Witching Hour (5 page)

and moved off down the hill, without waiting to see if she was

following or not. Morgana gritted her teeth and went after him,

fumbling in her cape pocket for her own torch. It couldn't compete

with the powerful beam that his flashlight was sending out, but at

least it gave her an illusion of independence.

He said over his shoulder, 'Be careful you don't fall.'

'Thanks for the advice,' she snapped, 'but I do happen to know

every inch of these moors.' And remembered too late that he'd had

to haul her up from the ground only a few minutes before.

'Then perhaps you'd like to go first. My own acquaintanceship is

only just beginning,' he said silkily.

'That,' she snapped, as she went past him, her chin in the air, 'is

entirely your own fault.'

She walked ahead of him as fast as she could go, determined not to

stumble again or make a fool of herself in any other way, although

every instinct was screaming at her to run and never stop until she

reached Polzion House and safety. When she reached the road she

made no attempt to wait for him to catch up with her, but simply

marched along as if he had ceased to exist for her. Nor did he try

and draw level, so he obviously had as little desire for her

company as she had for his, she thought defiantly.

She didn't pause or look back until they reached the front door, and

she opened it and went into the hall. Her mother was at the desk,

just putting the telephone down.

'That was Mr Trevick, darling. The Pentreath man is in the area—

he called at the office earlier today. Where can he have got to, do

you suppose?'

'Here,' Morgana said grimly, and stepped aside.

Lyall Pentreath walked forward, and she took her first good look at

him. All the impressions she had received up by the Wishing

Stone—the height, the fairness—were reinforced, and more

beside. His face was deeply tanned, accentuating the strong lines

of nose, mouth and jaw, and his eyes were a deep and piercing

blue. The black leather coat covered a roll-necked sweater in the

same shade, and light grey pants, fitted closely to lean hips and

long legs.

Elizabeth Pentreath said helplessly, 'Oh dear!'

He said quietly and without mockery. 'This is a difficult occasion

for us both, Mrs Pentreath, and anything I say is liable to be

misunderstood. I wish we could have met in different

circumstances.'

He had charm, Morgana supposed bitterly, watching her mother's

face flush slightly with pleasure as he took her hand. And the

cynical lines of his mouth told her that he was quite well aware of

it, and knew how to use it to its best effect. She stood and watched,

and hated him for it. Hated him for the elegance of his expensive

clothes and the slight drawl with which he spoke. Everything about

him told of a world very remote from their own small part of the

Cornish peninsula. He looked, she thought frankly, as if he'd never

actually known what a hard day's work was, never had his hands

dirty in his life, and she despised him for it.

Effete, she thought. A lady's man. A desk-job Romeo. I bet the

typing pool's little hearts go pit-a-pat whenever he saunters

through.

Mrs Pentreath said, 'Would you come into the drawing room?

We've just been having tea. I'll ask Elsa to make some fresh and . .

.'

He lifted a hand. 'Not for me, thank you. I don't really have a great

deal of time.' He glanced at the plain gold watch on his wrist. 'I

have to pick up my car and get back to Truro.'

'Oh.' Elizabeth Pentreath was taken aback. 'Then you're not

staying? I've had a room prepared here for you.'

'Not this time around, I'm afraid.' His smile removed any hint of a

rebuff. 'But when my immediate plans are finalised, perhaps I can

take advantage of your kind offer.'

'Oh, I'm sure you'll do that.' Morgana muttered rebelliously, and

received a horrified look from her mother.

When Mrs Pentreath turned to lead the way into the drawing room,

Morgana suddenly felt her arm seized in a paralysing grip.

Lyall said softly and evenly, 'I'm doing my best to ease the

situation, sweetheart, so stop bitching, otherwise I may take

advantage of you in a way you won't like. Anyway, the only

person you're hurting is your mother.' He let her go almost

contemptuously, and walked unhurriedly away. Morgana watched

him go, but she didn't follow. Instead she almost ran down the

passage to the kitchen.

Elsa was standing at the deep enamel sink, washing up, but she

glanced round as Morgana flew in.

'Dear soul,' she remarked. 'Where's the fire to?'

'It's him. He's here.' Morgana sank down on to a chair beside the

kitchen table, unfastening her cape, and pushing it back from her

shoulders.

'Well, better late than never, they do say,' Elsa said comfortably,

subjecting a plate to a minute inspection before placing it on the

drying rack on the draining board.

'I don't say it.' Morgana pushed her hands through her dishevelled

hair, lifting it away from the nape of her neck. 'Oh, Elsa, he's vile!

And he's fair,' she added.

'The cards don't lie, my lover. A fair man, they said, and pain and

woe.'

'He's that all right,' Morgana said petulantly. 'Oh, what are we

going to do?'

'As we're told, I daresay.' Elsa held out a tea-towel with an

inexorable air. 'No point in fretting without reason, neither.'

Morgana accepted the cloth with a little sigh and began to wipe the

dishes. 'You can hardly say we have no reason,' she objected.

'What I say is it's best we wait and hear what the genn'lman says

before we start calling 'um names,' Elsa returned.

'I don't want to hear anything from him,' Morgana said

passionately. 'But at least he's not staying the night here—that's

something to be thankful for. I can't bear the thought of having to

share a roof with him, even for one night.'

From the doorway Lyall said drily, 'Do you think you could bear to

share it for long enough to show me a little of the house? Your

mother is otherwise occupied, or I wouldn't trouble you.'

The cup she was drying slipped from her hands and smashed into a

hundred fragments on the flagged floor.

'Now see what you've done!' Elsa scolded. 'Of all the clumsy

maids! Don't go treading through it, making things worse neither.

Tek no notice of her, sir,' she added to Lyall who stood watching,

his face expressionless. 'She'm mazed with worry, that's all. She

don't mean half of what she says.'

'Even the half is more than sufficient.' He walked into the kitchen,

ignoring Morgana, who had fetched a dustpan and brush from the

broom cupboard and was sweeping the fragments into it with more

scarlet-cheeked vigour than accuracy. 'You must be Elsa, the

mainstay of this establishment.' He smiled. 'Mrs Pentreath's own

words, not gratuitous flattery from me, I promise you.'

'Mrs Pentreath's a nice lady.' Elsa wiped a damp hand on her

overall and shook hands with him. 'And the late master was a well-

meaning genn'lman. More than that I can't say.'

Lyall was looking around him. Watching him under her lashes, as

she dumped the broken crockery into the kitchen bin, Morgana

was resentfully aware that she was seeing the kitchen through his

eyes—the big old-fashioned sink with its vast scrubbed draining

board, the range, the enormous dresser which filled one wall, in all

its homely inconvenience.

He said almost idly, 'It must be hell having to cope without a

dishwasher in the height of the season.'

'Tesn't wonderful, that's true.' Elsa allowed graciously. 'But we

manage. And hard work never hurt no one.'

'How right you are.' He glanced at Morgana. 'I suggest as we're

here, you may as well begin by showing me the rest of the kitchen

quarters. I take it that this isn't the only room.'

'No.' She would rather have cut her throat with one of Elsa's

brightly honed knives than have shown him a shed in someone

else's garden, but she gritted her teeth. 'There is a scullery—

through here. I suppose these days, you'd call it a utility room. The

washing machine's in here, and another sink, and the deep-freeze.'

'At least there are those,' he observed, glancing round, his brows

raised. 'What about a tumble-dryer? How do you manage the

laundry in wet weather?'

'There's a drying—rack that works on a pulley in the kitchen.

We've always found it perfectly efficient,' she said coldly.

'But then,' he said smoothly, 'the hotel has never precisely operated

at full stretch, has it?'

'As you say,' she agreed woodenly. 'That door leads to a courtyard,

and the former stables. Do you want to look at them now? They're

rather dilapidated.'

'I can imagine. Is there electricity laid on?'

'Well—no.'

'Then I'll save that particular delight for another occasion. What

kind of garden is there at the rear?'

She said reluctantly, 'Beyond the stables there's a walled area

which is quite sheltered. We grow vegetables there, and soft fruit,

but not to any great extent.'

'And use the home-grown produce in the hotel dining room?'

She was a little taken aback. 'Well, sometimes. We don't grow all

that much. There are a few apple trees as well.'

Lyall gave a sharp sigh. 'Perhaps we'd better look at the rest of the

ground floor rooms—leaving the drawing room out of the tour.

I've had enough of the stares of the curious.'

'I suppose you think we should have told our guests to go,'

Morgana said defensively.

'I didn't say that.'

'No—but you obviously don't want them here. Only it is—or it has

been our living, and we didn't hear from you, so we didn't know

what to do for the best.'

His mouth curled sardonically. 'That last phrase I'd say sums up

the present situation pretty accurately. Now, might we get on,

please? As I've pointed out, my time here is limited.'

Oh, that it were true, Morgana thought in impotent rage leading the

way along the passage to the dining room.

Lyall said little as she did the honours of the house in a small

remote voice—like a bored house agent with a reluctant client, she

realised with unwilling humour, as she heard herself uttering

phrases like 'original mouldings' and 'local stone'.

She tried to look at him as little as possible, so it was difficult to

gauge his reactions to what he was seeing—to know whether he

was impressed, appalled, or simply indifferent. One of his few

abrupt questions was about central heating, and she had to confess

there wasn't any, but that they'd always found the open fires

perfectly adequate. It wasn't true. Her mother had bemoaned the

lack of radiators on innumerable occasions, but Morgana wasn't

prepared to admit that. As far as this—interloper was concerned,

the present occupants thought that Polzion House was perfect,

warts and all.

Besides, she didn't want him to like the house. The solution to all

their problems would be for him to refuse the inheritance, and he

could just do that, if there were sufficient drawbacks. She could

imagine die kind of accommodation that would appeal to him—

some chic penthouse, she thought impatiently, with wall-to-wall

carpeting, and gold-plated bathroom fittings, to go with his gold-

plated image.

As she led the way up the broad, shallow curve of the staircase, her

sense of purpose faltered a little. At the head of the stairs was the

long gallery off which the principal bedrooms opened, with

smaller wings at each end, and in this gallery the family portraits

were hung. However much she might silently condemn him as an

intruder and a stranger, she could not escape the fact that every

few yards they were going to come face to face with his likeness,

and it wouldn't escape him either.

She made no reference to them as they passed, but took him

straight to the master bedroom which her parents used to share,

and where Elizabeth Pentreath now slept alone. He looked around

it without comment, opening the door into the small dressing room

which lay off it.

'Are the guest rooms similar?' he asked, when they were once

again on the gallery.

Morgana hesitated. 'Well, usually guests have a choice of rooms.

We charge different prices for them, of course. At the moment