Foxden Hotel (The Dudley Sisters Saga Book 5)

by Madalyn Morgan

  FOXDEN HOTEL

  Also by Madalyn Morgan

  Foxden Acres

  Applause

  China Blue

  The 9:45 to Bletchley

  FOXDEN HOTEL

  Madalyn Morgan

  Foxden Hotel @ 2017 by Madalyn Morgan

  Published worldwide 2017 @ Madalyn Morgan

  All rights reserved in all media. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical (including but not limited to: the Internet, photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system), without prior permission in writing from the author.

  The moral right of Madalyn Morgan as the author of the work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Acknowledgments

  Formatted by Rebecca Emin

  www.rebeccaemin.co.uk

  Book Jacket Designed by Cathy Helms

  www.avalongraphics.org

  Cover photograph of Misterton Hall:

  Madalyn Morgan

  Thanks to Heather Craven who invited me to Misterton Hall to take photographs of the Hall, the lake, and the grounds.

  Thanks also to Dr Roger Wood for an in depth critique, to Tony Thresher and author Debbie Viggiano, my beta readers.

  Thanks also to my friends, Jean Martin, Geraldine Tew, Kitty Jacklin, and Lynne Root, author friends, Theresa Le Flem and Jayne Curtis, and everyone at the Leicestershire RNA - The Belmont Belles - for their support and encouragement. To Pauline Barclay at Chill With A Book, Sarah Houldcroft at Authors Uncovered, Gary Walker at Look 4 Books, W.H.Smith, Hunts Independent Bookshop in Rugby, and the Lutterworth and Rugby Libraries.

  Foxden Hotel is dedicated to my mother and father,

  Ena and Jack Smith.

  CHAPTER ONE

  ‘Happy New Year, Bess!’

  A voice, as hard as granite and terrifyingly similar to one from Bess’s past, sent panic searing through her body. She spun round. A camera bulb flashed, temporarily blinding her. She stumbled backwards. Someone grabbed her hand, the lights dimmed, Big Ben began to chime, and the party goers started the countdown to 1949. “Ten! Nine! Eight!--”

  ‘Happy New Year!’ Bess’s sisters shouted above the chanting, kissing her and then each other.

  ‘What is it, Bess?’ Margot was the last of her sisters to greet her. ‘You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.’

  ‘I have. Or rather, I’ve just heard one.’ Bess put on a smile and waved across the room to her husband, Frank, who had been in charge of tuning the wireless for the run-up to midnight. Happy New Year, darling, she mouthed. Frank raised his arm to wave, but Bess’s two youngest sisters, Claire and Ena, had arrived at his side and were smothering him in kisses.

  ‘Come with me. I want you to look at someone and tell me if you’ve seen him before.’ Taking Margot by the hand, Bess led her around the ballroom searching for the face that she felt sure would match the menacing voice that rasped the New Year message in her ear. ‘He isn’t here. He must be in the public bar,’ she said, dragging Margot across the crowded dance floor.

  The public bar, which was open to non-residents as well as guests of the Foxden Hotel, was opposite the ballroom. Bess and Margot made their way across the hotel’s elegant marble hall and past the traditional Christmas tree. The hall was bustling with people. Those staying in the hotel were making their way up the sweeping staircase to their rooms, others were putting on coats and hats and preparing to leave, and some were still celebrating - shaking hands and kissing each other.

  ‘Happy New Year, Bess!’ someone shouted. And ‘A great party, Bess!’ called someone else, raising their glass. Unable to find her voice to return the greeting, or even to say thank you, Bess forced herself to smile as she edged her way through the jubilant throng.

  ‘Bess? Margot?’ Ena and Claire called, catching up with their older sisters. ‘The chap from the Lowarth Advertiser wants to take a photograph of the four of us,’ Ena said.

  Bess stopped dead. Was she mistaken? Could it have been the photographer who wished her a happy New Year? He had taken a photograph of her immediately afterwards, so he was near enough. But the voice? A cold shiver ran down Bess’s back. The voice she had heard was not the friendly voice of the young man from the Advertiser.

  ‘Bess?’ When she didn’t reply, Ena turned to Margot. ‘What’s going on?’

  Margot shrugged her shoulders. ‘I don’t know.’

  The door to the public bar stood open. From the entrance, Bess’s attention was drawn to two men leaning against the bar, arguing. One of the men, in his mid-thirties with a broad face, cold grey eyes, and blonde greased-back hair, was holding the hand of a pretty girl with fair shoulder-length hair. Observing him nervously with big blue eyes, the girl looked as if she was in her late teens, early twenties. The other man - middle-aged with a square jaw, sharp features and receding grey hair - had a protective arm around the young girl’s shoulders.

  Bess began to tremble; her legs felt weak. Without taking her eyes off the younger of the two men, she gripped the doorframe with one hand, seizing Margot’s hand with the other.

  Margot followed Bess’s gaze and their sisters followed hers. ‘Dave Sutherland!’ she gasped. ‘His hair is longer and the stupid Hitler-style moustache has gone, but that monster is Dave Sutherland.’

  Bess couldn’t hear what Sutherland was saying to the older man, but by the slimy way he was fawning over the girl it was obvious that she was the subject of their disagreement. All of a sudden Sutherland stepped forward, pulled the girl away from the older man, and squared up to him.

  From behind Bess, Ena beckoned the newspaper photographer. ‘Any chance of you taking a picture of those two men?’

  The photographer winked. ‘It would be my pleasure.’ A second later he was standing next to them at the bar.

  Distracted by the exploding flash bulb, the two men turned from each other and faced the photographer. Sutherland’s nostrils flared with anger. The older man put his hands up in an attempt to hide his face. He was too late.

  ‘Sir Gerald? Miss Katherine?’ The photographer nodded his thanks.

  ‘Give me that camera,’ Sutherland slurred. The photographer stepped back. ‘If you know what’s good for you, you’ll hand it over.’ Sutherland took a swing at the photographer, but the photographer reacted quickly and stepped back again. Sutherland overreached, lost his balance, and fell to his knees.

  Bess let go of Margot’s hand and pushed herself off the doorframe. ‘And if you know what’s good for you,’ she said, looking down at Sutherland as he scrambled to his feet, ‘you’ll leave my hotel.’

  Sutherland turned at the sound of Bess’s voice, an evil grin on his face. ‘Your hotel, is it? Well, well, well, haven’t you done well for yourself,’ he smirked, pulling on the sleeves of his jacket and doing his drunken best to regain his composure. ‘Do your fancy friends know what you got up to in London, Bess?’ Sutherland said loudly, surveying the crowd. ‘No? Perhaps I should tell them.’

  Bess felt sick. She thought she would die of embarrassment and turned her back on Sutherland, so he couldn’t see the distress he was causing her. Fearing the consequences if Sutherland opened his drunken mouth, she turned to the barman. ‘Close the bar, Simon.’

  Bess’s cheeks burned scarlet with shame and anger. ‘Ena, would
you make sure the back door is locked. Then check that the windows on the ground floor are closed, and secure the kitchen? Tell Chef, if there are any kitchen staff still on the premises they should leave by the hotel’s main entrance.’

  Bess turned to Claire. ‘I’d like you to go upstairs and make sure the windows at the end of each landing - and in the bathrooms - are closed, especially those on the first floor. But first, telephone the police station at Lowarth. Tell Sergeant McGann there’s a Nazi in the hotel, and he’s threatening people.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘Just do it!’ Ena fled across the hall to the kitchen, Claire to the reception desk and the telephone.

  David Sutherland looked doe-faced at the girl and offered her his hand. ‘Come on, honey, let’s get out of this place.’

  The older man, who the photographer had called Sir Gerald, grabbed Sutherland’s arm and forced it down by his side. ‘Katherine is coming with me.’

  He handed Bess a small white business card. ‘What happened tonight was regrettable, for which I can only apologise. My address,’ he said, nodding at the card. ‘I shall be at home tomorrow if the police wish to speak to me. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I would like to take my daughter home.’

  Sutherland made a grab for the girl, but Bess stepped forward and pulled her away from him.

  ‘This is none of your business, Bess Dudley,’ he said, his eyes sparkling with anger. ‘There’s something about women who poke their noses into other people’s business that makes me so mad.’ He clenched his fist and raised his arm, as if he was going to strike Bess.

  ‘Don’t you dare!’ Margot shouted, running from the door to her sister’s side.

  Sutherland’s mouth fell open. ‘Well, if it isn’t Margot Dudley, the pushy little usherette who jumped into her friend’s dancing shoes the first chance she got.’

  ‘I had no choice. You almost killed her, you bastard!’

  Sutherland shot an embarrassed look at the older man, before turning his attention back to Margot. ‘What are you talking about, you stupid bitch?’

  He lunged at Margot, but the older man side-stepped and blocked his way. ‘Get out of here. Now!’ he bellowed. ‘That’s an order!’

  ‘Come on, David, Dad’s right. You should go home.’ Looking up into Sutherland’s face, the girl took him by the hand and led him across the room. At the door, Sutherland put his arms around the girl and, lifting her face to his, bent down and kissed her long and hard. Bess turned away from Sutherland’s staged display of affection. ‘What’s the matter, Bess, are you jealous?’

  The girl whispered something that neither Bess nor Margot heard, then her father shouted, ‘Get out, David, or I shall put you out!’ He leaned forward until his face was only an inch from Sutherland’s and growled, ‘We do not need the police asking questions tonight!’ Sutherland put his hands up in a gesture of surrender and Sir Gerald shoved him through the door of the public bar into the hotel’s main hall.

  Bess and Margot followed. They were met by their sisters, Ena and Claire, and husbands Frank and Bill.

  ‘Good God!’ Bill said, ‘What the hell is he doing here?’

  ‘Who?’ Frank looked across the hall to the entrance foyer where Sutherland, Sir Gerald and his daughter Katherine, were putting on their coats.

  ‘The younger of those two blokes about to leave is a fascist thug called David Sutherland,’ Bill said. ‘He almost beat one of Margot’s dancer friends to death when she worked at the Prince Albert Theatre in London.’

  ‘Sutherland?’ Frank turned to Bess, his face distorted with anger. ‘Is that--?’

  ‘Leave him, Frank, please?’

  ‘The police are on their way,’ Claire said, ‘Let them deal with him.’

  Ignoring his wife and sister-in-law, Frank stormed across the hall to the foyer and punched David Sutherland on the nose. Sutherland stumbled backwards, but didn’t go down. Frank hit him again. This time Frank’s fist skimmed Sutherland’s cheekbone, removing the skin, stopping only when his knuckles clashed with the bone of Sutherland’s right eye socket. The fascist went sprawling to the ground, landing spread-eagled on his back. ‘Stay away from my wife, do you hear? Come near her, or this hotel, again, and I’ll kill you!’

  ‘Stop it!’ Bess shouted, running across the hall to Frank. ‘He isn’t worth it.’

  Sir Gerald and his daughter, on either side of Sutherland, tried to help him up but, angry and red-faced, he shook them off. With his hand over his eye, Sutherland clambered to his feet unaided and, without looking back, bulldozed his way through a huddle of partygoers gathered at the hotel’s entrance and disappeared.

  Frank started after him. ‘I’m going to make sure that animal leaves,’ he shouted, shaking out his right hand and flexing his fingers. He looked back at his brother-in-law. ‘Come on, Bill, we’ll see him off the property.’

  ‘No, Frank!’ Bess took hold of her husband’s arm and spun him round. ‘You can’t go after him. If he hits you the way you hit him and damages your good eye, you could end up blind.’ As if he hadn’t heard her, Frank kept walking. Bess ran past him and stopped. She turned and, looking up at him, slapped the palms of her hands on his chest. ‘Stop, Frank! Please!’ She was near to tears. ‘I’m begging you not to go after him.’

  Fuming, Frank stood for some time staring at the door that Sutherland had exited by. ‘All right,’ he said at last, and when Bess let her hands fall to her sides, he pulled her to him and held her tightly. ‘All right,’ he said again.

  ‘It’s time the celebrations ended,’ Bess said, relieved. ‘Would you go back to the ballroom and ask the band to play the last waltz?’

  She summoned her brother-in-law. ‘Bill, find the photographer from the Advertiser. I saw him scribbling in his note book when Frank hit Sutherland. Tell him there’s as much beer as he can drink, every night for a week, if he’ll take some photographs of cheerful party-goers as they leave the hotel. And ask him not to make too much of the fracas between Sutherland and Frank, or Sutherland and that Sir Gerald bloke, when he writes up his story. Oh, and find out if he heard any of the conversation between Sutherland and Sir Gerald when they were at the bar.’

  Bill looked around. ‘He’s talking to the barman. I’ll ask him now.’

  ‘I’m sorry, love,’ Frank said.

  ‘What about? Punching Sutherland? I’m not. I wanted to hit him myself. I wish I had now.’ Bess lifted her husband’s hands and inhaled sharply. The knuckles on his right hand were skinned and bleeding. She looked up into his face. ‘If he had hit you back, you could have lost your good eye,’ she said, thrusting his hands aside in anger.

  ‘I know. But he didn’t hit me.’ Frank pulled Bess to him and embraced her. ‘It won’t be me waking up with a black eye in the morning, but Sutherland will have a bloody shiner,’ he laughed. Bess’s usually gentle husband bent down and kissed her on the lips, before returning to the ballroom.

  ‘Can you imagine what the headline on the front page of Monday’s Advertiser will say?’ Margot asked, as she and Bess watched Bill approach the reporter.

  ‘Unfortunately I can, which is why we need more photographs of people enjoying themselves. If free beer for a week doesn’t persuade the guy to be kind to us when he writes his review, I’ll buy a large ad. I’ll buy a page if necessary, to show people that the opening of the Foxden Hotel was a success.’ Bess waited until her husband was out of sight and turned to her sister. ‘Frank’s right, Margot.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘Making sure Sutherland leaves. I don’t want him hanging about in the grounds, breaking in through a window, or finding some other way to get into the hotel. Come on.’

  ‘Wait for us!’ Ena called, her arms full of coats and hats, gloves and outdoor shoes. ‘We’ve checked everywhere. The hotel is secure.’

  ‘And the police are on their way,’ Claire added. ‘We’re coming with you.’

  ‘No you are not!’ Bess looked from Claire to Ena. ‘You can’t help with
this.’

  ‘I’ve been trained to deal with dangerous people,’ Claire said. ‘If things get rough--’

  ‘And I can handle myself,’ Ena put in.

  ‘I said no!’ Tears began to blur Bess’s vision. She blinked them back. ‘Neither of you can be involved,’ she whispered, ‘not now the police have been informed. Think about it!’

  Claire raised her eyebrows at Ena. ‘Bess is right.’ Ena nodded and helped Bess into her coat, while Claire helped Margot into hers. ‘We’ll stay here and see the last of the guests out. But if you want me, us--’

  ‘I know. Thank you.’

  ‘Be careful,’ Claire said, hugging Bess and then Margot. Bess nodded. Ena kissed her sisters, wrapped a scarf around each of their necks and echoed Claire’s words.

  Bess watched her younger siblings go their separate ways, Ena back to the cloakroom and Claire towards the ballroom. ‘Come on, Margot,’ she said, taking off her high-heels and putting on calf-length sheepskin boots.

  ‘Why is it all right for me to be involved, but not them?’ Margot asked, pushing her feet into fashionable suede ankle boots with kitten heels and a fur trim.

  ‘Because you’re already involved, Margot, and so am I. Ena and Claire aren’t, and there’s no need for them to be.’ Bess picked up their evening shoes and took them to reception. Maeve wasn’t on the desk, so she opened the office door and dropped them inside.

  ‘Even so--’ Margot said.

  ‘For God’s sake, Margot, you know the work they did in the war was top secret. Ena is covered; her war record says she worked in a factory from thirty-nine to forty-five, but Claire was overseas so much her WAAF record has huge gaps in it. So, stop going on about it, and do as I ask!’

  The wind blew a dusting of snow from the roof of the portico above the hotel’s main entrance as Bess opened the door and led Margot out into the night. Margot put her hand up to shield her face, but Bess, after being in the warm hotel, was pleased to feel the snow on her face and breathed in the cold air. She scanned the gathering on the semi-circular steps leading to and from the hotel, hoping to see Sutherland and the girl.