Witching Hour (28 page)

with you.'

'I wouldn't want to hear about them,' he said derisively. 'Not that

there'd be very much to discuss—it isn't a very ardent affair.'

Before she could back away, he reached out suddenly and took her

bare left hand in his. 'Haven't you warned him, Morgan le Fay, that

he needs to put his seal on you in this way, if no other?'

'That's not true,' she said defiantly. 'I don't need a ring to prove

how . . .'

'I wasn't only talking about a ring,' he said, and pulled her towards

him. His mouth seared hers, blocking off the cry of protest rising

in her throat. Then her lips parted helplessly, and she clung to

him,, glorying in her submission at his storm of kisses raged over

her face and throat. His hands travelled down her body, moulding

her against him, making her urgently aware of his mounting desire.

She flattened her hands against his chest, feeling the racing of his

heart under her palms. When he released her, his face was

feverishly flushed and his eyes glittered down at her.

'Tell him it's over,' he said harshly. 'If you don't, then I will.'

'No!' She wrenched herself free and stood facing him, her breasts

rising and falling stormily.

'Don't be a fool,' he said. 'You may look like your grandmother,

but you don't have to act like her. You don't want Donleven. You

want me, and you know it, but you won't admit it. I'm still the

enemy, the outsider who's robbed you of your treasure, your home.

Well, you can have the bloody thing if it's so vital to your

happiness. I'll make it over to you, lock stock and barrel. You get

the house, and I get you. Is it a bargain?'

'No,' she repeated, helpless tears filling her eyes. 'How dare you

think you can buy me! I—I love Rob.'

'You'd probably love a dog if you had one,' he said cruelly. 'Don't

confuse whatever lukewarm attachment you may have to

Donleven with what you feel for me.

They don't occupy the same universe. I've seen you with him,

remember?'

'And I've seen you with Elaine.' Her voice shook. 'What part of

your universe does she fill? If you want me to admit that you turn

me on, then I do. I confess it all—not that there was ever much

room for doubt; you made sure of that. But I'm not proud of it, and

unlike you, Lyall, I want other things as well as passion—things

like respect and affection, that you wouldn't understand. I couldn't

be what you want. I'd end up despising myself. It just wouldn't be

worth it,' she ended chokingly.

'There'd be compensations.' His eyes lingered disturbingly on her

mouth. 'I'd make it worth it, Morgana.'

'You couldn't.' She was close to tears. 'We want different things.

We don't even speak the same language.'

His face hardened. 'You're really going to do it, aren't you?' he

said. 'You're going to emulate your grandmother, and let the man

you want walk out of your life. You're as big a coward as she was.'

'How dare you say that?' she gasped.

'Oh, I dare,' he shrugged. 'It isn't part of the story as I heard it, but

something I managed to work out for myself. She should have

gone with him. She should have called her husband's bluff and

damned all the social conventions of her day to hell. But she was

plain scared, and she let two lives be ruined because of that fear.

And that's not romantic, Morgan le Fay—-it's pitiful. But I'm not

Mark Pentreath. I'm not going to hang about in the background,

eating my heart out while you enliven the dullness of your life

with fantasies about what might have been. Be a coward, Morgana,

but you'll be one alone.'

'I want to be alone,' she said raggedly. 'Any sort of loneliness

would be better than the misery of being with you. I wouldn't

crawl to you if I were dying!'

She turned and ran out of the room, and down the stairs, not daring

to look back, but with the memory of the bitterness of his face

etched indelibly on her mind.

MORGANA folded the last letter and put it back in the case. She

looked across the table at her mother, who was still deeply

absorbed in reading, and gave a little sigh.

Elizabeth put her own letter down and shook her head. 'What a sad

and unnecessary waste of two lives,' she said gravely. 'And you

say Lyall has a similar collection from your grandmother.'

'So he says.' Morgana paused. 'Did you never have any idea?'

'None.' Mrs Pentreath gave a small, wintry smile. 'This was just

one more thing your father chose to keep me in the dark about. I

wish he felt he could have trusted me.'

'Oh, love, it wasn't that, I'm sure.' Morgana put out a hand and

squeezed her mother's arm. 'He just didn't want you to worry about

things.'

'And that, of course, was the greatest worry of all,' her mother said

quietly. She sat in silence for a few moments, her eyes brooding as

if she was recalling memories that were not totally pleasing to her.

Morgana touched the split leather. 'Just before we cut it open, I

found I was hoping it would be recipes—or knitting patterns. I

really didn't want it to be true.'

'Why not, darling?' Mrs Pentreath's eyes searched her daughter's

face anxiously. 'It's ancient history now. No one can be hurt by it

today.'

'I think it's touched all of us in different ways,' Morgana said. She

gave a little sharp laugh. 'At least, I'll never believe in romance

again.'

'That sounds odd coming from a girl who's engaged to be married,'

Elizabeth said drily. 'What do you want to do with these letters?

Keep them?'

Morgana shrugged. 'As you say, it's ancient history.' She gathered

up a handful of the letters and walking across to the range, dumped

them on the burning coke, where they shrivelled and turned brown

before bursting into flame.

'Rather drastic,' Mrs Pentreath observed mildly. 'They were part of

the family archives, after all.'

'What family archives?' Morgana's tone was wry. 'Let's face it,

love, the Pentreaths are over and done with. Polzion will be run as

a conference and holiday centre in the New Year, and Lyall has no

intention of either living here or using the name. So—
sic transit

gloria
Pentreath.'

'Don't you mind?'

'There's very little point in minding. We haven't been such an

admirable family that we deserve any kind of memorial. We've run

the gamut from wrecking and smuggling to sheer bloody-

mindedness, after all. Perhaps it's just as well we're just going to

fade away.'

'But I thought it meant a lot to you. At times I was afraid it meant

too much.'

'Perhaps it did once,' Morgana said in a low voice. 'But it's no

longer mine to care about. And besides . . .' She stopped. She'd

been about to say that people mattered more than places, but

remembered just in time whom she was quoting. She said, 'And

besides, I'll be leaving here soon.'

'You mean—to be married?' Mrs Pentreath was startled.

'No, that isn't what I meant.' Morgana sat down again at the table,

clasping her hands lightly together on the scrubbed surface. 'I'm

going to get a job away from here.'

'But what about Lyall?'

Morgana shrugged. 'I don't think he'll make any difficulties. It's—

it's amused him to make me dance to his piping for a while, that's

all.'

'Is it?' Elizabeth asked very gently. She hesitated. 'Does he—is he

serious about Elaine Donleven?'

'I don't know.' Morgana forced a smile. 'But it makes no

difference, because he certainly isn't serious about me.'

'Oh, my dear! And yet there were times when he looked at you,

and I thought . . .'

Morgana shook her head. 'Simple old-fashioned lust, Mother, not

anything that mattered.' She saw her mother's anxious expression

and added, 'And no, I didn't succumb to it, in spite of considerable

temptation.' She rose. 'I'd started taking some of my things up to

the flat. I'd better get back to it. It will be nice to have a place of

our own again.'

'Why, yes.' Mrs Pentreath didn't sound too certain.

Morgana grinned at her affectionately. 'We shall be allowed

visitors,' she pointed out. 'It would be a shame to deprive Major

Lawson of his after-dinner chats.'

Mrs Pentreath went slightly pink. 'He's very pleasant company,'

she said with dignity. 'And please stop looking so—
knowing.

You're as bad as Elsa.'

'What's Elsa been saying?'

'Altogether too much,' Mrs Pentreath returned. 'Sometimes she

really goes too Tar.'

Morgana laughed. 'Perhaps, but it's too late to bring her under

control now.'

As she went upstairs, her smile faded as she remembered only too

clearly what Elsa had prophesied for her—'Grief and misery, pain

and woe.' The burning ache deep inside her bore witness to the

accuracy of that.

Wincing, she paused in the gallery, staring at the portrait of Mark

Pentreath, now, after so many years, at the side of the woman he

had loved. A sigh shook her as her eyes went to the portrait of her

grandmother—Morgan le Fay, who had cast her innocent spell,

bewitching the wrong man, and suffering for it for the rest of her

life.

But at least she had her letters, she thought unhappily as she turned

away. Whereas I—I shall have nothing at all.

Morgana was still quiet that evening, sitting beside Rob in the

lounge at the Polzion Arms, and eventually he became irritable.

'What in the world's the matter with you? You can't still be

brooding over this business with your grandparents? For God's

sake, Morgana, it's past and done. I can't imagine why van Guisen

had to tell you about it.'

'Presumably because he thought I would want to know the truth at

last,' she said.

'It isn't even as if you could change anything,' Rob said

unanswerably. 'You .worry me, darling, dwelling on the past like

this. It's the future you should be concentrating on—our future.' He

put his hand over hers. 'When are you going to let me announce

our engagement.'

Staring down at the table top, unable to meet his gaze, she said,

'There's no hurry, is there?'

'There certainly hasn't been, but in just over a week it will be

Christmas. That's a good time to make it official— an ideal time.

My parents are having a party on Christmas Eve. We can make it a

double celebration.'

'Are you sure that's how your parents will regard it?'

He stirred uncomfortably. 'They may have been a little— surprised

at first, but they're more than reconciled now.

'Thank you,' she said with irony.

Rob groaned. 'I definitely didn't mean, that as it sounded, darling.

But they're not the ones who matter anyway. You know how I feel

about you. I want to be able to stand up in front of the world and

tell it that you belong to me.'

His words made her feel guiltier than ever. She picked up her drink

and took a hasty sip. Rob was watching her, not anxiously, but in a

puzzled way.

'Well, darling?'

'I need some time to think—I told you that. And Christmas is

always a busy time for us at the hotel.'

'Oh, come off it, love.' He sounded sceptical. 'You aren't exactly

packed to the doors. And even van Guisen won't expect you to

wait on him hand and foot over Christmas.'

'I don't know what his plans are.' Morgana made her voice neutral.

'But I doubt very much whether he intends to spend Christmas at

Polzion. He has a family in the States, after all. I'd have thought

he'd have wanted to spend the holiday with them.'

Rob grinned. 'Not if Elaine has anything to do with it. I don't

exactly welcome the prospect of the great Mr van Guisen as a

brother-in-law. He's altogether too much of a go-getter for my

taste. He's even had some tame accountant down to go over our

books at the stables, to make sure, I suppose, that we're solvent

enough to fulfil his requirements. That's if this riding holiday deal

goes through.'

'Don't you think it will?'

Rob shrugged. 'Hard to say. I'm not sure it isn't a takeover bid he

has in mind. He and Dad were skirting round a discussion on a

possible price for the Home Farm and stables only the other

evening.'

She gave him a startled look. 'Your father is thinking of selling the

Home Farm? But I thought he loved it.'