Witching Hour. Sara Craven

perhaps you’d like to go first. My own acquaintanceship is only just beginning,’ he said silkily.

      ‘That,’ she snapped, as she went past him, her chin in the air, ‘is entirely your own fault.’

      She walked ahead of him as fast as she could go, determined not to stumble again or make a fool of herself in any other way, although every instinct was screaming at her to run and never stop until she reached Polzion House and safety. When she reached the road she made no attempt to wait for him to catch up with her, but simply marched along as if he had ceased to exist for her. Nor did he try and draw level, so he obviously had as little desire for her company as she had for his, she thought defiantly.

      She didn’t pause or look back until they reached the front door, and she opened it and went into the hall. Her mother was at the desk, just putting the telephone down.

      ‘That was Mr Trevick, darling. The Pentreath man is in the area—he called at the office earlier today. Where can he have got to, do you suppose?’

      ‘Here,’ Morgana said grimly, and stepped aside.

      Lyall Pentreath walked forward, and she took her first good look at him. All the impressions she had received up by the Wishing Stone—the height, the fairness—were reinforced, and more beside. His face was deeply tanned, accentuating the strong lines of nose, mouth and jaw, and his eyes were a deep and piercing blue. The black leather coat covered a roll-necked sweater in the same shade, and light grey pants, fitted closely to lean hips and long legs.

      Elizabeth Pentreath said helplessly, ‘Oh dear!’

      He said quietly and without mockery. ‘This is a difficult occasion for us both, Mrs Pentreath, and anything I say is liable to be misunderstood. I wish we could have met in different circumstances.’

      He had charm, Morgana supposed bitterly, watching her mother’s face flush slightly with pleasure as he took her hand. And the cynical lines of his mouth told her that he was quite well aware of it, and knew how to use it to its best effect. She stood and watched, and hated him for it. Hated him for the elegance of his expensive clothes and the slight drawl with which he spoke. Everything about him told of a world very remote from their own small part of the Cornish peninsula. He looked, she thought frankly, as if he’d never actually known what a hard day’s work was, never had his hands dirty in his life, and she despised him for it.

      Effete, she thought. A lady’s man. A desk-job Romeo. I bet the typing pool’s little hearts go pit-a-pat whenever he saunters through.

      Mrs Pentreath said, ‘Would you come into the drawing room? We’ve just been having tea. I’ll ask Elsa to make some fresh and …’

      He lifted a hand. ‘Not for me, thank you. I don’t really have a great deal of time.’ He glanced at the plain gold watch on his wrist. ‘I have to pick up my car and get back to Truro.’

      ‘Oh.’ Elizabeth Pentreath was taken aback. ‘Then you’re not staying? I’ve had a room prepared here for you.’

      ‘Not this time around, I’m afraid.’ His smile removed any hint of a rebuff. ‘But when my immediate plans are finalised, perhaps I can take advantage of your kind offer.’

      ‘Oh, I’m sure you’ll do that.’ Morgana muttered rebelliously, and received a horrified look from her mother.

      When Mrs Pentreath turned to lead the way into the drawing room, Morgana suddenly felt her arm seized in a paralysing grip.

      Lyall said softly and evenly, ‘I’m doing my best to ease the situation, sweetheart, so stop bitching, otherwise I may take advantage of you in a way you won’t like. Anyway, the only person you’re hurting is your mother.’ He let her go almost contemptuously, and walked unhurriedly away. Morgana watched him go, but she didn’t follow. Instead she almost ran down the passage to the kitchen.

      Elsa was standing at the deep enamel sink, washing up, but she glanced round as Morgana flew in.

      ‘Dear soul,’ she remarked. ‘Where’s the fire to?’

      ‘It’s him. He’s here.’ Morgana sank down on to a chair beside the kitchen table, unfastening her cape, and pushing it back from her shoulders.

      ‘Well, better late than never, they do say,’ Elsa said comfortably, subjecting a plate to a minute inspection before placing it on the drying rack on the draining board.

      ‘I don’t say it.’ Morgana pushed her hands through her dishevelled hair, lifting it away from the nape of her neck. ‘Oh, Elsa, he’s vile! And he’s fair,’ she added.

      ‘The cards don’t lie, my lover. A fair man, they said, and pain and woe.’

      ‘He’s that all right,’ Morgana said petulantly. ‘Oh, what are we going to do?’

      ‘As we’re told, I daresay.’ Elsa held out a tea-towel with an inexorable air. ‘No point in fretting without reason, neither.’

      Morgana accepted the cloth with a little sigh and began to wipe the dishes. ‘You can hardly say we have no reason,’ she objected.

      ‘What I say is it’s best we wait and hear what the genn’lman says before we start calling ‘um names,’ Elsa returned.

      ‘I don’t want to hear anything from him,’ Morgana said passionately. ‘But at least he’s not staying the night here—that’s something to be thankful for. I can’t bear the thought of having to share a roof with him, even for one night.’

      From the doorway Lyall said drily, ‘Do you think you could bear to share it for long enough to show me a little of the house? Your mother is otherwise occupied, or I wouldn’t trouble you.’

      The cup she was drying slipped from her hands and smashed into a hundred fragments on the flagged floor.

      ‘Now see what you’ve done!’ Elsa scolded. ‘Of all the clumsy maids! Don’t go treading through it, making things worse neither. Tek no notice of her, sir,’ she added to Lyall who stood watching, his face expressionless. ‘She’m mazed with worry, that’s all. She don’t mean half of what she says.’

      ‘Even the half is more than sufficient.’ He walked into the kitchen, ignoring Morgana, who had fetched a dustpan and brush from the broom cupboard and was sweeping the fragments into it with more scarlet-cheeked vigour than accuracy. ‘You must be Elsa, the mainstay of this establishment.’ He smiled. ‘Mrs Pentreath’s own words, not gratuitous flattery from me, I promise you.’

      ‘Mrs Pentreath’s a nice lady.’ Elsa wiped a damp hand on her overall and shook hands with him. ‘And the late master was a well-meaning genn’lman. More than that I can’t say.’

      Lyall was looking around him. Watching him under her lashes, as she dumped the broken crockery into the kitchen bin, Morgana was resentfully aware that she was seeing the kitchen through his eyes—the big old-fashioned sink with its vast scrubbed draining board, the range, the enormous dresser which filled one wall, in all its homely inconvenience.

      He said almost idly, ‘It must be hell having to cope without a dishwasher in the height of the season.’

      ‘Tesn’t wonderful, that’s true.’ Elsa allowed graciously. ‘But we manage. And hard work never hurt no one.’

      ‘How right you are.’ He glanced at Morgana. ‘I suggest as we’re here, you may as well begin by showing me the rest of the kitchen quarters. I take it that this isn’t the only room.’

      ‘No.’ She would rather have cut her throat with one of Elsa’s brightly honed knives than have shown him a shed in someone else’s garden, but she gritted her teeth. ‘There is a scullery—through here. I suppose these days, you’d call it a utility room. The washing machine’s in here, and another sink, and the deep-freeze.’

      ‘At least there are those,’ he observed, glancing round, his brows raised. ‘What about a tumble-dryer? How do you manage the laundry