Sally Wentworth - King of the Castle
You're no match for Max, they warned her!
But Lee couldn't quite believe all they said about Max Von Reistoven. Then she discovered he'd stop at nothing to restore her inherited chalet to his own castle estate.
She wanted simple justice from this aristocrat who seemed to want the world. And she was prepared to put up the fiercest battle of her life against him.
And yet, the longer she stayed in Austria, the more attractive she found him. Surely she couldn't be falling in love?
CHAPTER ONE
It was one of the first really warm days of early June, full of the promise that only a spring day can bring. Already the city streets were beginning to fill as people emerged from their places of work to make the most of the lunch hour, either hurrying to restaurants or to do their shopping. As Lee Summers stepped through the swing doors of the modern, glass-fronted office block where she had worked as a secretary to a firm of solicitors for the last two years, she lifted her face gladly to the sun and shook her head to let the light breeze ruffle the mass of dark curls that framed her fine-boned face and long-lashed hazel eyes. It felt good to be out in. the open again, away from the cluttered office with its aura of legal solemnity.
There was excitement in her step as she eagerly crossed the road and made her way along Fleet Street until she came to the lovely old arch that led into the Inns of Court. Once inside, the roar of the traffic was immediately cut off; there was an inner peace, a kind of oasis of quiet as she passed the ancient round walls of the twelfth-century Temple church. On either side of the tree-lined courtyard below her were the buildings of the Middle Temple stretching almost down to the river. Here the London barristers had their offices, where they could work in peace and quiet, but were conveniently situated close to the Law Courts in the Strand.
A familiar figure rose from a seat set under the frail beauty of a silver birch tree and waved a hand in greeting. Lee waved back and ran down the steps towards him, her heels echoing on the old stone paving. She rushed into his outstretched arms and kissed him exuberantly.
'Hey, what have I done to deserve this?' There was surprise in Richard Derrington's voice as he looked at Lee in amusement.
'Oh, Richard, I've had the most wonderful news! I've inherited some property in Austria. Look, I'll show you.' Eagerly she pulled him back to the seat and took a letter from her handbag. 'The English isn't a hundred per cent perfect, but it's still quite easy to understand.'
Richard smiled indulgently as she thrust the letter under his nose but took his time as he examined the heading before going on to the contents.
'From the firm of Kreuz in Ausbach in the Tyrol district. Can't say I've ever heard of them before.'
'Never mind that, just read the letter,' Lee ordered impatiently. Then, restless with excitement, 'Oh, here, I'll read you the important bits. "Have to advise you of the death of your great-uncle, Herr Howard Canning… He has left you his property known as the Chalet Alpenrose, which consists of a house and the surrounding land." Then he gives particulars of the land, but later on… Oh, yes, here it is. "On the death of Herr Canning an offer was made for the property and I consider it to be a fair, if not generous, price, taking into account the fact that the house and land have been neglected during the last years of Herr Canning's ownership.'" Her eyes shining, her face flushed with happiness, Lee added, 'Richard, you see what this means? We won't have to wait until you're established. We can get engaged this year—straight away!'
'Hey, hold your horses!' He laughingly took the letter back from her and proceeded to read it thoroughly while Lee sat beside him with as much patience as she could muster.
She had first met Richard soon after starting work in the solicitors' office. As a very junior barrister, only recently called to the bar, he had come there on business and they had become on friendly terms. Gradually their relationship had developed into closeness and it was tacitly understood that they would marry when Richard had become more established in his profession. Lee would have been willing to take a chance and start married life now in a bedsit or a small flat, but Richard wouldn't hear of it and insisted that they wait until they could afford a decent house. He was a rather cautious person, but was kind and gentle; thoroughly nice, thoroughly reliable; a perfect foil for Lee's vital and impulsive nature. Often he had warned her against acting unwisely as she had plunged enthusiastically into some new scheme or hobby. She had been grateful for the warning, but sometimes, at the back of her mind, there were the slightest shades of regret for the lost opportunities, the experiences he had guided her away from.
'Who was this Howard Canning?' he asked. 'I've never heard you speak of him before.'
'I'd almost forgotten he existed,' Lee admitted. 'He was my mother's uncle and I used to see him quite often as a child, but then he married an Austrian woman and settled over there. Apart from an occasional Christmas card we haven't heard from him since. But I seem to remember Mother saying that he always had a soft spot for me.'
'Hm,' Richard looked up from the letter at last. 'It certainly seems very interesting.'
'Interesting! Is that all you can say? It's the most fantastic news I've had in years. Look, I worked out the offer this person has made for the land. In English money it comes to almost twenty-five thousand pounds. That's more than enough for a house. Oh, Richard, isn't it wonderful?'
He smiled down at her, pleased at her happiness and excitement, but said warningly, 'You just can't accept this offer, you know. You should really have an independent valuation of the land made before you agree on any price. It would be better if we could go over there and see; it for ourselves; make sure it isn't planted with valuable crops or timber, or situated on the edge of a town, or an area that's about to be developed or something. But unfortunately I have that important case I told you about coming along shortly and I can't possibly get away before that; there's too much work to do on it.'
'But you said that the case could go on for weeks, even months.'
'Yes, I know. I'm sorry, but you know that it could lead to me getting some cases of my own and I can't possibly throw it up. But we'll go to Austria just as soon as it's finished,' he consoled Lee. 'Come on, we'd better go and eat before everywhere fills up.'
He began to walk her back towards the main road, but they had gone only a few yards before Lee caught his sleeve eagerly and pulled him round to face her.
'You can't go, but what's to stop me going by myself? I've got three weeks' holiday due to me and I could leave almost straightaway.'
Richard looked somewhat taken aback. 'But you can't go over there alone!'
'Why not? I'm twenty-one, and it's not as if I'm going to darkest Africa or something.'
'But you wouldn't know what to look for, wouldn't know if you were being cheated.'
'Then all I have to do is pick up the phone and ask you for advice. Richard, don't be an old stick-in-the- mud. The prospective buyer might drop out if he's kept waiting indefinitely for an answer,' she pointed out.
'If he's interested then others might be as well.' Richard shook his head. 'I don't like to think of you going off and trying to handle things by yourself.'
Lee saw that it wasn't going to be easy and it took her all through their walk to a restaurant, and the whole meal right through to the coffee stage to wheedle, cajole and coax him into finally grudgingly agreeing.
'All right, but you've got to promise to get in touch with me if you have the slightest doubts, and you've definitely not to sign anything until you have sent me a photocopy—especially if it's in a language you don't understand.'
'Yes, I promise. You'll be my
absentee legal adviser,' she placated him.
'I still don't like it,' Richard said worriedly. They walked back along Fleet Street and paused before the entrance to her office. He looked down at her severely. 'You've twisted me round your little finger again, haven't you?'
Lee grinned impishly up at him and then reached up to kiss him on the cheek. 'Yes,' she said softly, 'but look what it might lead to.' Then she laughed and waved as she turned to run into the building as the bells of the city churches chimed two o'clock.
In less than a week, Lee had left the closely packed city streets behind and had flown to Munich, there to collect the little Volkswagen convertible that Richard had arranged to have waiting for her. Once having agreed, however reluctantly, to her going, he had been as thorough in helping her to make arrangements for the journey as he was in everything he did. She had written off to the firm of Austrian solicitors to let them know she was coming and had a long list of 'points to watch out for' that Richard had drawn up for her. He had checked to make sure she had everything and had still been uttering words of caution even after he had kissed her goodbye at the airport,
Lee smiled at him rather ruefully; he was a dear and she loved him, but he did tend to fuss over her, so that now it was almost a relief to be alone and to be driving along—very carefully because it was the first time she had ever driven on the wrong side of the road— between rolling fields and meadows with the distant massive greyness of the Alps coming ever nearer. Soon the road began to climb the foothills and the traffic thickened as cars and coachloads of tourists all headed for the mountain resorts and slowed down progress. At one o'clock Lee pulled off the switchback Alpine road and into the car-park of a restaurant built on the side of a mountain. She had been travelling for over three hours and needed a break. Securely locking the little yellow 'Beetle' as the hire agent had called it, Lee took her route map with her and found an empty table on the restaurant terrace, which had a terrific view and where she had the unnerving experience when looking out over the balcony of glancing down and seeing a four-thousand-foot drop below her. The terrace jutted out from the side of the mountain with nothing beneath it!
A smiling waitress dressed in the traditional dirndl skirt and embroidered blouse came to take her order, and Lee decided that as she was now in Austria she must try a wienerschnitzel. While she waited for her meal she studied the map and found that Ausbach seemed to be a smallish village set some distance away from the main tourist areas. She reckoned that she still had an hour's driving before she reached it; an hour of travelling along the winding road between these magnificent mountains which had an aged and mysterious atmosphere that she found difficult to define. But she didn't find them cold or overpowering; she loved the hills and climbing and felt perfectly at home here.
The waitress brought her lunch and after Lee had eaten the deliriously cooked veal cutlet she was again ready to cope with the unfamiliar roads and the erratic continental drivers. Ausbach proved to be situated some miles from the main highway and was reached by a fairly narrow road that twisted among the foothills of a range of smaller mountains, a road that crossed arched stone bridges over tumbling streams, passed fields of growing corn turning golden in the sun, and meadows reaching high into the hills where grazed herds of cows, the large bells strapped round their thick necks sounding a continuous peal that echoed back from the surrounding mountains. A dozen times Lee could have stopped to drink in the sights and sounds that were so new to her, but she was filled with a strange sense of unrest, a feeling that she must get to her destination before she gave herself the pleasure of revelling in this wonderful scenery.
When she finally arrived in Ausbach she found that the village was even more picturesque than she had imagined it could be. An onion-domed church dominated the village and the houses were of the wooden chalet type, with every available sill and ledge filled with window-boxes and hanging baskets gay with brightly coloured, flowers. Lee stopped the car to exclaim with pleasure at the sight of the horse-trough and a large, hand-operated water pump beside it, all almost hidden under masses of blooms, but a harsh_ toot of a klaxon from a delivery van behind her reminded her that she was blocking the way. Realising that she had no idea where to find the solicitor's office, she pulled into a garage on one side of the village square to ask directions.
A mechanic in grubby overalls with a grizzled moustache looked up from under the bonnet of a large grey Mercedes at the far side of the forecourt. Wiping his greasy hands on a rag, he came over to her. 'Guten Tag, Fraulein. Bittef………..'
'Good afternoon. I wonder if you can help me? I'm trying to find the office of Herr Kreuz. Can you tell me how to get there, please?'
The man shrugged, 'Ich verstehe Sie nicht,' and shook his head to show that he didn't understand.
Lee tried again more slowly. 'Herr Kreuz in the Brunnerstrasse. How do I get there?'
This time she had better luck, for he repeated the name after her, although it didn't sound quite the same as Lee had pronounced it. She rather wished that she had taken that course in German at school, but unfortunately she had chosen business studies instead. Now the man was pointing, but not as Lee had expected in the direction of one of the roads leading from the square, but to the doorway of the garage office which a man was just leaving. She looked at the attendant in some bewilderment, thinking that he must have misunderstood her after all, but he was very insistent, pointing again at the man and pushing her slightly towards him.
Rather hesitantly she approached the stranger, who was smartly but conservatively dressed and looked to be in his early thirties, but her main impression was that he certainly belonged here, for he was so tall that he towered over her just as the mountains towered over the village. 'Er…' Lee began, and then stopped.
'Fraulein?' The voice was extremely polite, but there was a look of amusement in the man's intensely blue eyes as he noticed her discomfiture.
'Excuse me, but do you speak English?'
'Sufficiently to help you, Fraulein, if you're in any difficulty,' he replied fluently and with hardly a trace of the guttural accent Lee had noticed in the other English-speaking Germans and Austrians she had encountered.
'Oh, good. That must be why the attendant pointed you out to me,' she said with some relief. 'You see, I asked him the way to Herr Kreuz's office in the Brunnerstrasse, but he doesn't speak English.'
But the man was hardly listening to the end of her explanation. A look of surprise had come into his eyes at the mention of Herr Kreuz and he was looking at her more closely.
'You are not a tourist, Fraulein?' The question was asked very casually, but the stranger was studying her now with some interest.
'Why, no, I have some business in Ausbach. Do you know the way, please?'
'Yes, the office isn't far from here. You turn left out of the garage and then take the second turning on the right, where the corner house has a double balcony and flower paintings on the walls; you can't mistake it. Herr Kreuz's office is halfway along the road.'
'Thank you, that's very kind of you.'
'Not at all, Fraulein. It is my pleasure.'
He bowed formally and Lee found herself flushing slightly as she looked up into blue eyes that regarded her intently and continued to watch her until she had climbed back into the car and driven away.
After that the way was easy to find, and she smiled as she passed the house on the corner; in England the landmark would have been a public house or a church, but here it was a house, not only with the usual window-boxes full of blooms, but also with Alpine flowers painted on every space of wall. Herr Kreuz's 'office' turned out to be a small wooden house with a lowered roof that jutted over the road and cast a shadow over the doorway as Lee rang the bell. A cat rose from a patch of sun and stretched lazily before stepping daintily over to inspect her, its amber coat rippling in the sunlight.
'Hallo, cat, do you speak English?' Lee murmured as she bent to stroke him. The cat purred and rubbed himself against her leg
s. He was evidently an all- language cat.
The door opened above her and Lee stood up to confront the small, neat woman who faced her.
'Good afternoon. Please, do you speak English?' Lee was rapidly coming to realise that this must be the opening gambit in any conversation.
The woman smiled. 'I speak a little. Are you Fraulein Summers?'
Lee gave a little sigh of relief. 'Yes, I am. You had my letter?'
'Oh, yes. Please, come in.' The woman stepped aside and motioned Lee into a pleasant, cool room that was more like a living-room than an office. 'Please to sit down.'
Lee did so and the cat immediately jumped on her lap and nudged her arm until she started stroking him again. 'Is Herr Kreuz in?'
'No, I am sorry. I am his secretary and I…' she hesitated for the word, 'I keep house for him. I would have written to you, but there was no time, you come too soon behind your letter.'
It took Lee a moment to understand this, but then she said, 'But why should you wish to write to me when you knew I was coming?'
'It is because Herr Kreuz had to go to Vienna yesterday. Most important. He will not be back for two or three days.'
Lee looked at the woman in dismay. 'But is there no one else? Hasn't he a partner?'
'No, there is just Herr Kreuz. If you give me the telephone number of your hotel, I will let you know when he comes back.'
'I haven't booked into a hotel yet,' Lee told her. 'I came straight here. Perhaps you could recommend one?'
'The Hotel Erlenbach is good. It is near the main square.'
Lee thanked the secretary and drove slowly back the way she had come, feeling very disappointed at the news that Herr Kreuz would be away for another three days. She sighed with vexation. Richard wouldn't actually say 'I told you so' when she rang him tonight, but he would certainly think it. Going past the garage where she had stopped for directions, she looked to see if the tall stranger was still there, but both he and the large grey Mercedes had gone. She wondered if the car belonged to him, and somehow thought it did; both the size and the expensive sophistication of the vehicle seemed to suit him admirably.
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