‘Not very. Jason is angry and hurt, and Dante has gone quiet, thoughtful, and even more withdrawn. But then, he’s clearly worried about your brother and Rosetta too, isn’t he? They seem to be everywhere together, like Siamese twins.’
‘I think Rosetta’s old enough to look out for herself,’ I said. ‘And anyway, I think they’re really in love with each other, so it doesn’t matter what Dante says about it.’
‘It’s rather sweet of him to care, though, isn’t it? Anyway, I’ve given her lots of advice about her guests, because we’re both almost fully booked for Easter visitors. I’ve got your family coming, and Rosetta’s got three members of some ghost-hunting society and a medium with her husband, although she says Dante made her write to the medium and tell her that she couldn’t hold seances on his premises. She’s called Madame Something.’
‘It sounds busy, though my parents probably won’t stay more than one night when they realize Jane’s really not here.’ I ferreted about inside my bag and then handed her a note: ‘Will you give this to them when they arrive? It explains where she is.’
‘What are you doing for Easter? I haven’t got any vampire bookings for you for about a week, and then there are two.’ She pushed a bit of paper with the dates of my next appearances on across to me. ‘I’ve got one Marilyn Monroe on Saturday.’
‘I’m going to do nothing over Easter, except avoid Ma, Pa, Dante and Jason, and wait for everyone to go away or go back to normal. But I’ve had an idea for a new costume for you, one that I think would make Jason forget I even exist.’
She looked at me expectantly.
‘Barbarella!’
‘What me? I’d explode out of that outfit!’ she exclaimed.
‘All the better. I think he might just go for it. Most of his tastes are stuck in a time warp, anyway.’
Orla looked thoughtful. ‘Well, it would certainly be striking! I might give it a go. Nothing ventured … I’ll get on to that big fancy dress suppliers in London, I bet they can come up with the goods.’
‘Sock it to him!’ I urged.
‘I’ll do my damnedest, and even if it doesn’t work on Jason it should be pretty popular as a singing telegram. Only, what would she sing?’
‘I’ll think about it, and let you know.’
‘Tomorrow!’ she said firmly. ‘You’ll have to come out then for the auction. No trying to fake illnesses from pure cowardice.’
I groaned. ‘But if I was really ill, Orla, you could phone the vicar for me?’
‘No.’
‘Call yourself a friend?’
‘Even a friend can enjoy watching you squirm tomorrow!’ she said unfeelingly. ‘May the best – or worst – man win!’
I drove back by the same circuitous route, thus avoiding passing Jason’s shop. Later I rang Charles myself and tried my excuse, but he thought I was joking. ‘Teasing again, Cass my dear? And you with a huge reserve price on you!’
I felt like the prize-winning heifer at the show.
‘I suppose you mean this telephone bidder? I think I can guess who that is!’
‘I’m sure you can, and the amount he will go up to is quite stupendous, my dear! I might just try and run it up a bit …’
‘That’s cheating,’ I said. ‘It is Max, isn’t it?’
‘Confidential, but let’s say I was surprised after what you’d told me. But then, if you are at all uneasy about whoever buys your services, I will chaperone you, my dear.’
‘Thank you, Charles, but I’m sure I can look after myself … except that I really am not feeling very well at all: I don’t think I’m going to be up to it tomorrow.’
‘Always the joker!’ he said with cheery imperviousness, and rang off.
Still, at least if Max won the bidding for my services I wouldn’t be called upon to provide them for some months, by which time I would either have told him definitely that it was all over, or left the country. Or both.
Leaving the country before Dante read my manuscript was something I was thinking of doing anyway, because I really didn’t think he was going to like having an evil vampire ancestor in his beloved house, so I could economically kill two vultures with one stone.
Then I had an even better idea, one fulfilling my promise literally to the letter: when Eddie popped in briefly later I gave him a ghost-pale copy of the manuscript to take to Dante. He was sure to give up trying to strain his eyes before the end of the first chapter!
Saturday found me at the pub being issued with a numbered sticker, along with all the other slaves-for-the-day.
After my past experiences, this time I’d dressed down for the occasion. Contrary to popular belief I did have more practical garments than ankle-length crinkle velvet or crimped silk, and today I was wearing plain black jeans and a polo neck.
Admittedly, the said polo neck was made of stretch black velvet and clung a little, but at least it did not display a centimetre of cleavage.
‘You look terribly sexy in that outfit,’ Orla said, grinning. ‘What on earth are you offering to do this year? Cat burgling?’
‘You’re joking, aren’t you?’ I asked anxiously. ‘I was trying not to look even remotely sexy, because of all that trouble I had that time with old Mr Browne.’
‘Cass, you’d look sexy in a sack, in a hollow-eyed, Morticia Addams kind of way. Oh look – there’s Dante and Rosetta. And isn’t that Eddie?’
‘I’m afraid so. He and Rosetta do seem to be inseparable, don’t they? You can’t see where one ends and the other begins, and Dante doesn’t look too pleased.’
This was an understatement: he’d have put the Grimm into anyone’s fairy tale.
‘No, but I don’t know why,’ Orla said. ‘Eddie’s so sweet! I know he’s a bit off-beat, but—’
‘Not so much off-beat as off his head, but in an entirely harmless way.’
‘You don’t look too worried about who’s going to give the winning bid for you,’ Orla said curiously.
‘Because I’m sure Max is the mysterious absentee bidder, with a wallet impelled into action by sheer dog-in-the-manger jealousy. Charles says he will chaperone me if I want him to.’
‘Bit late for that, isn’t it?’ she said, then nudged me like a schoolgirl as Dante sauntered over, tall, dark and doomy.
She went all pink when he smiled at her, but he didn’t smile at me: just eyed me dispassionately from top to toe, like I was a link in the food chain that might just put him on as a snack until something tastier came along.
The weakest link.
I squinted down to check I hadn’t somehow lost my clothing without realizing it, but I still seemed to be covered pretty well from chin to toes. He was definitely in a rage about something, though, unless it was just natural reaction to having bared some of his soul to me, but I hadn’t forced him to, after all.
‘What will you do for me if I buy you?’ he asked coolly, but there was a disconcerting glint at the back of his eyes that caused me to blurt unthinkingly:
‘Probably not what you think, Dante Chase!’
‘You have no idea what I’m thinking – and let’s keep it that way. But you have certain talents that interest me, and if I can’t have you one way, I’ll have you another,’ he said, and strode off.
‘What the hell does he mean by that?’ I demanded. ‘Orla, stop giggling – it isn’t funny!’
‘Oh yes it is – your face! But don’t worry, I’m sure he just means that he’s going to enlist you as First Ghoul for the grand opening weekend of Spooky Hall B&B.’
‘He can’t ask me to do that when I haven’t put it on my list. I didn’t even put Crypt-ograms on it, in case he tried to get me to do it when I’d already refused.’
‘So you did expect him to bid for your services then?’
‘No! Yes – oh, I don’t know. I was just being cautious. And thank goodness Jason doesn’t seem to be here. I knew you were wrong about them bidding against each other.’
‘I put the Marilyn Monroe thing on my list.’
&nb
sp; ‘You’ll probably get old Mr Browne this year then,’ I told her maliciously.
‘I sincerely hope not! I was hoping for something a bit friskier.’
‘They don’t come much friskier than Mr Browne,’ I assured her. ‘I thought I was hired to give his antique shop a jolly good clean and turn out, but if he chased me round that inlaid pedestal table once, he chased me ten times. I was quite exhausted.’
‘Who got you last year?’
‘Miss Gresham – don’t you remember? First she made me give a talk on writing to the WI, then she invited her particular cronies over and tried to make me read their fortunes, and she just didn’t understand when I said I couldn’t do it to order.’
‘I got her the year before last, and she made me wash all of her little Pekes, and Sung bit me!’
I nudged her. ‘Shush – the vicar’s about to start.’
The line of slaves shuffled their feet, and laughingly formed into numerical order. I was between Emlyn’s wife, Clara, and Orla, a thorn between two roses.
Come in, number six, your time is up.
Pushing the twin portholes of his glasses up on to the bridge of his insignificant nose, the vicar beamed at the assembled throng like a friendly turtle.
‘Welcome to the ninth Westery Annual Slave Auction, everyone. Glad to see a good turn-out for such an excellent cause, and for those newcomers among you who might think a slave auction an unchristian event, let me just explain: the very idea of real slavery is, of course, absolutely abhorrent to me and to all of you, and I’m sure we all stand firm on that. But today, these good people have volunteered their services for a day, and the money they fetch will go to a very good cause: the fund to send a little local girl, Kylie Morgan, to America for life-saving surgery.
‘Now, I have a fine assortment of slaves here, willing to do your bidding. The usual rules, ladies and gentlemen: one whole day, regular rest and food breaks, and don’t ask them to do anything dangerous or – ahem! – naughty. But do utilize the talents that they have so generously offered. Thank you.’
His audience of the drunk, the sober, the curious, the convivial and the calculating settled into their seats and waited for lot one.
Dante didn’t bid for any of the first lots, just sat there darkly brooding with his arms crossed over his manly bosom, while a parade of slaves passed before his eyes.
Eddie and Rosetta seemed to have vanished, but to my dismay Jason suddenly appeared at the back of the room: he must have closed his shop up especially.
Clara drew the short straw and went to Miss Gresham this year, but she was extremely practical so I expected she could cope even if asked to wash the horrid little Pekes. Or perhaps Miss Gresham wanted something knitted? Clara was an ace machine knitter.
Then it was my turn, and I thought maybe I might derive some pleasure (if Dante actually did bid for me), in seeing him outdone from afar, even though it was going to make giving Max the final heave-ho just a little bit more difficult than it already was.
‘Next we have Miss Cass Leigh,’ the Rev. said enticingly. ‘Rumoured, like her namesake Cassandra, daughter of Priam and Hecuba, to have the gift of prophecy. Her talents might be a little on the dark side, but she will hardly be burned as a witch these days!’
There was dutiful laughter: he says much the same thing every year. Glancing across at Dante I was disconcerted to find that, although his head was still slightly bent, his bright eyes were fixed speculatively on me.
It was a bit unnerving, actually, but made me think what a great character he would make for a cartoon strip, strip being the operative word. Or in one of my books, as the ghost of some ancient warrior perhaps? With his floppy, unkempt black hair, glistening muscled torso, and maybe leather wristbands or an armlet …
Wolfric paused, looking about in a puzzled way. ‘This is not my world,’ he said. ‘I was called from my eternal rest by a power stronger than death …’
‘Twenty pounds? Who will start the bidding at – oh, thank you, Mr Browne. Now, do I hear thirty – forty – fifty …’
The bidding paused, not surprisingly, at this point. Then the vicar’s housekeeper, her cheeks red with excitement, said, as one making the clinching bid: ‘Sixty pounds!’
‘Thank you, Mrs Grace! Sixty pounds …’ began the vicar happily. ‘Six—’
‘Seventy!’ said Jason’s voice from the back of the room. Every head turned to stare.
‘A hundred,’ said Dante laconically.
All eyes swivelled back, and the vicar nearly fell off his perch. ‘A hundred!’
He swallowed, beamed, and continued: ‘A generous offer of one hundred pounds for Miss Cassandra Leigh, from Mr Dante Chase of Kedge Hall. Would … er … anyone like to raise that?’ he asked hopefully.
Mr Browne shook his head, looking disappointed, as did Mrs Grace.
Clearly Max had underestimated the value of my assets – and so had I. Could somebody have doctored my list of skills?
‘One hundred and ten,’ Jason’s voice said firmly, and Dante immediately capped it, catching me staring at him again and holding me in the tractor beam of his gaze.
Oh, beam me up, Scotty!
Had I somehow tacitly agreed with either Dante or Jason to do over a hundred pounds worth of something? And if so, what? When? Where? Why?
I mean, I may have been sex on legs personified for Mr Browne or even Jason, but Dante could have no need to pay for anything I might give him … except the most expensive singing telegram in the world?
Perhaps he just didn’t like to be beaten?
I came back to earth with a start to find a small bidding war had erupted, though Jason retained enough good sense (or lacked sufficient chivalry) to waste his money and dropped out when Dante offered two hundred pounds.
Just as well, because Dante seemed quite prepared to go on for ever.
This was Survival of the Richest.
‘Sold to Mr Chase!’ the vicar said, crashing his hammer down excitedly.
‘And I’ll double that, if I can have Miss Leigh’s services for two days instead of one,’ Dante called clearly.
The room couldn’t have gone more silent if he’d announced that he was about to ravish me on the pool table in the bar.
… the castors squeaked beneath their entwined bodies, the green felt a field of …
No, scrub that one: I’m definitely not writing that sort of novel.
‘Two days?’ The vicar, taken aback, looked doubtfully at me. ‘Er … the arrangement is always one day only, Mr Chase. Though of course it’s up to Miss Leigh, and it is a good cause? But no, I can’t ask anyone to give up more than one day!’
Everyone looked expectantly at me, including the speaking dark eyes of Kylie Morgan from her photograph on the wall.
A life-saving operation: what could I do?
‘All right,’ I muttered unwillingly and, I fear, ungraciously.
‘Done!’ the vicar said delightedly.
I certainly felt as if I had been.
‘You lucky dog!’ Orla whispered.
‘Yes,’ Clara agreed enthusiastically from my other side. ‘I wonder what he wants? From me, he could have any—’
‘Shh!’ I said desperately. ‘It’s the last lot – you, Orla!’
Mr Browne, rallying, bought Orla for thirty pounds, and then as the usual finale the vicar sold himself.
And as always his housekeeper bought him for ten pounds. She uses the day to force him into town for all the new items of clothing and household goods he has avoided shopping for in the last year.
‘Here do be coming your young master, wench!’ Orla said.
‘Ho, ho,’ I said hollowly. ‘Consider your copies of Poldark confiscated.’
Dante stopped in front of me unsmiling, and I stared inimically right back. His eyes looked like cold chips of good turquoise, so perhaps he was regretting his deal already.
‘I’m not doing anything that isn’t on my list!’ I told him bluntly.
‘I nee
d your skills,’ he said ambiguously. ‘Easter weekend – the Saturday and Sunday.’
‘What about them?’
‘Keep them for me. That’s when I want you.’
‘But I—’
‘I understand the arrangement is the whole day?’
‘Well yes, but—’
‘It just says “whole day” on the sheet. That’s midnight to midnight in my book – or in this case, midnight Friday to midnight Sunday. You’d better come up to the Hall on the Friday evening and stay.’
‘You can’t possibly expect—’
‘In the lonely west wing with me – and Vladimir,’ he said meaningfully. ‘Remember him? Rosetta’s filled the guest rooms, so you have no choice.’
Oh-oh! Now I thought about it he did have the hollow, dark-circled eyes of a man who’d spent the whole night poring over a pallid manuscript.
‘Now look here, Dante!’ I began angrily, beginning to think he was going to spend a fun weekend paying me back for endowing his ancestors with bloodsucking propensities (among other things), but was interrupted by the local reporter.
She congratulated Dante on his generosity, and he made full use of the opportunity to talk about the Ghastly Weekends, and said how he hoped I would help him and his sister on their opening weekend, and also looked forward to receiving some handy hints, author to author, on the book he was writing.
I smiled weakly and said I hoped he would think I was worth it, and he said satisfaction was guaranteed, which made him a clear winner in that round.
It was abundantly evident that the reporter thought he was a clear winner in any round, so I gave up sparring with him – for now.
He’d made my bed and I was just going to have to lie on it with as good a grace as possible, even if it was in the remote west wing of the most haunted house in Britain, with the most haunted man.
Our photos were taken, though my expression might have been a trifle frozen, since Dante whispered the words: ‘Nice outfit, by the way!’ into my ear at the crucial moment, his long hair brushing my face.
Immediately after that he left, though there wasn’t a lot of bounce left in me by then.
Jason had turned on his heel and gone when he bowed out of the bidding, but Rosetta and Eddie had reappeared and were staring at me, hand in hand. Then Eddie beamed, and I beamed back automatically as one does, and then Rosetta beamed, and it only needed someone to whip out a guitar and start playing ‘Oh Happy Day!’ to put the finishing touch to a glorious occasion.
A Good Heart is Hard to Find Page 21
