'From the look on your face, I thought you planned to leave me up there all night,' he said drily.
'I was awfully tempted,' she admitted. 'But I'd never actually have done it.'
'I would have deserved it,' Nathan Hayward said, with unexpected frankness. 'Locking you in that cellar and then forgetting that you were there—it was a fairly bizarre thing to do. Believe it or not, I don't usually treat women like that.'
'I think I'd prefer to believe it,' Rose said rather fervently. 'Otherwise, I wouldn't feel very safe sitting in this car with you.'
She was amazed that she was having this comparatively civilised conversation with Nathan Hayward. They had barely said a polite word to each other since they had first met, and now he had suddenly started behaving like a normal human being. It was also a little unnerving, because she hadn't realised that he was capable of radiating an almost palpable charm. Careful! she warned herself. Remember the other side to him. Don't be fooled by the sheep's clothing. This man is definitely still a wolf!
She started up the car, driving carefully as she left the hospital car park. Although he didn't once complain, she was sure that every small bump in the road was sending jolts of pain through Nathan's bruised body. When Rose eventually brought the car to a halt on the gravel drive at the front of Lyncombe Manor, he gave a grunt of relief.
'That's a journey that I'd prefer not to make again until some of these bruises have gone down!' He opened the car door, but then paused and turned to her.
'Sorry—I forgot to thank you for the lift. And for waiting all that time at the hospital.'
'If you carry on being so polite, I'll begin to think that fall affected you in more ways than one!' she said tartly. 'You've been a changed man since you came out of that hospital.'
'Perhaps I just wanted you to see the better side of my character. I do have one,' he said lightly.
'Hmm,' muttered Rose, a little disbelievingly. This wasn't the time to argue about it, though. Instead, she scrambled out of the car and went round to the passenger side. 'Come on,' she said more briskly, 'I'll give you a hand into the house. You'll probably feel better after you've had some rest.'
Nathan didn't make any effort to get out of the car, though. And he ignored the hand she stretched out towards him, ready to help him to his feet. 'I can manage on my own,' he told her. 'You can leave me here—I'm perfectly capable of looking after myself.'
'I dare say you are,' Rose agreed. 'But the doctor said you had to have someone with you for the next twenty-four hours. I definitely didn't want to volunteer for the job, but you don't seem to have anyone else who cares what happens to you.'
His slate-grey eyes fixed on her with a suddenly curious expression. 'And you do?'
'No,' said Rose, just a little too quickly. 'And if you treat everyone the way you treated me, I can see why you don't have any friends. But I can't simply walk off and leave you. If anything happened to you, I'd never be able to sleep at night again.'
'Nothing's going to happen to me,' he said with some certainty. 'And I don't need a temporary nurse.'
'I'm not volunteering to be one,' Rose retorted. 'I'm just going to hang around for a while, to make sure you don't get any after-effects from that fall. If you suddenly collapse or black out, you'll need someone to telephone for help.'
'I'm not going to collapse,' he growled impatiently. 'I'm going to take myself off to bed for a few hours. When I get up in the morning, I'll have a few painful bruises, but otherwise I'll be fine.'
'There's always a chance you might not be,' she said stubbornly. 'And what would you do then? I mean, you do live here all on your own, don't you?'
'Yes.' He looked at her with sudden wariness. 'And that's the way I like it,' he warned.
'I'm not planning to move in,' Rose told him with some exasperation. 'In fact, I should think you're the last person in the world that anyone would want to live with. I don't even want to stay overnight. The doctor said that someone has to keep an eye on you for the next few hours, though. Since I feel sort of responsible for your accident, I guess that person has got to be me.'
'You feel responsible?' he echoed, raising one eyebrow. 'Because you wouldn't put back that ladder?'
'Yes,' she admitted with some reluctance. Then her violet eyes took on a defiant glow. 'Although I don't know why I should feel guilty. You're the one who started all this, by locking me in that cellar.'
Nathan began to look impatient again. 'Do we really have to go over all that for the umpteenth time? I've said I'm sorry and I've tried to explain why I did it. And as for all this rubbish about feeling guilty— you're not responsible for my accident. I slipped and fell, that was all.'
'Maybe so. It doesn't make any difference, though. You've got to have someone around for a while, and it looks as if I'm the only one idiotic enough to volunteer.'
Nathan let out a heavy sigh. 'You're very persistent, aren't you?'
Rose shrugged. 'I don't really know. Once I've made my mind up about something, I hardly ever change it. Does that make me persistent?' It certainly seems like it to me,' he said drily. 'If you stay here overnight, won't someone miss you? Don't you have people expecting you home?'
'I'm on sort of a prolonged holiday,' Rose explained. 'I'm staying at a guest house at the moment. I can easily ring Mrs Rogers—she owns and runs it—
and explain that I won't be back until tomorrow.'
He was looking at her steadily now, and for the first time there was a faint flicker of curiosity in his grey eyes.
'You're an odd girl,' he said at last. 'You turn up out of the blue, you insist on sticking around to help me, even though I treated you in a way that would have most girls running off and screaming for the police, and you don't seem to have anyone much who cares if you suddenly decide to spend the night at the house of a stranger.'
Rose shook her head. 'You're wrong about that. I've got a lot of family and friends who care about me. It's just that most of them are rather a long way away. Perhaps you're mixing me up with yourself,' she went on steadily.
' You're the one who lives like a recluse, and doesn't seem to want anyone to share even a small part of your life.'
For a few moments, their gazes met and held. Then Nathan's grey eyes took on a bleak tinge, and he looked away. 'I don't want to talk any more,' he muttered. 'It's making my head ache. Let's get into the house.'
Rose could take a hint. Anyway, she had had enough of this conversation, as well. She didn't even know what had made her say that—she certainly wasn't interested in Nathan Hayward's private life. She jtfst wanted to get through the next few hours, and then get away from here—and from this often prickly and bad-tempered man.
Nathan got out of the car and walked very stiffly towards Lyncombe Manor. Rose trailed along a couple of paces behind, and had the feeling that she was about to make her second big mistake.
The first, of course, had been coming back here in the first place. The second was getting even further involved with this man, when it really wasn't necessary. Even now, she could change her mind and leave him. Chances were that he would be perfectly all right.
But if he wasn't? whispered a small voice inside her head. If something happened to him, wouldn't she feel badly about it for the rest of her life? Rose gave a deep sigh, told herself that she would stay here for just the one night, and then followed Nathan Hayward into Lyncombe Manor.
CHAPTER THREE
THE sun was beginning to set, and a dark golden glow filled the interior of the house. Rose knew that, if Lyncombe Manor belonged to her, she would never want to leave it. Ever since she had first seen it, it had cast a spell on her. In fact, she thought it was one of the reasons she had come back again. She had longed to see it one more time.
Nathan walked wearily through the entrance hall, and paused at the foot of the stairs that wound up to the first floor. 'I'm going up to bed,' he told her.
'But—what should I do, now that I'm here?' asked Rose, a little awkwardly.
>
'The kitchen's through there,' he said, pointing towards the door at the end of the passage. 'Get yourself something to eat if you're hungry. And if you're absolutely determined to stay the night—although I've already told you it isn't necessary—there are a couple of spare bedrooms upstairs.'
With that, he hauled himself stiffly up the stairs and disappeared from sight, leaving Rose standing in the middle of the entrance hall, wondering why on earth she had decided to stay.
If you had any sense, you'd go straight home, she told herself. Except that, at the moment, home was only Mrs Rogers' guest house. It was comfortable, but quite ordinary. Not at all like Lyncombe Manor, with its wild, beautiful gardens, its rooms with stone-flagged floors and heavily beamed ceilings, and its air of mysterious secrecy.
She began to prowl quietly through the ground floor of the house, unable to resist the urge to explore. The rooms were sparsely furnished with old, ornately carved chairs, large dressers, and long, plain, oak tables. The massive fireplace in the great hall was filled with logs which wouldn't now be lit until next winter, and the only sound came from the bulky grandfather clock which ticked slowly and solemnly in the corner.
The evening light was beginning to fade to soft dusk now, and Rose switched on a couple of lamps. They cast only dim puddles of light, and the corners of the great hall were filled with shadows. In an old house like this, the atmosphere could easily have seemed quite eerie, but Rose didn't feel in the least nervous. In fact, she felt surprisingly at home. That was a little disturbing, because she was very much aware that this house belonged to Nathan Hay ward. That fact alone should have made her feel uneasy about staying under this particular roof.
She realised that she was beginning to get very hungry, and so she reluctantly left the great hall and made her way to the kitchen. A quick search of the cupboards and refrigerator revealed a good supply of fresh foods, salads and vegetables. Rose hadn't expected that. Many men living on their own existed on tinned food and frozen dinners. Nathan Hayward obviously wasn't one of them.
Then she realised that she might have made a very basic mistake in assuming that he always lived alone. Just because there was no one else around at the moment, that didn't mean he lived like a monk all the time. Perhaps there was a girlfriend who came down occasionally. Or even girlfriends, in the plural. Nathan Hayward struck her as a man who would very easily attract women.
Yet she had the feeling that it was a very long time since a woman had set foot in Lyncombe Manor. The house gave the impression of being lived in only by a male. There were no flowers anywhere, no ornaments, Or any sign that a female had had a hand in choosing the furnishings.
Rose finally gave a small shrug. It really wasn't of any interest to her whether he had a girlfriend, or even an entire harem. In fact, she had already showed far too much curiosity about Nathan Hayward's lifestyle, and it occurred to her that it might be a good idea to stop right now. She briskly prepared a meal for herself, ate it, and then cleared away the dishes. It was fully dark outside by this time, and she caught herself yawning more than once.
'Time for bed,' she told herself. 'All you've got to do now is to find yourself an empty bedroom.'
She switched off most of the lights downstairs, leaving just one small lamp burning in the hall so she could see her way up the stairs. The first flight curved round to a small landing, and Rose let out a loud, startled yelp as a huge figure suddenly loomed out of the shadows.
A door opened on the first floor and Nathan appeared, silhouetted in the doorway. 'What the hell's going on?' he demanded irritably. As light streamed out from his room and lit the landing, Rose gradually began to relax. At the same time, she started to feel a complete fool. The huge figure wasn't a burglar, waiting to leap out at her. It was a massive suit of armour!
'Sorry,' she muttered, looking up at Nathan sheepishly. 'Did I wake you up?'
'I've been awake for the last hour,' he told her curtly. 'Why did you shout out like that?'
'The stairs were dark—I couldn't see properly.' She pointed at the suit of armour, feeling really stupid now. 'I thought it was someone waiting to jump out at me.'
Nathan lifted one eyebrow. 'I wouldn't have let you stay here if I'd known you were of a nervous disposition. This house has a lot of spooky corners.'
'I'm never nervous,' Rose denied at once. 'Well--hardly ever,' she amended, remembering a couple of moments during the last twenty-four hours when her nerves had felt decidedly twitchy. 'Anyway, why are you awake?' she went on, deciding it was time to change the subject. 'You do feel all right, don't you?'
'As well as it's possible to feel after falling off a roof,' Nathan replied drily.
'And I'm awake because I hardly ever sleep for more than three or four hours at a stretch.'
'But it's only eleven o'clock,' Rose pointed out. 'What are you going to do for the rest of the night?'
'Do you really think that's any of your business?' he enquired, and she immediately flushed.
'No, I suppose not,' she mumbled. 'Well, I want to get some sleep, even if you don't. Which room should I use?'
He pointed to a door a little further along from his 'You'll find a bed in there.'
He walked towards the top of the stairs, and then paused for a moment, 'I'll see you in the morning—unless the ghost scares you out before the night's over.'
Rose couldn't stop herself from swallowing hard. 'Ghost?' she repeated, trying very hard to sound completely unfazed, but not quite managing it. Nathan suddenly grinned, a wolfish smile which sent a whole swarm of goose-pimples over her skin.
'Every house as old as this has to have a ghost.'
'Have you--?' Rose cleared her throat, and tried again. 'Have you seen it?'
'Of course not,' he replied calmly. 'I don't believe in ghosts, so how could I possibly see one?'
'Then how do you know it exists?' she demanded.
'Because the previous owners told me they used to see it quite regularly. But don't worry, it doesn't wail or weep, or clank chains. It just wanders round the house very quietly, trying hard not to disturb anyone too much.'
Rose scowled at him. 'I think you're making the whole thing up! But if you're trying to scare me out of here, it isn't going to work. I don't care if half a dozen ghosts parade around my room, or even if one appears with its head tucked under its arm. I'm staying here until the morning, and even then I'm not leaving until you've convinced me you're perfectly healthy.'
With that, she flounced along to the room he had pointed out, and rather noisily closed the door.
She turned on the light switch; then her mouth opened a little in surprise. Nathan had told her she would find a bed in there—but he hadn't told her that it was a huge four-poster that nearly filled the entire room.
'Even for a house like this, this is a little over the top,' she muttered to herself wryly.
She sat on the edge of the bed rather gingerly, and was relieved to find that it felt very comfortable. Then she stood up again, and wondered where the nearest bathroom was.
Since she definitely didn't want to have to go and ask Nathan, she ventured back into the passageway outside, and began opening doors. The third one led into a small bathroom. With some relief, she stripped off and then stepped under the shower. The house might be old, but she was glad to see that all the conveniences seemed to be modern.
When she had finished drying herself on the towel that hung over the rail, she realised that she didn't have much choice except to put her rather crumpled clothes back on. In fact, she was going to have to sleep in them, since she didn't have any nightwear.
Then she looked thoughtfully at the towelling robe that hung on a hook on the door. She supposed it would be a bit of a cheek to borrow his clothes—but, on the other hand, it would be a lot more comfortable than sleeping in jeans and a T-shirt. Anyway, she could always wash it out in the morning, before she gave it back to him.
She slipped into the towelling robe, and then discovered that it
felt rather odd to be wearing something that belonged to Nathan Hayward. 'Don't start getting fanciful,' she murmured to herself. 'It's an old towelling robe, that's all.'
She went back to the bedroom, turned off the light, and stretched out on the four-poster bed. Although she was tired, she couldn't sleep. She tossed and turned for over an hour, and then sat up in exasperation.
'What are you doing here?' she asked herself, running her fingers a little distractedly through her hair. 'You're looking after a man who doesn't need looking after. Never mind what the doctor said. Nathan Hayward isn't going to have any kind of relapse. He's too darned contrary to do something like that!'
She realised that she must have been a little mad in the first place to have insisted on staying here all night. Nathan Hayward didn't want her here, and, although she was still absolutely enchanted by Lyncombe Manor, she didn't feel at all at ease staying under the same roof as that man. Come to think of it, she didn't even know him. At least, not in the accepted sense of the word. If her parents knew that she was spending the night with a man she had met only a little over twenty-four hours ago, they would be pretty horrified. When she thought about it in that sense, she was fairly horrified. She already knew that he was capable of really bizarre behaviour. What else was he capable of?
The more she thought about it, the more panicky she became. During the bright light of day, it had seemed quite reasonable to stay here until she was sure he wasn't going to get any reaction from that fall. It was after midnight now, though, and very dark outside, which made everything seem quite different. It occurred to her that it was really quite insane to stay in this isolated house with a man who was a virtual stranger. If anything happened, who would be around to help her? No one! And that was why it would be a very good idea to get out of here right now.
She glanced at her watch. It was past midnight, but she was sure Mrs Rogers would let her back into the guest house, no matter what time she turned up on the doorstep. With sudden determination, Rose got out of bed, threw off the towelling robe and began to wriggle back into her own clothes. It took her only seconds to finish dressing. Then she left the bedroom and hurried down the stairs.
Haunted Summer Page 4
