Because he blamed her for Colin, and that was so unfair. Because he was cold as a cobra beneath the charm. Keep that well in mind, she told herself, and don't ever let him get you alone. Don't even let him brush against you, because contact is dynamite.
The schoolroom was next to Antoinette's room. It could have been still in use, with the pupils on holiday. There was no dust on the big mahogany table that filled the centre of the room. The wall blackboard was wiped clean, but there were chalks in the ledge beneath, and a smaller table at which a tutor must have sat. Cupboards were closed, and Carly wondered if textbooks were still stacked inside. Exercise books too, perhaps, with a round childish script.
She asked, 'Were you—?' and she could almost see them, the three of them.
'No,' said Roland. 'We were, at boarding school in England. Liam went on to Cambridge and I came here afterwards. The schoolroom was always like this in the holidays, but in here we had some happy hours.'
A big playroom led off the schoolroom, with cupboards again, and toys around. A dolls' house, a great rocking horse with flaring nostrils and silky black mane and tail. Carly said impulsively, 'These must be worth a fortune. But you don't need the money, do you? It must be lovely to be able to keep them:'
She opened the front of the dolls' house, going down on her knees and peering with wonder at the minute world in there. Such perfect tiny pieces, furniture as beautiful as the furniture of the Chateau. And dolls in old-fashioned clothes, no bigger than her fingers, looking up at her with tiny white faces.
Antoinette must have played with them: Perhaps she had set them for the last time in their chairs, leaning against a table, sitting at a piano. And the baby in a crib in the nursery with a kitten curled up on a rug the size of a postage stamp.
Carly closed the door gently. The rocking horse could easily be ? hundred years old, and the dolls' house. It was a child's treasure trove. There was a castle with soldiers on the ramparts that would have sent William delirious. 'So why don't you two get married and provide the next generation?' asked Carly. 'All these lovely toys lying here, waiting, giving no joy at all.'
'Which of us are you propositioning?' said Liam.
'Neither.' She was very emphatic. 'Not even to get a share in the dolls' house or a ride on the rocking horse. But it's a wicked waste, a room like this and no children in the house.'
'That's what Aunt Aimee's always saying,' declared Roland.
'Not to me,' said Liam.
'She's given up with you.' They were joking, and Carly guessed it was a family joke. Madame Corbe had no hope of Liam choosing one woman and forsaking all others, but Roland's children might play in here one day. They would be lucky. So would his wife; he was nice.
She stroked the smooth flank of the rocking horse and Roland told her, 'We've got a colt in the stables not much bigger than this. We'll start you on Mimi.'
'Couldn't I settle for this one?' It was so beautiful, in wood the colour of wet chestnuts, with a saddle that had once been scarlet leather and had aged to dark crimson. Carly slipped a foot in the stirrup and clutched the mane, and Liam put hands round her waist and lifted her up.
He was strong. She wasn't a featherweight girl, but she went up like a feather, and her fingers slid through the mane, her foot out of the stirrup, and over the other side she went, to land sitting hard on the floor. There was a shocked moment with both men asking if she was all right, before she began to laugh, 'I told you, that's how I am in a saddle. I slither off.'
If Roland had lifted her up she might have kept her seat, but she had automatically jerked from Liam's touch. 'You're sure you're not hurt?' He seemed concerned, and if she had been it could have been his fault.
She took Roland's hand to get to her feet. 'Not where it shows. Now,' she patted the rocking horse, 'steady, pal, because I'm going to try again, and this time, please, no hand-ups.'
The horse seemed high when she sat in the saddle and looked down. She moved to rock it and it creaked, then backwards and forwards, faster and faster, the noise of the rockers beating a brisk tattoo. It was fantastic. They must have loved it when they were children. It was big enough and strong enough to carry an adult's weight, but she was probably the only adult who had ever ridden it.
She was amusing them both. They were both laughing at her, carrying on like a child, but she was having fun, for the first time since she'd arrived here. If you closed your eyes you could imagine you were galloping away. But when she opened them Liam was watching her and she asked, 'Would there be any objection to me coming in here and playing with the toys? It's this retarded streak in me, the childish syndrome.'
She was half serious. She could have enjoyed herself. Few grown-ups can resist a toyshop, and this collection had the added fascination of the past. Roland smiled, 'Of course,' but Liam said, 'I wouldn't like Aunt Aimee to walk into the playroom and find you here alone.'
Alone as Antoinette, an only child, must have been many times, playing with the toys, riding the wooden horse. Carly slid off the still-moving horse and held it until it was motionless. She said, 'You shouldn't have let me. Where is she?'
'Downstairs,' said Roland.
Madame Corbe would know they were showing Carly round the house. She would half expect laughter, even the sound of a rocking horse. But if she found Carly alone in the playroom some time it might reinforce in her mind that fancied resemblance to Antoinette.
'I won't come in here,' said Carly. 'And just get me out of that bedroom, will you? I'm not her granddaughter, I'm nobody's granddaughter. So what can I do around here without you deciding I'm reminding her of Antoinette?'
She had hands on her hips, and her expression was mutinous. 'Just be yourself,' said Liam. He stood with folded arms, but his lips twitched. 'Tough as old boots.'
'You what? I am not!' she protested.
'Compared to Antoinette you are.'
'Compared to Antoinette I've had to be. It's easy to be gentle when you don't have to fight.'
'Oh, you poor darling!' Roland was instantly full of sympathy. 'Has it been that hard?'
'No.' She was explaining, not complaining. She thought, with a flash of intuition, that Roland had done very little fighting. It was Liam who went out and did battle, and because of that had a quick keen arrogance and no easy sympathy at all.
'How's your head for heights?' asked Liam.
'Average, I suppose. Why?'
'The view from the top of the tower's worth the climb.'
'Sure,' she said. 'Of course. Let's see if I can fall off that.'
This might be part of the truce, because open antagonism between them would upset Madame Corbe, but Carly was willing to be amenable if he was and she wanted to go up the tower.
But when he opened a door at the end of the corridor she looked through and gulped. She had expected steps, of course, but not as narrow and steep as these, going round the wall, with only a handrail barring a sheer drop into the well of the tower. The door opened straight on to the steps and she followed Liam out, glanced over at what seemed to be machinery a long way down there, and gripped hard on the handrail.
'Coming?' he asked. He was several steps up, and she was almost sure she was turning green.
'Of course I'm coming.' She clenched her teeth to stop them chattering and hoped it looked like a smile, and watched him go up, muttering, 'Has he ever fallen flat on his face?'
'If he has,' said Roland quietly, .'I was too far behind to see.'
'What do you mean?'
'As long as I can remember,' said Roland, putting out a hand to help her because she was climbing very slowly indeed, 'there's been no keeping up with Liam.'
'He's older than you, isn't he?' She wasn't exactly scared of heights, she just wasn't crazy about them, and this was enough to make most folk dizzy if they looked down.
'Four years,' said Roland, adding wryly, 'I'd have caught up with him by now if I was ever going to. Sure you want to go up here? You are all right?'
Carly was grate
ful for his help, she would have hated to be doing this on her own. 'I'm all right,' she echoed, taking it step by step, looking up at the open trapdoor high above through which Liam had vanished, and wondering if she would have to come down backwards because she would never dare look down.
The stone of the wall felt clammy and slippery, but that was because her palms were sweating. She felt safer going up pressing against the wall, but her stomach muscles were starting to clench, and if that spread to her legs she could find herself paralysed with panic.
She started to chatter, asking what the tower was for. The answer was, nothing much. Farming and gardening equipment was stored in it and the room at the top had a splendid view. It had been built as a folly in the eighteenth century by an ancestor who liked to sit up there overlooking his estates.
'And wasn't much for company, I should think,' Carly muttered.
'You want to go the rest?' Roland asked. 'There is only the view up there.'
And Liam. She wasn't having Liam know that she was too scared to make it to the top. 'I'm all right,' she insisted. 'Truly,' and she moved a little faster to prove it. 'Once you get used to the feel of the steps it's easier.'
She was glad he was behind her and when they took the last bend there was Liam looking down. 'What kept you?' asked Liam.
'We came the pretty way,' she snapped. 'What do you think kept us? I came slowly and Roland stayed to help me. It's all right for you, but this is my first climb.' And her last. As she scrambled through the trapdoor she added sweetly, 'You wouldn't have liked me to slip, would you? I could have damaged a garden roller down there.'
'You said you had a head for heights.'
'Average, I said. And I didn't mean an average mountain goat.' It was lovely to be in a room with a floor. Her mouth was dry and her muscles were still in knots, and she dreaded the moment when she would have to go back through the trapdoor and start climbing down that great shadowy pit.
Up here the air seemed full of dancing gold dust. There were windows all around, and the sun came streaming in, so that even the floorboards had a pale yellow shimmer. The only furniture was a biggish table and a couple of chairs—fancy carrying a table up here!—and ah old telescope on spindly legs, looking like some strange science fiction insect.
Liam went around the windows,. rubbing briskly with a tissue and telling her, 'The rain cleans them outside, but you have to do your own polishing inside.'
Madame Corbe had said it was like being in the sky up here, and she was right. Carly felt that the little white clouds floating in the blue were almost within her reach. She began to rub a window pane for herself, and Roland said, 'Well? Aren't you surprised she made it?'
'No,' said Liam.
'Oh, come on!' Roland protested. 'How often does a guest get up here? Even the men?'
'True,' admitted Liam. 'But Carly doesn't give up easily.' She doubted if that was a compliment, and she looked round from her window pane starting to frown and he said, 'You'll be glad you came. I told you, the view's worth the climb.'
He took the brass cover from the lens of the telescope, and she put her eye to the eyepiece. It was muzzy at first but, as he adjusted, pictures came and went and she cried 'That's better ... yes . . . no ... yes, it's getting clearer,' and finally in a yelp of delight, ' Yes, oil, marvellous!'
A row of cottages sprang into sharp relief. She could see smoke rising from a chimney, black hens in a garden patch, and a woman in a red dress with a child beside her.
'I can see stone cottages,' she reported, moving the telescope a fraction and counting doors. 'One, two, three, four, five.'
'The farm workers' cottages,' said Roland. 'The Home Farm.'
'And a barn—a huge brick and timber barn. Is that part of the Home Farm too?'
'The estate covers fifteen thousand acres,' intoned Liam. 'Four hundred are the Home Farm, the rest is leased.'
'Fascinating,' she murmured, because he sounded as though he was quoting a guide book for her.
'I thought you'd like to know. There's also a canning factory belonging to the estate, four miles away. One tenant has a strawberry farm.'
Madame Corbe was a woman of property, and Roland managed her affairs. Carly said jokingly, 'I suppose you wouldn't consider a share in a small boutique?'
'She means it,' said Liam.
'We should discuss it,' said Roland, and Carly thought, Perhaps I do mean it. Liam was the obstacle, but the shop was a sound little business. Why shouldn't she try to help Ruth and William while she was here?
Thinking of William reminded her, and she enquired if there was a shop where she could get postcards to send home, and they moved the telescope round so that it peered into a street and she picked out shops and shoppers. Then she panned down to the beach, across the sward of sand and boulders, over the bright water. 'I've got an island,' she said. 'Is it the old chapel?'
She moved her head to let Liam lean over her shoulder and look through the glass. 'That's it,' he said, and she felt his breath on her cheek and put up her hand as though it was the touch of his lips she was warding off. Then she looked through the glass again and was transported to the island, so vividly that she could taste the sea.
The ruins were still recognisable. You could see the arches, the pointed ends of the roof, and the empty slit windows of the tower. It had been cut from the rock— which was pinkish on this coast—that was why it had. weathered storm and salt so well. 'Can we go there?' she asked. The sea lapped around it. 'Is the tide going out?' It seemed that she was there already, standing on the shingle, but when she turned from the telescope and saw the gaping hole of the trapdoor she shuddered, 'Oh, my gosh, I'd forgotten I was up here!' She could feel herself stiffening and her voice came out jerkily. 'I don't know if I can make it down again.'
She expected Roland to understand, and Liam to say something like, 'You got up, you can get down,' amused at having manoeuvred her into a position of panic. She was breaking out in a cold sweat. If they had both left her—she knew they wouldn't, but if they had—she would have screamed and screamed. She would have shut the trapdoor on the steep steps and the deep drop and stayed up here, because there would have been no way she could have got down by herself.
'Take my hand,' said Liam, 'and don't look down.'
He went down a Couple of steps and held a hand up for her, but she shook her bead and edged herself through the trapdoor on to the first step. 'I'll take the rail,' she said. Her head was swimming and her stomach was churning, although she hadn't looked down; but she was convinced that she would be safer holding the rail than putting herself into Liam's hands.
'Close your eyes and count the steps,' he said. 'There are forty-three of them to the door into the house. You're on forty one now.'
Carly squeezed her eyes tightly shut and began to count, with Liam just below and Roland just behind. She felt the wall against her right shoulder, and the rail under the fingers of her outstretched left hand, as she went down step after step, like an automaton. When there were only five steps to go she opened her eye's briefly, then closed them quickly until Liam said, 'You're here,' and one of them turned her and she stumbled through the doorway and there was carpet under her feet.
She could have collapsed, her legs were jelly now from the reaction, as she sagged back against the wall, bitterly ashamed of herself, croaking, 'I never realised I should feel like that. I just wanted to get up, I didn't stop to think how much worse it might be coming down. I just seized up.'
She bit hard on her trembling lip, babbling, 'I never knew I suffered from vertigo. You learn something every day, don't you? I'd better wash my hands,' and she gripped her fingers together to control the shaking. 'What with last night and this I'm certainly looking my best on this holiday!'
'You're sure you're all right?' Do you want to lie down?' Roland sounded very concerned, but it seemed that, having helped her down, Liam had used up all his solicitude. He said nothing and she smiled gratefully at Roland. 'Bless you—thanks, I'm fine
. It's like seasickness, isn't it? Once you're on terra firma you're cured. I'll be back in five minutes.'
In the bathroom of the bedroom that had been Antoinette's she dabbed cold water on her temples and stood breathing hard, clutching the edge of the washbasin. That had been horrible, not just the physical sensation of sick helplessness, but making such a pathetic fool of herself in front of Liam, who was probably laughing about it right now.
' She ducked her face into her cupped brimming hands, splashing water into her eyes, washing off the clammy perspiration, to come up blinking and gasping. When she saw Liam's reflection in the mirror over the washbasin she let out a shriek. He was in the bedroom, and she snapped, 'Don't you ever knock on doors?'
'Yes,' he said.
Perhaps he had. Carly grabbed a towel and began to dab her face. Pink lipstick came off on the white towel and she demanded, 'What do you want?'
'You are all right?'
'Of course. Did you think I'd dashed off to have hysterics in private?'
'It crossed my mind,' he said.
She was scared of him, following her into her bedroom, because she hadn't yet had time to get herself together and he might take advantage of that. It wouldn't be impossible. She knew it would be madness, but she felt it would be wonderful to be held in his arms and comforted. She put the towel back on the rail, and plucked a tissue from the tissue box to wipe off the remains of her lipstick. 'Well,' she spoke through stiff lips as she dabbed, 'I panicked. There's something else for you to chalk up against me. I'm a coward.'
'On the contrary,' he said. 'One thing I will grant you, you've got guts.'
'You're joking! I nearly went spare up there.'
'That's a steep flight of steps, coming down can be hairy if you're not used to them. But you pulled yourself together in record time.'
Because she was ashamed of being frightened. It had humiliated her, being helped down with eyes closed. She said, 'Well, I'll know next time. If anybody else asks me if I've got a head for heights I'll tell them "No higher than A double-decker bus".' She came out of the bathroom and went across to the dressing table, without taking her eyes off him, as though he had to be watched or he might spring on her.
Flash Point Page 11