Charade In Winter. Anne Mather

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      ‘This is Darkwater Hall, isn’t it?’

      Alix felt obliged to say something, and the man nodded, holding back the dogs by their collars, and indicated that she should come inside. Rather gingerly Alix obeyed, wondering rather foolishly whether he intended letting the dogs loose on her as soon as the gates were closed again.

      The gate swung closed behind her, and the man spoke for the first time, his accent thick with the Northumbrian brogue: ‘You afraid of dogs?’

      Alix put down her cases. ‘Not particularly,’ she admitted, and then stiffened as he did as she had feared and released the wolfhounds. They came bounding towards her, barking once more, but the man seemed unconcerned.

      ‘They’ll not harm you,’ he said, securing the gates again, ‘not unless you was to run or do something silly like. They’re guard dogs, but they’re not vicious.’

      Alix managed a half-smile, suppressing the urge to push the wet noses away from her legs. ‘You know who I am?’

      The man regarded her levelly. ‘Well, as we don’t get young women coming to the gates with suitcases every day, I’d hazard a guess that you was Mrs Thornton, is that right? You’re expected. And it’s not an afternoon for standing on ceremony, is it?’

      ‘No, it’s not.’ Alix’s pulse rate slowed as the dogs began to lose interest. ‘Er—how far is the Hall?’

      The man glanced at her, glanced at her suitcases, and then came forward to pick them up. ‘Best part of a mile,’ he replied laconically, ignoring her dismayed gasp. ‘Don’t worry, you don’t have to walk it. We can go up in the Rover.’

      ‘Thank goodness!’ Alix’s relief was evident, and the man cast a derisive look at the heels of her boots.

      ‘Them’s riding boots, I suppose,’ he taunted, and when Alix looked confused, he added, ‘Well, they surely don’t look like walking boots!’ and laughed at his own joke.

      Alix didn’t find it particularly amusing, but at least his humour helped to relieve the situation, and she managed to ignore the implications behind locked gates and guard dogs and a drive almost a mile in length.

      She could see now that a Landrover was parked to one side of the lodge. The lodge itself was a single-storied dwelling, built of local stone, with lead-paned windows and a sloping roof with hanging eaves. It might have been quite picturesque, but in the drifting spirals of mist that crept around it from the forest behind, it, too, had a slightly menacing air.

      The Landrover was reassuringly ordinary, and judging from its appearance had spent part of the day ploughing through acres of mud. The man flung her cases into the back with a distinct disregard for their well-being, and Alix felt an almost irresistible urge to rescue them before they, too, became encrusted with mud. But a kind of masochistic desire to go on with this affair kept her still and silent, and she consoled herself with the thought of what an opening to her feature this would make.

      The dogs were apparently left loose in the grounds, and when the Landrover’s engine was started they slunk away into the shadows surrounding the lodge. The vehicle’s headlights made little headway in the mist, but at least they revealed how thickly wooded the area was, and how impossible it must be to see the house from the road. Probably a deliberate choice of landscaping made many years ago when the original inhabitants of the Hall were in residence. Alix had looked up the history of the Darkwaters, thinking that possibly there might be some family connection between old Lord Darkwater and the Morgans: but she could find none. Oliver Morgan’s reasons for buying Darkwater Hall and coming to live here were as obscure as ever.

      The drive was winding among the trees, and realising she was wasting valuable time, she asked quickly: ‘Do you and your wife live at the Lodge, Mr…er…’

      ‘Giles, ma’am. And I’m not married. Never have been. I manage quite well for myself, and I have the dogs. They’re company enough for me.’

      ‘I’m sure they are,’ murmured Alix dryly, aware of another pang of discomfort. Were there any other women at Darkwater Hall? And if not, to use a cliché, might she not have bitten off more than she could chew? What did she know of the family that was reassuring? They always made news, but that was more for their notoriety than their popularity, and Joanne Morgan’s death in unusual, not to say mysterious, circumstances could not be dismissed. Until now, she had barely stopped to ask herself why Oliver Morgan should require the Darkwater library to be catalogued when he had taken such pains to put himself beyond the reach of would-be sympathisers and press alike. Surely a man in his position would avoid unnecessary visitors in his home—and cataloguing a library, however extensive, could not be an urgent task. But when Willie had first shown her the advertisement, the opportunity it presented had been the most important consideration, and she had not even considered that Lady Morgan could be interviewing some entirely unsuspecting girl on her son-in-law’s behalf.

      Then she chided herself impatiently. There had been men at the interviews, as well as girls. Oliver Morgan could not have foreseen that the qualifications required might not have been found in a man. He could not have guessed that all but two of the applicants would be deterred by the remote location of Darkwater Hall, or that Alix’s magazine would dispose of her final competition by offering the other girl a more lucrative position elsewhere. Besides, this was no time to be getting cold feet. Nothing she had read about Oliver Morgan had led her to believe he was a patient man—as witness his physical ejection of one of her colleagues from an exhibition he had been holding in Kensington, when it had been suggested that without his wife’s patronage he might well have found his work harder to sell—and whether or not the exercise was worthwhile she was committed to attempting the job she had been brought here to do. If, in the process, she could discover a little more of the truth behind Joanne Morgan’s death and why her husband should now choose to shut himself away in the wilds of Northumbria, so much the better. This was one story no one else should deprive her of, ungrammatical though that might be.

      Her only real regret was that she had had to use her mother’s name, without her knowledge, to get the references she needed, but when she read the feature her daughter intended to produce, surely she would understand. And if there was no story… Alix lifted her slim shoulders in a gesture of dismissal. It shouldn’t be too difficult to get herself fired, should it? Although even she had had no idea of the circumstances of her employment, and she doubted anyone could get away—she hesitated over the word escape—from Darkwater Hall without its master’s permission.

      As Giles seemed disinclined to indulge in casual conversation, the remainder of the journey was accomplished in silence, a silence unbroken by the calls of birds or the sounds of darting insects. The ominous deepening of the mist increased their isolation and aroused in Alix a tension she had never before experienced. With it came thoughts hitherto suppressed—what if Oliver Morgan had had her investigated? What if he had already discovered she was not who she claimed to be? Would he have allowed her to come here in those circumstances? Surely not. Surely if he had even suspected she was a member of the profession he clearly abominated, he would have refused her admission at the gates. Unless he had his own methods for dealing with recalcitrant journalists…

      But what? She sighed. This was ridiculous! She had always had a vivid imagination and now she was allowing it free rein. And in what direction? It wasn’t as if she hadn’t seen pictures of Oliver Morgan, she had. She knew what he looked like. Tall and dark, with those hard, intelligent features that older women seemed to go for. Of course, he was quite old—forty-one or two, but in no way did he resemble the devil, with horns and a tail. And besides, what could he do to her? Her editor knew where she was. The bus driver, and he had certainly paid her enough attention, would СКАЧАТЬ