“Men! They are a bad kettle of apples.” The woman was finally getting to her feet and I was relieved to see the physical damage done to her by Heathcliff was not as bad as she had made out when pounding her fists through my front door. Her handbag appeared to be intact apart from the broken strap, and she wasn’t minus either of her legs. The dog did rise up on his haunches when she stood, but there was nothing bristling about his posture. Instead, he extended a conciliatory paw while assuming an expression of tongue-lolling meekness worthy of a much-misunderstood canine, one fully prepared to let bygones be bygones.
“I behave like a chicken with three heads, Frau Haskell,” said the woman. “It is a miracle I do not wake up your husband and set your entire household on its ear hole.”
“You were in fear of your life,” I assured her. Until that moment I had seen her in bits and blobs—a face blurred by terror, a pair of hands warding off the inevitability of annihilation. Now that the hall had changed back from one of the chillier chambers of Darkmoor House to its old friendly self, I was rather surprised by what I saw. Here was a plumpish woman who appeared to be approaching sixty, whose salt-and-pepper hair was braided into shoulder-length plaits, tied at the ends with ribboned bows as big as poppies. She wore a Swiss miss costume complete with dirndl and embroidered apron, white stockings, and buckled shoes. Hoping she hadn’t noticed my rude stare, I added hastily, “You have the advantage of me. You know my name, while I …?”
“Me?” Our midnight intruder gripped her handbag with both hands and her knees gave way so that she appeared to wobble a curtsy. “I am Gerta, your new au pair girl.”
Chapter
3
“I refuse to have that creature in this house!”
My husband leapt out of bed before I had added the finishing touches to my explanation of the situation. Ben is rarely at his best at two in the morning, but even so there was no need for him to pace up and down in front of the bedroom fireplace, his eyes blazing, his black hair tousled from repeatedly raking his fingers through it. Any minute now he would be demanding to know who was the master of Merlin’s Court! Meanwhile the pheasants on the wallpaper were all aflutter.
“Darling, you’re being unreasonable!” I trotted around him as he circled the hearth rug. “We agreed …”
“We did indeed!” Ben stopped dead in his tracks. In turning to face me, he almost tripped over his pajama legs, which were a couple of inches taller than he and which, having perversely refused to shrink in the wash, needed hemming. Yanking on the cord, he tied it into a ferocious knot. “I told you, Ellie, in no uncertain terms this evening that I am not prepared to provide a home for Miss Bunch’s orphan dog!”
I sat down on the bed with a bump and pressed a hand to my throbbing head. “He’s the sweetest little pup in the world, although timid to a fault! But I thought we were talking about Gerta!”
“And she’s not the German shepherd?”
“No! She’s the au pair!” There was no point, I decided, in further complicating matters by explaining that Heathcliff had made no bones about his lack of pedigree. “You really are the limit, Ben. Have you paid any attention to what I’ve been saying for the last five minutes?”
“To every word, give or take a few, of the woman’s heartrending story.” Striding over to the window, Ben pulled the wine velvet curtains more tightly closed, either to relieve his feelings or to prevent the moon getting up to any peeping Tom tricks. “The woman came to this country from Switzerland some ten years ago, in the company of her husband. The two of them owned and operated a café in Putney, one of those places specializing in mango-flavoured cappuccino and hand-churned yogurt. Two days ago the husband announced he had fallen for the sloe-eyed harpy who runs the used-clothing shop down the street—”
“The harpy,” I reminded him sternly, “is a six-foot ex-rugger player by the name of Robert Meyers and, as Gerta tearily explained it, she never stood a chance when Robert offered to arm-wrestle her for the man in their lives. The result was the poor woman found herself out in the street with nothing to show for her married life but the clothes on her back—which happened to be her alpine work uniform—and a packet of mocha deluxe coffee beans to go. Not a pretty story.”
“Love can be a cutthroat business.” Ben pried himself away from the mantelpiece and came to sit beside me on the bed. “It was fortunate Gerta had enough loose change in her purse to ring up her friend Jill, who, in addition to taking her in for the night, mentioned that her former flatmate, one Ellie Haskell, was looking for an au pair.” Cupping my face in his hands, he pressed a kiss against my lips, which were by now pretty much numb with exhaustion, and murmured, “Do I get top marks for paying attention?”
“Yes, dear; but I’m not handing out any prizes tonight.” Flopping back against the pillows, I did wonder if I might be leading my husband on by permitting him a glimpse of leg as he rolled me, like an unwieldy strudel, under the bedclothes. Even so, I’m ashamed to say it was the possibility of eating lots of hand-thrown apple strudel in the days ahead that quickened my pulses as Ben climbed in beside me and switched off the table lamp.
Turning on my side and repositioning Ben’s hand around my waist, I thought about Jill, who in addition to being my ex-flatmate was also Cousin Freddy’s girlfriend when they remembered to get in touch with each other. It was typical of her to extend a helping hand to Gerta. It was also typical that Jill had waited until midnight to telephone and inform us she was sending along an au pair who desperately needed the job, was of sound moral character, and could yodel like a dream. Jill’s was the phone call that had sounded while I was in the throes of Sir Gavin’s expert seduction.
I swallowed a yawn. If Gerta had shown any signs of being a homicidal maniac, Jill—who not only refuses to smash bugs but endeavours to find good homes for them—would not have landed us with the woman. Naturally, it would be wise to check out the references Gerta had provided. But I was optimistic that she would prove to be a treasure. She had been determinedly cheerful when Heathcliff trailed after us up the stairs, appeared delighted with her room, was eager to take a look at the twins, but understanding when I suggested we defer the introductions till the morning. Having lent her one of my nighties and a dressing gown, I had bidden her good night without wondering once if I should lock her door from the outside.
Our doggy visitor, however, was another matter. After feeding him two bowls of cat food under the watchful eye of Tobias Cat, who had scaled the Welsh dresser in the kitchen and was threatening a nervous breakdown, I had let Heathcliff out into the garden and, shortly thereafter, shut him away in the cupboard under the stairs. So far we had heard no howls of protest or sounds of his body slamming against the door with the reckless disregard for property typical of a policeman on a drug bust.
“That dog’s being awfully quiet.” Ben shifted up onto his elbow to lean over me just as I was sinking into soft clouds of sleep.
“I’m sure Miss Bunch had him well trained,” I murmured while stuffing my head under the pillow.
“Well, don’t go getting any ideas of using your feminine charms to get me to change my mind about keeping the hound.” My husband lay back down and wrapped an arm and a leg around me. “It’s true that I am at times unable to resist the soft touch of your hands upon my quivering manhood but …”
There it came again, the suspicion that he had been secretly leafing through my stash of romantic fiction. But that was ridiculous. Ben’s idea of a real page-turner was a cookery book featuring an unexpurgated account of how to debone a chicken with one hand.
“Darling,” I mumbled from under the pillow. “We both need to get some sleep.”
“You’re right,” agreed my spouse, taking back his arm and his leg, “what else do we go to bed for?”
“Pleasant dreams!” Finally coming up for air, I settled myself for four or, optimistically, five hours of shut-eye. It was my understanding that people require less sleep as they grow older, and with another birthday lo
oming up in a couple of days I could doubtless get away with burning the candle at both ends. Even so, I wouldn’t be worth much in the morning if I didn’t nod off soon. Within minutes Ben’s rhythmic breathing told he had drifted into slumber, but there went my mind—chasing its own tale in the dark.
I went from thinking about Miss Bunch cooped up in her coffin with little or no elbow room, to wondering if Bunty Wiseman would ever get back with her ex-husband. Was Brigadier Lester-Smith a bachelor by choice or had he suffered a disappointment in love? And then there were those other members of the Library League—Sir Robert Pomeroy and Mrs. Dovedale, both of whom were recently widowed. Once or twice at our meetings I had wondered whether there was anything significant in the way their eyes would meet during the reading of the minutes. As for crotchety Mr. Poucher, it was hard to imagine any woman raking her fingernails down his back and begging him to walk out on his mother. Other than myself, the only married member of the league was Sylvia Babcock, who a fortnight previously had tied the knot with our milkman. That prophetess of doom—otherwise known as my faithful daily—Mrs. Malloy had declared the Babcock union would never last. For one thing Mr. B. was a passionate lover—of dogs, that is. And Sylvia, a nervy type, had stipulated that there would be no four-legged creatures bringing germs into her tidy home.
I must have fallen asleep without realizing how I got there, because suddenly I was in a chaise and four, being swept away into the night by a cloaked driver.
“Karisma!” The cry came from deep within my soul.
“I thought I was Sir Gavin.” His laughter was at once sardonic and deeply sensual.
“Sometimes you are,” I whispered. “You appear on the pages of romance novels in many guises, but it is always you I see—your face, the incomparable cheekbones, the dizzying depths of your eyes, the heroic nose, and that perfect mouth, so exquisitely tender even at its most predatory! I could rhapsodize all night about your tawny hair that I yearn to unleash in all its voluminous splendour, your magnificent body unequaled since the Greek gods ceased parading around in little more than their laurel wreaths.…”
I reached out my hands to him and found myself alone in a whirling blackness, the only one to hear the demonic chortling that I knew emanated from the ghost of Hector Rigglesworth. He who had put the coffin lid on Miss Bunch’s career was there on the outskirts of my dream. And he had brought with him the hound of hell, a beast who, with fangs bared, leapt through the window of the phantom carriage to knock the breath out of my body.
“My God!” Ben bolted up in bed, fumbled for the bedside lamp, and, in the blaze of light that flooded the room, sat blinking down at the two-ton bear rug that had spread itself over me from toes to chin. “You told me you had shut that damn dog in the cupboard under the stairs.” My husband’s accusing finger vibrated between me and Heathcliff.
“I forgot we were dealing with an escape artist.” I struggled to sit up and got half my face licked off in the process. “He wouldn’t be here if Miss Bunch’s neighbours, who took him in originally, had been able to prevent his making a bolt for it.”
“Lucky them!” Ben yanked at the bedspread, which gave a mighty rip under the weight of the unbudgeable Heathcliff. “Why don’t you open the window, Ellie, and pretend to look the other way while he makes a leap for freedom? If it will help, I’ll knot the sheets into a rope and attach it to the ledge; or you might point out to him that there is a perfectly good drainpipe he could shin down.”
Far from taking offence at these remarks, Heathcliff smiled broadly, in appreciation of what he clearly took for a jest. Unreeling his bottomless tongue, he slopped a series of licks on Ben’s clenched hand.
“Look how he’s taken to you!” My benign response to the intruder was due to an overwhelming relief that he was real, not some figment of my dream. Perhaps in future I would have to give up my late-night reading if, like cheese, it provoked a tendency to nightmares. But for now I must focus on getting massive Heathcliff off the bed before the springs flattened out and Ben threatened him with vivisection.
“I don’t care what you do with the beast, Ellie, so long as he isn’t here when I get home from work.”
“Yes, dear!” In endeavouring to drag the dog off the bed, first by the collar, then by the ears, I sent my husband slithering onto the floor in a cacophony of curses that would have been the death of his Roman Catholic mother.
“If he eats one of the children, I will be extremely upset.” So saying, Ben struggled to his feet and took out his annoyance on the poor alarm clock, which was only doing what it was supposed to do in giving a raucous buzz to inform us that it was now six A.M. precisely. Sucking on the fist he had used to pound on the button, the man who hated anything on four legs stomped off to the bathroom.
I looked unhappily down at Heathcliff. The dog had seen fit to climb off the bed and attack the cord of my dressing gown while I attempted to slip into the garment that had seen better days. “I’m sorry, but you will have to go!”
My heart ached. But duty to my husband and children was brought home when, with you-know-who trailing behind me, I descended into the hall to find the vacuum cleaner had been dragged out from the cupboard under the stairs. The hapless victim (showing signs of having put up the fight of its life) lay sprawled on its back, for all the world like a victim of Jack the Ripper, a gaping hole in its cloth stomach and its dusty innards scattered across the flagstones. And if that weren’t bad enough, a chair had been knocked sideways and one of its legs chewed off to the knee. The vase that once stood on the trestle table was now a handful of mosaic shards which Heathcliff sidestepped without an embarrassed glance as he followed me on lighthearted paws into the kitchen.
Luckily he had failed to open this door. And I will say he acceded with good grace to my frowning enjoinder that he endeavour not to destroy anything else in the next five minutes. Stretching out in front of the fireplace, he assumed the prayerful pose of a Buddhist monk. But I kept a watchful eye on him as I filled the kettle and set it on the Aga. It soon hissed to the boil in perfect imitation of Tobias, who, still perched atop the Welsh dresser, fixed the invader with a laser stare aimed to annihilate. I had just heated the teapot and set out cups and saucers, when a knock sounded at the garden door.
Ever eager to be of service, Heathcliff took a ten-foot leap, got the handle between his jaws, and would have yanked the door off its hinges if it had not at that moment opened inward, effectively knocking him back on his haunches.
“Morning, Mrs. Haskell.”
“Why, good morning, Mr. Babcock!” I stood clutching the teapot, quite taken aback—not by the milkman’s informality in walking into the kitchen, he quite often behaved in this chummy way—but because I had believed him to be still on his honeymoon with Sylvia from the Library League.
“Six pints same as usual?” Mr. Babcock was a big, beefy man with a stomach that would have done a pregnant woman proud. He went jangling past me with his hand crate and deposited the bottles on the kitchen table. “Got yourself a new dog, I see.” He looked down at Heathcliff with an admiring eye that did not dim when the cur gave a lunge, accompanied by a leonine growl, and began tearing at his shoelaces. “He’s a caution, all right! What do you call him?”
“Ivan the Terrible.”
“That’s a bit of a mouthful, isn’t it?” Whether Mr. Babcock was speaking to me or the dog, who was now chewing on his trouser legs, was unclear, but I quickly explained that the sad little orphan had belonged to Miss Bunch, who had christened him Heathcliff, and that he wouldn’t be with us long.
“Are you saying the poor lad’ll try and do away with himself?” Mr. Babcock made a gallant attempt to bend down and pat the bereaved, but was prohibited by the rolls of fat holding up his trousers.
“What I meant to say”—I got busy pouring Mr. Babcock a cup of tea and trying to remember if he took four or five spoonfuls of sugar—“is that it is impossible for us to keep Heathcliff. He would be forever bowling Abbey and Tam over and
otherwise upsetting the applecart. But let’s talk about you, Mr. Babcock. I was expecting to have to make do with your temporary replacement for another few days. Aren’t you still on your honeymoon?”
“You could say I am, officially speaking.” The milkman accepted the cup and saucer I handed him and stood fiddling with the spoon. “But as they say, a bloke can take only so much of a good thing. So this morning I tells the new missus that I’m off for a breather—of fresh air.”
“Yes,” I said, “well, do sit down, Mr. Babcock, and enjoy your tea, if you can spare the time.”
“Don’t mind if I do, thanks very much.” He settled himself on a chair at the kitchen table and held up his cup in salute. “Bottoms up, Mrs. Haskell … as the actress said to the bishop!”
Accepting this little joke from where it came—a man still officially on honeymoon—I was about to ask if Mr. B. would like a digestive biscuit, when I remembered I had left the nearly depleted tin in the drawing room the previous night. If I knew Heathcliff, he had polished off every last remaining crumb. Watching Mr. Babcock take a deep swallow of tea, I was horrified to see his lips constrict in a paroxysm of pain.
“Too much sugar?”
“It’s not that …” He drew in a sharp breath that made his pale eyes bulge.
“Then it’s Heathcliff!” Already I was picturing the court case wherein his lordship the judge listened unmoved to my panicked attempts to explain that I was not responsible for the foibles of the canine in question and sentenced me to a lifetime behind bars. “Has he helped himself to a bite out of your leg, Mr. Babcock?”
How to Murder the Man of Your Dreams Page 4