than nothing, she thought bitterly.

Anything would have been better than that.

The surveyor arrived the following day, a tall, rather serious man,

much younger than Morgana had expected, with gold-rimmed

spectacles and a sudden engaging grin. She had thought she would

resent his presence in the house, resent all the necessary poking

and prying and looking at plaster and floorboards and roof timbers,

but it was impossible to resent Paul Crosbie. He had a quiet,

laconic charm that was almost irresistible, and although he was

thorough and looked at everything he wanted to see, at the same

time he managed to be unobtrusive about it.

He delighted Mrs Pentreath by praising the house lavishly,

admiring the cornices and the mouldings, and the decoration on the

skirting boards which had no place in modern homes. It was clear

that if he had his way, the character of Polzion would be

preserved, and there would be no unsightly injections of plastic

and chrome, or canned music, as Morgana had secretly feared. It

was good to know that Lyall was a man of his word—that he

wasn't going to cynically exploit the family home, because of past

injuries.

He himself wasn't there. He had stayed just until Paul Crosbie had

arrived and they had had a private conference in the office, and

then he had gone off to Sweden, and Morgana had no idea when

they would see him again, although she assumed he would be back

at the end of the week for the party.

She found Paul pleasant company. He was writing a report on his

findings and using the office, so she had to see quite a lot of him.

Among other tasks, he was arranging to have Mark Pentreath's

portrait cleaned, now that it had been brought down from the attic,

and it was standing in a corner of the office carefully wrapped up,

waiting to accompany him back to London.

'Family history's a fascinating thing,' he remarked cheerfully. 'I can

trace mine back to the beginning of this century, but before that it's

a big fat blank. It would be nice to go back and find that one was

descended from— William the Conqueror, maybe.'

'It's sometimes a little disconcerting when you do know,' Morgana

informed him candidly. She grimaced. 'We have our fair share of

bad blood in the family. We could probably trace our origins back

to Attila the Hun!'

He gave her an amused glance. 'That was said with feeling. I think

I'd better not enquire too closely into what provoked it;'

She smiled. 'Afraid you might hear something derogatory about

your boss?'

'About Lyall?' He sounded astonished. 'On the contrary. He's a

great guy, both as a man and an employer. I couldn't ask for better.'

Her smile tightened. 'You should write his commercials.'

'He doesn't need them.' Paul put down his pen and studied her for a

moment. 'I suppose it's natural that there should be a certain

amount of friction between you. It can't have been easy, knowing

that your home was going to someone you'd never met. But it

could have been worse, you know. It could have gone to someone

who would have sold it over your head, or just closed it up and left

it to rot. And you wouldn't have wanted that to happen.'

'No,' she said dully, 'I wouldn't have wanted that.'

'Well then -' he paused. 'If it's any consolation, I've never known

Lyall take such a personal interest in a relatively trivial project

before. He's usually a great delegator. In fact I was surprised to

find that he was still here. He's been cancelling a number of

meetings, and postponing final decisions on all kinds of deals, and

that's not like him.'

Morgana said, 'Perhaps he has other interests to occupy his

attention.' Her voice was tart no matter how she might try to

control it, and he grinned.

'You could be right. But she must be some lady if she's managed to

take his mind off his work. No one's ever managed to do that

before.'

'Have there been so many?' She tried to speak lightly, look

amused.

'Enough.' Paul shrugged slightly. 'Hell, Lyall's an attractive man

and he likes to play the field, and why not? Besides, I think what

he saw in his own family life may not have given him an ideal

view of marriage.' He paused, flushing a little. 'But none of this

can be a surprise to you. After all, you're a member of his family,

so you must know what the score is.'

'Not really,' said Morgana. 'He—he doesn't say much about the

American side of his life, although I think he once told my mother

that his parents' marriage hadn't been a great success. His father

was a Pentreath, of course, my great-uncle's only son.'

'I'm afraid that's true,' Paul agreed. 'I know they were separated for

some time before his death, and there were problems long before

that. Lyall and I were at school together, and I can remember him

getting letters from home that made him go very quiet.'

'He was at school in England?' Morgana asked helplessly. 'I didn't

know that either.'

'He did part of his university training over here too,' Paul told her.

'I'm surprised he hasn't mentioned it.'

Morgana looked down at the small stack of bills she was paying—

thanks to the transfer Lyall had made to the hotel's account in the

local bank, their credit was good again.

'We don't talk a great deal,' she returned neutrally.

But Elaine would know, she thought. Confidences were all part of

a love affair.

There was silence between them for a while, then Paul glanced up

from his notes.

'Lyall said to be sure you were given the chance to go through all

your grandmother's things, and see what, if anything, you wanted

to keep,' he said. 'Would it be too much hassle if I had the trunks

and other things brought downstairs for you? I'd like to get those

attics clear, so that the roof timbers can be treated, and some

repairs done. One of my colleagues will be coming down to make

some sketches of the rooms for your flat, probably next week.'

Morgana hesitated. It would be much easier to tell Paul to dispose

of the trunks along with everything else in the attic, but something

held her back. There was a mystique about her grandmother's

possessions which had always fascinated her, she thought. But

then her grandmother had always fascinated her too, although she

had never met her. Again and again as a child she had been drawn

to that portrait upstairs, and the slim dark young woman with the

smile of an enchantress.

It was no wonder that Grandfather, fierce as he had been, had

fallen so deeply in love with someone so lovely and remote and

vaguely mysterious, she told herself.

She said, 'There are some lovely clothes, but all terribly dated, of

course. Lyall thought perhaps a theatrical costumiers?' Her voice

rose questioningly, and Paul nodded.

'You decide what you want to keep, and I'll make arrangements for

the rest,' he said.

A large van duly arrived to remove all the junk, but the trunks

which were brought downstairs and lined up in the corridor outside

her room. As she lifted the lid of the first one, and sniffed the faint

aroma of lavender which drifted up from the folded garments, she

felt like a child again, but this time no fierce old man was alive to

terrify her with his accusations of meddling.

On the other hand, she did not feel totally at ease as she lifted and

unfolded and gently set aside. There were some magnificent

beaded and fringed evening dresses which would be a gift for

anyone planning a revival of
The Boy Friend
or some other

production set in the Twenties, she thought, and they were all

immaculate. Even the blouses and skirts showed no sign of moths

or wear and tear. She began to wonder whether her grandmother

had ever thrown anything away. In the bottom of the second trunk

there were other things besides clothes, she was almost relieved to

discover. There was a photograph album, which she. decided to

study later, faded dance programmes, and stacks of letters tied into

neat bundles. There was also a small leather writing case, which,

rather to her surprise, was locked. Nor was there any sign of the

key, although she searched right down to the bottom of the trunk.

And underneath everything else was a soft bundle, wrapped in

tissue paper which disintegrated into soft feather strands as she

touched it. She unfolded it and sat back on her heels, staring down