“Need anything?”
You. “No,” she said. “Thanks. I’m fine.”
“All right, then. Lock your doors.”
Gwynn bristled slightly at the order. She was an independent, intelligent person. Surely she could be trusted to lock her own doors. Surely she could be trusted to take care of herself. Unless.
“Already did,” she replied tartly.
There was a sound that might have been impatience, or might have been a laugh. “Phone if you need me.”
Then the call was cut, and she was left holding the phone, staring at the glowing icons on the screen. She hadn’t told him about the kitchen door, and probably wouldn’t, either. Why admit to the stupid shock? To be frightened in a strange cottage by a little wind: she felt foolish enough thinking about her spleeny reaction, without sharing it with anyone. He’d only think she was angling for him to come spend the night with her. Which, upon reflection, would not have been a bad thing.
So there it was, she told herself, waving a hand dismissively in the dark. She made a circuit then of the house, checking the kitchen door again by the light of the flashlight and the sound of the storm, checking the front door as well. She imagined everyone else doing the same to the sound of the wind and the rain, women like Mary Tennant passing silently through their houses like ghosts, making sure their families were secure against the wild world and its storms.
It was—almost—a comforting image. Gwynn took the flashlight upstairs with her again, balancing it on end on the nightstand as she drew on her pajamas and crawled under the duvet. Despite all her protestations on the phone, she wished there was someone here for her to keep secure. More than that, she wished there was someone who, after checking the locks, would curl up in the wide bed with her, and protect her as she slept.
Except she didn’t need protection. She didn’t.
26
IN THE GREY light of morning, the path was nearly overgrown. Slowly Gwynn closed the door on the rear garden, defeated.
Wordlessly, Mary handed her a cup of strong black coffee, and then returned to cleaning the oven.
“DRESS WARMLY,” COLIN had said over the phone.
Now Gwynn wished she had thought to pack thermal underwear for the trip over, but she had never thought to be standing in a high field in the West Country in the dark, waiting for an old farmer to touch a match to a burn pile. The pile itself had grown, she thought, five-fold since she and Colin had last added to it; and the November wind which cut past them on its way to bedeviling the valley below was giving Giles Trevelyan a hard time, snuffing out his brand before he had a chance to touch it to the pile.
Colin pressed a heavy bottle into her gloved hands, his eyes glittering in the dark. “This’ll warm you up—and the fire, too, once old Giles gets it going.”
Gwynn took a cautious sip.
“Cider. A bit more potent than you’d think. Best be careful.” Colin turned to look back down into the farmyard, now filled with cars and trucks parked haphazardly, abandoned when their occupants had wandered up into the pasture. “Giles makes his own. He’s got a press down there in one of the outbuildings.”
She nodded. The taste was sourer than she had expected, but then, she hadn’t ever drunk a cider which had fermented. She took another sip from the bottle, holding the slow warmth on her tongue for a moment before swallowing.
There was a shout, and she turned back to where Giles was straightening up, backing away from the licking flame. “I think we got her that time,” he announced cheerily, waving his brand in the air before tossing it in a flaming arc into the pile.
“Throw some petrol on her, that’ll do,” someone shouted.
Giles only laughed and waved off the suggestion. He was plucking his pipe from his pocket, clenching it between his teeth, patting down his pockets. “Any of you yobs have another match?” he called.
Gwynn had left her purse at the cottage.
The field was crowded. Gwynn had not seen this many people in the village itself, even on market day. In the light of the ever-growing fire, she saw them now, moving in and out of groups, forming and breaking apart and reforming in twos and threes and fives. She felt awkward, an outsider. She took another swig from her bottle.
“Colin. And how’s your lady friend?” Giles asked genially around the pipe between his lips. Then he laughed. “Sorry, sorry, not your lady friend. How are you, then, Gwynneth?” He didn’t wait for her reply. “I see our Colin’s got you a drink.” He peered at the bottle. “I think that might be from season before last. Strong stuff. Mellowed, but with a bit of a kick, he has. Best take care with him.”
“I’ve already warned her,” Colin said.
Giles was patting his pockets again. “Got a match, would you have?”
“You just lit the bonfire, for God’s sake.”
Giles shrugged. “Used ’em all up.”
GWYNN DID NOT know how much later the music started. Colin had found her a stray kitchen chair with the caning blown out, and he himself was seated on an upturned pail, guitar in hand. Her head was buzzing as he started to play; too much cider too fast, she realized. Deceptive. There was another bottle in her gloved hand, though she had no idea how it had got there, or from whom it had come. The music was soft, welcome, a gentle underlayment to the roaring of the bonfire a few yards away.
“Here comes the Guy,” someone called.
Gwynn glanced up in time to see a handful of people—slightly drunken young men—rush up the hill from the farmyard, carrying what looked like a scarecrow seated on a chair. There was much shouting from the waiting crowd, and the circle around the fire opened enough to let the little procession rush through.
“Careful, then,” a voice called, and the men came to a ragged halt and hurled the seated Guy up onto the blazing mound.
The circle closed again, the crowds cheering all the more loudly and atavistically, several people breaking away to congratulate the effigy burners as though they personally had saved Parliament from destruction. Someone broke into a raucous song Gwynn didn’t recognize, and several voices shouted along. Beside her, Colin’s guitar belted out the chords. Another guitar joined in, and a fiddle, and the song rose louder and louder, taking on a life of its own.
“Sing it, then,” someone shouted at her, clapping her on the shoulder.
“I don’t know the words,” she protested, lifting the cider bottle.
“Then come and dance.”
Someone grabbed her free hand—one of the men who had run the Guy up the hill on his throne, she thought, though she could not be sure—and swung her to her feet. Suddenly there were more guitars, another fiddle, someone playing a melodeon, and more people joined in the dancing, wildly, many of them drunkenly. Her head still buzzing, Gwynn tipped her bottle up and let her partner swing her about in steps she knew as little as she knew the words people were shouting up tunelessly. As she whirled past the knot of musicians—a piper had joined them now—she saw Colin shaking his head at her. She turned her back and danced away with her partner
THE WIND WAS still blowing, Gwynn realized suddenly, though the fire still burned strong, and the singing and dancing continued nonstop, lustily. Someone set off some fireworks, and the snap and ensuing explosion startled her so she stopped dead in her tracks. A couple of dancers plowed into her, apologized, and whirled on.
She didn’t know where the bottle had gone; and now she didn’t know where her partner had gone. She didn’t think she would recognize him, actually; so many men had cut in that she no longer could keep track. Another round of fireworks went off, closer, and she cringed away from the sound. The noise, the movement, the fire, the explosions—she was suddenly quite dizzy with it all, dizzy and nauseated: the hillside was suddenly spinning, beyond her control.
Someone was moving toward her, a dark shape looming, backlit in red by the fire. Someone who would no doubt wish to whirl her back into the dance. Gwynn staggered away quickly, away from the devilish light and into the safet
y of the darkness.
The ground sloped downhill dramatically, the grass uneven in the dark, tangling at her boots. She stumbled, fell to her knees, and skidded across something damp which she did not dare think about. The noise had faded somewhat, and she turned to look over her shoulder to see whether anyone had witnessed her fall, the hellish view swam before her eyes. She closed them tightly and took a deep breath, her mouth and nose full of the stink of grass and manure and smoke. She was going to be sick. Sick.
“Hup,” someone said close to her ear. Gwynn felt the hand on her elbow, lifting her, steadying her. She thought she recognized the voice, but wasn’t sure. More fireworks went off in the distance, and she clapped her hands to her ears. Her eyes refused to focus; everything spun. Then she was on her feet, and the hand was leading her further away from the crowd, the fire, the explosions, and noise. “Come along, then.”
The grip was forceful and tight, and the voice seemed somehow less than pleasant. Gwynn’s hackles rose, and she tried to right herself, tried to pull away. “I’m all right now,” she said thickly. “You can let me go.”
The hand only squeezed tighter on her elbow.
“You’re hurting me,” she protested.
“You need to come sit.”
In the light from the waxing moon, the stone wall at the end of the field glowed slightly, a pale gray worm against the darker ground. She staggered again, scraping her palms against the rocks, and fell roughly to a seat. Her rescuer did not sit, but stood between her and the fire and the people in the distance.
“Don’t want you to sick up, now,” he said.
She looked up, but the looming shape was indistinct. There was a rustle as he drew something from his pocket, then a flare as he lit the cigarette he held to his lips.
“Seen enough drunks sicking up in my time.” He shook the match out and flung it away. “You wouldn’t be the first.”
Her cousin. She shifted on the stone wall, preparatory to getting back to her feet, and was struck by a wave of dizziness.
“I’m not drunk,” she said.
“Could have fooled me.”Stokes looked back over his shoulder at the party on the peak of the hill. There was distaste in his voice.
Gwynn made another move to stand, but Stokes put out a not-so-gentle hand and shoved her back down.
“Not so fast,” he said. His touch on her shoulder was heavy and hot. “We’ve got business to discuss, you and I.”
“No, we haven’t.”
He shook her a little bit, not hard, but enough to let her know he could be rough if he felt like it. “Don’t be difficult. Our great-aunt was difficult. Don’t be like her.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Gwynn said, her voice rising. “Take your hand off me.”
Stokes did, holding both hands up innocently. “Just a little family love between cousins. Nothing more than that. I’m helping a girl out when she can’t stand on her own feet from the drink.” Now he bent over her, uncomfortably close. “And now you can help me out.”
Gwynn leaned away. There was something to the smell of him—not drink, not even the smoke from his cigarette—something sour and unpleasant. The smell of constant anger and resentment. She put a hand to her mouth.
“I saw you talking to the solicitor. I saw you with him.”
“Dancing.” She vaguely remembered Mr. Simms as one of her partners. What had he been doing there?
Stokes sucked at his cigarette, and the end glowed like a red star in the darkness. He was too close. She tried to edge around him; perhaps someone else was near, someone she could appeal to for help. There was no one. No one knew she had disappeared from the bonfire. No one knew she was missing.
“Whatever.” Stokes blew smoke out, not exactly into her face, but close enough that she found herself coughing. “You know I’m challenging the will.”
She didn’t answer. He moved closer, looming over her threateningly. “You can save us all the trouble of dragging this through the courts.” He reached into the pocket of his windcheater—how had she not noticed the red jacket back there at the fire?—and drew out a sheet of paper. “Sign the cottage over to me. I’ll make it worth your while. I’m a fair man.”
“Gwynn Chelton didn’t want you to have it.” She looked around again, desperately. Her hands scrabbled on the stone wall, her fingers searching for a purchase. “She wanted me to have it.”
“Undue influence. Or balance of mind.” He thrust the paper at her, nearly in her face. “You know that’s what the courts will find. And you’ll lose it, all of it, and it’ll come to me the way it should have in the first place.” He flicked the cigarette over the wall behind her and leaned in until his face was nearly touching hers. His hand was on her again, gripping her upper arm in a vice that hurt. “Just sign the paper, cousin. Just make it easy on us.” He squeezed harder, twisted.
Gwynn tried to wrench away. “You’re hurting me.”
“Sign the paper.”
She felt his hot breath on her cheek and tried to turn away.
He pulled her back. “Just sign it and go on back where you came from. Because I’m telling you: if you try to stay here, your life will be miserable. Miserable. I’ll make sure of that.”
Gwynn’s fingers dug into the wall around a small stone, and she suddenly strained and swung it upward. She felt the shock in her arm as the rock connected with Stoke’s shoulder. He swore, staggered backward, and fell to one knee in the grass.
“BITCH!”
“Gwynn!”
The voices were a confused jumble in her head. Gwynn leapt to her feet and ran, dodging the swinging arms of her cousin, taking a circuitous route back toward the bonfire. As before, the grass tugged at her feet, and she stumbled but kept on. She heard someone calling her name—Colin?—and she fled blindly toward the sound. She heard grunting and thrashing behind her, and prayed she could get to the circle of light before that hand gripped her arm again.
“Gwynn?”
She ran into his chest. His arms came around her. She struggled wildly to escape, but he held on.
“Gwynn, what is it? What is it?”
Sanity returned slowly. She ceased her struggles and pointed over her shoulder. “I hit him,” she panted. “With a rock.”
“Who?”
She looked around, panicked. She could see no one else. “He was here,” she whispered. “He was right here.”
“Who?” Colin demanded again. “Gwynn, what happened?”
27
“WHAT ON EARTH was he thinking?” Mr. Simms demanded. “The paper would have been worthless. No witnesses to your signature? What was he thinking?”
The rocking chair in the corner, in which Giles sat, creaked gently on the tile floor. Beside him, Star lay still, but alert. “Oh, the paper’s secondary, you know. Men like Paul Stokes—it’s all about the threat, all about the intimidation.” He eyed Gwynn over his unlit pipe. “Hit him with a rock, then, did you, our Gwynneth? I’d say the intimidation didn’t quite work as planned.”
Bel Trevelyan probed the bruising gently with a capable hand, shaking her head, and Gwynn winced. “Not a man, that one. Roughing up a woman.” She pressed her lips together.
Gwynn took the proffered ice pack and held it gingerly against her arm and the ugly bruising, already going to blue-black. “I just don’t understand. Why does he want the cottage that badly? Why does he hate me over a house?”
“He hates over everything,” Giles said. “He hates everyone. Surprised to see him here tonight at all.”
“You didn’t see him, old man,” Bel reminded him tartly.
“All the same,” he retorted mildly. He was frowning. “That he was here at all—he’s never come up to the farm for Bonfire Night as long as I can remember. Too many people, and all of them he doesn’t like.”
“He’s in the wrong profession, then, as a publican,” Gwynn observed bitterly.
“Only thing he knows. Left the business by his old dad, he was.” Gile
s patted his pockets down in the familiar gesture. Finding no matches, he plucked the pipe from his mouth and glared at it as though the lack were the pipe’s fault.
“But me,” Gwynn protested again. “Why me?”
“It would have been whomever your great-aunt left the property to,” Mr. Simms said. “It’s nothing personal.”
Giles’ laughter was a sharp bark. “I’m sure, James, that that’s a real comfort.”
“Not really,” Gwynn said darkly.
“Meanwhile,” Colin cut in, shifting slightly on his chair at the table, “there’s Gwynn’s real question: what’s going on with Paul Stokes that he wants the house so badly?”
“Everyone tells me he had little to do with our great-aunt, so it can’t be some kind of emotional attachment—as in he wants it because it reminds him of her.” For her part, Gwynn had little attachment to the cottage emotionally either—she hadn’t even known the house existed before receiving the legal notice of something to her great benefit; she grimaced at the irony of the situation. Now, it was the mare’s nest of whys that plagued her. Why had Gwynn Chelton chosen her to inherit the house? She thought she was beginning to understand that, at least. But why did Paul Stokes want it so badly?
That led down a rabbit hole of new thought. Had Stokes come at things from a different angle—had he suggested, for example, a buy-out of half the property value—would she have been so resistant to his claim? Had it been his immediate attack on her right to inherit that had made her dig her heels in so stubbornly? Probably. But now her desire to stay had evolved into something deeper. She had to stay until she found out why Gwynn Chelton had chosen her. She had to find out what Gwynn wanted of her.
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