High Tide At Midnight. Sara Craven

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СКАЧАТЬ herself free. ‘You call me an idiot!’ she blazed back at him, fright and stress making her voice younger and more breathless than she would have liked. ‘And what about you—driving like a maniac on a rotten night like this? If I had been killed, it would have been all your fault!’

      Even as she spoke, she knew she was not being totally fair. He had seen her pitiful attempt to cause a diversion and had managed to stop, in spite of the speed he was driving at, almost within the car’s length. But this had been the final straw in a pretty abysmal day, and now reaction was taking its toll of her.

      ‘Your logic fascinates me,’ he said with a cool contempt that seared its way across her skin. ‘May I point out to you that this is in fact a private road, and under those circumstances one expects to be preserved from the antics of lunatic hitch-hikers. And might I also suggest you make your way back to the main road, and ply your trade there.’

      ‘I was not hitch-hiking!’ She was furious to find that she was shaking like a leaf. ‘What I was doing was trying to save your life, or at least trying to prevent you from being injured. That, of course, was before I met you.’

      There was a long electric silence.

      ‘You’d better explain,’ he said grimly. ‘Oh, not your last remark. I’ve managed to work the implications of that out for myself.’

      ‘There’s a tree down,’ she said tonelessly. ‘Just round that bend. I was going to warn someone at the house, then I heard you coming, and thought I’d better stay and warn you instead. Only all I had was that damned torch, and the batteries aren’t too good—and now they’ve gone all together.’ She began unavailingly to push the switch on the torch backwards and forwards as if her very insistence could make it work again.

      There was another silence, then he said abruptly, ‘Wait here.’

      He walked across to the car, climbed in and started the engine. He drove the few feet to the bend, then stopped. Another pause, then she heard his footsteps returning.

      He said without emotion, ‘It seems I owe you an apology.’

      ‘Well, don’t let it ruin your life.’ She tried to sound flip, but the quiver in her voice betrayed her, and she heard him sigh, swiftly and sharply.

      ‘But that still doesn’t explain precisely what you were doing on this road in the first place,’ he said. ‘What happened? Did you miss the main road in the dark? This lane only leads to….’

      ‘To Trevennon,’ she finished for him wearily. ‘I know. I can read, actually, if the print is big enough. And I haven’t missed my way, though God knows it would have been easy enough. I’m going to Trevennon. I have to see Mr Dominic Trevennon.’

      She heard his startled intake of breath and wondered resignedly if she was to be the recipient of another Awful Warning about Mr Trevennon’s intolerance of casual callers and general irascibility, but when he spoke his voice sounded cool and disinterested.

      ‘Indeed, and has Mr Trevennon the pleasure of expecting you?’

      ‘No,’ she admitted. ‘And I’ve already been warned that he’s arrogant and awkward and imagines that he’s some uncrowned king of Cornwall, but all the same, I’m going to see him.’

      ‘I can’t imagine why,’ he remarked. ‘Judging by the description you’ve received of him, I would have thought it would have been infinitely preferable to keep your distance.’

      ‘I have to see him, she said abruptly. ‘I want to ask him a favour.’

      ‘Do you think he sounds the kind of man likely to provide favours for chance-met strangers?’

      ‘On the face of it, no.’ Morwenna shook her head. ‘On the other hand, he’s obviously a supreme egotist, and he might just be flattered to think someone has travelled half way across England to ask him to do something for them. Besides, I’m not wholly a stranger to him.’

      ‘Well, I wouldn’t count on it,’ he said bitingly. ‘And what do you mean—you’re not “wholly a stranger"?’

      But Morwenna was already regretting that she had said so much.

      ‘I’m sorry, but I think that’s my business,’ she said, biting her lip. ‘And I don’t doubt you’re a lifelong friend of his and that you can’t wait to get down to Trevennon and tell him what I’ve said. Well, go ahead. I don’t suppose that in the long run it will make much difference anyway.’

      ‘As a matter of fact,’ he said slowly, ‘at this precise moment, I’m wondering whether I’ve ever known him at all. As for proceeding with all haste to Trevennon to drop you in it, may I remind you that the road is blocked by a tree. Besides, I’m going to make a detour round to the farm to get Jacky Herrick to bring his tractor down to shift it, so if you hurry you should arrive at Trevennon with your version first.’

      ‘A tractor?’ Morwenna let her voice register exaggerated surprise. ‘You mean you’re not going to pick it up with one hand, and toss it lightly into the hedge?’

      She was sorry as soon as she had said it. There was something about him that got under her skin, but that was no excuse for behaving with gratuitous rudeness.

      When he spoke, his voice was cold with anger. ‘If I was in the mood for tossing anything into a hedge, believe me, young woman, you’d get priority over any tree.’

      ‘I think we’ve already established that,’ she said ruefully, wincing a little as she moved forward.

      ‘Are you hurt? The car hardly touched you….’

      ‘Oh, please don’t bother about me.’ She felt as if one side of her was one terrific bruise. ‘I still might manage to finish fourth.’

      ‘Stand still,’ he ordered abruptly. ‘You might have broken something.’

      She stood, teeth clenched more with anger than with pain as he completed a swift but comprehensive examination of her moving parts.

      ‘Thank you,’ she said with awful politeness when he had finished. ‘You should have been a vet.’

      ‘I won’t complete the analogy,’ he returned with equal courtesy. ‘Although several members of the animal kingdom do suggest themselves. Which reminds me—when you get down to Trevennon, watch out for the dogs. They’re not trained to encourage strangers.’

      ‘Oh God!’ Morwenna, retrieving her case and rucksack from the hedge, swung round to look at him. It was maddening that it was too dark to see his face properly, let alone the expression on it, and she could hardly ask him to stand in the car headlights for a moment so that she could judge whether he was joking. He hadn’t done a great deal of joking up to that point, certainly, and there was no reason for him to start now, so the dogs probably existed. She moistened her lips uncertainly. ‘Do—do they bite?’

      ‘It has been known,’ he said laconically. ‘The thing to do is stand your ground. Don’t try to outrun them—that’s fatal.’

      ‘I can imagine it would be.’ Morwenna knew an overwhelming desire to sit down on the wet lane and scream and drum her heels. ‘But you don’t have to worry. I doubt very much whether I could outrun a tortoise at the moment. Would it help if I knew the dogs’ СКАЧАТЬ