Leopard In The Snow. Anne Mather

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СКАЧАТЬ all in black – black leather coat, black trousers, and knee-length black boots. His head was bare and as Helen scrambled to her feet she saw that his hair was so light as to appear silver in some lights. Yet for all that his skin was quite dark, not at all the usual skin to go with such light hair. There was something vaguely familiar about his harshly carved features, the deep-set eyes beneath heavy lids, the strongly chiselled nose, the wide mouth with its thin lips that were presently curved almost contemptuously as he approached her. And she saw as he climbed the ridge that he walked with a distinct limp which twisted his hip slightly.

      The leopard turned its head at his approach and he put down a hand and fondled the proud head. “Easy, Sheba!” he murmured, his voice low and deep, and then he looked at Helen. “My apologies,” he said, without sounding in the least apologetic, “but you ought not to have run. Sheba wouldn’t have touched you.”

      His contempt caught Helen on the raw. She was not used to having to run for her life, nor to feeling distressed and dishevelled in the face of any man. On the contrary, her warmth and beauty, the silky curtain of dark hair, her slender yet rounded figure, had all made her contacts with men very easy relationships, and although she wasn’t vain she was not unaware of her own attractiveness to the opposite sex. But the way this man was looking at her made her feel like a rather ridiculous child who had trespassed and found herself facing rather more than she had bargained for.

      “How can you say that?” she demanded, annoyed to find that her voice had a tremor in it. “If you hadn’t called as you did just now, I might have been mauled!”

      He shook his head slowly. “Sheba is trained to bring down her prey, not to maul it!”

      “I wasn’t aware that I was prey!” retorted Helen, brushing the snow from her sleeves.

      “You ran.”

      “Oh, I see.” Helen tried to sound sarcastic. “I’ll try to remember not to do that in future.”

      The man’s hard face softened slightly with mocking amusement. “We didn’t expect to find anything worth hunting today.”

      Helen drew an unsteady breath. “You didn’t!”

      “You underestimate yourself.” He glanced round. “Are you making a walking tour of the fells?”

      Helen’s cheeks flamed. “My car has broken down back – back there.” She gestured vaguely towards the road. “I – I was trying to find help, when – when your leopard –”

      “Sheba?” The man glanced down alt the big cat which stood so protectively beside him. “Sheba is a cheetah, not a leopard, although I suppose they’re members of the same family. A cheetah is sometimes calling the hunting leopard.”

      “I really don’t care what she is,” said Helen tremulously. “Could – could you direct me to the nearest phone box and I’ll try and make arrangements to be picked up?”

      The man smoothed the cheetah’s head. “I regret there are no phone boxes within walking distance.”

      “Then – then private houses – someone who has a phone!”

      He shrugged. “There are few dwellings about here.”

      Helen clenched her fists. “Are you being deliberately obstructive, or is this your normal way of treating strangers?”

      The man was annoyingly unperturbed by her rudeness. “I’m merely pointing out that you’re in a particularly isolated area. However, you’re welcome to my hospitality if such a thing is not abhorrent to you.”

      Helen hesitated. “I – I don’t know who you are.”

      “Nor I you.”

      “No, but –” She chewed uneasily at her lower lip. “Are you married?”

      His eyes narrowed. “No.”

      “You live – alone? Apart from this – this creature?”

      “No.” He moved as though standing too long in one place made his leg ache. “I have a manservant. There are just the two of us.”

      Helen digested this. Oh, lord, she thought, what a situation! Faced with two impossible alternatives. Either to continue walking in these awful conditions in the hope that sooner or later she would come upon a shepherd’s croft or a hill farm, which was a decidedly risky thing to do. Or to accompany this man – this stranger – to his home, and risk spending the night with two strange men. What a dilemma!

      “Please make up your mind,” the man said now, and Helen thought she could see lines of strain around his mouth. This outward sign of vulnerability decided her.

      “I’ll accept your hospitality, if I may,” she murmured, with ill grace. “Ought I to go back for my suitcases?”

      “Bolt will get them,” replied her companion, beginning to descend the slope to the hedged road. “Come. It will be dark soon.”

      Helen licked her lips. “Ought – oughtn’t we to introduce ourselves?”

      The man gave her a wry look. “I think it can wait, don’t you? Or are you enjoying getting soaked to the skin?”

      Helen sighed. There was no answer to that. Instead, she followed him down the slippery slope, taking care to keep a distance from the sleek body and long tail of the cheetah. Once on to the track again, for that was all it was now with the drifts of snow at either side, the cheetah stalked disdainfully ahead and Helen was forced to walk at the man’s side. For all he limped, he moved with a certain grace, a certain litheness, which made her wonder if he had once been an athlete. Was that why his face had seemed momentarily familiar? Or was it simply that he reminded her of someone else – someone she knew?

      Just beyond the bend in the road a narrower track left the main one and it was on to this narrower way that they turned. A sign, half covered with snow, indicated that it was a private road and Helen felt a twinge of nervousness. This man could be almost anyone. He could be taking her anywhere. He might even have lied about there being no callboxes or farms in the near neighbourhood.

      As though reading her thoughts, he said: “If you would rather turn back, you’re at liberty to do so. I shan’t send Sheba after you, if that’s what you’re afraid of.”

      Helen moved her shoulders in a deprecating gesture. “I – why should I want to turn back?”

      “Indeed.” The man glanced sideways at her and she noticed inconsequently that he had the longest lashes she had ever seen on a man. Dark and thick, they shaded eyes that were a peculiarly tawny colour, like the eyes of Sheba, his cheetah. And like Sheba’s, they were unpredictable.

      The track wound upward steadily. They passed through a barred gateway, crossed some fields through which a track had been cleared, and climbed a stone wall, half hidden beneath the snow. Eventually, a belt of stark trees rose up ahead, and beyond them, no doubt concealed in summer when the trees were fully in leaf, Helen saw the house they were making for. It was a rambling kind of building, its stone walls shrouded with snow. Smoke was issuing from its chimneys, and there were lights in some of the downstairs windows. A grassy forecourt was just visible beneath the prints of man and beast, and this gave on to a cobbled area in front of the house.

      Helen’s СКАЧАТЬ