Sally Wentworth - King of the Castle

by King of the Castle

  'I'm afraid you'll have to walk from here,' he said coldly. 'I don't feel like risking the car up that track.'

  Her voice heavy with sarcasm, Lee answered, 'I hardly expected anything else. After all, you made my great-uncle walk across these fields in all weathers, didn't you? What a pity I'm not as old as he was. You'd get far more of a kick out of it then, wouldn't you?'

  She went to get out of the car, but with a swift movement Max pinned her back against the seat with his arm.

  Grimly he said, 'Look around you. This valley is surrounded by steep mountains. Your uncle drove an extremely noisy old car. He insisted on driving it even in the middle of winter when everywhere was thick with snow. One loud noise could start an avalanche that might destroy a dozen farms and houses; a loud noise like the broken exhaust of a car.' Max's eyes were like slate as he added scornfully, 'Now get out of my car, child, and go and play with your doll's house.'

  White-faced, Lee got out of the Mercedes and started up the track. When she heard the car pull away and knew that it was out of sight she started running and didn't stop until she was safely inside the house, the door firmly shut behind her.

  The heavy rain during the storm had found its way under the tarpaulin over the hole in the roof and she was able to work out the anger she felt while mopping up the puddles that had collected on the top floor of the chalet. After she had fastened the cover more securely she went to make herself a meal, but then remembered that she had run out of fuel for the cooker. She had intended to buy some more in Ausbach on the way home, but Max giving her a lift had put all thoughts of it -out of her head, so she had to make do with bread, cheese and an apple. Outside the sky had clouded over again and she fervently hoped that there wouldn't be another storm.

  Taking out her writing pad, she tried to write to Richard. Since moving into the chalet she had been so busy that she hadn't had time to answer his last letter, but now she found it difficult to know what to write. In her previous letter she had explained why she felt she couldn't sell to Max,' but Richard had completely failed to understand. He wanted her to come home at once, promised to go out to Austria himself as soon as he was free and sort things out. Instinctively Lee knew that 'sorting things out' to Richard would mean immediately selling to Max, probably with profuse apologies for her own behaviour. After only a couple of paragraphs she pushed the letter aside; she was putting down only commonplace phrases; better to wait until tomorrow when she was fresh.

  It must have been about one o'clock in the morning when the thunderclap startled Lee into quivering wakefulness. It had been very loud, very close overhead. Lightning flashes came through the uncurtained windows to make the room momentarily as light as day and she shrank back into her sleeping bag, glad of the solid walk of the recess all round her. Rain pelted on to the tarpaulin and then she heard it flapping loudly in the wind. The darned thing must have come loose again! Reluctantly she crawled out of the recess and lit the lamp, knowing that if she didn't fix it the floor above would soon be sodden. Once up the narrow staircase she set the lamp down on the windowsill, then climbed up on an old chair to try to reach the loose corner of the tarpaulin. The wind, however, had other ideas and constantly blew it away from her outstretched hands. Exasperated, Lee stood on tiptoe and made a grab for it. For a second she thought she had it and gave a small cry of triumph, but then the rickety chair tipped under her and she found herself crashing heavily to the ground!

  Slowly, dazedly, she tried to sit up, but let out a sharp cry of pain when she went to put her weight on her right wrist. The room started to spin crazily and she had to lean against the wall until it stilled enough for her to open her eyes. Feeling slightly sick, she managed to get to her feet. Apart from her wrist she seemed to have escaped unharmed, but it hurt like hell and she was afraid it might be broken. Picking up the lamp in her left hand, she gingerly made her way downstairs again. Experimentally she tried her fingers and was immensely relieved when she found that she could move them. Lee's sole first-aid experience was restricted to what she had learnt as a Girl Guide, but she seemed to remember that sprains should be soaked in cold water. When she had decided to live at the chalet she had bought a two-gallon polythene water container, but as soon as she picked this up she realised that she had used the last of the water to wash in last night. Damn! Now she would have to go out into the storm to fill the container at the stream.

  It was a ridiculously difficult task to pull her mackintosh on over her nightdress, but at last she was ready. Going back into the kitchen, she picked up the water- container and turned towards the door just as a bright flash of lightning lit the room. Lee stopped dead in her tracks, a little whimper of terror escaping from her throat. The lightning had outlined the figure of a man just passing the window! She stood frozen, unable to move for what seemed like light years, then a loud knock sounded on the wooden door.

  Lee tried to speak, but could only make a strangled noise. The knocking came again and then the door was pushed open. Max stood in the doorway, rain dripping from his trench-coat and plastering his hair to his forehead, the thunder loud behind him. Lee stared at him with wide,' terrified eyes. Quickly he came in and shut the door just as she felt her knees starting to buckle beneath her.

  'You—you scared me half to death,' she faltered.

  'Here, drink some of this.' He took one look at her white face and held out a hip flask of brandy.

  'Thank you.' Lee took the flask with trembling fingers, but then realised that she couldn't unscrew the top. 'C-could you undo it for me, please? I've hurt my hand.'

  'Let me look,' he commanded. He took her small hand in his big ones and gently began to explore her wrist. Already it was beginning to swell alarmingly. 'It doesn't feel broken, but you must have sprained it badly. You'll need to have it X-rayed to make sure, of course.' He poured some of the brandy into a plastic cup and gave it to her.

  Lee sipped it gratefully, the spirit warming and reviving her. Glancing up, she saw Max looking down at her with an expression half exasperated, half rueful. The flashes of light in the dimly lit room highlighted the planes of his face and gave him an oddly satanic appearance. When he saw her looking at him his expression changed wholly to exasperation.

  'What were you doing to hurt your arm at this time of night?'

  'The tarpaulin over the roof came loose and I was trying to fix it, but the chair overturned. I must have fallen with my wrist under me. I was going out to get some water to bathe it when you arrived.'

  'I'll get it for you.' He picked up the container and turned towards the door.

  'But you'll get soaked,' Lee felt she had to protest.

  Max grinned crookedly. 'No more than I am already.'

  Within five minutes he was back. 'You'll have to take off that mac,' he remarked as he poured water into a bowl. He hung up his own raincoat and then helped Lee to take off hers. She felt strangely vulnerable with only her thin nightdress on, but Max was completely impersonal, although infinitely gentle, as he helped her to bathe her wrist.

  'While you're soaking that I'd better go and see if there's anything I can do with the tarpaulin.'

  When he came back Lee said, 'You haven't told me - yet why you came?'

  'I saw a light in the upper part of the chalet and thought you might be in trouble.'

  Lee flushed, remembering how angrily they had parted earlier in the day. 'It was kind of you to come yourself. But you could have sent someone else, surely?'

  'I could,' Max replied evenly. He lifted her hand from the bowl and carefully began to pat it dry with a towel. 'But I was the one who saw your light, so why turn someone else out of bed? That looks less puffy how, I think. Have you a scarf or something we can make into a sling?'

  'There's one in my smaller suitcase in the bedroom,' Lee told him.

  Expertly he made a sling and went behind her to tie it, his fingers warm against her neck. 'That will have to suffice until it's X-rayed, I'm afraid.' He picked up her mac and held it for her to pu
t her left arm in. 'Here, put this back on and we'll get going.'

  'Going? Where?' For a moment Lee thought he was going to drive her to a hospital straightaway.

  'Back to the Schloss, of course.' Then he saw the expression on her face and his mouth hardened. 'Look, you can argue all you want, but I'm not leaving you alone here unable to look after yourself. So you can either come with me willingly or I'll pick you up and carry you,' he said forcefully.

  'That doesn't give me a great deal of choice, does it?' Lee said unsteadily.

  Max sighed and ran his hand through his hair. 'I'm sorry, I didn't mean to bully you, but I can't leave you here. You must see that,' he reasoned.

  'All right, I'll come with you,' Lee agreed, suddenly feeling very tired.

  'I'll get your cases.'

  'It's really very kind of you,' she said stiffly when he came back.

  'Not at all, that's what neighbours are for.' There was a sardonic look in his blue eyes that made Lee drop her own.

  Carefully turning out the lamp, Max led the way outside. He locked the door and then helped her down the stairs to the ground, using his large frame to shelter her from the worst of the rain, but the storm was dying away now, its full force spent. He had driven over in a Land-rover and they were soon inside and driving over the track towards the Schloss. Lee looked back at the Chalet Alpenrose, looking dark and empty behind her, and felt a sharp stab of despair; would it ever be repaired?

  Max must have seen her look, for he said quietly, 'Coming to stay at the Schloss Reistoven doesn't mean that you've lost the battle, Lee.'

  He had used her christian name for the first time and somehow its use seemed to create an intimacy between them in the metal confines of the Land-rover.

  'No? What does it mean, then? You've driven the workmen away and now I won't be able to do any work myself until my wrist heals,' she said dispiritedly.

  Pulling up inside the cobbled stableyard of the Schloss, Max switched off the engine and turned to face her. 'Your arm must be paining you a great deal. I'm sure that nothing else would make you feel so defeated. Which is a great shame, because I was just beginning to enjoy our fight,' he commented outrageously.

  'Enjoy it!' Lee stared at him indignantly. 'Why, you —you big, conceited…'

  Max laughed. 'That's more like what I've come to expect from you.'

  Against her will Lee had to laugh rather weakly with him. He helped her out of the car and hurried her across to the tower that she had seen Rudi disappear into the other day. They went up a wide circular staircase and entered a stone-floored corridor with white- painted walls on the second floor.

  'My mother will be pleased that you've come to the Schloss,' Max remarked. 'She was worried about you.'

  'That was kind of her.' They had gone through a— curtained- archway into another corridor running at right angles to the first and Lee stopped to stare. This must be the part of the castle that the von Reistovens used, for now the floor was thickly carpeted. the panelled walls adorned with paintings and the window embrasures furnished with carved chests or beautiful antique chairs and sofas. Rather nervously she said, 'I do hope your wife won't mind the turning up in the middle of the night like this.'

  There was some amusement in Max's eyes as he turned back to look at her. 'But I'm not married.'

  'Oh.' Lee digested this. 'Rudi isn't your son, then?'

  'No, he's my sister's child. He's only staying here while she and her husband are abroad.' He had stopped at a door near the head of a staircase and held it open for her. 'I think you will find this room is ready for you.'

  As Lee entered she caught her breath in delight, for the room was dominated by a four-poster bed, not a full-sized one that she would feel lost in, but a smaller version with its heavy tapestries replaced by the flowing softness of white lace with a matching counterpane. The rest of the furniture was also antique but of the light, eighteenth-century French style rather than the heavier medieval period.

  Her pleasure showed in her face as she turned back to Max standing so tall in the doorway. 'It's a lovely room. Thank you.'

  'There's a bathroom through there,' he told her, indicating a small door set into the wall. He set her cases down and then helped her out of her mac. 'Do you have everything you need?'

  'Yes.'

  'Then if you're sure you can manage, I'll wish you goodnight.' i

  'Goodnight.'

  But instead of leaving he paused as if about to say something more. His eyes ran over her slender figure outlined through the thin nightdress and Lee instinctively raised her hands to cover herself. Max smiled thinly and went out, quietly shutting the door behind him. After a moment Lee gave a little shrug and went to run her hands lovingly over the deep patina of a small but very beautiful writing desk that stood against one wall. She had always loved antiques and it gave her great pleasure to have them around her in a setting that suited them so perfectly. A sharp throb of pain from her arm made her slip out of her shoes and slide between the fresh, lavender-scented covers of the four-poster. It had been a long, nerve-racking day and she felt incredibly tired, but it was some time before her mind let her sleep.

  Max had said that it wasn't a defeat to come to the Schloss, but to Lee it was showing weakness to have given in so easily. She could have stayed at the chalet for the night and then made her own way to a doctor's in the morning. But Max would never have allowed her to do that, she knew. He would have been quite capable of fulfilling his threat and carrying her out of the chalet! Fretfully she wondered why he had been so anxious to get her out. Her mind filled with recollections of legal cases she had come across where locks had been changed on houses while the owners were away and others had claimed - possession. Was that what Max intended to do? Would he try to take the Chalet Alpenrose from her while he had her safely out of the way at the Schloss? The pain in her wrist made her toss and turn uncomfortably, her mind was full of doubts and she was beginning to heartily wish that she had never even heard of the Chalet Alpenrose!

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Rays of sunlight filtered through the latticed windows when Lee woke the next morning and it took her a few moments before she realised where she was, before she remembered that she had breached the mighty bastions of the Schloss Reistoven. Slipping out of bed, she crossed the thick carpet to look out of the pair of tall, arched windows that lit the room. They opened on to the west side of the castle grounds giving an impressive view of a traditional European parterre garden with little paths dissecting symmetrical flower beds to form intricate patterns broken only by an occasional statue or stone seat. Behind this cultured neatness and divided by a high hedge, Lee could see the serried ranks of fruit trees in an orchard, and to the right of that the old walls of a kitchen garden. Over to the left, though, beyond the curtain wall the ground dropped abruptly in a series of steep steps to a wooded and verdant valley half veiled by the morning mists. All traces of yesterday's storm had disappeared and there was the promise of a hot, fine day.

  Lee turned as a maid knocked and entered. She indicated Lee's luggage. 'Shall I unpack for you, Fraulein?' While she was doing this Lee opened the door in the wall and found it led to a small but beautifully fitted out bathroom. The maid waited for her to finish dressing, then led her down a bewildering number of flights of stairs and along several corridors before arriving at a room that the girl told her was the breakfast room.

  Here Frau von Reistoven immediately rose to greet her. 'My dear child, I was so sorry to hear of your accident. Is your wrist very painful?'

  Lee assured her that it was much better, but Frau von Reistoven told her that she had made an appointment to take her to the local hospital for an X-ray.

  'Max would have taken you himself,' she explained, 'but he had to go out unexpectedly on business and won't be back until this evening.'

  Grimly Lee wondered just what important business had called Max away so urgently, but was given no time to dwell on the subject as Frau von Reistoven continued to cha
t to her while offering her round hot rolls —Semmerl, she called them—that were hard on the outside but soft and delicious when you broke them open. These she spread for her with sweet butter and home-made "jam, and there was rich, creamy coffee to drink. Lee suddenly realised how hungry she was and ate appreciatively while Frau von Reistoven watched her in some amusement.

  After breakfast they were taken in a chauffeur-driven car to the hospital, where the X-ray showed that there were no bones broken. A doctor put an elastic bandage on Lee's wrist and told her that she would be able to use it normally in a week or so. On their return journey Lee had hoped to catch a glimpse of the chalet, but the driver took the main road up the steep hill to the huge stone gatehouse of the Schloss. He honked the horn and the massive gates were immediately opened by an elderly man who touched his hat as they went through. There was a steep cobbled way giving Lee only a short time to glimpse the jumble of turrets and gables before they came to a covered bridge over a moat, long ago filled in, and then on through another gateway and a short dark tunnel to finally emerge into a large, sunny courtyard.

  The chauffeur opened the door for her as she stepped from the car and she gazed round her with delight. This part Of the castle was built in the form of an open square enclosing an inner court. If Lee could have imagined it at all she would have expected the courtyard to have been a grey, shadowed place, but instead it had been lovingly transformed into a garden with rich velvet lawns, shrubberies and flower beds that were glowing jewels against the rough grey stone of the walls. Fountains played in the centre and climbing plants, dripping with flowers, encircled the ancient arched windows. It was a magical place and all the more lovely for being unexpected.

  Lee turned reluctantly to follow Frau von Reistoven, who led her across the courtyard to a great doorway which had a heavy stone lintel with a bas-relief in the shape of a shield bearing a coat of arms. The door was of oak and very old, held together by iron bands and studded with bolts, while the handle was a bronze lion's head with a large ring in its mouth which had to be turned before the door would open. They crossed a richly furnished vestibule and entered a panelled corridor decorated with carved chests, tapestries and armour, all of such high quality that Lee was lost in wonder and had come to the door the chauffeur was holding open for them before she realised it. The room was definitely a female room with light, pretty furniture and a spite of comfortable armchairs.