Dragons Lair. Sara Craven

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СКАЧАТЬ away. In spite of herself, her lips twisted wryly at the prospect. And the only dragon was a painted one—black with a fiery red eye—on the inn sign.

      Davina drove carefully down the street. Some of the cottages had names, others numbers, but not one of them was called Plas Gwyn. And they didn’t seem right either, with their lace-curtained windows and neatly kept front gardens bright with summer flowers. What part had Gethyn with all this quiet domesticity?

      She licked her dry lips. Her obvious course was to enquire at the post office, but it seemed to be closed for lunch. That left the inn, which was a much more inviting proposition. She had been driving for a long time with no refreshment except a cup of coffee purchased in Shrewsbury. And a board outside the inn had mentioned bar snacks. There was a tiny gravelled car park at the side, and she drove in there. She leaned round to the back seat to recover her handbag, and took a deep steadying breath as she got out of the car. She pushed open the front door and found herself in a small lobby, with dark wooden doors opening on each side of her. On the right she could hear the soft drift of voices, predominantly male, with an occasional burst of laughter, and guessed this was the public bar. She opened the left-hand door and found herself in a small room, comfortably furnished with oak tables and high-backed settles. An old-fashioned wood fire had been laid in the grate but not lit. An elderly-looking golden labrador had been lying on the rug in front of the hearth, and as Davina came slowly into the room he got up ponderously and ambled across to put a damp but welcoming nose into her hand. Then he put his head back and gave a deep-throated bark.

      ‘Quiet, you old fool,’ a woman’s voice called from the regions behind the bar. ‘What’s the matter with you?’

      The curtain that hid the doorway through to the other bar was pushed aside and she came in, small and dark with glasses pushed up on her forehead. She put her hand to her mouth in mock dismay when she caught sight of Davina.

      ‘There now,’ she said. ‘Me calling him names, and he was only trying to tell me you were here. What can I get you?’

      ‘I’d like a lager.’ Davina hoisted herself gracefully on to one of the tall padded stools along the bar counter and returned the woman’s smile. ‘And a sandwich, if that’s possible.’

      ‘More than possible,’ the woman said briskly. ‘There’s ham, cheese or turkey. Or I’ve a menu somewhere …’ She began to fill a glass with lager, peering round for the menu card as she did so.

      ‘Turkey would be fine,’ Davina assured her.

      ‘Come far, have you?’ The woman set the glass down on a mat and pushed it towards Davina. Her twinkling eyes frankly assessed the classic lines of the cool shirtwaister dress, and the cost of the gold chain Davina wore round her throat.

      ‘Quite a way,’ Davina agreed noncommittally. The lager was ice-cold, frosting the outside of the glass, and she sipped it gratefully.

      ‘It’s chilly in here.’ The landlady hunched her shoulders in a slight shiver. ‘Shall I put a match to the old fire for you?’

      ‘Oh, no, please.’ Davina put out a detaining hand. ‘It’s a gorgeous day. Perhaps I could take a chair outside.’

      ‘No need for that. There’s a patch of grass at the back and a few tables. You can sit and look at the river and I’ll bring your sandwiches out to you.’

      ‘Do you get many tourists?’ Davina asked, gathering up her handbag and preparing to follow.

      ‘Oh yes. Surprising it is. Families, mostly, which is why I have the tables outside—for the children, see. Funny old licensing laws we have. And there’ll be more visitors, I daresay, if the old mill up the valley gets working again as they reckon.’

      ‘Mill?’ Davina raised her brows questioningly.

      The woman nodded vigorously. ‘An old woollen mill. Very dilapidated, but they say it will work again. Fine thing, too, for Moel y Ddraig when it does. A bit of local industry to keep the youngsters from drifting away.’

      She led the way along a narrow passage and flung open the door at the end.

      ‘Through the yard, see, and round the corner,’ she directed. ‘I’ll bring your lunch in a minute.’

      It was a wide lawn, sloping gently down towards the river at the bottom. Davina strolled down to the bank and stood on its edge, gazing down into the clear fast-flowing water. It was quite shallow at this point, but further out there were deeper pools and in one of these two small boys stood fishing happily. They gave Davina a friendly wave, and she waved back, suddenly enjoying the fresh sparkle of the water and the kiss of the sun on her face.

      The sandwiches which arrived with amazing promptness were delicious—thick slices of turkey breast with a slight sprinkling of salt laid between chunks of undoubtedly home-made bread. The butter too had a taste which had nothing to do with supermarkets. Even the crusts were good. When she had finished, Davina sat back with a sigh of repletion. She smilingly refused an offer of apple pie and cream, but accepted a cup of coffee.

      ‘You don’t do bed and breakfast, I suppose?’ She was only half-joking. It had occurred to her that she would need to stay overnight somewhere, and that the inn would make as good a base as any.

      ‘I’m sorry, I don’t.’ The landlady set a cup of coffee down on the small iron table and added a bowl of brown sugar. ‘But Mrs Parry might be able to help you, that is if she’s not full up with her pony-trekkers. Are you going to be staying long?’

      ‘I’m not sure.’ Davina realised with irritation that she was being deliberately evasive. Yet what was the point? Sooner or later she would have to ask someone if they knew Gethyn, and this woman was friendly and approachable. She hesitated. ‘As a matter of fact, I’m here on business. I—I’m looking for someone—a Gethyn Lloyd. He’s a writer.’

      ‘Mr Lloyd—a writer? Well, there’s a thing, now.’ The other woman sounded amazed. ‘You won’t have to look much further, though. He’s up at Plas Gwyn. In fact, it belongs to him.’

      ‘Yes, that’s the place,’ Davina said, relieved that her search was turning out to be relatively simple. ‘Can you tell me where it is?’

      ‘Why, of course I can. That’s where I was going to send you for the bed and breakfast. It’s Mr Lloyd’s aunt, Mrs Parry, who does all that side of it, and young Rhiannon who takes out the riders.’

      Davina smothered a gasp of disbelief. Gethyn might have his reasons for burying himself in the solitude of a remote valley, but she found it hard to take that one of them could involve the running of a pony-trekking centre. And she was frankly dismayed to learn that the only accommodation she could obtain locally seemed to be under his roof. That had not entered her plans at all. She had taken it for granted that any interview she might have with him could at least be conducted on some form of neutral territory.

      It was on the tip of her tongue to ask the landlady if she could not make an exception and put her up for the night, but she stifled the impulse. Friendly she might be, but this was only a small place and gossip would be rife. Davina guessed her arrival and revelation about Gethyn’s identity would be sufficient of a nine-day wonder without giving more grounds for speculation. And if she was only a business acquaintance as she had said, she had no real reason for rejecting Mrs Parry’s accommodation. All she could do was hope that Plas Gwyn would be full of pony-trekkers and that there would be no room for her. If that was so, she would have to start for home again that evening and trust to luck that СКАЧАТЬ