Falcon's Keep

by Henrietta Reid

  ‘It won’t matter whether you are or not,’ Ginny said despondently. ‘Anthea knows.’

  He gave a whistle of dismay. ‘Well, that certainly puts the tin hat on it! She’s already livid about the fact that you and Luke are obviously head over heels in love.’

  ‘I tried not to show it too much,’ Ginny said dismally.

  ‘Well, I can assure you that you’ve failed miserably, my dear girl. Apart from that, Luke’s eyes follow you around like a lovesick schoolboy. She’d have to be blind not to see that quite soon she’ll have to fold her tent and steal away. And I imagine that to a person like Anthea defeat must be very bitter indeed. ’

  ‘I hadn’t thought of it that way,’ Ginny admitted.

  He glanced at her briefly. ‘No, I don’t suppose you have. In fact at times you can be exasperatingly naive.’

  ‘I know,’ she sighed.

  For a moment he let his hand rest on hers. ‘You’ve not to worry. Actually I think you’re going to make a very satisfactory sister-in-law. The idea of having Anthea around the house for keeps makes me go hot and cold all over!’

  Ginny laughed a little nervously. They were approaching the town hall and Rikki drew up. ‘Hop out,’ he said cheerfully. He pointed out the miniature kettle that hung outside the cafe door at the end of the main street. ‘There, you can’t lose your way,’ he said. ‘While you’re gone I’ll pop in and have a drink and absorb some of the local gossip.’

  Ginny hesitated, loath to leave the car. She dreaded the moment when she must face Lester Philips. To convince him that he must leave Netley and not trouble her again seemed beyond her powers, yet he must be made to understand in no undecided terms that this was the last meeting they would ever have.

  She heard Rikki give an exclamation of dismay and, looking up, she saw Muriel Johnson advancing towards them on the other side of the street. As soon as she detected them she crossed the street and came to lean on the open window, her shoulder almost touching his.

  Her eyes gazed into his with a look of insolent triumph. ‘I thought you’d come crawling back sooner or later,’ she said. ‘I bet that big brother of yours will get a shock when he finds you’re no longer tied to his apron strings.’

  ‘And how exactly have I stopped being tied to Luke’s apron strings?’ he inquired.

  She gave a full-throated laugh. ‘I told Mr. High-and-mighty that I’d take you into the business - not that you know anything about it, but, with my money behind you, you’d be able to snap your fingers in his face.’

  ‘Then I’d be tied to your apron strings?’ Rikki said evenly. For the first time it struck Muriel that his reactions were not the rhapsodic acceptance she had evidently expected. ‘What are you getting at?’ she asked sharply.

  ‘As you’ve admitted yourself, I’d be no good at the job. I wouldn’t be able to pull my weight, and, to coin a phrase, the Copper Kettle just isn’t my cup of tea.’

  ‘So that’s it!’ Muriel shrilled. ‘You’re trying to back out! Well, don’t think you’ll get off as easy as that, Mr. Rikki Kendrick. People don’t play fast and loose with Muriel Johnson!’ And, drawing back her hand, she gave Rikki a resounding blow with all the force of her buxom arm. Then, swinging on her heel, she walked swiftly down the street, her face hectic with rage.

  For a moment there was a stunned silence in the car, then Ginny, after one swift glance at Rikki, dissolved into helpless giggles.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ he asked crossly.

  ‘You look so completely stunned,’ Ginny gasped between paroxysms.

  Slowly Rikki’s face relaxed into a broad grin. He gave a tentative chuckle, then soon he too was caught by helpless gales of laughter.

  Ginny sat up and wiped her eyes. ‘Somehow I don’t feel so bad about the interview with Lester now.’

  ‘Glad to have been of some service! I might have arranged to get my face slapped for your convenience.’

  ‘Now you’re cross,’ she said contritely.

  ‘Not really,’ he said, more cheerfully. ‘I consider it a cheap price to escape Muriel Johnson’s tentacles.’

  As she walked along the main street Ginny saw, to her relief, that Lester was waiting outside the cafe, and felt a wave of irritation as she saw the long, unhealthily white face and his air of elderly pomposity.

  ‘I’m glad you turned up, Ginny ’ he said without preamble. ‘I was beginning to get worried.’

  ‘Oh, don’t be so ridiculous, Lester,’ she burst out. ‘Why should you worry about me? We’re nothing to each other. Simply because you proposed to me once it doesn’t mean you can take over my life.’

  ‘You’re exaggerating,’ he said coldly. ‘It’s simply that I want to see you’re done rightly by. After all, for years these Kendricks didn’t even know you were alive. If you ask me the whole thing sounds extremely fishy,’ he added darkly.

  He looked solemn and earnest and for a moment she felt contrite. ‘Lester,’ she said gently, ‘I’m going to marry Luke Kendrick. ’

  ‘You’re going to marry him?’ he repeated in amazement. It was obvious that the news was more than a shock to him. She could see his expression change as the realization came to him that his solicitude for her wellbeing had been fussy and unnecessary. ‘Oh, in that case,’ he said awkwardly, ‘I shan’t trouble you any longer. I’ve only made a fool of myself.’ Then with typical punctiliousness he produced from his pocket a train guide and scanned it with frowning interest. ‘There’s a train in ten minutes, I may as well take it.’

  Now that his imminent departure was in sight Ginny felt guiltily aware that she had not sufficiently appreciated his good intentions.

  ‘I had hoped we might have had tea together at the Copper Kettle,’ he said a little wistfully.

  ‘You must come and visit us at Falcon’s Keep when we’re married, Lester,’ she said impulsively.

  He returned the timetable to his pocket, and shook his head ponderously. ‘No, thanks, Ginny, it simply wouldn’t work out. I’d have nothing to say to someone like Luke Kendrick and he’d only be bored with me. You see,’ he added solemnly, ‘we’d have nothing in common.’

  She stood irresolutely, anxious to get back to the Keep before Luke’s return, but feeling in some obscure way responsible for Lester’s dejection.

  ‘You’ll see me off at the station, won’t you?’ he asked, as though guessing her indecision. ‘I shan’t ever trouble you again, you may be sure of that.’

  ‘Oh yes, of course,’ Ginny said hurriedly, remembering with relief that it would entail only another ten minutes. Rikki, she felt sure, safely ensconsed in a bar, would not find the time long in passing.

  They stood on the platform making desultory conversation until the train arrived. Then just as he was about to step into the carriage he turned round and implanted a clumsy kiss on her cheek.

  As the train drew out Ginny turned away with a feeling of relief. Now that Lester was safely out of her life, Anthea’s malicious barbs would lose a great deal of their ability to wound. It was then she became aware of a tall figure standing with unnatural rigidity at the barrier and, with a feeling of sick dismay, she realized it was Luke. His eyes met hers with a look of contemptuous distaste, then turning, he walked swiftly away.

  Rikki set off for the Keep with his usual reckless disregard for caution. Beside him Ginny sat, her face pale and taut. ‘Why don’t you get it off your chest, Ginny? You haven’t said a word since we left Netley — or was your parting with Lester Philips such sweet sorrow?’

  ‘Oh, Rikki,’ Ginny wailed, glad of a chance to unburden herself, ‘Luke saw Lester kiss me. It was just before he got on the train - one of those smudgy sort of kisses people give when they’re saying goodbye, but from where Luke was standing it probably looked like a passionate embrace.’

  Rikki laughed. ‘Sounds as if there’s more in this Lester character than meets the eye!’

  ‘It’s not funny,’ she said bitterly. ‘Luke seemed furious.’

  ‘So he was in
the station, was he?’ Rikki said thoughtfully.

  ‘ Sounds like the work of the fair Anthea. She must have said something pretty potent to send him off on your trail like that.’

  ‘I suppose he’ll be waiting for me when we get back,’ she said miserably. ‘How on earth am I to face him?’

  ‘Well, I didn’t see his car pass,’ Rikki said cheerfully,

  ‘but then I was in the pub most of the time.’

  He swung round a corner with a speed that made Ginny draw in her breath in alarm. ‘Never fear, you’re in safe hands,’ he said lightly, but there was a recklessness in his manner that made Ginny wonder if his interview with Muriel had made a deeper impression on him than he had pretended, ‘Much better to let steam off in this way than to go all lovelorn,’ he said, as though reading her thoughts. ‘Cheer up, he’s probably got

  over it by now and will receive you with open arms.’

  Ginny shook her head disconsolately. ‘You know he won’t.’

  ‘No, I don’t suppose he will,’ he conceded. ‘He can be frightfully rigid and unyielding.’

  ‘I’ll have to leave,’ Ginny whispered.

  ‘Leave?’ he exclaimed, startled. ‘But why? It was Grandfather who invited you, not Luke.’

  ‘I know,’ she said softly, ‘but I happen to love him. It would be intolerable to stay on knowing he hated me.’

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t say he’d hate you,’ Rikki said reassuringly. ‘He’d simply be all cold and frightfully aloof and detached: that’s his way when he turns his back firmly on a situation. ’

  Ginny shrank into her seat, feeling sick with misery. Rikki’s words had only confirmed her in the realization that she would have to leave the Keep. But where would she go? she wondered, suddenly frantic as she faced the thought that there was no place now in the world for her. It would be impossible to return to Clarkson’s, to take up again where she had left off. The future stretched before her, cold and bleak and loveless.

  She suddenly became aware that Rikki had increased the speed and as she opened her mouth to protest a high stone wall seemed to rush towards them. There was a crunch of metal and Ginny gave a high thin scream as it seemed to loom over her like a great dark cloud.

  She remembered no more until she opened her eyes and found herself gazing at a bowl of tight-headed tulips which stood on a small table by a window. Sunlight spilled between tall curtains and glinted on the bevelled edge of a mirror. She was back in the Peacock Room, she realized with a thrill of pleasure, then felt a sudden anxiety as she remembered that this had been Anthea’s room.

  She shuddered as she remembered the crash and had a vague memory of regaining consciousness for a few moments, and realizing that they were surrounded by a curious jabbering crowd and Luke’s decisive voice rising above the tumult. Then she had been lifted in strong confident arms that she had instantly known were Luke’s.

  But how long had she been unconscious, she wondered, and what was she doing in the Peacock Room? She glanced eagerly towards the door as she heard the handle turn and Mrs. Hingston peeped in, then, seeing Ginny awake, crossed to the bed.

  ‘It’s good to see you looking more like your old self,’ she said. Her face had lost its stiffness and a smile touched her lips as she tucked in the bedclothes. ‘You gave us all a nasty fright, I can tell you. Trust Master Rikki to come out of it with nothing more than a few bruises!’

  ‘How long have I been here?’ Ginny asked anxiously, ‘and what are my things doing on the dressing-table? So much seems to have happened that I have no recollection of!’

  ‘And why should you, Miss Ginny, when you’ve been lying here unconscious for the last two days?’

  ‘Two days?’Ginny echoed.

  ‘You’re lucky it wasn’t longer,’ said Mrs. Hingston. ‘If it weren’t for Master Luke coming up behind you and dragging you out before the car went on fire, you wouldn’t be here to tell the tale.’

  Ginny shuddered. ‘How horrible!’

  Mrs. Hingston nodded. ‘But then Master Rikki was always a reckless driver, and many a time I’ve told him how it would end.’

  But Ginny was only half listening. ‘You haven’t told me yet what I’m doing in the Peacock Room,’ she interjected. ‘Anthea must be furious.’

  Mrs. Hingston tightened her lips. ‘That she was,’ she agreed. ‘In fact there were some high words between her and Master Luke. He carried you up here himself and straight away sent me for your things. ’

  ‘Oh dear, I wish he hadn’t,’ Ginny wailed. ‘It will only make things more difficult between us.’

  ‘No doubt it would,’ Mrs. Hingston said laconically, ‘if it hadn’t been that she packed up and cleared out with that mother of hers. Naturally I’ve no idea what passed between herself and Master Luke,’ she went on, looking virtuous, ‘but it seems from what I gathered that he put an end to her hopes of becoming mistress of Falcon’s Keep.’

  Ginny let her eyes wander to the window, suddenly overcome with misery. Nor would she! she realized, remembering Luke’s angry face. It was true he had probably saved her life, but she knew him well enough to know that fundamentally it wouldn’t change his attitude towards her. Yet one thing puzzled her. ‘I wonder why he took me to the Peacock Room?’ she said thoughtfully, voicing her thoughts.

  ‘Only I can answer that question,’ a voice said from the door.

  Slowly and painfully Ginny turned her head to see Luke regarding her, his eyes holding a gentleness she had never seen in them before. She didn’t notice Mrs. Hingston slip from the room. ‘Tell me,’ she whispered.

  He crossed to her and taking both her hands in his, said, ‘Because the Peacock Room was planned for a bride, just as the marble temple was. Grandfather, in his own way, is rather a cunning old gentleman. This shall always be your room, Ginny, from now on. ’

  ‘Will it?’ she asked with an almost childish eagerness.

  ‘Must I prove it, then?’ he said, smiling, as he took a small case from his pocket and snapped it open.

  ‘Diamonds and sapphires,’ Ginny said dreamily, ‘my favourite stones!’

  He slipped the ring on to her finger. ‘Now are you satisfied?’

  She held her finger up and turned it until the sun caught the facets and splintered in a shower of brilliant colours. ‘How did you know they’re my favourite stones?’

  ‘Perhaps I know more about you than you guess - you see, I’ve loved you for such a long time, Ginny.’

  ‘Since when?’ she asked eagerly.

  ‘Perhaps since I first saw you with that ridiculous sponge-bag, looking lost and forlorn.’

  She sighed. ‘If only I’d known, I could have begun to be happy so much sooner. ’

  He bent down and kissed her gravely on the tip of her nose. ‘But we have our whole lives to be happy in - haven’t we?’

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