One Summer At The Castle: Stay Through the Night / A Stormy Spanish Summer / Behind Palace Doors. Anne Mather
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СКАЧАТЬ calling at the nearby island of Ardnarossa before returning to Mallaig.

      Which meant at least another hour on her journey, thought Rosa dismally. Another hour in weather like this! She was going to be so seasick. She wished she dared feign illness and stay until the following Monday, when the ferry came again.

      But it wasn’t in her nature to lie, and she owed it to her mother to get back to the mainland and try and find out from the Scottish Tourist Office if they knew anything about the company Sophie professed to have joined. It was a doubtful proposition, but it was the only one she had at the moment. And right now the idea of being back on the mainland again sounded pretty good to her.

      However, after washing and dressing and packing her bag, she went downstairs for breakfast to find Mrs Ferguson waiting for her.

      ‘I’m afraid you won’t be leaving today, Miss Chantry,’ she said apologetically. ‘This storm has suspended all sailings, and the ferry won’t be leaving Mallaig until it’s blown itself out.’

      The relief Rosa felt was paralysing. ‘You mean, I’ll have to stay here until the wind’s dropped?’

      ‘Well, until it moderates, at least,’ Mrs Ferguson agreed with a regretful smile. ‘I’m sorry.’

      ‘It’s not your fault.’ Rosa was ashamed to realise she could hardly contain her relief. ‘So—um, when do you think the storm will blow itself out?’

      ‘Not before Saturday, at the earliest,’ said the landlady sagely. ‘And even then there’s no guarantee that the ferry will come. We’re just a small island, Miss Chantry. They may decide to wait until the regular sailing on Monday.’

      ‘Monday!’ Rosa thought ruefully that you really should be careful what you wish for. ‘I see.’

      ‘Of course, if there’s an urgent reason why you need to get back to the mainland, you could always ask Mr Jameson. He might be willing to have his pilot take you in his helicopter. I mean…’ Mrs Ferguson seemed to be considering the situation ‘…he is the reason why you’re stuck here, isn’t he?’

      ‘Y-e-s.’ Rosa drew the word out, knowing that her reasons for being here and the reasons Mrs Ferguson had probably been given for her being here were mutually exclusive. ‘But I don’t think that’s a good idea.’ As the landlady looked as if she was about to protest, she added swiftly, ‘Don’t helicopters have problems in bad weather, too?’

      ‘Not like ferries,’ Mrs Ferguson assured her. ‘I’m sure that by tomorrow you’d have no trouble at all.’

      Wouldn’t she? Rosa doubted that. There was no way Liam would lend his helicopter—a helicopter, for heaven’s sake!—to her. It was just another indication of how stupid she was being in wanting to see him again. His way of life was so incredibly different from hers.

      However, she refrained from making any comment, and the landlady bustled away to get her guest’s breakfast. Mrs Ferguson was probably thinking she was considering it, thought Rosa, with a grimace. When in fact what she was really thinking was that this might give her another opportunity to speak to Liam again.

       CHAPTER EIGHT

      FAT CHANCE, thought Rosa on Friday morning, having spent yet another day watching the rain. She had borrowed a coat from Mrs Ferguson and gone out for a while on Thursday afternoon, but it hadn’t been much fun. The rain had been bad enough, but the wind had been unforgiving. It had torn back the hood of her coat and had left her hair at the mercy of the weather.

      She’d even made another attempt to read Liam’s book, and had been enjoying it until Luther Killian said something that Liam himself might say. It had brought back the memory of their encounter in all its disturbing detail, and she’d had to put the book aside and do something else.

      Looking out of her window now, Rosa saw that it was going to be another wasted day. The wind hardly seemed to have eased at all, and although the rain seemed lighter, it was still coming down.

      She could see the harbour from her window, the small boats that were moored there straining on their lines. No doubt the fishermen whose boats they were, were cursing, too. At least her incarceration didn’t affect her livelihood.

      Or Sophie’s, she thought uneasily. But her sister would be all right, she assured herself. She was probably sitting in some luxury hotel at this moment, having a late breakfast with this man she’d taken off with. Okay, he wasn’t Liam Jameson. But perhaps he’d told her that he was. Yet somehow she knew Sophie was too savvy to be taken in like that.

      So where was she? Although Rosa was fairly sure Liam didn’t know, perhaps he might have an idea. Anything was better than sitting here, twiddling her thumbs.

      She shook her head impatiently, aware that she was only looking for excuses to go and see him again. After all, whatever happened, her mother expected her to do it. Predictably, it was the first thing she’d asked Rosa when she’d phoned home the previous evening.

      ‘But why haven’t you seen him?’ she’d demanded, and Rosa had explained about the storm. Then she’d hurried on and asked if Mrs Chantry had heard from Sophie—which she hadn’t—to avoid the comeback. After all, it was her sister who was supposed to be in trouble here, not her.

      Personally, Rosa thought her sister was keeping quiet deliberately. Now that she’d alerted them to the fact that she could phone, she was probably afraid they’d trace her call. Which left Rosa with the unenviable task of finding another way to locate her.

      Her mother was woefully ignorant of her elder daughter’s circumstances, however. ‘Surely there must be some other way to get back to the mainland?’ she’d protested, when Rosa had told her that the ferries were suspended until further notice. ‘What about aeroplanes? They’re not grounded, are they? Or you could find another boat.’

      Rosa had been stunned at her foolishness. ‘There’s no airport on Kilfoil, Mum,’ she’d told her frustratedly. ‘And what other boat would you suggest? A fishing trawler, perhaps?’

      Mrs Chantry had tutted impatiently. ‘So you’re telling me there’s nothing you can do until the ferries start running again?’

      ‘As far as getting off the island is concerned, yes,’ said Rosa shortly. ‘Believe me, I don’t like it any more than you do.’

      But was that strictly true? Rosa asked herself now, aware that the knowledge that Liam was just a dozen miles away was some compensation. If the ferries had been running she’d have been several hundred miles away by now, and any chance of seeing him again would have been denied her.

      She frowned. Well, she couldn’t stay in her room all day. She’d had her breakfast, and once again the books she’d bought held no appeal. There must be some other way she could get out to the castle, she thought, her pulse quickening at the thought. At least it would give her something to do. Even if that old grouse Sam Devlin refused to let her in.

      Mrs Ferguson was dusting the sitting room when she went downstairs and, feeling a little awkward, Rosa stopped in the doorway. ‘Um—I was wondering,’ she said, and the landlady looked up expectantly. ‘I was wondering if there was a car I could hire for the day.’

      ‘Do you not know СКАЧАТЬ