by Nita Round
INSIDE THE ROYAL Swan, Emma leaned against the counter and ordered two drinks, one of them was bright blue, the other a tall glass of orange juice. She paid the server with cash and then leaned back to face Barbara.
“So come on, spill,” Barbara demanded.
“You know the guy who came in the other day? Looked like an undertaker?”
“I remember, yeah.”
“He’s a solicitor, my solicitor.”
“Since when did you need legal advice?”
“Since long before I knew I needed it.”
“Why? What have you done?” she sniggered. “Oh my God, you took a hit out on Marcus and the police found out.”
“Don’t be silly.”
“Okay, okay. Then why do you have a solicitor?”
“Because I have a family, Barbara, and they have been trying to find me.”
“Oh my god!” Then her face fell. “I thought they died. You went to the funeral. I went to the funeral with you.”
“Not them, my biological family. The ones I tried to trace but never found.”
Barbara nodded. “How do you feel about it?”
“I’m not sure. I was pleased at first, but it’s too late to feel anything, they are all dead now.”
“Emma. I am so sorry.”
Emma took a few moments to gather her thoughts. “It’s okay. My feelings are so mixed at the moment. I am sad, because I lost them before I even knew they existed, and all the effort I used to find them was wasted. At the same time, they are strangers to me, and I’m not sure if I feel anything toward these people.”
“It’s a dilemma, I suppose.”
“Yes,” Emma agreed, “and it has kept me awake at night.”
“No wonder you look so tired, you must be distraught.”
“I don’t know them. I didn’t know them. Yet I was so close to finding them, and now I’ve missed the one opportunity I’d ever have. I had an aunt, Barbara. A real aunt, related by biology and blood, and now she is dead. They are all dead.”
“This must be quite a shock, but maybe you can find out about them even though they are gone.”
“And there’s more.”
“More?”
“I’m rich, well as rich as someone like me can expect. My aunt has given me a house and some money. They have even made provision for any inheritance taxes to be paid, so what I get has already had tax paid.”
“So you’re rich, huh? Rich enough I should dump my man and date you instead?”
Emma laughed in spite of herself. “No one is rich enough for you.”
“True. I know you wanted to see them, to meet them, and get to know them, but they’re gone. I’m sorry, but at least you have some money now, life will be easier. You don’t have to put up with a pig of a boss if you don’t want to.”
“I’d rather have a bunch of living and breathing relatives.”
“I know sweetie, but at least you found them.”
Emma smiled, but it was more of a grimace. “My house is in the country, you know, but I have no idea where it is, what it looks like, or anything. It could be a dump. What on earth will I do with a place in the country?”
“Sell it, love.”
“I already have enough money. I have so much money I don’t even need to work for a year or two at least. You know money doesn’t mean anything, not to me.”
“Good God! You’re going to quit your job.”
“I’ve thought about it,” Emma admitted, “but I’m not sure if I will or not. At least I have options now.”
“Yes, you do, and about time you had a little luck.”
“I think I’ll go look at the house. My house. Maybe I can get a feel for them, my ancestors. It sounds weird, but that’s what they are. If nothing else, I can see what I need to do to get the house sold on.”
Barbara frowned, “There’s something you are not telling me. I know you too well for you to hide things from me.”
Emma didn’t answer, not straight away. “Perhaps.”
“You want to talk about it?”
“It’s nothing.”
“Nothing, you say?”
“Well, there’s a feud, apparently.”
“Go on,” said Barbara.
“This feud is hundreds of years old.”
“That’s so last century, but it sounds so interesting. Tell me what you know.”
Emma took a package from her bag and unwrapped a book no larger than her hand. It bulged with pieces of paper folded between the pages. “This is all I have about the feud.”
“You have a feud and someone kept records of it?”
“Well, not all of it. There is nothing here about how it all started, which is bit odd, if they kept records, why not record the whole story from the start? Still, it lists names and so on. I can pretty much trace my entire genealogical tree back hundreds of years and match it up with the other side of the family feud.”
“It sounds weird, you know.”
“Then they have snippets of gossip written all over the pages.”
“Like what?” Barbara said and she moved closer.
Emma pointed at a scrawled note half way down one of the pages. “I love this one.”
“What does it say? What does it say?”
“It says, ‘Lord Charles has one of those infernal horseless carriages, may his soul burn in hell and damnation for such evil.’”
Barbara snorted. “Emma, your relations sound most bumpkinlike.”
“Is there such a word?”
“Who cares?” Barbara answered, “It’s all too strange for me. I’m a city girl, I hardy know the neighbours, never mind hold a feud with them over generations.”
“Me too, but I’ve got to go and take a look.”
“Of course, you must go. How long will you stay there for?”
“As long as it takes I suppose. A few weeks perhaps, maybe a little more.”
“Has ‘he’ agreed?”
“Has who agreed?”
“Marcus, of course, what has he said about all of this?”
“Not told him yet.”
“Interesting. I’d like to be there when you tell him. Can I watch?”
“You’re a pervert Barbara. And yes, you can watch if you want.”
“YOU WANT TO take how long off?” Marcus stormed.
“A month,” Emma answered and her voice was calmer than she felt. “Maybe more, but a month should do it.”
“You are joking aren’t you?”
“No.”
“What do you think I am, a bloody charity?”
“I don’t expect to be paid whilst I’m gone.”
“Too bloody right you’re not,” fumed Marcus.
“I’d have thought you would be a little more understanding, given the circumstances. It’s been a tough year and I haven’t asked for much.”
“Look, I know it’s been hard losing your parents, and now you have a new aunt. But she’s dead, Emma, and it’s not like you were close or anything.”
“That’s not the point.”
“The point is simple. I have a business to run.”
“Yes, I am aware of this, so I thought I’d wait until the end of the month, plenty of time for me to finish up the current projects,” said Emma. “Then you can arrange a freelancer to cover my absence and I can bring him or her up to speed before I go.”
“End of the month? We’ll be busy by then I’m sure. You know we always get busy at the end of the month.”
Emma knew no such thing, but she would not give in. “Get the agency to send someone round as soon as they can then.”
“Do what you must.”
“I will,” Emma answered and turned her attention back to her desk.
“I can’t guarantee there will be work for you when you return, as I said, this isn’t a charity.”
Emma bit back her words. She didn’t care what Marcus thought.
Chapter Six
DARKNESS DESCENDED OVER the mountains with the speed and fin
ality of a slammed door. Craggy, dark peaks, looming large and threatening, merged into the black night and vanished from view. A light but persistent rain soaked everything under the sky, and Emma’s wipers cleared her windshield with a steady and metronomic whoosh. She clenched her teeth until her jaws ached. If only she had left work at the time she planned to leave, she would have reached Castlecoombe by now.
If only Marcus hadn’t been a complete tit and insisted she work until the evening rush hour was well under way. The extra hour or so might have meant she would have been able to miss the rain at least. Now she thought about it, she couldn’t say with any certainty why she needed to travel today. She should have taken the delay as an omen and stayed at home, a fresh start first thing in the morning would have been ideal. Then she wouldn’t be driving through this godforsaken hole at the back of beyond.
Halfway through the mountains, the wind picked up. Sharp gusts blasted her little red city car from side to side. Distant flashes illuminated the peaks in stark bursts of bright light, and the afterglow lasted almost as long as the flash itself.
“Damn!” she cursed, the light rain became torrential and it speared the road with such ferocity it almost bounced right back into the sky again. Within minutes, the saturated ground could hold no more, and water gushed from every crevasse and turned the road into a fast flowing river. In these conditions it was all too easy to lose sight of the road. Emma directed her gaze forward, through the windshield, and concentrated all of her attention on the road.
On this mountain road there was no place to stop, no place to turn around and no exits anywhere. She had to keep going forward. It would take one small lapse in concentration, a slip of the steering wheel, and she would be flying over the edge and into the endless night. She slowed down to a speed not much faster than walking pace. Better slow than dead. Her fingers, pale and almost numb from her hold of the steering wheel, gripped it tighter. On the passenger seat, her map mocked and enticed her. One small peek and she would know how far she had to go, how far she was from safety, and how much more of this she had to take. Yet she dare not stop, not even to look. One peek at the map and with her luck then she would never have to worry about her destination at all.
At Ingerside, she found a collection of three houses and a pond nestled against the sheer sides of the Inger. At least she hoped it was the Inger. If it wasn’t, then she was lost. It was hard to tell, given the conditions. She couldn’t tell north from south or up from down. All of the roads looked the same in the dark and the rain, and she could easily drive off the edge of the road when it curved to the right. A steep descent around countless bends followed until the road seemed to flatten out. She saw a few dim lights twinkle and noted a small road sign for Castlecoombe. She exhaled one long and heartfelt breath. She was almost there, what a relief.
In the darkness, Castlecoombe hunkered down against the driving rain to merge, almost unseen, with the soaring granite peaks. To Emma, whose architectural preferences ran towards steel, glass and hundreds of lights, this was a vista from hell. She had expected a small town. What she saw wasn’t even big enough to be a village, never mind a town. There weren’t any streetlights, and without their reassuring glow, the place looked derelict. If it hadn’t been for a few spots of muted light spilling from different buildings, she would have thought the place abandoned. She sighed as she approached. This view represented all she despised about the country. It was dark, miserable, cold, and wet. Being here was a big mistake.
At the heart of the village, a green—a small area of grassland no larger than the twisted tree at its centre, marked where the road turned full circle and left the way it came in. At the furthest point of the circle, a grand and turreted gatehouse marked the way to Magwood Hall. “It’s the Addams Family winter retreat,” she muttered, “the bane of my entire line.”
The house she sought was a little more modest than the gatehouse. It stood in the middle of a short terrace of six cottages. She was sure this was the right place because it was the one fronted by a profusion of weeds. Without lights of any kind, it had an air of darkness so deep it was like looking into the depths of a deep well. Small and unkempt she could deal with, but this dingy place was something else. It was so unappealing Emma wanted to turn about and leave. “Why am I here?” she wondered, and stared at the black village whilst rain drummed on the top of her car like a hundred feet all trying to run away from Castlecoombe as fast as they could.
“Why am I?” she wondered yet again. She’d had fabulous, loving parents, and she’d loved them so much. Why am I here? Guilt sat like a stone gargoyle hunched upon her shoulders. She wasn’t trying to replace her parents, but by being here, in this place, she felt as though she was. Even so, no matter how much she tried to fill her mind with images of her mum and dad, there still remained a hole where her biological family should have been. Her need to know was such a commanding imperative she could never turn away from the opportunity presented to her by Maud Tapper’s demise.
She stared at the rundown house again. The hole they left could not, would not, be filled no matter what she did. It was time to find out who she was, and, with luck, why her biological grandmother needed to hide from all of them. “Right then Maud, let’s see what you have to say for yourself.”
Emma rummaged about in the glove compartment, grabbed a small torch and the front door key. It was a big old-fashioned chunky affair, straight out of a museum, and it was not something to inspire confidence in security. She gripped her thin and inadequate jacket around her body, and headed through the rain toward the front door. A slight overhang her solicitor had, with a deal of optimism bordering on comedic, called a storm porch offered meagre shelter. Rain dripped over her collar, and she shivered as drops of cold water ran down her neck. Doubt stayed her hand, the key glinted in the wavering torch light. This was her last chance, beyond the dark and uninviting front door lay a past of which she had no part. Her heart ached with lives, lost lives, and a family she did not and would not know. This was the point of no return and once she opened the door there would be no going back.
Emma wasn’t sure she wanted to go forward either. Standing there, looking at the door, gave her the creeps. She could not say why it looked wrong. There was something not right about a place so dark even the lock seemed to suck the light out of the torch. Her torch, “SUPABRITE — perfect illumination”, turned out to offer nothing greater than an insipid pool of yellow with insufficient power to light the lock never mind anything else. Movement, a pale flash of something, caught her eye. “Damn!” She jumped back, but when she shone her weak torch into the darkness, she saw nothing. “Bloody shadows,” she cursed.
She reached out, put the oversized key in the lock and turned it. The loud kerr-lunk of the mechanism echoed behind the solid wood, and although the door was unlocked, she didn’t rush to open it. The door handle, another ancient piece of brass work, looked huge and menacing in its own right. When she used the handle, it turned with a solid, but smooth motion. Not so much the hinges, though, and with a yawning screech the front door creaked open.
Emma didn’t know what to expect, but wrinkled her nose at the smell of age, of damp, and disuse. She shone her weak torch into the narrow hall and it illuminated vague piles of letters and newspapers on the floor. She ignored the mail, it had waited this long, it could wait a little longer. The more important search for the light switch took a moment. She flicked it up and down several times, but nothing happened. “Dammit!” She swore, stepped into the hallway, and headed into another room to find another light switch. When the second switch didn’t work she cursed again, but her words grew more creative. It seemed the world was conspiring against her. Perhaps it was time to return to civilisation and find a hotel. There had to be one somewhere. She turned to leave.
A scream froze on her lips as she found herself staring along the length of twin barrels pointing at her chest. “Who the hell are you?” a deep, but female, voice demanded.
Emma froz
e, her gaze focussed on the gun. Her torch, all but forgotten, pointed at the floor. A pale yellow glow, the light illuminated nothing but her feet, and the muddy mail on the floor. It didn’t even occur to her to lift the beam and get a better look at the figure before her.
“Did you hear me?” the woman demanded again.
Emma tore her eyes from the weapon. It wasn’t the first gun she had ever seen, and living in the city it wouldn’t be the last. Her gaze floated upward to look into the face of the shadow woman. Framed by the doorway, she was tall, but not to the point of being lanky. She was slim too, despite the bulk of the full-length overcoat that broadened her shoulders. A practical, but unattractive, wide-brimmed hat covered her head and cast her face deeper in shadow. Rain collected on the brim and splashed from her shoulders on to the stone floor and some of the old newspapers she’d failed to pick up. If anything the woman looked like some wild, angry beast come to show her what the country had to offer.
Emma had met some scary characters on her doorstep before, and she wasn’t going to allow some wild country woman to see how scared she was. Instead, she drew back her shoulders and affected her best deadeye stare. “And who the hell are you?” she growled, with as much menace as she could muster, in spite of the fact she held nothing more intimidating than a plastic torch. “Threatening me in my own house!”
“Your house you say?” the woman asked, and her apparent aggression wavered. “This is your house?”
“Yeah, this is my house.” She bristled with as much indignation as she could manage. “So point your weapon elsewhere or I’ll have you arrested. Assuming they have a police force in these parts.”
The barrels of the shotgun dipped a little further, and then pointed at the floor. The woman had the cheek to laugh. “Mrs. Blewitt? Mrs. Emma Blewitt? Goodness you have a temper.”
“Miss Blewitt, thank you.” She took a step forward, to press her advantage, and when she remembered her torch, shone the feeble light into the woman’s face. She noticed then, the bright shining blue eyes and ready smile. “And you are?”
