Witching Hour (27 page)

closeted alone together for any length of time. She had never

realised just how cramped the office was until she had been forced

to share it with him.

But it wasn't simply in working hours that she had to endure being

with him. It seemed to her that every time she went to Home Farm

with Rob, he was there. And she was forced to admit he was a far

more welcome guest to Mr and Mrs Donleven than she was.

At least he no longer made advances to her, and she wished she

could feel grateful to Elaine for diverting his attention so

completely. They were practically inseparable, she realised

miserably.

And Rob's attitude created an extra difficulty. Now that he and

Morgana were engaged he seemed determined to try and foster a

better feeling between Elaine and herself, and was always

suggesting plans for cosy little foursomes, which she was running

out of excuses to avoid.

Sometimes she wondered in desperation whether it wouldn't be

better to have done with the whole charade and tell him the truth—

that she was so much in love with Lyall-that it was an agony to be

in the same room with him, seeing him with Elaine, and imagining

them alone together.

She couldn't be quite as blunt as that, she thought drearily, but she

would have to say something sooner or later. Rob was pressing her

to allow him to buy her a ring, but she knew now that it would be

impossible for her to marry him. She had been mad to think she

could ever make such a relationship work, she told herself. Rob

was too kind, and she was too fond of him, to cheat him with a

dishonest marriage. A dishonest engagement was quite bad

enough, and there was no way she could go on using him until her

contract with Lyall was legally ended. She might have originally

intended to do so, and more, but she was now convinced that she

would be making a terrible and a cruel mistake if she persisted.

She would have to hurt him, she thought sadly, but that had been

inevitable from the start.

Perhaps if Lyall became engaged to Elaine then he would release

her from the contract. Then she could do what she had always

planned, and go away from here and make a new life for herself.

But it was a prospect which no longer held any appeal for her at

all, although it would be better than hanging around and watching

Elaine marry Lyall.

She'd not the slightest doubt that was what Elaine intended to do.

Jimmy Templeton had gone back to his regiment very downcast.

He had escaped from the crash with minor bruises, it was true, but

Elaine hadn't even bothered to ring his home and ask how he was.

All her attention was focussed unwaveringly on Lyall. She wanted

him, as she never failed to make clear, but whether or not she

loved him was a different matter.

Perhaps that was as much as Lyall wanted, Morgana thought

wearily. If his wife was at home in the kind of world he

frequented, and satisfied him in bed, then he could probably do

without love.

She groaned inwardly, and thought, 'I've got to stop thinking like

this. It's no use.'

Her bedroom in the flat was finished, and even the paintwork was

dry, so she could usefully occupy herself in transferring some of

her personal possessions up there, she told herself resolutely.

There was nothing like running up and downstairs with armfuls of

books and clothes to stop you feeling sorry for yourself, or at least

give you a genuine reason for self-pity.

The last thing she expected when she arrived breathlessly with her

first load was to find Lyall there, looking round him critically.

She uttered a startled, 'Oh!' and the insecure pile of belongings in

her arms began to slide towards the. floor.

He muttered something under his breath and caught them skilfully.

'Isn't this rather early to be moving in?' he asked sarcastically.

'Most people wait for the furniture.'

She could hardly say baldly, 'I needed something to do that would

stop me thinking about you.'

Instead she shrugged. 'Christmas in the hotel business is usually a

busy time. Perhaps when the furniture is up here, I won't have time

to move my things.'

'Busy?' His brows lifted. 'The place isn't exactly full. Or are you

expecting a last-minute influx?'

'It could happen.' She deposited what she was holding in a corner

and turned back to him. 'Thank you. I'll take those things.'

'I shan't contaminate them,' he said drily, relinquishing them to her.

He glanced at them as he did so, and Morgana saw his expression

change. He asked quite sharply, 'Where the hell did you get this?'

She looked down in surprise to see what had attracted his

attention. 'I don't really know what it is. I suppose it's a writing

case. It was in my grandmother's trunk, but it's locked and I have

no key.'

'You could have broken it open,' he said. 'I imagine one of Elsa's

kitchen knives would have managed that without too much

difficulty.'

'I expect it would,' she agreed. 'If I was sufficiently interested, that

is—which I'm not.'

'You surprise me,' he said. 'I thought you were fascinated by your

grandmother and her romantic story, Morgan le Fay.'

'Not so fascinated that I'd want to break open her things,' she said

shortly.

'Perhaps you should be.'

She looked up frowning. 'Anyone would think you knew what was

in here.'

'I think I do,' he said. 'I'll be very surprised it isn't stuffed with love

letters.'

Morgana stared at him. 'You mean from my grandfather.'

'No,' he said quietly. 'From mine.'

There was a silence and then she exclaimed furiously, 'Of all the

lousy insinuations! Are you saying that my grandmother—
my

grandmother
was having an affair with Mark Pentreath?'

'I doubt if it ever went as far as that,' he said. 'What I am saying is

that they loved each other, and continued to love each other and to

write to each other, until the day they died. It's not just guesswork,

Morgana. My grandfather had an identical case to that, full of her

letters to him.'

Morgana swallowed. She said slowly, 'You said once that our

grandfathers had quarrelled over a woman. I couldn't believe it—

but was it her that you meant?'

'Yes, it was her.' His tone was almost reflective. 'Mark saw her

first, you see, long before that damned pageant, but he didn't

propose at once, because he had very little money and even fewer

prospects, and those things mattered then. So he went off to the

States to try and make some kind of fortune, and while he was

away your grandmother was persuaded to dress up as Morgan le

Fay, and your grandfather fell in love with her. He wasn't exactly

loaded with money either—the Pentreaths were already feeling the

pinch—but he did have Polzion, and that counted for a lot in those

days. All he had to do was bide his time and convince her that

Mark wasn't coming back, which he managed eventually, helped

along by some none too subtle pressure from her family, who

thought he was a much better catch than poor old Mark.'

Morgana said shakily, 'But she must have found out in the end.'

'Of course she found out, but by that time she was married. Mark

arrived at Polzion, and there was a terrible scene. He tried to

persuade her to go away with him, and she agreed.'

'But she didn't go.'

'No, she didn't—your grandfather made sure of that. He said that if

she left with Mark he would follow them. Wherever they went, he

would be just behind them, and he would never in any

circumstances divorce her. He would make sure, he said, that they

never had the chance to settle down or lead a decent normal life.'

Morgana gasped. 'But he couldn't have done!'

'Couldn't he?' His eyes were fixed on her face. 'You knew him,

Morgana. Was he capable of conduct like that?'

Her mind flew back over the years, saw the harsh old face, with its

lines of pride and bitterness, remembered the terrifying rages.

She bit her lip. 'Yes, he was capable,' she said in a low voice. 'But.

why? What satisfaction could it have given him?'

'The satisfaction of his vanity, I think,' said Lyall. 'It didn't suit his

book to have the girl he'd chosen in spite of herself make an

alternative decision. Mrs Pentreath of Polzion was not going to be

allowed to walk out on her husband. He'd put his seal on her, and

there it was going to stay through hell and high water. And I

imagine after Mark went back to the States, there was plenty of

hell.'

Morgana shuddered. 'Oh God, yes. I wonder how many times my

grandfather punished her for daring to prefer another man during

their life together. Oh, not physically—I'm sure he never actually

hit her—but there was always so much anger inside him. I could

sense that even as a small child—and I was frightened of him—the

way he looked at me sometimes. I realise now it must have been

because I looked like her. I always thought it was grief that made

him shut all her things away like that, but I suppose it was guilt.'

She looked down at the writing case. 'Perhaps he was afraid that

he'd find something like this—or did he know about the letters?'

'It's difficult to believe they could have kept the correspondence

going for all that time without arousing his suspicions.'

'What about Mark's wife—your grandmother?'

'She died when my father was a small child,' he said quietly. 'I

don't think they had a very happy life together. He could never

regard his home, his life in the States as anything more than

second best, and he brought my father up to have the same sense

of grievance. It wasn't a healthy atmosphere for a boy to grow up

in, and it left its mark in adult life.' He paused, frowning. 'You see,

my mother had been engaged before, and my father couldn't get it

out of his head that she was still in love with her ex-fiancé—and

that she'd only married him on the rebound. I don't think it was

true for a moment. Mother told me many times that she and Arnold

had been pushed together by their families long before they were

ready for any kind of relationship. It was only much later, when

she was a widow, that they came together again, and realised what

they had going for them. It was a good marriage, they were very

happy, which was one of the reasons I decided to take Arnold's

name when he asked me to. Being a Pentreath didn't seem to be the

best fate I could choose,' he added with a twist of his mouth.

'No,' she said unhappily, thinking of her father and the way he had

turned Giles Pentreath summarily from the house. They had been

equally obsessed in their own ways, she thought—Giles with his

wrongs, and Martin with his refusal to face reality, his pretence

that the skeleton in the family closet could just disappear. She said

slowly, 'I'm sorry Mark could never come back here.'

'He was sorry too.' Lyall's voice was wry. 'He tried, of course,

when your grandmother became ill, but you know how that ended,

I'm sure. Eventually, I think, his love for your grandmother and his

passion for Polzion became inextricably confused in his mind. He

equated one with the other. He'd lost his love, and his home, and I

think there came a time when he wouldn't have been able to say

with any sureness which was the hardest to bear. He was always a

vagrant in a way—rootless—and my father was very much the

same, although he'd never actually lived here.'

'And you?' Morgana thought of the houses she'd heard

mentioned—the flat in London, the apartment in New York.

'Perhaps that's something I've inherited. I get satisfaction that

Polzion belongs to me because there seems a kind of justice in it,

but I haven't got an obsession to live here permanently. People are

more important than places. If you have the right person at your

side, then the surroundings melt into insignificance.' He smiled

sardonically. 'But I wouldn't expect you to go along with that.

You're as firmly rooted here as the bracken on the moor. You

wouldn't transplant too easily. Is that Donleven's attraction—that

he'll allow you to stay here, clinging on to the past?'

She was gasping in angry astonishment at the unexpectedness of

the attack. For a few moments she had never felt so close to him;

now they were miles apart again.

'That's none of your business. I won't discuss my feelings for Rob