Winter at Cray

by Lucy Gillen

  ‘We—we thought it might be better if I—if someone stayed with you,’ she ventured, seeing the old lady’s eyes narrow sharply at the information.

  ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘why?’

  Louise shook her head. ‘Certain members of your family thought it better if someone stayed during the interview, Mrs. Kincaid.’ The answer came before she could find words to explain and the brown eyes mocked her reticence. ‘I thought Louise would be less of a disruption to the proceedings than anyone else.’

  His use of her Christian name was as typical of him as the admission to his reason for choosing her, Louise thought wildly, hating the flush that coloured her face and betrayed her feelings so plainly. ‘We thought—’ she began, but the old lady’s dry chuckle interrupted her.

  ‘They don’t trust me,’ old Emma declared with evident delight at the idea. ‘They don’t trust me with a good-looking young man, even at my age!’

  ‘And quite right too,’ he told her solemnly, though obviously sharing her enjoyment of the situation.

  ‘Well, all right, if you must stay, sit down,’ Emma told her. ‘If I have to have a chaperone, sit down and don’t interrupt.’

  ‘Great-gran—’ She put a hand on the old lady’s arm, hating Stephen at this moment for putting her in this position. It was obvious that her great-grandmother needed no protection from her own indiscretion, she was quite capable of handling Jonathan Darrell or anyone else. The old eyes were watching her enquiringly as she stumbled over the words she was trying to say, wishing she had simply kept quiet. ‘Great-gran, it wasn’t—I mean I—’

  A thin impatient hand waved her to silence. ‘I know’ it wasn’t your idea, you silly girl, but I’m glad this young man had enough sense to choose you for the job of guide dog, instead of one of the others.’

  ‘I’ll try not to be in the way,’ Louise promised, and sat down at the other side of the room as far away from him as she could get.

  The old lady eyed her interviewer for a moment in silence. Weighing him up, Louise thought wryly, and knew he had guessed as much too, from his smile. Her smile when she finished her study of him was almost gamin-like and she settled in her chair, ready for anything.

  ‘Ask away, Jon.’ A dry chuckle followed the request and she looked at him steadily with those bright, sharp eyes. ‘I’ve decided to call you Jon,’ she informed him, ‘because you’re too young for an old woman like me to call Mister.’

  ‘By all means call me Jon, Mrs. Kincaid,’ he replied. ‘I’m flattered.’

  ‘You needn’t be,’ Emma Kincaid told him bluntly. ‘I usually speak my mind.’ She studied him again for a moment thoughtfully. ‘You really are like my Robert was,’ she said at last, ‘and I’ve no doubt you’re just as big a rogue when it suits you.’

  He laughed, not at all averse to the accusation, it seemed. ‘No doubt,’ he agreed, ‘but you’re the subject of this interview, Mrs. Kincaid, not me.’

  ‘Don’t try and rush me,’ old Emma warned, reluctant to leave the subject of his similarity to her husband. ‘I only wish someone in the family looked a bit like Robert, but they don’t. Only young Robert did, and he died too.’ The statement was blunt and made her sound hard and unfeeling, but Louise knew this was not the case. It was simply that Emma Kincaid had been raised in a hard world and learned to call a spade a spade.

  She looked at him steadily for a moment, something deep and almost unbearably hurtful stirring inside her. ‘Robert’s eyes were brown like yours,’ she told him softly, ‘and he had a smile like yours too; it’s very difficult to resist and you know it.’

  ‘Is it?’ He laughed, a warm, deep sound that Louise found unexpectedly stirring, and the old lady smiled delightedly.

  ‘Why, you even laugh the way he did,’ she told him. ‘My family are such a lot of sobersides, sometimes I despair of them.’

  ‘I’ve noticed they’re not a very hilarious family,’ he agreed, and glanced at Louise. To see if she resented the criticism, she supposed, and looked determinedly blank-faced.

  ‘Hmm.’ She cocked her head to one side, a gleam of mischief in her eyes. ‘You’re sharing a room with my great-grandson, aren’t you?’ she asked, and he nodded. ‘Do you get on together?’

  ‘So far we do,’ he allowed cautiously, and smiled. The old lady chuckled to herself, her bright eyes wicked as she looked at him. ‘It’s only been one night so far,’ she reminded him, and looked out at the swirling snow. ‘Stephen can be an infuriating blockhead when it suits him.’

  ‘Great-gran!’ Louise was on her feet, feeling bound to protest at the slight to Stephen although she had vowed to take no part in the conversation.

  The look the old lady gave her was both defiant and triumphant, as if the protest was only what she had expected. ‘Well, it’s true,’ she insisted, ‘and Jon should be warned.’

  ‘Mr. Darrell is quite capable of holding his own, I should say,’ Louise retorted, stung into her own defence as well as Stephen’s. Jonathan Darrell’s obvious amusement annoyed her and she resented her great-grandmother’s attitude. The old lady had little enough time for most of her family, she knew, but Stephen had always been held in special esteem and it was unfair to discuss him so disparagingly with a stranger.

  The stranger arched one of his expressive brows and sighed in mock regret. ‘Your great-granddaughter,’ he informed the old lady solemnly, ‘doesn’t approve of me, Mrs. Kincaid.’

  ‘Why ever not?’ The bright eyes surveyed Louise almost with suspicion. ‘What’s the matter with you, girl?’

  ‘There’s nothing the matter with me,’ Louise denied. ‘And I wish you’d stop discussing me; the interview is supposed to concern you, Great-gran, not me.’ She gave the cause of the dissension a long look that should have put him firmly in his place but failed dismally. ‘I’d be obliged, Mr. Darrell, if you’d leave me out of your probing and prying.’

  ‘Probing and prying?’ He looked such a picture of injured innocence that the old lady chuckled softly to herself. ‘I merely said that you didn’t approve of me,’ he went on, ‘and you can’t deny that, can you?’ Louise made no answer, not trusting herself to say too much, and he shrugged. ‘There you are,’ he said to old Emma, ‘she doesn’t deny it.’

  ‘Don’t bait the poor girl,’ Emma Kincaid scolded him mildly. ‘Tell me what you think of my island—do you like it?’

  Now, thought Louise, he would either have to lie or face the old lady’s displeasure for being too honest.

  ‘It’s probably very nice if you like that sort of thing,’ he admitted blithely, ‘but I’m no countryman and I don’t relish being stranded in a snowbound wilderness.’

  ‘My island isn’t a wilderness,’ Emma reproved him shortly, ‘it’s very beautiful, and as soon as this snow clears a bit you must get Louise to show it to you. She loves it.’

  ‘So she told me.’ He sent his slow smile in Louise’s direction, but she feigned not to notice it. ‘I was suitably put in my place right from the start on that score, for daring to criticise it,’ he added. It was obvious he hoped for a reaction from her, but Louise merely bit her lip angrily and sent him a brief, unfriendly look from under her lashes.

  ‘Serves you right!’ old Emma told him without malice. ‘There’s enough of me in Louise to let you know when you say the wrong thing. She’s exactly as I was at that age.’

  ‘Did you have a temper too?’ he asked, and Louise could stand no more of it. She got up from her chair again, her eyes angry and embarrassed when they met his.

  ‘Leave me out of your—your interview or whatever it is,’ she told him crossly. ‘I’ve told you, Mr. Darrell, I wish you’d either discuss my great-grandmother’s story, which is the reason you’re supposed to be here, or go away.’

  ‘I’m interested in the whole family,’ he informed her, undismayed by her display of temper. ‘And if you’re as much like Mrs. Kincaid was at your age, as she claims, then I’d like a photograph of the two of you together. A sort of before and after
, if you see what I mean.’

  ‘I—I don’t want to be photographed,’ Louise insisted, her heart quickening at the thought of it. ‘I don’t have to be photographed if I don’t want to be.’

  ‘Of course you don’t have to be,’ he agreed, looking at her curiously. ‘Is there any special reason, or are you just naturally modest?’ He would have to be sarcastic, Louise thought, it would never occur to him that she might have a perfectly good reason for not wanting her picture to appear in the magazine.

  ‘I—I just prefer not to be photographed,’ she repeated, and saw the stubborn way his jaw set as he eyed her steadily.

  ‘Why not?’ he asked.

  ‘I have my reasons and I don’t have to give them to you,’ Louise told him, wishing old Emma would intervene instead of just sitting there taking it all in and seemingly enjoying the exchange.

  He shook his head after a moment and a smile just touched his lips, giving his face an oddly lop-sided look that, inexplicably, made her want to laugh. ‘I just wish I knew,’ he said, ‘why a beautiful girl like you refuses to have her picture taken for a magazine. It’s not natural.’

  His voice, she noticed with a momentary panic, had dropped to that deep, seductive tone that he had used on Diamond, but she refused to recognise its attraction, tilting her head arrogantly, her nose in the air as she answered. ‘It’s perfectly natural,’ she retorted loftily. ‘Every girl isn’t just panting to appear in your magazine, you know, some have enough reticence to prefer privacy. You might,’ she added with a studied malice, ‘try asking Diamond. I’m sure she’d be only too pleased to oblige you.’

  It was a jibe she felt he deserved, but instead of the anger she expected as a reaction he laughed. He sat there and laughed at her, and so infectiously that old Emma joined in with her dry cackle of amusement. ‘Miaouw!’ The devil of mockery in the brown eyes taunted her and Louise held her hands, tight-clenched, at her sides, barely restraining herself from hitting him as hard as she could.

  ‘I’ll leave you to interview Great-gran,’ she informed him stiffly, ‘since that is what you’re supposed to be here for, remember?’

  He eyed her speculatively for a moment, as she hesitated before leaving them alone. ‘I’m here to get a story,’ he told her, ‘and I’m not sure you couldn’t provide as interesting a one as Mrs. Kincaid.’

  For a breathless second Louise looked at him, her eyes wide and questioning, looking and feeling as vulnerable as a child, then she shook her head dazedly and hurried from the room, the colour warm in her cheeks.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  IT was three days since the snow had started falling, and it had fallen intermittently ever since. Tempers were getting a little frayed and there had been one or two stiffly polite exchanges that fortunately had led to nothing serious. Diamond, with her silly chatter, did nothing to help matters and even her adoring Colin had frowned at her several times.

  Stephen’s moodiness, always a drawback, had not improved with the enforced confinement and he had let Louise know in no uncertain terms that he resented having to share his room with Jonathan Darrell. She had explained that, in the circumstances, there was little she could do about it, and consequently there was less than the usual cordiality between the two of them.

  In all fairness, the two strangers had kept themselves pretty well to themselves, although most of the family had no objection to their being there. Diamond, of course, went out of her way to draw Jonathan Darrell’s attention, and it was this as much as anything that had earned Colin’s disapproval, mild though it was.

  Louise was surprised and not a little dismayed to find that Robert spent as much time as possible with Jonathan Darrell, and she had to admit that on that particular point she and her son did not see eye to eye. That he would miss Jonathan when he went was no longer in doubt, however, for he seldom let him out of his sight if he could help it. The pick-a-back upstairs at night was now an established routine which both of them seemed to enjoy and which Louise took part in only as a spectator.

  The snow was deep and dazzlingly white as far as the eye could see from the windows of Cray, and it had drifted into every nook and cranny of the old house like a snug blanket tucked in around it.

  ‘It gives me the creeps,’ Diamond declared with a shudder. ‘It makes me feel as if we’re cut off from civilisation completely.’

  ‘I suppose we are to all intents,’ Colin told her, unusually lacking in sympathy, and Diamond pouted her dislike.

  ‘It may not last much longer, Diamond,’ Louise told her, ‘and you’ve no need to worry that we shall go hungry, for we’ve plenty of supplies in, we have to allow for this kind of thing here, you know.’

  ‘I hate it,’ Diamond wailed, inconsolable. ‘I like to be in a town and close to help if I need it.’

  ‘Help?’ Colin frowned curiously. ‘What sort of help?’

  ‘Well—a doctor or anything like that,’ Diamond explained. ‘You know what I mean. Suppose we needed one here, we’d be helpless.’

  ‘Not quite helpless,’ Colin denied. ‘Louise is pretty adept at basic nursing after being here with Great-gran and Aunt Charlotte for so long, and I don’t quite see why you’re worrying anyway, darling, there’s not likely to be a life and death struggle here, because everyone’s fighting fit, including Great-gran.’

  It must have been Diamond’s pessimism, Louise thought, that inspired the shiver of anticipation that trickled along her spine, but the feeling persisted and she found herself becoming more and more uneasy as the day wore on, until by evening she was alert to every sound of movement.

  She told herself she was being fanciful and that it was merely being cooped up in the house with so many people that had made her edgy, but she felt so sure, deep inside her, that it was more than that. It was as if she knew something was going to happen—something unpleasant and frightening.

  The feeling was still with her next day and as she sat in the big sitting-room the following evening waiting for dinner-time, even the warm, familiar atmosphere of the room could not banish the chill entirely.

  It was while she sat there, silently thoughtful, that Jonathan Darrell, early for dinner as she was herself, came and found her. His eyes were curious as he looked at her. ‘Is something bothering you?’ he asked, and she started almost guiltily, staring at him for a moment, her eyes wide.

  ‘No—no, of course not,’ she denied. ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘I don’t quite know,’ he admitted frankly, sitting beside her on the settee. “I’ve thought you looked a bit—preoccupied all day, not your usual self.’ He held her gaze for a moment and grinned. ‘And you haven’t once put me in my place today, that’s definitely not usual.’

  Louise set her mouth firmly, refusing to be drawn on that point. ‘You’re imagining things, Mr. Darrell. I’m perfectly all right, thank you.’

  He shrugged, making a face. ‘All right, Miss Kincaid, tell me to mind my own business. I’m sorry I asked, but you looked worried.’

  ‘Oh, please don’t apologise,’ she told him hastily. ‘And I didn’t tell you to mind your own business, as usual you jumped to the wrong conclusion.’

  ‘Inevitably,’ he agreed with evident regret. ‘Tell me, Miss Kincaid, what do I have to do to get into your good books?’

  The false humility of it aroused her temper again and she turned angry eyes to glare at him. How could she confide in him, of all people, that she had some vague, baseless fear that something was going to happen, but she had no idea what. He would inevitably laugh her to scorn.

  ‘You’re surely not so concerned to get into my good books, are you?’ she asked, and he nodded slowly.

  ‘Oh, but I am,’ he assured her solemnly. ‘It seems to me you’re the boss lady around here and you may have me cast out into the cold, cold snow if I can’t win you over.’

  ‘Oh, don’t be so idiotic!’ she retorted, wishing he would not sit so intimately close. It had been a mistake to sit on the settee, she thought; in one of the a
rmchairs he could not have introduced such an air of intimacy.

  He sighed and the warmth of it stirred the tendrils of hair beside her ear. ‘Oh dear, I’ve done it again!’ Had it not been for the gleam of laughter in his eyes she would have thought his regret genuine; as it was# she flushed angrily and moved as far away as she could get from him, against the curved arm of the settee. ‘I wish I was mistress of Gray,’ she informed him shortly, ‘then I would put you out into the snow. You’re—you’re hateful!’

  ‘Am I?’ His surprise at least looked genuine. ‘I know you’ve been as prickly as a hedgehog ever since I arrived here, but I attributed that to an inborn urge to be anti-social.’

  ‘I am not anti-social!’ She could feel her hands trembling and the rapid, uneasy beat of her heart as he looked at her steadily. ‘You have no right to talk to me like that, either, no right at all.’

  ‘What else can you expect from anyone as hateful as I am?’ he asked mildly. ‘You can’t expect good manners from a journalist, you’ve implied as much more than once.’

  ‘Oh, you—leave me alone!’ She had the hopeless feeling that no matter how long they wrangled in this way, she would never be able to get the better of him, and it was not a comforting thought at all.

  ‘Literally or figuratively?’ he enquired, and laughed at his own question, leaning back against the cushions, his eyes studying her angry face. ‘You’re beautiful when you’re angry, do you know that?’ he asked, and added, ‘Perhaps you do, and that’s why you get into a paddy so often.’

  ‘I seldom get angry,’ she denied, ‘it’s only—’

  ‘Me?’ He arched a brow, his eyes wickedly insolent. ‘Oh my, I’ve a feeling that Freud would have made something out of that admission. I shall have to watch my step, shan’t I?’