by Marie Laval
‘Is that why you came here?’ Cassie asked. ‘To work things out?’
He looked down into her clear and clever grey eyes. ‘That was the plan.’
It sounded less pathetic than to say that he had run away to a place far enough for no one to be able to reach him at Christmas time. Of course, he hadn’t banked on getting involved with anyone… or to be rescued from his doom and gloom and his self-imposed exile by a kind and cheerful housekeeping fairy, her joker grandfather, and their welcoming friends and family.
Dread filled his heart, cold and heavy like a stone. What had he been thinking of, taking Cassie to bed, making love to her? It had been wrong of him to take advantage of her. He was a damaged man. He had failed with catastrophic consequences. He had nothing to offer her.
He pushed the thought out of his mind and forced a smile.
‘Your turn. I told you about my ghosts, now you tell me about yours.’
Immediately her face closed up. ‘It’s late, and I’m tired.’
He frowned and cupped her cheek with his hand. ‘Hey. We had a deal.’
‘You’re going to think I’m crazy, or stupid, or both, or that I drank too much that night,’ she said. ‘Everybody thinks that.’
‘Come here.’ He wrapped his arms around her waist, pulled her down and held her tightly against him. Her hair tickled his chest. Her breath on his skin aroused delicious sensations, making his body tighten and pulse once more. But now wasn’t the time.
‘Tell me what happened.’
She shuddered against him. ‘Ten years ago, my friends and I had a Christmas Eve bonfire on the banks of Wolf Tarn. We packed food and drinks, a couple of disposable barbecues and a CD player and we all piled up in a big old Land Rover that belonged to someone’s dad. We knew that Lord Ashville was spending Christmas in London and that Belthorn would be empty so we drove into the estate through a broken gate, unloaded all our stuff, and made a fire on the lakeshore. It was a cold, clear night. I remember looking up at the sky and thinking how magical it was, with the stars reflecting onto the surface of the lake, making it sparkle in the moonlight.’
‘It sounds like a good night out.’
‘It was… at first. A few of us were in a band so we sang and danced until well after midnight. Then the girls retreated into the Land Rover with their boyfriends because they were cold and… well, they wanted a bit of privacy, if you can call privacy being cooped up in a car with two other couples. I was left on my own on the shore with the dying fire, the remains of our picnic and the CD player.’ She sighed. ‘After a while, I got bored and walked along the shore.’
She tensed and her voice became a whisper. ‘That’s when I saw them.’
‘Them?’
‘There was a big man carrying a woman. She wasn’t moving. Her body looked all floppy, her head tipped backwards and her hair was so long it almost touched the ground. Another man stood back, as if he only wanted to watch from a distance, and he was, like me, a spectator. He was partly concealed behind the ruins of the abbey but I could see that he was tall and wore a kind of long robe, like a priest or a…’
Stefan frowned. ‘A monk?’ he finished, trying to tone down the incredulity in his voice. ‘You think you saw that Grey Friar your family was talking about, don’t you?’
She nodded. ‘I know what you’re thinking. That I was drunk, or deluded, or again sleepwalking, and you know something? I really wish I was any of those things, but I was sober and fully awake, and that terrifies me…’
He cursed himself for doubting and upsetting her. Kissing the top of her head, he tightened his embrace. ‘Carry on.’
She sighed. ‘The whole thing was like a nightmare, or a scene from a horror film.’
He looked down. ‘What exactly was happening?’
She took a deep breath. ‘The big man walked into the lake with the woman in his arms, and held her down underwater for what felt like an eternity. I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, and couldn’t stop what was happening. It was horrible. Finally he let go of her, her body floated, on the moonlit tarn… and it was as if the spell was broken and I could move again. I started screaming but he just vanished and so did the body of the woman. It was as if I had dreamt the whole thing.’
‘What about the… other man you said you saw?’ The more she told him about the scene she said she had witnessed, the more he was convinced she had had some kind of hallucination.
‘He disappeared too. One second he was standing near the ruins of the abbey. The next he was gone. What scared me so much about him was that he had no face. No face at all…’
She wouldn’t like it, but he had to ask. ‘Could it have been shadows of trees or clouds passing in front of the moon?’
She shook her head. ‘I saw people, Stefan, not moon shadows.’
‘All right… Sorry. What did you do?’
‘I ran back to the car in a total panic. I was hysterical, and told the others I had just witnessed a murder. They ran back with me but couldn’t see anything, so we drove back to my house in a hurry. My step-dad being a policeman, we thought he would know what to do. We woke him up, blurted the whole story out and he immediately called in mountain rescue and his colleagues from Keswick for backup. They went up to Wolf Tarn that night but didn’t find anything. The following day – Christmas Day – divers searched the lake whilst police and sniffer dogs patrolled the shore, the abbey and the hillside. Once again, they found nothing. I was castigated for wasting police time. They said I must have been drinking, or taking drugs, or again that I was attention seeking. Only my grandma believed me…’
She was silent for a few seconds then added. ‘After that night, I only went back to Belthorn with my mother. It was Sophie who was supposed to take care of you, but she quit, leaving me no choice but to come back on my own.’
He flipped her body until she was under him, lifted her arms on the pillow and intertwined his fingers with hers. ‘Well, I’m glad she did or we may have never met.’
And he meant it, with every fibre of his being.
Chapter Thirty-One
‘And this, ladies and gentlemen, is what you get when you cross a parrot with a centipede… a walkie-talkie!’
There was a chorus of applause and laughter, and Joseph Bell, his face flushed and his hair ruffled, bowed his head in salute as he sat down. He loosened his tie as he waited for the noise to quieten down. ‘That will be all for tonight, folks. I haven’t had much time to make up many after-dinner jokes suitable for this Tarzan and Jane extravaganza since our lovely Kerry decided to go ape for her wedding only a week ago.’
People clapped again as he sat down. A few shouted that they wanted more jungle jokes, so Joseph stood up again. ‘All right. Just one more, since you’re asking so nicely.’
Despite his protests, it was obvious he relished every minute of being the centre of attention. ‘Here it is… What kind of key do you need to open a banana?’ He looked around the room. A few people shouted answers, he shook his head and his face creased into a smile. ‘A monkey, of course!’
Once the whistles had died down, the music resumed, and Stefan looked at Cassie across the room. She was sitting next to Rachel, Tim and the boys, with her grandfather at the head of the table, like a patriarch.
‘Isn’t the old fellow a hoot?’ the man next to him said. ‘I mean, not that any of his jokes are funny, just the opposite. They’re so rubbish you just have to laugh! I was told he’s competing in the local pub comedy night next Friday.’ The man gulped the rest of his wine, and let out a horsy laugh. ‘That should be a blast. I can’t wait.’
‘Are you here for the week?’ Stefan asked politely, although his impatience at the man was getting stronger with every smug and superior word he uttered.
‘We came up from London for Alastair’s wedding and booked an “adventure week” – hiking, abseiling, quad biking, air rifle shooting, you name it. I’d rather be partying in Tijuana or Patong, but the others are keen on that kind of outdoor s
tuff.’
The DJ announced that it was time for the newlyweds’ first dance. The main lights dimmed as the groom helped his bride to the dance floor, and the couple stood in the golden beam of a single spotlight, with the fairy lights hidden in the foliage around the room creating the illusion of an enchanted forest. The music started with soft piano chords then a well-known English singer sang about love and magic, peace and harmony. Stefan wasn’t one for sentimental music, but there was something sweet about the way the couple swirled slowly, gazing adoringly into each other’s eyes that made his chest ache, as if there was a bruise on his heart.
He looked across the room to where Cassie was talking to a dark-haired man whose features he couldn’t distinguish in the dim lighting.
‘That scoundrel Nathan’s already chatting up some girl,’ the man next to him said, pointing to Cassie’s table. ‘He’s been in a foul mood since we arrived last night. Almost didn’t come to the reception, but it looks like it will be his lucky night after all… not that he needs luck. The man is a babe-magnet, and that chick over there doesn’t look too bad for a country girl.’
Stefan’s fingers tightened on his glass. Nathan. Wasn’t that the name of the designer who had appropriated Cassie’s designs for himself? ‘Is Nathan an interior designer, by any chance?’ he asked.
The man looked surprised. ‘You’ve heard of him, then? I didn’t think he was that famous. Mind you, he’s doing all right for himself at the moment. He just signed a huge contract for a chain of posh hotels.’
So it was indeed Nathan who was talking to Cassie. Had she confronted him about using her designs? And if so, what was he going to do about it? They were talking and smiling, so it was fair to assume that they must have found a way to solve their differences.
The slow music was followed by a lively pop song, and adults and children alike rushed to the dance floor. The music was now too loud to talk to the men next to him – not that their conversation had been riveting anyway. They were all friends of the groom, most of them high flyers from London, working for media companies, law firms or in the City.
He scanned the room again, recognised a few faces. There was exotic looking Salomé, whose pastries he had taken a liking to, chatting to the petite, pink-haired woman who worked in the village gift shop. Piers Hardy, Charlie’s estate manager, was talking to a glamorous blonde woman – slobbering all over her, would be more exact. He must have sensed that Stefan was looking at him because he glanced his way, smirked and waved his flute of champagne at him. Stefan reluctantly nodded back.
He hadn’t liked the possessive way Hardy had clasped his hand on Cassie’s shoulder when they had met him in the pub and the lecherous look in his eyes when he’d kissed her goodbye. Of course, knowing that he was related to the bully who’d given André Vaillant a serious beating did nothing to improve his opinion of the man.
Stefan sighed. Seeing Hardy reminded him that he should have probed harder about how Cassie’s meeting with him in Keswick had gone. She had looked unsettled, worried even, the night before, and perhaps it had something to do with Charlie’s estate manager. He also wanted to tell her his theory about Darren Morse even if it was only a hunch and he didn’t have any proof.
He sat back and sipped his glass of water. The meal had been nice enough, and he’d enjoyed listening to Joseph Bell’s silly jokes, but now he longed to be back at Belthorn and enjoy the peace and silence of the manor house that had become his haven.
The weather had been bright, and after Cassie had left to get ready for the wedding ceremony at the village church, and then the lunch at a nearby exclusive hotel, he had walked around Wolf Tarn and the abbey, all the time thinking about the story she had told him. What had really happened that Christmas Eve? Cassie may claim otherwise, but it must have been some kind of dream or the police divers and mountain rescue teams would have found a body in the tarn.
As he walked around the ruins, he tried to imagine Belthorn as it had been in its heyday, before Henry the Eighth ordered it to be destroyed.
The abbey was on a small scale, and not much of it was still standing – the church’s north and south transept walls with their arched windows, parts of the cloister and what must have been the dormitory and living quarters. From there, it took him less than two minutes to walk to Wolf Tarn, and he stood on the pebbly shore, looking at the water that mirrored the blue sky and the snowy mountains around. It was a perfect setting on a perfect day, yet he hadn’t exaggerated when he’d told Cassie that he found the small, round lake eerie. Finding out that Ruth Merriweather had drowned there made it even more sinister.
In fact, he wouldn’t be surprised if her great-great-aunt’s death hadn’t preyed on Cassie’s mind as she stood on the shore that fateful Christmas Eve. Miss Parker’s words about the story behind the young woman’s drowning came back to him. He needed to pay the retired headmistress another visit, and ask her about the abbey and Belthorn… and about Ruth’s death, and if she was willing to reveal what she knew.
‘Stefan! The DJ is playing one of my favourite songs. Come and dance with me.’ Cassie tapped him on the shoulder, her beaming smile as usual filling him with joy and that primal, elusive feeling that threatened to turn him into a gormless ape man every time he was near her, and that he was trying hard, but unsuccessfully, to fight. He wished he could go all Tarzan on her, throw her over his shoulder and take her back to Belthorn to make love to her all night, not shuffle his big feet on a dance floor like the clumsy oaf he was and make a spectacle of himself.
‘I’m not much of a dancer,’ he objected.
‘Who cares? Come on,’ she urged, pulling on his hand.
So he rose to his feet and let her lead him to the dance floor. The song was another slow dance, so he wrapped his arms around her waist, and she knotted her fingers behind his neck. She looked lovely, with her hair loose and shiny on her shoulders, and wearing a dress the same pale grey as her eyes. The silky shift glided under his fingertips, reminding him of the texture of her skin. Then again, he liked her in her dungarees too… but he liked her best when she wore nothing at all.
They didn’t talk as they slowly swirled to the music. Her face nestled against his chest, her hair tickled his chin, her body moved in his arms. It was bliss, and it felt like his heart sang along with the music.
‘I wanted to be with you all evening,’ she said as the music ended, ‘but I had to talk to family members I hadn’t seen in ages, then Rachel asked me to mind the boys… and then you’ll never guess what happened.’
The music merged into another slow dance. ‘Let’s go out for a minute,’ she said, dragging him towards the exit. ‘I have something exciting to tell you. I wanted to tell you yesterday but somehow didn’t get round to it.’
A bulky figure stood in their way. ‘Not so fast,’ Piers Hardy said in a loud, slurred voice. ‘Can I have a dance, Cassie, or do you keep them exclusively for your punters?’
Hardy staggered and grabbed Cassie’s bare arm.
Stefan stepped forward. ‘Let go, Hardy.’
The man’s face turned a violent shade of beetroot, a mean smile twisted his mouth, but he released Cassie, who stepped back and came to stand right next to Stefan, close enough for her hip to brush against his.
Hardy sneered. ‘Poor sod. You really have no idea, do you?’
Stefan frowned. ‘No idea about what?’
‘About being Charlie’s charity case. Cassie is only sucking up to you to make sure you give her a good report. You can’t blame a girl for wanting her bonus. Two thousand pounds isn’t something to be sniffed at. I’m sure Cassie is working her butt off for it – literally.’
Stefan clenched his fists, and turned to Cassie. ‘Bonus? What bonus?’
Hardy laughed – a slow, slimy laugh. ‘Hasn’t the minx told you? You see, your mate Charlie promised Cassie a bonus if you were satisfied with her services and wrote a good report at the end of your stay. He must know that with the way you look, you need to pay to
get laid, and he asked our Bluebell fairy to come to your rescue, and bring a smile to your ugly face with a bit of dusting, a bit of cooking and a bit of f—!’
Cassie slapped Hardy’s cheek, hard. He brought his hand to his face, and narrowed his eyes. ‘You’ll pay for that.’
Stefan stepped in front of Cassie and scowled at Hardy. ‘You’d better leave us now,’ he said between clenched teeth, ‘because I’m going to carry on what Cassie started, and I promise you won’t be standing when I finish with you.’
Hardy took a step back and spat, ‘Ah… You think she gives you jokes to cheer you up, you poor bastard. You don’t even realise you’re the joke.’
With a last snicker he tottered away, and Stefan turned to Cassie. ‘Let’s get out of here.’
She followed him into the lobby of the clubhouse, which thankfully was empty. He crossed his arms, looked down into her face. ‘Is that true?’
Cassie smiled, but it wasn’t her usual smile. It was reticent and timid, and he knew then that Hardy had spoken the truth.
‘Charlie promised you a bonus for looking after me,’ he said in flat voice.
‘Yes, but I don’t see why it makes any difference between us. I mean, it’s not like Piers says at all, I didn’t…’
It was like a fist slamming into Stefan’s chest. How was it possible to go from feeling on top of the world happy to cut into shreds in less than five minutes?
‘It makes all the difference to me,’ he said in a low voice.
‘Don’t tell me that you believe that I slept with you only for that bonus Charles promised! What do you take me for?’
Hardy’s words had hit a raw nerve, opened an abyss of doubt inside him, and now he didn’t know what to believe. He couldn’t even think straight.
The door to the clubhouse opened and Nathan Hardman walked in. ‘Cassie! I was looking for you. Are you ready to leave? I’ve cleared it with the boys. They’re staying a while longer, so we should have the cottage to ourselves for a while.’
