'That's very kind of you, Herr von Reistoven, but I wouldn't want to take you out of your way.' Lee felt rather disconcerted by his offer and wasn't sure whether she wanted to accept it or not.
'It is no trouble, Fraulein. Let me saddle your horse for you.'
Lee began to protest half-heartedly, but he had already lifted the heavy saddle and thrown it easily across the horse's back. While he concentrated on his task Lee was able to take a closer look at him. She supposed that he wasn't exactly handsome; his face was too strong for that, with a very firm chin that looked used to having its own way, a rather rugged profile and a high forehead partly obscured by a sweep of thick fair hair. He turned and met her gaze, a slight quirk on his lips as he saw that she had been studying him.
'But you haven't yet told me your name, Fraulein,' he reminded her.
'It's Summers. Lee Summers.'
He nodded and turned back to the horse. 'This is a good animal.' After buckling the saddle strap, he ran his hands lightly over the animal, expertly assessing him, and the chestnut stayed still beneath the inspection as he felt the strength and mastery of those hands. 'I'm sure I've seen him before. Doesn't he belong to Herr Schneider?'
'Yes, he does.'
'He's a strong young horse. Are you sure you can handle him?'
Lee turned to him with some annoyance in her eyes. 'Yes, Herr von Reistoven, I'm quite sure I can handle him,' she said tartly.
One eyebrow was raised quizzically as he smiled with genuine amusement before raising his hands in mock fright. 'I humbly beg your pardon, Frdulein, I stand corrected.'
Lee laughed at his expression and let him give her a leg up. His own horse was tethered nearby; a magnificent black beast that quite dwarfed Lee's chestnut and made her feel as if she was riding a pony. 'That's quite an animal you have there,' she remarked, then added with studied innocence, 'Are you sure you can handle him, Herr von Reistoven?'
Despite his size, Max von Reistoven vaulted lightly into the saddle and then turned to look at her. 'So you've claws, have you?' He bent to take hold of her bridle to lead her along.
Lee drew back on the reins and said very clearly, 'Please take your hand from my bridle.'
He looked frowningly at her for a moment, but she stared back at him defiantly. 'Ah, yes,' he said softly. 'I'd forgotten you were English,' and let go of the bridle.
Looking at him suspiciously, Lee said, 'What does that mean?'
As he urged his horse along the path, he answered, 'It means that most of the English people I've known are exceedingly stubborn, and it would appear that the members of your family are exceptionally so.'
Lee smiled. 'You must have known my great-uncle well if you knew that. Were you his friend?'
He was riding ahead of her, so she couldn't see his expression as he replied slowly, 'No, I wasn't a friend, but I knew him well enough to say that he was the most obstinate man I have ever met!'
During the ride he politely pointed out different flowers and plants for her attention, his knowledge of the forest seemingly endless. 'The hills are usually safe enough in summer, but sometimes we get bears that wander across the Bavarian border from the National Park.'
'Are they dangerous?' Lee enquired.
'They can be nasty if they're hungry, but usually they're more frightened of you than you are of them.'
Lee laughed, her face alight with amusement, 'Somehow I wouldn't like to take a bet on that!'
He smiled at her again and went on to talk about other things, but Lee couldn't help noticing the way his eyes crinkled up at the corners, making his features so different from his usual rather stern and autocratic look.
That look was back on his face now as they reached a nursery of young pines covering several acres, the trees carefully planted in spaced straight lines, the ground between them kept clear of scrub and undergrowth.
'This is part of the re-afforestation programme.' he told her. 'For every tree we cut down for timber, another is planted and will eventually grow to take its place. A continuous cycle, you see, unless,' he added rather grimly, 'the trees are attacked by diseases and blights from old decaying trees and vegetation. Such as that.'
He had come to a halt and pointed with his riding crop across a wide firebreak to a thickly wooded stretch of land where the trees and bushes were densely packed together, fighting for light and air, the tree trunks almost smothered with ivy, creeper and other clinging parasites.
As she remembered how beautifully kept and tended the forest they had ridden through had been, Lee looked at him in astonishment.
'But why don't you clear it, then?'
Max von Reistoven turned to look at her, an enigmatic expression on his features. 'Because, Fraulein Summers, it isn't mine to clear. We have reached the boundary of the Von Reistoven estates, and that piece of land is the beginning of your inheritance!'
CHAPTER TWO
Rather numbly, Lee turned back to look at the choked woodland. To say anything seemed rather inadequate, so she merely urged the horse forward until they came to the firebreak.
'Is there a way through?' she asked.
'I seem to remember a path over to the left.' Max led the way to an overgrown track where they had to continually push branches out of the way and could make only slow progress. After about ten minutes Lee glimpsed sunlight ahead of them and they emerged into a meadow of waist-high grass which sloped down to a chalet house of dark wood set on a piece of level ground that looked out over a flower-banked stream and gently rolling pastures to the valley below.
Lee drew in a breath of pure delight. It was a scene lovely enough to grace a calendar; the sun shining across the peaceful valley, the sound of cow-bells echoing through the hills as the cattle moved placidly across the fields, the rich scent of flowers, but most of all the sun-lapped house set so cosily in the fold of the hill. Eagerly Lee heeled the horse towards it, her eyes drinking in each detail of the house; the outside stairway leading to a carved balcony with a heavy door opening off it along the front of the first floor, the shuttered windows, and the roof that overhung the balcony to give protection from the weather. Max von Reistoven rode alongside her, observing her face lit up with pleasure and excitement at this first glimpse of her legacy.
As they drew nearer Lee could see the house more clearly and the horse slowed as she lowered the reins. The sun still shone on the windows, but now she could see that most of them were broken and the shutters hanging askew. Some of the logs that formed the roof had come loose and fallen to the ground leaving a gaping hole open to the weather, and the lovely carved balcony was warped and broken.
Lee brought the horse to a halt. 'Why didn't you tell me?' she asked in little more than a whisper, her eyes still taking in the poor, neglected house.
'I thought it better that you should see for yourself, Fraulein,' he told her, his voice gentle.
'It's almost derelict.'
'Yes, I'm afraid so. Would you like to see inside?'
'Can we get in?'
'It shouldn't be too difficult.' They dismounted and Max von Reistoven tied the horses to a post near an old horse-trough full of leaves and debris and with weeds growing from it.
'You'd better let me go first in case the stairs aren't safe,' he said.
'Why can't we get in through the ground floor?' Lee asked as she watched him cautiously testing each step before putting his weight on it.
'Because it was only used for housing the cattle during the winter time,' he explained.
'You mean the people lived over the cattle?' Lee asked in horror.
He grinned. 'It helped to keep the house warm. Many farmers still live that way, but I don't think your great-uncle ever used it for that purpose, only to store wood and provisions for the winter. Be careful of this step, it doesn't feel too sound.'
Gingerly Lee followed him up the staircase and on to the balcony. The heavy wooden door was firmly locked, but it took Max von Reistoven only a minute to put his arm through the broken window and
reach down to open the latch. Pushing the window wide, he said, 'Would you like to go first, Fraulein?'
'Er—no, I think I'll let you lead the way,' Lee said after a quick look at the dark interior.
'Very wise.' He put a long leg over the sill and ducked inside. He took a look round and then came to help her to climb through the window. 'It's all right, there aren't any tramps or hikers camping out here.' He put his hands round Lee's slim waist and almost lifted her through.
'Oh!' She landed beside him rather breathlessly. 'I hadn't thought of that. Do you think anyone else has broken in?'
'I shouldn't be surprised. This looks as if it was a bedroom. Do you see that deep recess beside the fireplace? That was probably the box-bed where the children slept.'
Lee went over to look more closely. With its deep shelf of wooden planks the recess looked as if it would have made a far from comfortable bed, but she could see where the remains of a once-gay curtain hung from brass hooks.
'There would probably have been a big, carved bed in the room for the parents,' he told her. 'With perhaps a chair and a cupboard, and there would certainly have been a large Oak chest where the wife would have kept all the linen that she brought with her as her dowry.'
Lee gazed round the room, imagining it as it must once have been; a carved and polished wooden bed with a white lace cover or perhaps a patchwork quilt, the room scrubbed clean and shining with colourful rugs on the floor and pretty curtains at the windows, and the scent of flowers instead of the damp, musty smell that hung uncleanly on the air. Max von Reistoven opened the door into another room that was obviously a kitchen-cum-living-room, for there was a huge iron range set into the stone chimney breast and a deep, cracked old sink in the corner. This room, too, was as neglected as the bedroom and Lee gave an involuntary shudder as a floating cobweb touched her face.
'I believe Herr Canning had part of the bedroom partitioned off to form a bathroom,' Max von Reistoven remarked. 'But of course, the water all had to be brought up by hand from the stream and then heated on the stove.'
Lee looked rather distastefully at the rusty old stove and the great patch of fungus and mildew that had formed on the wall. 'Do you mean my great-uncle actually lived here?'
'Ja, for some years until his wife died. But then, of course, they had a servant to look after them.' He opened a small door that Lee had thought was a cupboard. 'See, here's the stairway up into the attic where the servant would have lived. Would you like to go up there?'
'I suppose I'd better,' Lee said rather doubtfully as she looked behind the door and saw the narrow, unlit flight of steps.
He squeezed himself inside, his head crouched down to avoid the ceiling and his shoulders brushing the walls on either side even though he had turned sideways. Lee managed far more easily and found herself standing beside him in a low attic room lit only by a small dormer window and, of course, the light coming from the hole in the roof. The birds seemed to have made a haven of the place, for she could see several nests, both new and old, and the floor was white with bird droppings. An old broken bed stood against the wall near the chimney and the pipe from the stove went through the room, but otherwise there was no other heating for the poor servant who had spent his winters beneath the weight of snow pressing on the roof so close above his head.
Lee shivered despite the heat of the day. 'I think I've seen enough now, thank you.' She couldn't wait until they were out of the house and back in the sunlight again.
It was a relief to breathe the fresh, sweet air, to smell the flowers and to feel the sun warm on her face again. She sat down on the grass some way from the house but where she could still see it and Max von Reistoven dropped lightly down beside her. For a few moments she thought wistfully again of how the chalet must once have looked, then turned to find him watching her, a speculative look in his eyes.
'Please tell me what happened to the house. Why did Uncle Howard let it fall into such a state of decay?'
He chewed reflectively on a grass stalk before saying, 'Herr Canning was an old man, Fraulein Summers. He was also very obstinate. This house and the land was his wife's dowry, and she also had an annuity which paid for the servant and the upkeep of the land with enough left over to keep them in comfort. But when she died the annuity ceased. If your great-uncle had,' he hesitated, 'accepted the help and advice that was offered him, he could have worked the land and made a living from it, but, as I said, he was very stubborn and insisted on doing things his own way, and they didn't pay off. You can't run an Austrian mountain farm like you can an English downland one, and so he lost money. Soon he didn't have enough to pay the servant; then there was a landslide that blocked the stream for a while so that he didn't have any water.'
He threw down the straw rather angrily. 'Still the stubborn old fool—man,' he corrected himself hastily, 'wouldn't accept any help; blaming his neighbours for all that went wrong. In the end he had to leave here and went to live in Ausbach, but he refused to let anyone else tend the land with the result that, over the last few years, it has become the wilderness that you see, the trees overrun by parasites and disease and the undergrowth full of wild animals that get into my plantations and kill the young trees,' he finished vehemently.
'I—I see.' And Lee could see, more than he had told her. 'You're the person who has made the offer to buy the place, aren't you?'
A rather rueful look came over his face. 'Was it so obvious? I'm sorry, I hadn't meant to… Ja, I admit this piece of land has been a thorn in my flesh for some years, and when I heard that Herr Canning had willed it to you, well…' He shrugged, a typically continental gesture. 'It seemed like an ideal opportunity to buy the land and clear it.'
'And the house?' Lee asked curiously. 'What did you intend to do with that?'
'A son of one of my foresters is getting married soon; I would probably have the chalet repaired and let him live there.'
'You wouldn't pull it down, then?' Somehow the answer to the question seemed suddenly very important.
There was a slight frown on his forehead as he looked at her, then he smiled reassuringly. 'Nein, I wouldn't have it pulled down. It has too much history, too many memories for that.'
So he, too, had sensed, as she had done, how the house must have looked in happier times. Lee gave a little sigh of relief. 'I'm glad you feel like that.'
He raised a quizzical eyebrow. 'Does that mean you will consider selling to me?'
Lee looked rather wistfully back at the decrepit house. 'I don't really have any choice, do I?' she said practically. 'No one is going to look at it as a paying proposition or an investment, and it would cost the earth to have the house modernised and repaired to sell as a home. So, really, I suppose I'm lucky that it even has a nuisance value.' Then she realised just how cross Richard would have been if he had heard her admit that much, so she added hastily, 'But I shall have to have an independent valuation, of course.'
'Of course,' Max von Reistoven agreed gravely, but there was something in his voice that made Lee glance quickly up at him to find his blue eyes alight with amusement.
Laughingly she admitted, 'That did sound awfully pompous, didn't it?'
'But also extremely businesslike. Who advised you to say it? Your father?'
Tilting her head to one side, Lee looked up at him rather roguishly. 'What makes you believe I didn't think of it myself?'
He laughed, a deep, masculine laugh, and cupped her chin in his hand. 'Because you're far too young and beautiful to have your head stuffed full of legal jargon.
So who told you?'
Flushing with pleasure at his compliment, Lee said, 'It was Richard. He's my fiancé. He's a lawyer and he gave me a whole list of do's and don'ts before I came. He made me… she broke off as she saw that the smile had suddenly gone from his face.
'Your fiancé?' he said slowly. 'But you aren't wearing a ring.'
'No, we're not officially engaged, you see. It's—it's just sort of understood.' Lee faltered slightly under Ma
x von Reistoven's gaze, then added with a rush, 'That's why the legacy seemed such a godsend. It meant that we wouldn't have to wait any longer—we could get married straight away.' She stopped as he stood up and looked away from her, back towards the Chalet Alpenrose.
'So that was why you were in such a hurry,' he murmured. 'Why didn't your—fiancé come with you?'
'He couldn't get away. He's involved in an important case.' Lee, too, had scrambled to her feet.
'Have you seen everything you wish to see?' he asked politely, his laughing mood of a few moments ago seeming to halve disappeared altogether.
'Yes, thank you.'
'Then I think you should be getting back to your hotel. Where are you staying?'
'At the Hotel Erlenbach.'
'Ah, yes. I'm sure the proprietor there will be able to recommend a valuer to you. I expect you feel the same as I in that the sooner the deal goes through the better?'
'Yes, of course.' He helped her to mount the chestnut and Lee watched him with a puzzled expression as he mounted his own big black animal. Why had his manner towards her changed so abruptly? She had been enjoying his company, been glad that it was he who wanted to buy the property because she felt at ease with him and had started to like him for himself, but then a coldness seemed to have suddenly grown between them, a coldness of his making, so that now he was behaving only as a polite acquaintance.
He led her along the track leading down into the valley until they came to a fork, one path leading up the other side of the hill to the distant walls of the castle; the other continuing back down into the village.
'This way will take you to the road leading into Ausbach,' he told her, indicating the latter route. 'Mine is the other path." He hesitated. 'Perhaps I should stress again how old and—and senile your great-uncle became in the last few years. He rebuffed every offer of help and behaved as if he were being persecuted. I'm 'sure that Herr Kreuz will tell you more of this when you see him, but I would be grateful if you would hear what he has to say with an open mind.' He looked at her searchingly. 'Will you try to do that, Fraulein Summers?'
Sally Wentworth - King of the Castle Page 3