Ruthless in All

by Jessica Steele

  'Oh yes, dear. A case, I think. I think he intends to stay for more than just one night too.'

  'You—er—didn't think to ask him?' Arden asked slowly, not wanting to offend, but the question of how long their guest was staying an elementary one, she would have thought.

  'I didn't like to,' Louise replied, her smile disappearing as a concerned look came to her face. 'Mr Stephens didn't look at all well. He was positively rocking on his feet while I was talking to him, so I thought it would be better if he went straight to his room and had a lie-down.'

  'He looked ill?' Alarm took over from unease. Only the fact that this Mr Stephens had luggage with him kept Arden's imagination, vivid at the best of times, from running riot with thoughts of the stranger depositing himself in their establishment in order to commit suicide.

  'Worn out, I should say. He looked exhausted anyway, and in need of somewhere quiet to rest. I suspected as much when he asked about other guests staying here. I told him that there were only the three of us here—he'd seen the Colonel in the garden—I forgot that Colonel Meredith wasn't family,' Louise added revealingly, 'when I told him we had no guests and that we weren't expecting any. He didn't stay talking any longer than to hear that, but just signed the register and went up to his room.'

  With an excuse about changing her shoes, Arden left her aunt in the kitchen and went straight to the reception area. Mr J. Stephens, she saw when she checked the register, hailed from a part of Scotland she had never heard of. Now what, she wondered, was Mr Stephens from Scotland, where New Year was celebrated with more energy than anywhere, doing in Chalmers Hollow? And, if he was as exhausted as her aunt had suggested, why was he ready to sleep right through any New Year celebrations? Something a true Scot would never think of doing, exhausted or not!

  Busy in the kitchen later, Arden was able to silence her fears that there was something peculiar about the arrival of their guest with the thought that perhaps he worked as a travelling stocktaker or something like that. That maybe, having done an independent end-of-year stock-check for some firm in the area, mentally and physically tired, and no doubt fed up since he couldn't get home for New Year, he had headed for the nearest quiet refuge.

  Which meant, she thought, not considering her deduction too brilliant but in the absence of any other explanation, having to do, that since he hadn't a car and tomorrow being a bank holiday and trains being fewer, she would think, they probably had Mr Stephens staying at Hills View tomorrow night as well.

  'Did you tell Mr Stephens what time dinner was?' Arden asked her aunt when dinner was ready; a table had been laid for him in the dining room.

  Louise Browning nodded, her eyes showing concern for the new arrival. 'There's also a list of meal times in his room,' she said.

  But when Arden, wanting a sight of this Mr Stephens, suggested she would go and give him a knock, she wouldn't hear of it.

  'No, don't do that,' she said. 'He's probably sleeping. It would be a shame to disturb him.'

  'Softie,' said Arden, and heard Louise change the subject as she advised her to go and get changed if she wanted to be ready when Simon Berry called to take her to the ball.

  Arden was pleased with the reflection that looked back at her in her bedroom mirror. Not that Simon was anyone special, but so rarely did she dress up to go out that to be for once totally feminine with lipstick, powder and the gorgeous dress Aunt Louise had conjured up with magical needlecraft made her feel good. Her straight light brown hair just touched her shoulders, golden highlights coming to life in the main ceiling light from the room. Arden studied her face, large brown eyes set in a pale olive complexion, a straight dainty nose, and a mouth in her opinion that was a shade too full to be beautiful.

  Though her aunt's opinion of her when she presented herself downstairs was that she was totally beautiful. 'Oh, Arden!' she sighed, and as Arden looked back gently at her, not quite understanding the tears in her eyes, 'If only your mother could see you now. How beautiful you are!'

  Unexpected tears were smiting Arden too. But she chose to get them both over the sentimental moment rather than have the two of them in tears.

  'Did Mr Stephens come down for his dinner?' she asked.

  Immediately Louise Browning's thoughts were taken up with the concern she felt for their guest. 'I'm not sure what to do,' she confessed. 'I thought he might have appeared before now.'

  So Mr Stephens hadn't eaten! 'Why don't I take him something up on a tray?' she suggested, thinking a look at Mr Stephens was long overdue.

  'You can't go in that dress,' Louise objected, her concern more for the dress than the oddity of her niece's waitress garb.

  'Yes, I can,' said Arden promptly, promising, 'I'll be very careful.'

  'Well, you keep well away from the stove,' said Louise, quickly won over. 'I'll lay the tray for you.'

  Perhaps it wasn't such a good idea, Arden thought, taking each tread of the stairs warily. Simon would die of embarrassment if he had to take her to the dance with the contents of the gravy boat down her front!

  Reaching the door of the green room, she required only a little sleight of hand to balance the tray while knocking loudly on the wood panelling. But on receiving no answer, she was then juggling to keep the tray balanced while at the same time opening the door. She knew Mr Stephens was in there—if he was asleep as her aunt had suggested, she would quietly leave the tray and come out again.

  But Mr Stephens was not asleep. Nor did he want to be disturbed. That much, apart from him not replying to her knock, was obvious, when the tall athletically built man who faced her when in all her finery she went in, just stood and glowered at her.

  'Who are you?' he rapped, not so much as a glimmer of a smile on his dark aristocratic features.

  Shock keeping her silent for a couple of seconds—all types of guests had trampled the floors of Hills View over the years, but never one like him—Arden surfaced from it to send him a smile that hid her thoughts as she sidestepped him and went to place the tray down on an occasional table.

  'I'm Arden Kirkham,' she told him politely, filing away that there wasn't the barest trace of a Scottish accent, or any other accent, in his cultured tones. 'I'm Mrs Browning's niece.'

  In a split second he had noted that she was the proprietress's niece, and still in that same second he was challenging, nastily, she thought:

  'Did I order dinner?'

  Her eyes taking in the expensive quality of his clothes, the exhaustion in him that Louise had spotted, and that he looked to be somewhere in his late thirties, Arden bit down the tart reply she wanted to make at his rudeness.

  'No, you did not order dinner,' she replied as levelly as she could, 'but…'

  'Then take the bloody stuff away!' he snarled.

  Colour flared to her face to be spoken to like that, to be sworn at by him—by anyone. And it was a toss-up there and then whether she told him that the tray could stay, but that he could go.

  But just then he moved aggressively nearer, as though to take the tray up and thrust it at her. And as he moved, so the light in the room hit him full in the face, showing dark hair, dark eyes, but most of all, a scar that ran lividly down the side of his face.

  But it was not so much the scar, cruel though it was, and not completely healed as though the injury was recent, that had her forgetting what she had been about to do and just standing there wide-eyed and staring at him.

  'Ugly, isn't it?' he bit. 'Turns your stomach, does it, Miss Kirkham?' he jibed.

  His taunt about his scar turning her stomach was lost on her, as, a sudden certainty there, the words came blurting from her, 'I know you from somewhere!'

  Ice hardness was her reply. The flare of his nostrils, the tightening of his mouth was sufficient to tell her that he didn't care very much for her claiming that she knew him. And so darkly was he looking at her that Arden found she was rephrasing what she had said and was changing it from a statement to a question.

  'Don't—I know you from somewhe
re?' she amended.

  So much for her thinking he was a travelling stocktaker! she thought a moment later, for there was an authority in him that had her knowing that no one ever gave him orders. Nothing but arrogance was there in cold dark eyes that raked over her from the top of her thick shiny hair, down past the cleavage of her dress and to the tips of her dainty shoes. And just as though she was beneath his notice, and that he had stamped on better things, that arrogance was given vocal release as sharply, he told her:

  'I hardly think that is likely.'

  The tray forgotten, Arden's breath sucked in at his blatant insult, an insult he had meant as he stood uncaring, not regretting a word or inference. And it was then that the anger in her would not be held in check a second time.

  As she drew herself up to her full five feet six inches, inwardly boiling, an ice formed in Arden's eyes, and it was coldly, clearly, her glance flicking from arctic dark eyes to the scar he had termed ugly, that she said:

  'It's a great pity, Mr Stephens, that while they were at it, whoever gave you that, they didn't give you a matching one down the other side at the same time!'

  With that she slammed out. If he had an answer to make, she didn't hear it. If he ate his dinner, she hoped it choked him!

  But it wouldn't choke him. Nor was he the suicidal type she had fleetingly considered. He was a survivor. Exhausted he might be. Ill, as now she came to think of it, he looked, others might go under, others might be crushed by the life's blows, but Mr J. Stephens would survive. Whatever had happened that had left him looking as he did, he would survive, would J. Stephens, she was convinced of that.

  And she had seen him somewhere before, she knew she had. But where? He hadn't been a guest at Hills View before—with her retentive memory, with or without that scar, she would have remembered him.

  Ill-tempered brute, she thought, as reaching the lounge door, she heard her aunt talking to Simon and tried to put her fury behind her. Aunt Louise might think her beautiful, but her beauty had made no impression on J. Stephens!

  Arden stayed by the lounge door for a moment or two, not intending to tell her aunt about her brief clash of swords with their guest, but needing a few more seconds to get herself under control if she was to enter with a smile on her face.

  She guessed that beautiful women were two a penny to the man who had given his address as Scotland. For despite that look of him that said he and insomnia were on familiar terms, she hadn't missed that there was a look of alive virility about him. But, sophisticated as he might be, able to take his pick of beautiful women as he might be, Arden's brow wrinkled—she smelt a mystery somewhere.

  For why should a man like him, a man used to staying at only the best of hotels if she was any judge, choose to not only not be out wining and dining some beautiful woman in some lush surroundings on this celebratory eve, but also choose to spend New Year's Eve in a rundown guest house, that needed more than just a lick of new paint, far away from the city lights? And remembering the way he had objected to her interruption, with only himself for company?

  And why, Arden wondered, realising she should go forward into the lounge to greet Simon Berry, should he not decide to sign the register until after he had first discovered from her aunt that they had no other guests in residence?

  CHAPTER TWO

  Simon Berry was a friend of Arden's who was always popping up. Simon-liked to play the field, but frequently he would call her, though only occasionally did Arden feel able to accept any of his invitations out. When on Christmas Eve he had telephoned suggesting dinner, she had turned him down, but only to have him then promptly suggest, 'How about New Year's Eve? You must have some off time due.' And at his mention of all the gang being there at the dance, his enthusiasm had got through to her, so that she had agreed to be his partner, and had since then been quietly looking forward to it. It would be good to see the 'gang' again.

  But having been looking forward to the evening, Arden was finding, as midnight came and went, having extracted herself from Simon's arms when the light kiss she had been prepared for looked like becoming a clinch, that she had Mr J. Stephens too much on her mind to throw herself wholeheartedly into the general gaiety of the evening.

  Accepting that her imagination at times knew no bounds, she could not stop thinking about the way he had asked her aunt if there were other guests at Hills View before he had signed the register. The more she thought, the more she wondered just what it was he had to hide.

  She discounted that he was in hiding because of the scar on his face, a scar which he had described as ugly. Somehow he just didn't strike her as a vain man. So what other reason did he have for wanting to hide himself away?

  'Did someone burst the balloon I went into the rugger scrum to get you?'

  Arden grinned at Simon, pushing aside her nagging thoughts, guessing that her expression must have been solemn that he should make such a remark.

  'Sorry, Simon,' she apologised. 'I was miles away.'

  'Back at the guest house wondering what you're going to give the inmates for lunch tomorrow?' he queried. And Arden grinned again. It was a matter of pride that no one should know they had only two guests under their roof.

  'Come on, there's some sort of novelty dance going on,' said Lynne, one of their group. 'We need four couples, apparently.'

  The 'novelty dance' turned out to be a type of Scottish reel. And though the resultant tangle Arden was in provided much hilarity, she was remembering the man from Scotland in the green room who had not the least trace of a Scottish accent.

  'A drink's what we need after that,' pronounced Simon as they all came off the floor. But Lynne, casting a glance at her fiancé Nigel, who was to say the least of it looking a shade off colour, was in quickly with a motherly:

  'They don't sell fresh air in glasses, do they, Simon?'

  Laughter broke out among the men. 'He's done it again,' said Simon, and while someone else offered a friendly, 'Twit!' good pals all, in the next instant the men in the party were escorting Nigel outside.

  'It isn't that he drinks a lot,' explained Lynne protectively. 'It's his memory. He just can't seem to remember that he has the sort of stomach that can't take a mix of grape and grain. He's had a glass of each tonight.'

  Talk became general while they waited for a more healthy-looking Nigel to return, everyone discussing what they'd had for Christmas. But Arden's mind was back with the nagging thought of, what was it that J. Stephens had to hide? Did he have anything to hide, or was it just that because his rudeness had put her back up that she couldn't get him out of her mind?

  She wasn't insensitive to illness, she knew that. But she was angered by him swearing at her, by his looking down his nose at her as he'd told her he hardly thought it likely he would know anyone as lowly as her, and she found it difficult to make any allowance for the fact that he was feeling, and looking, under the weather.

  Again the feeling came that she knew him from somewhere. She had the sort of memory that never forgot a face. So where, since he had never been a guest at Hills View, had she seen him before?

  Nigel was now being escorted back, looking so much' better than he had done, and she left still trying to remember where she had met their unexpected guest before.

  But not for long was her mind away from the unease in her about him. For with much ribbing going on about how Nigel's male companions had had to brave the bitter cold elements, alarm was soon shooting through her as she heard one of them remark:

  'Pity the poor slob who broke out of police detention this afternoon. He'll freeze to death if he doesn't find somewhere warm to hide tonight.'

  'I hadn't heard!' A dart of panic had Arden speaking up, Mr Stephen's face to the forefront of her mind. That newly healing scar could easily have been caused if he'd been in a fight while trying to resist arrest. 'Has someone escaped from…'

  'It was on the local news,' someone else chimed in. 'Some arsonist is on the loose. Broke free while being transferred from…'
<
br />   'He'll need a fire on a night like tonight,' someone else butted in to quip. And while all Arden could think of was that she had to get home, and quickly, everybody else fell about laughing.

  Not wanting to spoil Simon's evening, she looked at the clock and saw it was getting on for one. There had been talk of going on to the somebody's house and finishing off with a bacon and egg breakfast, but she had already opted out of that, so Simon knew she didn't want to be too late. If he took her home now, he could easily come back and join them, she thought.

  When the others in the group drifted back on to the dance floor, and Simon turned to her, Arden was feeling too anxious, as she visualised Hills View in flames, to feel guilty at her lie.

  'Would you mind very much if I left now?' she asked. 'The festive season is a busy time for us.'

  Liking Simon, Arden was to feel quite fond of him when, although his face showed regret, he did not urge her to forget her responsibilities.

  'You've enjoyed this evening?' was all he asked, and he looked pleased when she told him that she had, very much.

  Relief came to overwhelm her when, with not one single fire engine screaming past them, they reached Hills View. The only lights showing came from an outside lamp and the hall light her aunt had left on— not, as Arden had seen in her mind, light from licking flames.

  In her relief, when Simon's fair head came nearer, and he kissed her, Arden returned his kiss far more warmly than she would otherwise have done.

  'Goodnight,' she bade him, then pulled out of his arms, and, about to thank him for her evening, she heard how very much he appreciated the warmth of her kiss when he replied:

  'Are you sure you want to say goodnight?' And as in the light from the lamp he saw from her expression that he was on a loser, 'Sorry,' he grinned, making it impossible for her to take offence at him, 'it just crossed my mind to hope that along with the year, my luck with you might have changed!'

  Her anxieties were so much lessened, Arden was able to grin too as she locked and bolted the door behind her. But her grin faded as she began to mount the stairs, recalling that there was a criminal on the loose; a criminal whom her mind just would not let her dissociate from the man in the green room.