CHAPTER FOUR
Whether Mr Blane Hunter ate the meal she had taken up to him that night, Arden did not know, nor did she care one tiny jot. One thing was for sure—having swept out of his room following her high-principled speech, she had no intention of going back for his tray. If having the tray in his room overnight bothered him, he could carry the tray down to the kitchen himself—he'd done it before.
Still mutinous, when it came time for her to go up to bed, she passed his door on her way to her room on the next landing. His door was firmly shut, and there was no tray outside his door.
Going quietly up the next flight of stairs, Arden had entered her room and had started to get undressed before the thought came, should she lock her door? She paused before getting into her nightdress, then pride at her statement that she would never hang a man until he had been tried had her ignoring that it might be folly not to turn that key. She shrugged, then pulled her short cotton nightdress over her head. He wasn't a murderer anyway—what was she worrying about?
All the same, it took her some time to get to sleep that night. And there was one moment, when in the darkness her imagination started to get out of hand, when it was touch and go that she didn't leap out of bed and go to turn that key in the lock. Pride again stopped her. Even if Blane Hunter would never know that that pride after her speech was declaring that she could not condemn him unheard. Turning over in her bed for the umpteenth time, at last she fell asleep.
To be rudely awakened when it seemed that she had only just closed her eyes was bad enough. But to come abruptly awake from deep sleep, to open her eyes to a sudden glare of light, had fear gripping Arden's throat.
For the centre light in her bedroom was on, and since it had not been on when she had closed her eyes, it had to mean that someone—and there was only one other person in residence—had come into her room, and, uncaring that she had been sound asleep, had switched that centre light on!
Blinking rapidly, her eyes went to the door—then the fear in her turned to dread. For, fully dressed, looking as though he had never been to bed, Arden saw the tall dark Blane Hunter standing there.
Having no idea of the time, she was suddenly too terrified to take her eyes from him to glance at her clock. Not that the time was important. More important was to get in there double quick and try her hand at placating the icy-eyed intruder before he could do her a mischief.
'What…?' she asked, fear making her voice unfamiliar to her, too late now to call herself all kinds of an idiot for not locking her door. 'W-what do you— want?' She tried hard then not to gulp as Blane Hunter moved and came further into the room.
Coldly he looked down at her. 'I haven't come to murder you,' he told her impatiently, his impatience growing as he saw from her wide-eyed look that she was not sure if she could believe that. 'Nor do I plan to rape you,' he read her next thought, looking more fed up than passionate, she was glad to note.
That fed-up-with-her-and-the-world-in-general look gave her sufficient spirit to remark faintly, 'I'm—glad about that.'
She was glad too that he had not closed the door of her room behind him. If it came to the push, she wanted no hindrance when she streaked out of there.
'M-might I enquire,' she asked, thankful that note of fear had gone from her voice, although she had stammered to begin with, but feeling braver all of a sudden, 'to what do I owe the unexpected pleasure of your visit?'
'Cut the sarcasm,' she was ordered in no uncertain terms. 'And just give me answers to a few simple questions.'
His tone more than anything, that thinly veiled aggression, told her that it wouldn't be wise to be cheeky. But as she flicked her eyes momentarily from him so he should not see the spurt of annoyance because she was having to obey him, she caught sight of her alarm clock. It was two in the morning!
'Ask away,' she said quietly, holding down the sarcastic comment that guests were always waking her in the middle of the night to request an extra towel or to complain about the lack of hot water.
His eyes never having left her face, she had a distinct impression that he knew how it irked her not to serve him some cutting comment. But there was no pleasure in him that she could see to have her submitting to his dominance, when, to baffle her completely, he said:
'This, place in Wales. The place you're taking yourself off to,' he ignored her astonishment, 'is it as isolated as you've led me to believe?'
'The Colonel's cottage, do you mean?' she exclaimed, wondering if she had somehow tiptoed into one of his nightmares. He had woken her up at two in the morning to ask her that!
'You said he'd taken your aunt up north,' growled Blane Hunter, aggression instant as he accused, 'You were lying, you are joining him.'
'No, I'm not!'
Anger had spouted in her. It was bad enough to be scared out of her wits by being so starkly brought awake, without the added insult of being called a liar. But her anger cooled rapidly as she saw from the pugnacious jut of his jaw that of the two of them, this man who could be an ex-wife-murderer for all she knew was looking the angrier. Hastily, while hating herself for it, Arden rushed into explanation.
'Colonel Meredith has this cottage he sometimes uses, and because—be… For family reasons,' she amended, judging he hadn't the patience to stand for a detailed account of the Brownings, 'my aunt decided it was better if I didn't go to Matlock with her. So the Colonel very kindly offered me the use of his cottage while he's paying a visit to his daughter in Chesterfield.'
She had a distinct impression, as she came to an end, that Blane Hunter still didn't believe her. And she had to wonder then, had he spent his life around liars, that he couldn't believe the truth when he heard it?
'Colonel Meredith,' he rapped, his dark eyes piercing hers, 'he'll be returning to the cottage during your stay?'
'No!' He doesn't go there very often these days,' Arden snapped, fed up with him and his insistence that the Colonel was some sort of sugar daddy. And, anger refusing to let her be cowed a second time, she found she was letting him know more than she would otherwise have done. 'When the Colonel leaves Chesterfield he'll be going back to his home in Northampton,' she flashed. 'And for your information,' she added, 'he just doesn't see me the way your warped mind obviously thinks he does. He wants to marry my aunt.'
Wishing she hadn't told him that last bit—it was private in her view between her aunt and the Colonel— Arden was quickly learning that he assimilated facts fast and just as speedily filed them away. For making no other mention of the Colonel, Blane Hunter was just as rapidly over the small surprise she noted in him that she thought he had a warped mind, and was going on to bite out his next question:
'Does anyone else in this locality know of this cottage in Wales?'
Trying to keep up with him, she thought the fact that she was newly awake must have dulled her brain, for she had no idea at all where his questioning was leading.
'How could anyone else know?' she challenged, not a little tired of Mr Blane Hunter. 'The Colonel doesn't live here. And when he does visit us, he stays near to my…'
'That newshound you saw today,' he cut across what she was saying, obviously only interested in facts he wanted to know, 'he won't give up.' And while Arden was quickly switching from the Colonel and on to the reporter, Blane Hunter was announcing, 'I need to get away,' and as light began to filter in through Arden's brain, coolly, matter-of-factly, he was telling her, with no ifs or buts, 'We'll go now.'
Never more staggered; winded by his calm assumption that she was going anywhere with him, let alone to the Colonel's cottage, Arden found just sufficient breath to squeak: 'We!'
'With your aunt and Colonel Meredith safely up north,' he was taking no account that she was looking utterly dumbfounded, 'you're the only person who can tell the press anything.' And clearly not expecting any objection, concisely he stated, 'You are coming with me.'
'I'm coming w…!'
Promptly, given that somehow she had accepted that she was sitting
up in her bed at past two in the morning having the weirdest of conversations, Arden thought that this had gone far enough. Suddenly, she was not of a mind to take any more.
'Now just one minute,' she said hotly, dismissing the fact that, having learned all he wanted to know, Blane Hunter did not look to be wanting to wait another second. 'In the first place I've already told you I won't say a word to any press people who come calling. And…'
'No matter how much is offered,' he injected sarcastically.
'And in the second place,' she stormed on, not made any sweeter by his comment, 'and the third place too, for that matter, not only am I not going anywhere with a man who could be an ex-wife-murderer for all I know, but…'
Again she was cut off, as pointedly he reminded her, 'I thought you never condemned anyone without' a hearing?'
Tripped up by her own statement, she was, for the moment, stumped. 'So give me the facts,' she said, knowing full well that he wouldn't.
'When I want you as judge and jury, I'll let you know,' he told her curtly. 'Suffice it to say that I am not suicide-minded.'
Which must mean, she thought, as she had thought before, that since he had been in the car too at the time, to have hit that brick wall deliberately could well have meant that he too could have died.
'Okay,' she said begrudgingly, 'I'll accept that you didn't deliberately wreck that car,' the reporter's idea that he could have broken Delcine's neck after the accident was just so much journalistic invention, she thought, 'but…'
'So tell me where the cottage is,' he cut her off, a habit she was getting rapidly not to like, as, not thanking her for accepting that he couldn't have meant to kill his ex-wife, he added shortly, 'and we'll get…'
'No way,' Arden interrupted him, thinking it was about time she had her turn. 'Not only am I not going to tell you where the cottage is, Mr Hunter, but I should be very much obliged if you would kindly return to your room, and leave me in peace!'
Arden wished that word 'peace' had not come to her; it had her remembering the way, not too many hours ago, he had said, as if forgetting she was there, 'I need—to find peace'. It had her remembering how she had seen him deep in the throes of one mammoth and dreadfully troubled nightmare. No need for her now to glean from the haggard look of him that he and untormented sleep were strangers. And she was then being assaulted by thoughts she did not want, softening thoughts that he never would find the peace of mind he was looking for while sniffing pressmen were around to badger him.
Her sensitivities went out to him. Even if she could not bring herself to withdraw her command that he leave her room, Arden felt oddly puzzled. For when she would have been ready to swear that Blane Hunter was a man who had never taken orders from anyone in his life, least of all from the niece of a guest house proprietress, as he neared the chest of drawers by the door, that appeared to be exactly what he was doing!
When his hand touched the top of the chest in passing and he then turned, Arden was feeling weepy and trying hard not to show weakness. But she was finding it difficult as her soft heart coped with a picture of him being a soul in torment because he had been responsible for the death of someone he had once loved, and by the look, had most probably never stopped loving.
She smiled gently at him, and although he did not smile back, that gentle curve stayed about her mouth. That was until she saw that there was a definite look of triumph in his eyes—a look of triumph she could not understand, but which was effective in making her smile fade immediately.
Without haste, casually almost, as the thought shot into her head that it had never been his intention to meekly take her bossing him about, Blane Hunter stretched out his hand towards her. Then it was that she saw the reason for his triumph. Then it was that she saw that while she had forgotten she had dropped the key the Colonel had given her on to the top of the chest, Blane Hunter, plainly having some sort of photographic memory, must have taken an inventory of her room and its contents in the short time it had taken her to open her eyes. He must, she saw, have mentally re-run that photographic film, and remembered seeing a key with a label attached when she had been standing out against telling him where the cottage was.
'Brynmoel,' he said, having just read Colonel Meredith's clear printing, a mocking note coming through, as well it might.
Never again was she going to feel sorry for the swine, Arden silently reiterated. 'Well, I'm not going with you,' she snapped, furious with him, furious with herself that she looked to be more of a softie than her dear aunt. 'And you can't make me. And if you dare to put one foot inside the Colonel's…'
'Get dressed,' was thrown at her. And she had thought she could boss him around!
'Like hell I'll get dressed!' she shouted back.
But her spirits dipped more than a little at the exasperated look he didn't try to hide, which said he would find it tedious in the extreme if he had to drag her from her bed and put her into her clothes.
Oh lord, she thought, back to being afraid again. It didn't look as though Blane Hunter was ready to do any backing down—would he really put some clothes on her and drag her out of there?
She was swallowing hard on fear, while at the same time hating him with all she had as she saw him, too arrogant to ask permission, hunt round and find a suitcase. But dearly wanting to throw something heavy at his head, loathing him with everything in her as he tossed an empty suitcase on to her bed, ready so he thought so she should do some quick packing. Arden's emotions were again being turned topsy-turvy when, not looking for sympathy, not wanting sympathy, shortly, he stated:
'We'll go in your car.'
Not stopping to wonder how else they would go, not that she was going, the hate in Arden's soul evaporated. Oh, the poor man, she thought sorrowfully, doubting then that he would ever drive again. He must be living a nightmare if he just could not face again being behind the wheel of a car.
'I…' she said chokily, and had to try hard to keep any sympathy for him from showing, for he made it clear he did not want any.
But at that moment he chose to look up. And as she had surmised as not quick enough to take the gentle look for him from her eyes, her sympathy, he could do without. Though for all that, he seemed to pause in his -thinking as his eyes met hers full on, before he let them take in the rest of what he could see of her sat there watching him. Then:
'Are you going to get dressed?' he demanded shortly, a threat there if ever she heard one.
Still tinged by the sadness of her thoughts, Arden, for once, could find no heat when doing battle with him. 'I can't come with you—or—or take you to the cottage, Mr Hunter,' she said quietly. 'Surely you can see…'
'What I see is this,' he said heavily. 'You're stuck with me whether we go to this holiday cottage or not.'
'But I'm going away for a month,' she thought to point out. 'You were only staying here for another week.'
His short bark of laughter was unamused. But again she discovered that she was not firing up. Even as it was quickly borne in on her that Blane Hunter had never intended to leave Hills View next week, she found she couldn't be angry.
Even as the logic of what he was saying crept in, that what was the difference where they were, at Hills View or Brynmoel, it would still be just her and him, Arden could not be angry. Not now she knew of that weakness in him that he needed her, needed her to drive him away from where bloodhound reporters might get to him if she did not.
'I can't…' she began to protest again, though having to acknowledge that there was less strength in her to argue than there had been.
'Oh God,' said Blane Hunter, a kind of a groan leaving him as though he had just about had it with her. 'You're just like all the bloody rest!'
The stiffening she needed came at his swearing at her. 'How?' she asked shortly, not having a clue what tack he was on now.
'So I'll pay you,' he grated.
'Pay me?' she exclaimed, remembering the cynical way he had said women would do anything for money.
&nb
sp; But she was gasping when he pulled out his bulging wallet and tossed some bundles of notes at her, the bundles still in their bankers' bands, so the note's did not require any counting.
'There's a thousand there,' he said hostilely. 'Now will you get dressed!'
But Arden was in shock. 'A—thousand!' she said hoarsely, and received his unwanted comment:
'If there's any left over after you've treated yourself, you might splurge out on a pot of paint for this room.'
His needling her, his acid remark about the years-old paint in her bedroom, far worse than the paintwork in the green room, which was bad enough, had her turning a deaf ear to his offensive remark as, worried to death over their lack of resources, she thought what a long way she could make a thousand pounds go.
It was then that she hardened her heart to him, to herself, and the pride in her that would have had her flinging his money back at him.
'Well, that,' she said, her hands going to the bed covers, 'is different.' She gave him a phoney smile that hid from him, she hoped, that she had just discovered how easy it was to want to murder someone. 'Just give me half an hour, Mr Hunter, and I'll be ready to take you wherever you want to go.'
Whether it was a look of disgust that crossed his face, or a look that said he felt let down by the avaricious way she was ready to grab at his money, though she hardly thought it was the latter, Arden did not have the chance to ponder.
'You're being tiresome,' he told her testily, and looked to be getting more than a little edgy when he picked up the clothes she had put neatly on a chair ready for the morning, and threw them at her. Then, with a belittling look she didn't like, he turned his back—Arden guessed she hadn't better hang about.
She did not like getting dressed with a man in her room, but she could not resist the jibe to the hard wall of his back. 'You don't trust me an inch, do you?' She zipped up her jeans and reached for her sweater. 'You think that the moment you're out of sight I shall be on the phone telling all and sundry…'
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