CHAPTER SIX
Getting Acquainted
When Michael returned to Rosewood House just after eleven-thirty that night, Dobson informed him that Miss Norwood was fast asleep on an armchair in the drawing room. The fire in the grate had long since died to cold white ash, and without the light from the gasoliers, the room was swathed in a seemingly impenetrable darkness. Michael cut through the silent blackness with his candle, and approached his sleeping guest, who at that stage was recumbent in the chair. Her head had rolled back onto the headrest and was lolling to one side. A heavy woollen blanket, once positioned over her legs, was now lying abandoned at her feet on the floor, and Henry, Michael’s beloved cat, was happily entrenched between her and the armrest.
Michael smiled, and leaning over as quietly as he could, attempted to reclaim the fallen blanket. Unfortunately for Michael, stealth was never one of his strong points, and not only did he rouse Henry from his sleep, but he lost his balance at a crucial moment, dropping the candle onto the rug beneath his feet. Within seconds, the peaceful scene was destroyed.
Frances awoke from her slumber with an abrupt start. ‘Wha…what is it?’ she cried. ‘What has happened?’
Michael, meanwhile, was on his haunches on the floor, scrabbling about to retrieve the candle before it scorched his late mother’s favourite Oriental rug. Henry had long since fled out the door. ‘It’s all right, Miss Norwood,’ Michael said in his most re-assuring voice. ‘I very nearly set fire to the house, but apart from that, everything is under control.’
‘Well, you certainly know how to capture someone’s attention,’ Frances said, her voice suggestive of sleep. ‘This is the second time you’ve tried to kill me in one night.’
Michael grinned, and now having the candle in his possession, he collapsed into an easy chair beside the sofa, and set down the candle on a nearby table. ‘Strange,’ Michael said, ‘a lot of my patients tell me the same thing. Please don’t take it personally. I don’t discriminate.’
The flare of light soon illuminated the cover page of the poetry book that Frances had been reading earlier, and he instinctively picked it up.
‘You’re a doctor?’
‘Unfortunately, yes,’ Michael replied, casually flicking through the pages of the volume.
Frances sat up in her chair and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. ‘I was wondering why your library was filled with medical journals. Now it’s all beginning to make sense.’ She watched him earnestly. ‘Don’t you like being a doctor?’
Michael’s face clouded over. The wine he had drunk earlier in the day was beginning to make his head pound. ‘Not especially.’ He would have said more on the subject had he not then discovered the portrait photograph of Agnes Wentworth, tucked in between the pages. His brows furrowed with curiosity. ‘I wonder what this is doing in here,’ he remarked, studying it by the shadowy light of the candle. ‘This should be in a frame.’ In spite of his words, he slammed the book shut without another thought and deposited it on the table.
‘Is that Agnes’s book?’ Frances asked. ‘Would you like me to return it to Wintersleigh?’
A perturbed Michael looked about the room. ‘No, no,’ he replied hurriedly. ‘That will not be necessary. That book belongs to me.’ He got to his feet. ‘Speaking of Wintersleigh, Miss Norwood, I thought you would have been there by now. Has Louisa not responded to my message?’
Frances hesitated. ‘Oh yes. I received a message some time ago. I will spare you the deprecating remarks she made about my earlier conduct. I feel they were unwarranted and unjust. Suffice to say that she’s too angry at present to receive me. She feels that if she sees me in her current mood, she’ll say something to me that she will not regret.’ A short interval passed. ‘Without wishing to impose on your kindness and hospitality, Doctor Brearly, she wishes me remain here tonight. She hopes to see you tomorrow morning, when she comes to collect me.’
Michael’s tense features relaxed into a smile. ‘Of course, you can stay. Quite frankly, I will be glad of some company.’ His rumbling stomach reminded him that he had not yet eaten dinner. ‘Are you hungry, Miss Norwood?’ he asked rather abruptly. ‘Would you like some breakfast?’
‘Breakfast?’ Frances cried in amazement. ‘But it’s nearly midnight, the witching hour when graveyards yawn.’
‘Yes I know, but it’s a Brearly tradition. Comes from having doctors in the family. Our hours are so irregular that we must eat when we can.’ He watched Frances yawn. ‘But perhaps you are still tired and wish to sleep some more. You must be weary from your earlier brush with death.’
Frances considered the offer. While she was very fatigued and in need of more rest, the prospect of lying in a strange bed, with nothing but unpleasant thoughts of her mother’s engagement to keep her company, compelled her to accept Doctor Brearly’s offer of food.
Breakfast comprised bacon sandwiches and a cup of steaming cocoa, and was consumed in the breakfast room, in the glow of a recently lit fire. Despite being strangers, thrown together under rather exceptional circumstances, there was never a shortage of things to say. They soon discovered, for instance, that they enjoyed the noble sport of cricket, and nearly an hour was spent discussing the attributes of their favourite players. Before they realised it, seven hours had gone by, and in that time they had scarcely paused to draw breath. The sunlight was now streaming in and cast its abundant rays onto the buttercup yellow walls and onto the vigorous looking parlour palms that adorned each corner of the room. The welcoming light cheered their already high spirits, and they would have continued chatting for another seven hours had they not been disturbed by the sound of Louisa Wentworth’s rapidly approaching footsteps. In the next moment a breathless Louisa was standing just inside the breakfast room doorway.
‘Hurry!’ she commanded, without one word of greeting to either Michael or Frances. ‘He is heading down the drive, towards the front door. I just overtook him in the carriage.’ Her chest was heaving with the unaccustomed exertion of doing physical exercise. ‘Oh, Michael, what are we going to do?’
Michael was speechless with bewilderment. ‘I, who, what?’ He nervously adjusted his spectacles. ‘What is going on?’
‘How can you not hear his voice? He is squalling like a fish hawker. If you leave now by the back door,’ Louisa was saying, ‘I could tell him that you are not at home. He would be none the wiser.’
While this exchange was taking place, Frances wondered whether her Aunt’s unusual behaviour was a result of Frances’s escapade the day before. She tried to apologise.
‘Not now, Frances,’ Louisa replied, barely giving her a second of her attention.
Despite her aunt’s warning, Frances chose, rather injudiciously, to proceed with her explanation. ‘I had just finished reading a most troubling letter from my mother—’
‘Hush!’ Louisa snapped. ‘We have far more pressing concerns on our minds than your mother.’
In the background, a young man’s booming voice began to echo throughout the house. ‘I know you’re at home, Michael, so there’s no point in trying to avoid me.’
An evident shudder of recognition coursed through Michael, and for the first time amidst the uproarious scene, he looked genuinely concerned. The muscles on his handsome face tightened. ‘I wonder how he knew I was here,’ he whispered to Louisa and Frances. ‘Perhaps Dobson told him where I was.’
‘And before you ask, Michael,’ the man’s voice continued to bellow, ‘I saw the silhouette of your fat head through the window.’
Michael exhaled a disconsolate sigh. ‘It’s just as I feared. There’s no escaping him now.’
‘Who is it?’ Frances asked Louisa.
‘No-one worth knowing,’ Louisa replied. ‘Now, hold your tongue.’ She determinedly positioned herself in front of Frances, as though she was shielding her niece from a horde of marauding barbarians. ‘If you stay still and do not speak, he might not even realise you are here.’
Frances’s face dropped. ‘Humphh,’ she muttere
d under her breath. ‘So much for Tasmanian hospitality.’
Breakfast at Midnight Page 6
