Haunted Summer

by Joanna Mansell

  Extraordinarily, though, she still wasn't frightened of him. Despite the smashed glass and the sudden burst of violence, she hadn't been truly scared. She had nearly jumped out of her skin, of course, and she was still shaking a little with reaction after that great outburst of anger, but that was just a natural reaction to the intensity of emotion that had been generated. Even when he had raised his hand to her, she had never, for one moment, believed that he would actually hit her.

  'You're crazy,' she told herself ruefully. 'You've got to be crazy. Anyone in their right mind would head straight for the front door and then keep running until they were well away from here!'

  There wasn't much point in trying to clear up the glass. Most of it had fallen outside, anyway, bursting outwards as the cassette player had sailed through the window.

  There wasn't much point in trying to retrieve the cassette player, either. That was one machine that was never going to play tapes again!

  Slowly, her legs still feeling wobbly, Rose left the room. The house seemed silent and empty, and oddly peaceful. It was almost as if that brief, violent scene had never happened.

  She went out to sit in the courtyard, suddenly feeling in need of some fresh air. The sun was beginning to set now, but it was still hot and humid outside. A faint headache was beginning to gather behind her temples, and when she rubbed her forehead with her fingertips, she could feel the tension there.

  'Well, that's hardly surprising!' she murmured to herself wryly. 'It's been quite a day.'

  She let her hands fall back into her lap, and breathed in the scented air. Roses, a late-blooming honeysuckle, old-fashioned pinks and a cluster of stocks were all releasing their fragrance as dusk began to gather. She felt her taut muscles begin to relax a little. Then they instinctively stiffened again as Nathan slid on to the seat beside her.

  'I think that I owe you an apology,' he said in a dry voice.

  'Not really,' replied Rose, in an even tone. 'As you've told me more than once, this is your house. If you want to throw a cassette player through the window, then you're perfectly entitled to do just that.'

  She knew that he was looking at her. She wouldn't meet his gaze, but instead kept staring steadily ahead.

  'You're an extraordinary girl,' Nathan said at last. 'Anyone else would have packed their bags and run by now.'

  'I did consider it. But I didn't see why I should leave just because you're having a few problems with your temper.'

  'Believe it or not, I've generally been fairly relaxed and laid back since I came to Lyncombe Manor. I've only had a handful of bad patches—but, unfortunately, you seem to have been around for every one of them. Or perhaps you're somehow causing them,' he added thoughtfully.

  'That's a ridiculous thing to say!' Rose retorted indignantly.-'Is it?' He shrugged. 'I don't know. Things seem to have changed rather dramatically since you arrived. Maybe it's just a coincidence—but, somehow, I don't think so.'

  This time, she did look at him. 'What do you want me to do?' she asked in a small voice. 'Go away?'

  'I didn't say that,' he replied equably. 'I didn't even say that I disliked the changes that seem to be happening. I might be losing my temper rather a lot lately, but at least it makes me feel alive.'

  Rose found it hard to believe that she was having this fairly amicable conversation with him, especially so soon after that fraught scene such a short time ago. 'Why couldn't you be this reasonable when you heard me playing that tape?' she said, with a small frown. 'All you had to do was ask me to turn it off. There was no need to throw the whole thing through the window!'

  'When I heard Jancis's voice, something inside me just snapped,' he said slowly. 'This house has never been touched by her. I wanted to keep it that way.'

  'You can't go on avoiding her for the rest of your life.'

  'I don't intend to. I want this house to stay free of her, though. I need a place that hasn't been tarnished by her touch.'

  But Rose wasn't convinced. If he was really over his obsessive relationship with Jancis, why had he had that over-the-top reaction at just the sound of her voice?

  Suddenly, she was very sick of the subject of Jancis Kendall. She would be more than pleased if she never heard that name again. 'I've got a headache,'

  she said, rubbing her forehead tiredly. 'I'm going to take acouple of aspirin, and go to bed.' She thought that he might try to keep her with him for a little longer, but he didn't even look at her as she stood up. 'Goodnight,' she muttered.

  'Goodnight—Rose,' he replied absently, as if, for a moment, he hadn't been thinking of her at all.

  Rose escaped to her room, gulped down the aspirin and then flopped on to the bed. She meant to close her aching eyes for just a couple of minutes before hauling herself off to the bathroom for a long, relaxing soak. Instead, she fell into a deep sleep and didn't wake up again until morning. She felt hot and sticky after sleeping in her clothes all night. The temperature was already soaring, although it was still fairly early in the morning, and the sun was shining with its usual dazzling brightness. Rose wriggled out of her clothes and, after a very cool bath, felt slightly more refreshed. She put on a pair of shorts and the thinnest T-shirt she could find. Then she went down to have a quick breakfast before starting work on the garden again.

  Because of the heat, she spent the morning clearing one of the shady areas around the pond. Even outside, it felt airless and oppressively humid. Rose liked the sun, but she was beginning to feel that you could have too much of a good thing. She was almost longing for the sight of a cloud in that relentlessly blue sky.

  She decided Nathan must be either out, or in another part of the house, because there was no sign of him when she went in for lunch. That suited her very well. After last night's dramatic little scene, she was quite happy to spend some time on her own. Perhaps she had led a rather sheltered life, but she wasn't used to people throwing things straight through the nearest window!

  After lunch, it was just too hot to work, even in the shade. Rose retreated to one of the small sitting-rooms, where she settled at the table by the window and began to write a letter to her parents.

  She had already written to them since her arrival at Lyncombe Manor, letting them know where she was and what she was doing. Now she found herself telling them a great deal about Nathan. The words poured down on to the paper, and she finally ended with a long paragraph in which she listed all the reasons why she should stay on at Lyncombe Manor for a while longer, yet without once mentioning the real reason why she didn't want to go. It came down to one very simple sentence. She didn't want to leave Nathan Hay ward.

  When Rose finally read it through, she gave a small sigh and then tore the whole thing up. She couldn't possibly send them a letter like that. It would worry them half to death. It worried her when she realised just how much she had admitted in that sudden outpouring.

  She set about writing a second letter which was light and chatty and amusing. Nathan was only mentioned very briefly, and anyone reading it might think that she saw virtually nothing of him.

  Rose nearly tore that letter up, too. In the end, though, she shoved it into an envelope and addressed it. Her parents would probably rather read all that light froth than hear nothing from her at all.

  A glance out of the window warned her that the heat-wave might be at last coming to an end. Great heavy clouds were piling up on the horizon, and the air had that peculiar stillness that often preceded a spectacular storm. It was still too hot to work. Her hair was clinging damply to her forehead, and she thought she might take another nearly cold bath. It was about the only thing that would cool her down.

  At that moment the door opened and Nathan came into the room. 'I've been looking for you,' he said without preamble. 'Can you sing?'

  'Sing?' repeated Rose, her eyebrows shooting up in surprise. 'Well—not really.'

  'Of course you can. Everyone can sing. Come with me,' he ordered. He strode out of the room without waiting to see if she was followi
ng him. Rose shot an exasperated look at his rapidly departing back. Then, with a resigned sigh, she trotted along behind him.

  Nathan led her to the room which contained the piano. Seating himself behind it, he ran his fingers lightly over the keys. Then he looked up at her.

  'Can you read music?'

  'No,' she said promptly.

  He gave a small, irritable growl. Then he thrust a sheet of paper at her. 'Then just read the words on this. I'll play the first few lines of the song over a couple of times, until you get the hang of how it goes.'

  As he played, Rose tried to fit the words scrawled on the sheet of paper to the music. In fact, it was much easier than she had thought it would be. And the song, although simple, had the unmistakable Nathan Hayward touch, with small subtleties built into the tune, lifting it right out of the ordinary.

  'Do you think you've got it now?' asked Nathan, after playing it through for the third time.

  'I think so,' she said, although not very confidently. Then she fidgeted rather restlessly. 'Look, why don't you sing it through yourself? I don't think I'm going to be much good at this.'

  'It's written for a female voice,' he replied impatiently. 'And you're the only female around.' He picked out the opening notes. 'Right, let's try it.'

  Rose managed the first line, and knew perfectly well that it sounded awful.

  'You're singing too high,' Nathan told her, with a growing frown. 'Pitch your voice lower.'

  'It doesn't go lower,' she retorted.

  He gave a distinct sigh of exasperation. 'Then I'll change the key.'

  They tried it again, and Rose got right through the first part of the song this time. It didn't sound any better, though.

  'I told you that I couldn't sing,' she said defensively.

  'You're just not trying. And I think you could sing lower, if you made an effort. Let's try it again in the original key.'

  But Rose muffed most of the bottom notes and, halfway through, Nathan slammed his fingers down on the keys in a discordant jangle of sound. 'Not like that! Like this.''

  He sang it through himself, and, despite the sticky heat that filled the room, Rose's skin grew cold, because she finally realised who he was trying to make her sound like.

  'Why are you doing this?' she accused a little wildly, as he finished singing the first section. She threw the sheet of paper with the words on it on to the floor. 'After all, you're the one who said you didn't want any trace of her in this house!'Nathan stared at her blankly. 'What on earth are you talking about?'

  Rose shook her head in disbelief. 'You don't even know you're doing it, do you?'

  'Doing what?' he demanded.

  'Trying to turn me into another Jancis Kendall! Well, it won't work, you can't do it. I don't look like her, I don't sing like her, and I sure as hell don't want to be her! Keep writing songs for her, if that's what turns you on, but don't ever again ask me to sing them. She's your obsession, not mine!'

  Nathan's expression changed from disbelief to sheer blazing anger. Before he had a chance to say anything, though, Rose tore out of the room, slamming the door hard behind her. Then, in case he took it into his head to come after her, she just kept going, racing out of the house and into the garden.

  The sun had completely disappeared now, blotted out by towering clouds that were ominously black. Rose ignored the weather. She just wanted to run and run, leaving behind the increasingly tormenting image of a woman she had never met, but who seemed to be intruding more and more on her life. The first giant spots of rain hit her as she sprinted round the pond, towards the lower end of the garden. The spreading branches of a massive copper beech offered protection, but she ignored them. The rain stopped for a few seconds, as if it couldn't quite decide whether to fall or not. Then it began to come down much harder. At the same time, a vivid streak of lightning illuminated the darkening sky.

  The following clap of thunder was a long, low rumble that warned of more violent explosions to come. But Rose wasn't scared of storms. She was running away from something quite different.

  More black clouds swept in, and the rain rapidly turned into an absolute torrent. In just seconds, Rose was drenched to the skin. She never considered, for even an instant, going back to the house, though. Instead, she headed rather blindly in the direction of the path that led along the valley to the cove.

  Before she had taken more than a few steps, a hand descended heavily on her shoulder, bringing her to an abrupt halt. Then it jerked on her arm, swinging her round.

  Rose found herself facing Nathan, who was as breathless and dripping wet as she was. 'Where the hell do you think you're going?' he demanded tersely.

  'That's none of your damned business!' she shouted back at him. 'I can go where I please. And right now, I don't want to be anywhere near that house—or near you!'

  His brows drew together in a black frown. 'Because of that song?'

  'Because of that song. And because of the way you wanted me to sing it!'

  Nathan gave her an impatient shake. 'That song wasn't written for Jancis. And I wasn't trying to make you sing like her.'

  Rose glared at him furiously, glad of the torrential rain because it disguised the wet brightness of her eyes. 'Well, you could certainly have fooled me!'

  she threw back at him. 'I could hear her voice, all the time I was trying to sing it. It was exactly the type of song that you used to write for her.'

  Nathan pushed his saturated hair out of his eyes, in an irritable gesture. 'I can't suddenly start writing in a different style, just because Jancis isn't around any more. When I sit down at the piano, I hear the song inside my head, and I have to set it down exactly the way I hear it. The music forms in my mind in a certain way and that's what makes it mine' When Rose didn't say anything, he gave her another shake, a little more roughly this time. 'I can't change the way I write,' he repeated. 'Don't you understand that? But 1 don't think of Jancis when I write—not any more. And these new songs certainly weren't written for her.'

  Rose was only half listening. Whenever she heard Jancis's name, shutters seemed to close down inside her head, as if in an effort to shut out what was being said.

  'I don't really care who you wrote the songs for,' she muttered at last. 'And let go of me! I want to get away from here.'

  She tried to wrench her arm free, but Nathan's grip merely tightened. 'You can't stay out here,' he growled at her. 'You're soaked.'

  'It doesn't matter. Just leave me alone. I'm all right.'' His slate-grey eyes fixed on her. 'If you were all right, you wouldn't be out here in the pouring rain. I'm taking you back to the house.'

  'I don't want to go!' she insisted vehemently, but he simply ignored her protests. Keeping a vice-like grip on her arm, he began to drag her back towards Lyncombe Manor.

  The storm was sweeping nearer now, with spectacular bolts of lightning zipping across the sky, followed by ear-splitting crashes of thunder. Although it was still daylight, it seemed more like dusk, as the black clouds rolled overhead. Now and then, Rose caught a vivid glimpse of Nathan's face as it was illuminated by the brilliant lightning, and it sent nervous shivers right up her spine. He looked unexpectedly grim, and his mouth was very taut. For once, he seemed almost like a stranger.

  He is a stranger, Rose told herself a little frantically. She knew she was lying, though. There had been something very familiar about him, from the very first. Something that had made her stay when she knew she ought to have run away; something that kept her from ever being truly scared of him, even now, when he was in a mood that she had never seen before. The house loomed up in front of them, little more than a black shape seen through the heavy curtain of rain. Nathan dragged her in through the kitchen, and Rose found that it was dark inside. The storm was almost overhead now, blotting out all the light, and shaking the very walls with its force.

  Nathan didn't stay in the kitchen. Instead, he kept on moving, pulling her through the passageway that led right through the house to the entrance hall,
and then hauling her up the stairs.

  'Where are we going?' gasped Rose, managing to drag in just enough breath to speak coherently.

  'Somewhere I can prove to you, once and for all, that I'm not confusing you with Jancis Kendall,' he replied grimly.

  They were at the top of the stairs now. A few yards further on, he opened a door and pushed her into the room beyond. Then he closed the door again very firmly behind them.

  Rose glanced round and knew at once where she was. The master bedroom—and she had been brought here by the master of this house.

  'No,' she said at once.

  'Yes,' Nathan contradicted her in a voice that was very soft and yet absolutely clear.

  'I don't want to,' she insisted. Yet there was an unnerving lack of conviction in her tone.

  Nathan simply ignored her. Instead, he began to pull off her soaked T-shirt. She knew that she ought to be resisting him, but found herself holding her arms up so that he could get it off more easily. Nathan grunted in approval; then he swiftly set about removing the rest of her clothes. The room was in semi-darkness because of the storm, only lit intermittently by the dazzling flashes of lightning. Rose's head throbbed slightly as the thunder cracked and rumbled all around them, and she felt as if none of this were at all real. In fact, she was quite certain it couldn't actually be happening.

  Then Nathan's hands found her small breasts, and that certainly felt real enough. His skin was as wet as hers, but it wasn't cold. She could feel the warmth pulsing through his palms as they cupped her, and then rubbed lightly against her.

  He was impatient to move on, though; she could feel the restlessness rising in him, the increased heat of his body. He unfastened her cotton shorts, and then knelt before her as he pushed them downwards. His mouth drifted over the flat plane of her stomach, setting her muscles quivering in its wake, and then slid over the silky skin of her thighs as he bent still lower. Rose began to tremble. No one had ever touched her like this before. She had endured some clumsy fumbling, which she had never really enjoyed, and hadn't realised that a man's mouth and fingers could be this light and gentle.