Moreton's Kingdom

by Jean S. MacLeod

  ‘He’s in safe keeping not more than a mile away.’

  ‘I demand to know where!’ She stamped her foot. ‘You’re not to be trusted.’

  His eyes were ice-cold as he gazed back at her and there was a cruel twist to his mouth as he said:

  ‘I suppose Coralie told you that.’

  ‘She did, and I think it must be true. You’ve been following me for two days ever since we left London, and in the end you took Sandy without a word.’

  The hard mouth looked even harder as he continued to gaze at her.

  ‘Has it never occurred to you that you might be equally suspect where I’m concerned?’ he asked. ‘Up until two days ago we’d never met, and then I discover you’re aiding and abetting Coralie in one of her wilder schemes.’

  ‘I was helping her to protect her child,’ Katherine cried defensively. ‘There can be no harm in that when she was at her wits’ end, not knowing what to do.’

  ‘You’re painting me a picture of a Coralie I’ve never seen,’ he assured her cynically. ‘How well do you really know her?’

  ‘Well enough to imagine how she must feel,’ Katherine declared. ‘I know how much she must hate the idea of parting with her child.’

  ‘Where is she now?’ he demanded as if he hadn’t heard her defence of Sandy’s mother.

  ‘I don’t know.’ It was a lame sort of admission even if it was the truth.

  ‘You can’t hope to protect her by lying.’ He took her by the arm, his fingers sinking into her flesh as he sought to detain her.

  ‘I’m not lying!’ Katherine cried. ‘I phoned her from the Lake District last night and again this morning—’

  ‘And?’ he prompted, still holding her.

  ‘There was no reply.’

  ‘That hardly surprises me,’ he said dryly.

  She shook herself free.

  ‘I’m not going to discuss Coralie,’ she declared, ‘but I think I sympathise with her now, more than ever. You’re completely ruthless,’ she accused. ‘The man in authority, no doubt, in your own environment, but you have no right to take Sandy under the circumstances.’

  ‘I think I have every right.’ He moved towards the back of the car. ‘If you’ll give me your keys I’ll get Sandy’s bag.’

  She rubbed her arm where she could still feel the grip of his strong fingers.

  ‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘I’m not handing him over like this as if he were some kind of chattel. I agree I was foolish,’ she rushed on, ‘leaving him alone even for so short a time, but he was fast asleep and I knew I hadn’t far to go to reach the phone box.’

  ‘Did it not occur to you that he might have wakened up and been afraid?’ he asked icily.

  ‘I thought of that, but it was the chance I had to take,’ she admitted.

  ‘You appear to take chances easily,’ Charles Moreton pointed out.

  ‘Not as a rule.’

  ‘But this time,’ he suggested with deepening sarcasm, ‘you couldn’t resist helping an old school friend? I find that touching in the extreme.’

  He held out his hand, but she kept the keys.

  ‘I don’t intend you to get away with this,’ she decided. ‘I’m not going to hand over Sandy’s luggage just because you say so. He’s my responsibility at present.’

  ‘And mine.’ A flash of anger sparked in the grey eyes under the beetling black brows. ‘Please let me have your keys.’

  He continued to hold out his hand, his angry gaze transfixing her, and foolishly Katherine put the keys on top of the boot. A physical struggle with this man was out of the question, she told herself.

  ‘Thank you!’

  He opened the boot, taking out Sandy’s gay tartan grip and, surprisingly, her own suitcase, laying them aside on the road.

  ‘The case is mine,’ she pointed out.

  ‘I gathered that.’ He picked up both case and bag. ‘Have you a coat in the car?’

  ‘Yes.’ She answered him confusedly. ‘But what has that to do with all this?’ she demanded.

  ‘You’re coming with me. Obviously your car has broken down and. I’ve told you Sandy is safely installed for the night not too far away.’ He looked at her with a gleam of derision in his eyes. ‘Surely you don’t expect me to leave you where you are in the circumstances? You needn’t worry about your car,’ he added. ‘I’ll send someone to look at it in the morning.’

  ‘You’re very kind.’ There was a suggestion of sarcasm in her own voice now. ‘If it wasn’t for Sandy I’d refuse, but I don’t mean to lose track of him so easily.’

  Charles walked towards the Rover.

  ‘Make sure you lock up properly this time,’ he advised. Katherine got into the parked Rover because it was the only thing she could do. Her heart was beating strongly as she took her seat beside her captor, belying her outward calm which she wanted him to recognise as determination.

  ‘I don’t intend to let Sandy go,’ she said belligerently.

  ‘I wouldn’t expect you to.’ His tone was cold. ‘You had a great deal of courage to come this far after your experience at Beck Cottage. You must have known you were on a wild goose chase by then.’

  ‘I wasn’t chasing anyone!’ Katherine declared. ‘It was you who was doing the following bit, like some shabby private eye!’

  He evidently found that amusing, because he laughed outright.

  ‘What are you trying to say?’ he demanded. ‘That you have every right to Sandy and I have none?’

  ‘Coralie has more right than either of us,’ Katherine reminded him. ‘She is Sandy’s mother.’

  His mouth tightened again and she found herself looking at him in profile as he drove on without answering her. There was something about the high, arched nose and dark, beetling brows which disconcerted her now, suggesting a bird of prey, although she had formerly admired them in London, and certainly Coralie had used similar words to describe him before they had parted. ‘My ex-husband wants Sandy because he’s the heir to a great deal of money,’ she had said agitatedly. ‘His uncle settled a considerable sum on him when he was one year old and my ex is determined to have full control of it.’

  They motored on with long silences developing between them, although Katherine’s mind was actively at work. She did not trust this man now that she knew more about him. She had been primed to resent him, but she could not fail to recognise his strength.

  ‘Where are you taking me?’ she was forced to ask at last.

  ‘To Sandy. I thought that might be obvious,’ he answered. ‘He’s quite safe, I assure you, but I think you should remain with him till he’s completely settled in. He seems to have become quite attached to you.’

  ‘Settled in?’ she repeated. ‘And where might that be? You have no right to take the law into your own hands,’ she rushed on. ‘This is a—a double kidnapping!’

  He smiled at the suggestion.

  ‘Believe me,’ he said, ‘it’s highly coincidental. You’re hardly a child, and when I have no further use for your services I’ll let you go. It’s quite obvious that Sandy trusts you and I have to protect him from the shock of too many strangers.’

  ‘But you don’t hesitate when it comes to the trauma of separating him from his mother, which is a child’s natural protection,’ she declared angrily.

  ‘No.’ The square, determined jaw was firmly set, the steely eyes cold. ‘You promised to look after Sandy and I mean to hold you to your word.’

  Within an hour they had reached their destination. Turning the car off the road through the glen, Charles crossed a main highway to run along a wide strath where high peaks looked down on them in the gathering dusk, grim mountains crowding in on them from the north and east to make an easy prison from which it would be hard to escape.

  Without the help of her road map Katherine felt completely lost, yet when they finally pulled up at the hotel their welcome could not have been warmer.

  The proprietress came out to shake her companion by the hand, calling him by hi
s Christian name.

  ‘I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you first arrived, Chay,’ she apologised, ‘but everything is arranged.’

  She was a small, stout woman in her early fifties, amazingly reassuring in a well-fitting tweed skirt and matching cashmere jersey, and her curiosity when she looked at Katherine seemed only natural.

  ‘My name’s Katherine Rivers,’ Katherine offered swiftly. ‘I’m looking after Sandy.’

  A quick glance passed between the proprietress and her captor.

  ‘I thought Callum could pick up Miss Rivers’ car and take it into Killin in the morning,’ Charles Moreton said. ‘I hadn’t time to look at it.’

  The small, dark woman held out her hand.

  ‘You’ve had quite an adventure, I understand,’ she remarked guardedly. ‘You must be ready for a wash and something to eat.’ She turned back to Charles. ‘I’ve put the wee one to his bed,’ she explained. ‘He was tired and fair bewildered by all that travelling when Callum brought him in. It was lucky you met him on the road and he could bring Sandy here while you went back to look at the car.’

  So that was how Sandy had travelled so far in the meantime, Katherine thought. Charles had met a friend on his way to the hotel and passed Sandy on to him while he turned back to the lay-by in search of her. He had all the luck!

  ‘Thanks, Morag,’ Charles was saying. ‘I knew you would help all you could.’

  ‘Why not?’ Morag’s dark eyes searched his face. ‘If there’s anything else I can do you have only to say the word.’

  ‘I know that,’ Charles agreed, ‘but we’ll go on in the morning, I think. I want to get back to the Lodge as quickly as possible.’

  To my ultimate prison, Katherine thought dramatically. But surely this sort of thing couldn’t happen in this day and age?

  Charles Moreton’s attitude to their hostess was completely relaxed, and they were evidently on the friendliest of terms as they spoke about local matters standing in the low, raftered entrance hall for several minutes before they ascended the stairs. It would be hopeless to appeal to Morag, Katherine thought, while she so openly trusted Charles and was so eager to help him.

  ‘May I see Sandy?’ she asked at the top of the narrow staircase.

  Another quick glance passed between her hostess and Charles Moreton.

  ‘He’s sound asleep,’ said Morag as if at some unspoken command. ‘It would be a pity to disturb him. You’re near enough,’ she added. ‘I’ve put you in the room next door.’

  And where would Charles Moreton sleep? Somewhere not too far away along the same corridor, Katherine imagined, a grim guardian between her and the stairs.

  As soon as she was left alone in the small single room which was more than adequate for her needs she opened the door, making sure that the corridor was empty before she moved silently towards the door on her left. It was ajar and she pushed it open, to be immediately confronted by a pair of questioning grey eyes.

  ‘Were you looking for me?’ Charles Moreton enquired with a faint smile. ‘Or was it just for the quickest way of escape?’

  ‘Neither.’ Her cheeks were pink with embarrassment and a vague anger. ‘I was looking for Sandy’s room.’

  ‘To make sure I hadn’t spirited him away again?’ he queried. ‘Why are you so suspicious of my intentions, Miss Rivers? I told you he was safe enough.’ He came across the room to stand looking down at her. ‘We don’t exactly trust each other,’ he concluded, ‘and that’s quite natural under the circumstances, wouldn’t you say? How long have you really known Coralie?’ he demanded.

  ‘I told you we were at school together, but it was some time ago. Over six years ago, in fact. We met again at Millie Downhill’s party.’

  ‘Do you really expect me to believe that?’ he asked coldly. ‘When I noticed you it seemed that you were the best of friends.’

  ‘I don’t care what you thought,’ said Katherine. ‘I’m telling you the truth. I was coming north next day and I promised to take Sandy to his aunt in the Lake District.’

  ‘Because I was about to snatch him,’ he suggested. ‘I suppose that was what Coralie told you.’

  ‘Well, weren’t you?’ Her voice was suddenly harsh.

  ‘Not without discussing it,’ he declared. ‘I went to Millie’s party because I knew she would be there and she had been refusing to see me. She left rather hurriedly, you have to admit.’

  ‘She’d gone to meet someone—a business contact, I think—only he didn’t turn up and she felt she was wasting her time.’

  ‘But she hadn’t,’ he said carefully. ‘She’d met you and you’d promised to smuggle Sandy out of London early in the morning before anyone noticed.’

  ‘You did!’ she said. ‘You must have seen me leave my flat with Sandy in the car. Perhaps that was why you asked to see me home from Kensington the night before. It wasn’t really because it was raining and I might get wet, was it? It wasn’t even because you were—attracted by me as a person,’ she rushed on, remembering that disturbing kiss. ‘It was because you wanted to know where I lived so that you could check on my movements.’ The memory of the kiss he had pressed against her lips as a matter of course wouldn’t go away, the goodnight kiss he had imagined she would expect, and a bright colour flooded her cheeks. ‘You thought I was the kind of person you could cheat easily,’ she accused him, ‘fair game in your plot to take Sandy away from his mother, but you’ll find I’m not. I won’t stand idly by and allow you to kidnap him!’

  Charles held the door wide open.

  ‘To prove that my intentions are not as diabolical as you think they are,’ he said smoothly, ‘we’ll look in on Sandy now, but don’t forget he’s a very tired little boy you’ve driven over three hundred miles with hardly a stop in order to avoid me. He needs his sleep.’

  ‘How did you find my car?’ she asked, hesitating on the threshold of Sandy’s room.

  ‘It was an amazing stroke of luck,’ Charles admitted. ‘I lost you just north of Bassenthwaite because I was ahead of you. I had a fair idea you’d chose the Caldbeck road because it was the less obvious one, but I thought you’d gone straight off from the confectioner’s. Instead, I suppose you went back to the cottage for Sandy, and I should have thought of that. When I didn’t catch up with you I rejoined the motorway, which was my second mistake, though it did get me here ahead of you.’

  ‘You had no idea where I was going,’ she protested. ‘How did you feel so sure I would choose the Trossachs?’

  ‘Because you talked about them at the party and I took a chance when I discovered that Aunt Hattie was no longer available,’ he said.

  ‘I came by the west coast after Carlisle,’ Katherine admitted, ‘by Erskine Bridge and Loch Lomond, but I could quite easily have branched off to Oban—or anywhere else,’ she pointed out.

  ‘My luck was in,’ he said. ‘I felt it might be. There are very few roads—main roads, anyway—in this part of the Highlands which you could have taken, and I didn’t think you would stray into the byways. When you weren’t here, at the hotel, as I fancied you might be, I set out to look for you. It was still a chance in a million that I found you—or rather, Sandy.’

  ‘Abandoned?’ she said harshly. ‘But you must have known I’d be at my wits’ end when I got back to the car and found him missing.’

  ‘I’m afraid I didn’t think about that,’ he said coldly. ‘Not too much, anyway. I made my decision quickly because he’d wakened up, but I suppose I’d made up my mind from the beginning not to let you go quite so easily so that you could contact Coralie again.’

  Katherine stepped across the threshold of Sandy’s room without answering him and he allowed her a brief glimpse of a tired little boy with chubby arms flung out across a flowered quilt and his clothes neatly folded on a nearby chair.

  ‘Touching, isn’t it?’ he queried.

  She turned away.

  ‘I don’t know how you can speak so casually when you’re determined to take him away from Corali
e. She’s his mother.’

  ‘Coralie appears to forget that when it suits her,’ he said grimly, closing the door on the sleeping child. ‘When you’ve had a wash and change there’ll be a meal waiting for you downstairs,’ he added. ‘Morag and her daughter are old friends of mine.’

  ‘Staunch allies, I suppose you mean!’

  ‘If you like,’ he agreed. ‘They would never let me down.’

  Someone had carried her suitcase up to the adjoining room, but her car keys had not been returned. Impulsively she thought to ring and ask for them, and then she knew that they would still be in Charles Moreton’s possession. It was as effective a way as any to keep her prisoner.

  Running a bath, she watched the brown spring water gushing from the taps, finding it soft and caressing to the touch as she stepped in. A shower wouldn’t have been quite so comforting at the ending of such a stressful day, she thought, luxuriating deliberately in this unexpected luxury in such a remote place, but eventually she had to step out and towel herself dry. There were movements in the next room, a rush of water as a shower was turned on, and the banging of a door as someone went downstairs. Charles, no doubt, in a hurry to brief his friends again before she reached the dining-room.

  Almost reluctantly she left her own room, pausing for a moment at Sandy’s door to listen, but there was no sound from within. Sleep had taken over inevitably, and if she had driven too far and too quickly in one day she was quite sure that Sandy would rise refreshed in the morning. He was a sturdy little boy who would cope well enough with a couple of days’ motoring.

  Two days, she thought, almost unable to believe that it was so short a time since she had met Charles Moreton for the first time and allowed him to escort her home from Millie Downhill’s party. It seemed, even now, that he had been in her life for a very long time.

  The friendly welcome of a log fire met her when she reached the foot of the stairs. It was almost dark now, but the lights in the hall had not been lit and it was only as she approached the fireplace that she was aware of someone sitting there. A tall girl in a woollen dress the colour of spent heather rose to her feet, the firelight picking out the glow of her magnificent red hair as she held out her hand.