Honeymoon Suite

by Wendy Holden

  Nell had reached the Earl’s garden when she realised that Angela had not followed her after all. She paused and peered back between the shaped box hedges looming in the darkness.

  No one had come after her; she was the last of the line following Julie from the increasingly smoke-filled room to fresh air and safety.

  ‘Angela!’ she called, down the alley of hedges which led back towards the house. ‘Angela!’

  There was no answer. Concern gripped Nell. What if Angela had fallen? Knocked herself out? The fire had evidently been spreading rapidly; the curtains in the corner had been alive with flames as the last of them left the room.

  A sense of chaos was developing on the lawn. The fire brigade had been called, but so far had not come. The house extinguishers had been used, and the fire had been beaten back. But the extinguishers had now run out and it had taken hold again. People were rushing back and forth in the darkness, carrying buckets produced from somewhere. They were dipping them in the long lake to the side of the house, the one on whose banks Rachel and Juno had first heard about Nell’s new job.

  How long ago that seemed! It had been a sweet and sunny day, unimaginably different from this infernal night. The flames from the ballroom could now be seen from the outside. They had pierced the windows and were reaching up into the dark blue night sky; real fire beside the gilded flames on the Earl’s carved rooftop urns. The hot yellow, red and orange glittered in the long water.

  Nell tried to think clearly over her hammering panic. Should she go back? She could hear Julie taking a roll call of those present. If she could not be ticked off the list, her absence would cause trouble.

  As for Angela, it might simply be that she had taken a short cut through the hedge. Nell leapt eagerly on this explanation. Angela was probably with the others now, on the darkened lawn, having their presence accounted for as the bucket chain heaved the water towards the fire spitting its smoke and sparks into the sky.

  But, an inner voice insisted, a voice which, while quiet, would not be stilled. What if she was still in the house? The fire had obviously now possessed the ballroom and would be starting to eat the rooms and passages beyond. Anyone lying there, unconscious, might wake to find themselves trapped. Or perhaps, overcome by fumes, might not wake at all.

  Nell looked around at the others rushing about her. Men had their shirts off now, their muscles gleaming in the raging light from the house. If she told one of them about Angela, someone else would take responsibility, risk their life to save the missing woman. Why should she?

  Nell tried to remind herself of what Angela had recently done. She was a woman to whom she owed nothing, who had gone out of her way to damage her.

  On the other hand, the look in Angela’s eyes as she had confessed her actions had been those of a sorrowful and suffering creature. It was that expression that Nell remembered now, and which she knew she would remember the rest of her days if she didn’t at least check that Angela was safe.

  Nell hesitated no longer. She hurried back towards the house.

  Dylan arrived before Pemberton to find a big crowd on the mansion’s lawn. The front of the house was by now ablaze; great tongues of fire licked from the huge windows. Swags of carved fruit and fluted columns flared into sight, then into shadow. Gilded detail blazed and dimmed.

  The sight of it all made Dylan nauseous. Terrifying memories made his flesh, healed as it was, tingle and burn. He held his hand to his face, trying to keep out the fumes, trying not to let his panic overwhelm him.

  Silhouetted against the lit smoke, the bewildered Earl paced up and down in front of his ancestral home.

  A woman was taking a roll call of sorts. People were shouting back, confirming their presence. Dylan only half-listened to the names being recited, none of them known to him. But then, suddenly, one was.

  ‘Nell Simpson.’

  She was here! Somewhere on this lawn, in the dark!

  Dylan felt a rush of passionate gratitude. Fate had, after all, decided to grant him an opportunity. A chance to start again. He held his breath, waiting to catch her voice as it responded. Once he knew where she was, he could go to her. He would fall to his knees, beg her to forgive him.

  ‘Nell?’ the woman called, her voice high with concern. ‘Has anyone seen Nell?’

  No one answered. No one had.

  ‘Is she in the house?’ Dylan shouted, as the dread possibility gripped him.

  ‘I don’t know,’ called back the woman. ‘But if she’s not out here . . .’

  Dylan didn’t need to hear any more.

  ‘Angela!’ Nell yelled. She was making her way up the main staircase, hurrying along with both hands outstretched in front of her. The fire was more advanced even than she had expected. The whole of the great space above the main staircase swirled with smoke; the passage to the ballroom was thick with it; the wall-paintings obscured and the great carved double entrance already collapsed and charred.

  ‘Angela!’

  Nell was losing her bearings. It was no longer possible to tell from which direction she had come, and whether she was walking into the fire or away from it. It seemed all around her now, the violent heat. She could feel her face melting and her hair crackling. She reeled backwards, choking.

  She had to get out of here. Now, before it was too late. Perhaps it already was. Of Angela there was no sign. Nor could she hear her over the roaring of flames voraciously devouring oxygen. Perhaps Angela was outside after all. Within the ballroom a falling beam brought with it a shower of sparks. Nell cried out, turned away and pushed into the smoke. Was this the right direction?

  As a shower of plaster announced the fall of something much bigger, Nell dodged into a door alcove. Her foot struck something. Something soft. She turned, bent, strained to see through the thick grey air.

  A body. Angela’s body. Her eyes were closed. Nell grabbed her arm and shook. No response. Perhaps she was dead already. Nell bent, yelled in her ear. ‘Angela! Angela!’ Still nothing.

  She glanced down the passage towards the ballroom. Even in the past few seconds the fire had advanced. Its speed was terrifying, as were the gleeful high-pitched screams it made. It was like a live thing, a great, ragged animal, dazzlingly bright. Nell imagined it leaping at her, roaring in triumph, tearing at her clothes, her hair.

  ‘Angela!’ Her voice was a scream now. She dragged at the unconscious woman who lay like lead at her feet. Was it worth it, trying to save someone who might well be past saving? Even if she ran now, she might not get out alive herself.

  As another piece of burning plaster exploded into sparks behind her, Nell cried out with terror.

  She tugged desperately at Angela again but could only move her dead weight a few feet down the corridor. The wall of heat was approaching much quicker; Nell’s very eyeballs were hot now, and the smoke was filling her throat. She was gasping for air, trying to breathe. The floor reared up at her, hissing, splitting and buckling, darkening as the varnish burned.

  It was like one of his nightmares about Bosun’s Whistle, but this time it was real. Walls of leaping flame thundered about him and smoke seized him in its asphyxiating headlock. His face and body were dissolving like wax in the onslaught and his nostrils were filled with the stink of his own burning hair.

  It had been horrendous the first time, but this time it was indescribable. Dylan’s fear was dislodging his reason. All he could do was to summon up the memory of Nell’s face and fight on.

  ‘Nell!’ He was shouting her name through the filthy, whirling air. ‘Nell!’

  He should go back, before the flames he had escaped last time finally claimed him. They would get him this time. They were determined, hell-bent, closing in on him, screaming with glee. No one escaped them twice.

  The tears burned in his eyes before he could shed them. Dylan was shaking and whimpering. He
was heaving for breath; each lungful a burning pain.

  Was that a figure he could see? Something on the floor, up ahead. It looked human. A fallen statue, perhaps.

  ‘Nell!’

  Could he hear something? Someone yelling? The lump seemed to be moving; it looked like two lumps, one pulling at another.

  ‘Nell! Oh my God! You’re alive!’

  CHAPTER 61

  Six months later

  ‘They’re here!’ Nell leapt to the door of Beggar’s Roost. As she flung it open, Dylan could see the postman in his Royal Mail shorts staggering up the path, his arms clamped round the first of what would turn out to be six boxes of brochures.

  That, however, was not the ‘they’ Nell meant. Over the postman’s hi-vis-gileted shoulder could be seen a broad grin on a brown face. Dan came up the path tightly holding the hand of an equally brown Rachel. Behind them scampered Juno.

  ‘Where d’ya want me to leave this lot?’ the postman asked.

  ‘Just inside the door, thanks.’

  ‘Don’t know what’s in ’ere but they’re bloody ’eavy.’

  In ’ere was the physical rebranding of the Pemberton Estate. The virtual version had gone up on the website a few days ago and was proving a great success. Nell and her hand-picked, newly appointed team of marketing and design personnel were moving the great stately home and its satellite businesses on to a whole new level. Everyone was delighted, especially the Earl.

  Nell had been helped considerably in her recruitment drive by the new Director of Personnel. Gail had replaced Angela Highwater, who was now convalescent after hospital treatment and considering a move to the voluntary sector. Her fire injuries had been minimal and mostly smoke-related, while her long-term condition had now stabilised after a double mastectomy.

  Her psychological condition had also healed; Angela’s double brush with death had left her feeling lucky to be alive. Those who had recently encountered her, Jason and Nell in particular, could hardly relate the new, happy Angela with the twisted and dark-hearted creature of the past.

  ‘How was Cornwall?’ Nell demanded excitedly of Rachel. They had taken a cottage near Zennor for a fortnight of post-hospital recuperation for Dan and to celebrate Rachel’s success at scoring the highest marks in her year in the law exams.

  Rachel was full of happy detail about fabulous sea views and wonderful local pubs. There had been a place called the Miner’s Arms, in a village called Tremadoc. Dylan said nothing, but was both surprised and glad that neither name gave him any shock or alarm. The old painful memories seemed now a faint echo from a long time ago in someone else’s life.

  Rachel and Dan were grinning at each other. ‘They’re going to get married,’ Juno declared resignedly.

  ‘Juno!’ Rachel exclaimed. ‘I’ve never told you anything of the sort!’

  ‘No, but it’s obvious. When you’re a top detective like me.’

  Dylan hid a smile. He agreed with Juno. Her mother and Dan had definitely been looking at each other in a shall-we-tell-them kind of way.

  ‘OK, we’re going to get married,’ Rachel admitted, directing a look of exasperated amusement at her daughter.

  Nell whooped, leapt to her feet and flung wide her arms. Rachel caught her by the wrists and the two of them jumped up and down like a couple of infants. ‘And I’ve found a chambers I want to join in Leicester,’ Rachel added, smiling and breathless.

  ‘You’ll live up here?’ Nell could barely contain her joy.

  ‘At Dan’s house?’ Dylan was trying to hide his dismay. He, Nell and Rachel had between them cleaned the place up a lot but it nonetheless remained the original sow’s ear out of which a silk purse could not be made. It was hard to imagine Rachel in such a setting. Although he could imagine her, quite easily, dealing with the cheeky boys. ‘Shagger’s Friend, Shagger’s Friend,’ they had yelled at him during his solo visits. But, small as she was, there had been something about Rachel which silenced them.

  Rachel and Dan exchanged glances again. There was clearly something afoot. ‘Come on,’ Nell urged anxiously.

  ‘Well . . .’ Rachel began. She took a deep breath and looked from Nell to Dylan. She opened her mouth to continue when the postman called through the doorway.

  ‘I’ve finished, love!’

  ‘Thank you!’ Nell sang back.

  ‘Now tell!’ urged Dylan.

  ‘’Ow’d you like us fer yer neighbours?’ asked Dan, grinning.

  ‘Neighbours?’ Nell frowned. There was only one cottage next door and it belonged to George Farley. Or it had, having since reverted to the estate.

  Rachel was waving a key.

  Nell’s eyes widened. ‘You haven’t!’

  ‘We went to see the estate office!’ Rachel chanted. ‘The place was free! So we’ve rented it. On a year’s lease, initially.’

  Nell’s beaming joy had only the merest shade of regret in it. That George would not be returning to his cottage was sad in one way, but his happiness at moving into the sheltered flat with Sheila was such as to eclipse all negative feelings. Their marriage after a mere month of acquaintance had surprised everyone, but as George had observed, one couldn’t hang around at their age.

  Nell was now closing the door on Dan, Juno and Rachel, who were going next door to examine their new domain.

  ‘Have you heard anything?’ she asked, turning back towards Dylan. As ever, she knew what he was thinking. ‘No email?’

  His smile was wry as he reached for her. ‘Not since I last looked, ten minutes ago.’

  He was joking, but nervous. For Dylan had started again. From the bottom. With Eve, he was taking nothing for granted. He had sent her three chapters and a synopsis of a proposed new book. Not Charm Itself – he genuinely couldn’t bear to go back to that – but another, titled similarly but less hubristically Charmed Life. He had put everything into it, his own pain included, and felt it was by far the best thing he had ever written. Or would write, if Eve wanted him to.

  Eve had received it a week ago and he’d heard nothing. Dylan was starting to worry that, very possibly, he never would. He had not badgered Julian about it, even so. A week was a perfectly reasonable time to wait.

  While he was trying not to think about her lack of response, Dylan couldn’t help wondering. He was trying not to care, but he did. Desperately, if he were honest. And yet now Eve was the silent and uncommunicative one. The boot was on the other foot. Now, as never before, Dylan knew what most authors had to go through. He might yet know more; the chances seemed strong that, like so many, he was about to taste abject failure.

  But so what? he reminded himself. None of it mattered compared to the single, dazzling, brilliant fact that Nell was restored to him. Against all the odds, in the face of a hideous death and only, in the end, because of the split-second timing of the Chestlock fire brigade. As much as a minute later might have been too late. It was that background of catastrophe, Dylan suspected, that had encouraged Nell, after they both came out of hospital, to agree to his suggestion that they should try again. It was a risk, but as risks went, especially the risks they had both faced, it was a mild one. And so far, it had been no risk at all.

  Truly, and literally, they had been through the fire together. Even the formerly sceptical Rachel had finally given the union her blessing.

  ‘OK,’ she had said. ‘So he saved one life. That might have been an accident. But saving two’s a definite trend. He’s a hero. And so are you. I’m so bloody proud of you, Nell,’ Rachel finished, her voice thick with emotion.

  Being heroes, Nell had found, mainly meant they both looked different. His long dark hair had been lost in the fire along with her own. Both of them had short crops now, and looked strange to themselves. Secretly, however, they thought the other looked better. Nell’s eyes, Dylan felt, appeared huge and elfin while he,
Nell thought, had acquired a new maturity. Without all that hair you could see his features properly, the calm and level set of them, the strong jaw, the intelligent intensity of his gaze.

  Dylan’s occasional remoteness, now he was writing again, appealed to her too. Perhaps more so than the constant attentiveness of Adam, which might eventually have become claustrophobic.

  For the time being at least, there was no suggestion of getting married. It was all very well for George and Sheila, with a lifetime’s experience behind them and the absolute knowledge of a good thing when they saw it. She and Dylan needed to get to know each other better. But so far – and admittedly she’d been here before, several times – it looked like a good thing.

  Dylan was opening up his email and steeling himself for the usual lack of a message from Eve. Seeing that, most unexpectedly, there was one, he steeled himself instead for a terse line of rejection.

  Nell had seen his hands stiffen over the keyboard. She had heard the suppressed gasp, but she knew better than to say anything.

  Nonetheless his silence was making her curious. He was standing by the kitchen table, leaning on it with one hand while his other tapped his laptop, frowning at the screen. But whether it was a frown of disappointment or one of concentration she could not tell.

  She took a deep breath and crossed her fingers behind her back. ‘What does she say?’

  Dylan looked at her. His eyes seemed to be focusing from a long way away. A slow smile spread across his face. ‘She likes it, Nell. She wants me to write the rest of it.’

  Nell gasped in delight. ‘You’re back in business!’

  His eyes were shining. ‘And it’s so much sweeter the second time around. This time it’s for real.’ He caught at her hands and whirled her round.

  There was a tap on the door. ‘Sorry to disturb you two swinging lovers,’ came Rachel’s voice. ‘But we’re off now, to see Jason at the Edenville Arms.’

  ‘Give him our love. And Ryan as well.’ The manager and his boyfriend had recently come out, to so little surprise that Jason said he was considering going back in again.