Witching Hour
Sara Craven

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Former journalist SARA CRAVEN published her first novel ‘Garden of Dreams’ for Mills & Boon in 1975. Apart from her writing (naturally!) her passions include reading, bridge, Italian cities, Greek islands, the French language and countryside, and her rescue Jack Russell/cross Button. She has appeared on several TV quiz shows and in 1997 became UK TV Mastermind champion. She lives near her family in Warwickshire – Shakespeare country.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

COVER

TITLE PAGE

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

ENDPAGE

COPYRIGHT

CHAPTER ONE

THE October afternoon was fading fast, and the drawing room at Polzion House was filled with shadows, but in spite of the encroaching dimness, none of the lamps had been lit, and the log fire on the wide hearth had been allowed to burn away almost to ash.

In her grey dress with its long sleeves and high collar, Morgana seemed part of the shadows as she stood at the window, staring out at the wind-tossed garden. She was motionless, only her hands balled into fists at her sides giving any indication of the inner tension which threatened to consume her.

Outside the wind was rising. She could hear it wailing among the tall chimneys and along the eaves. Living on an exposed stretch of Cornish coastline, she had always taken autumn gales for granted, but today—the desolate sound of it made her shiver. On other, happier October afternoons, she would have drawn the curtains and turned to make up the fire, dismissing with a shrug whatever dark angel stood at her shoulder, but not now—perhaps not ever again. Not in this room—this house.

Something inside her cringed away from the thought, but it had to be faced. Her life at Polzion House, the only life she had ever known, would soon be at an end, and she had no idea, not even the slightest, what she could put in its place. It wasn’t as if she was really trained for anything. Since leaving school with perfectly respectable examination results, she’d been here, helping her father and mother run the hotel. Family help had always been essential, as she’d always known, because Polzion House had never been successful or profitable enough to justify employing outside staff, with the exception of Elsa, who cooked like an angel when the fates decreed, and had been part of their lives for so long that she seemed like one of the family.

It had always been a struggle, but Morgana was young and strong, and she had always been optimistic about the future, until now. Or until the day nearly a month ago when her whole world had fallen apart.

She swallowed with the pain of remembering thick in her throat. Her father hadn’t been well for about a week, complaining almost apologetically of indigestion, and it was true Elsa’s cooking had been more erratic than usual. So Morgana had not worried particularly. Her father was young for his age. He swam regularly, and played golf and squash. He was as fit as anyone could be, or so they had always thought, so his collapse when it came was doubly shocking.

She and her mother had lived in hope for about a week, visiting the hospital where he was in intensive care, telling each other that these days heart attacks were not serious—almost fashionable, in fact—and that all sorts of things could be done. But in Martin Pentreath’s case, there was very little to be done. Years of strain and financial worry had taken their toll, and very quietly, they took him.

The funeral had been anguish. Everyone in the neighbourhood had been there to pay their last respects. Martin Pentreath had not been much of a hotelier, and even less of a business man, but everyone had liked him. Morgana had listened to their condolences, and told herself if she could get through this without breaking down, then everything would be all right. Only it had not been all right.

For Elizabeth Pentreath and her daughter there were shocks and more anguish when it came to the reading of the will, with Mr Trevick’s solemn face even more portentous than usual. And Morgana, listening dazedly to words like ‘entail’ and ‘surviving male heir’, realised for the first time that with her father’s death the life she had known and the future she expected had died too.

The door behind her opened suddenly, flooding the room with light from the hall beyond, and her mother came in on a little flurry of words. ‘Too dreadful, darling. I’ve just been on the phone to Marricks to order some more coke—the boiler isn’t nearly as hot as it should be, and Miss Meakins was complaining about the bathwater again this morning—and some thoroughly unpleasant person told me that unless something was paid on account, there wouldn’t be any more deliveries. What do you think of that?’

Morgana shrugged. ‘It’s not entirely unexpected. We were never a good credit risk, and now that we’ve even lost the house …’

‘Oh, Morgana,’ Mrs Pentreath wailed, ‘don’t say such things!’

‘But it’s true.’ Morgana’s tone held a faint impatience. ‘We can be dispossessed at any time by the new owner. You know the terms of the entail as well as I do. Mr Trevick made them more than clear.’

‘But it’s so unfair! And I’m sure it can’t be legal—not in these days when people are always making such a noise about sexual discrimination.’

Morgana allowed herself a slight smile as she looked at her mother. ‘An interesting point,’ she conceded drily. ‘But if we can’t muster enough cash for the fuel bill, I doubt whether we could afford a lengthy court action.’ Her gaze went to the bureau in the corner which she knew was stuffed with unpaid bills, and a number of receipts, including her father’s subscription to the local golf club. When Martin Pentreath, big, bluff and genial, had been alive his choice of priorities hadn’t seemed quite so curious, and his lack of responsibility about money matters had seemed almost endearing. Now they had assumed the proportions of a nightmare.

Elizabeth Pentreath sank down upon the elderly sofa. ‘But it is unfair,’ she repeated. ‘Why, that awful Giles hadn’t the slightest interest in Polzion. I’m sure he only kept the quarrel going with your grandfather so that he could keep away from the place, and use that as an excuse. After all, he went off swearing that he’d never set foot in the place again.’

‘Well, he’s kept his word,’ said Morgana, her mouth twisting a little. ‘Unless he comes back to haunt the house—and the new heir.’ She moved away from the window and sat down beside her mother. ‘Did Daddy never mention the entail to you?’

‘Oh, years ago, when we first married, but he didn’t want to discuss it, and I could never find out any details. And when you were born, he talked of it again—spoke of trying to get it legally removed, but again I think it was a matter of cost which prevented him. And you know yourself, darling, how difficult it was to get him to talk about serious matters—especially when they concerned the quarrel. He didn’t really want Giles’ name mentioned at all.’

‘I’m quite aware of that.’ Morgana remembered with a pang her father’s burst of temper whenever unwary references to the past had been made. From local gossip and what snippets she’d been able to piece together, she gathered that the quarrel had begun over a generation before when her grandfather and his cousin Mark had fallen out for reasons which had never been fully established, but with such bitterness that Mark had taken himself off from Polzion, never to be seen there again. Years later, his son Giles had returned in an attempt to heal the breach, but there had been more trouble and the re-opening, it seemed, of old wounds, and it had been Giles’ turn to storm off, shaking the metaphorical dust of Polzion from his shoes for ever.

There had been generations of Pentreaths at Polzion. They had farmed the land, and mined for tin and copper, living well on the proceeds, and building this large rambling house to remind the world that in this corner of it they still ruled. But when the tin and copper petered out, so did the Pentreath fortunes, and now all the land, except an acre of overgrown garden round the house which enabled the hotel to advertise as ‘standing in its splendid grounds’, had been sold, even the Home Farm which Morgana’s grandfather had clung to almost desperately.

It was only after his father’s death that Martin Pentreath had conceived the idea of turning the family home into a hotel—something he frankly admitted he would never have dared to do or even mention when his father was alive. The fact that Polzion was relatively isolated, and could boast none of the amenities of the usual tourist traps and beauty spots did not trouble him in the least.

Morgana said, ‘How Grandfather would have hated to think of Mark’s grandson inheriting this house!’

Her mother said hopefully, ‘Perhaps he won’t want it. Perhaps he’ll—renounce the entail—or whatever one can do.’

‘Whether he wants it or not, it belongs to him,’ said Morgana. ‘What a pity he wasn’t born a girl, or that I wasn’t a boy. It would have saved a lot of trouble and inconvenience all round. At least we wouldn’t be hanging around here like this, waiting to be turned out of our home by a complete stranger. And I still think it would be more dignified to have packed and gone, instead of waiting here for sentence to be carried out.’

Her mother shuddered. ‘You make it sound revolting, darling! But how could we possibly have left? There are the guests to consider.’

‘Miss Meakins and Major Lawson,’ Morgana said drily. ‘Hardly a cast of thousands.’

‘Well, it is the off-season,’ Mrs Pentreath said defensively.

Morgana sighed. ‘Even in the height of summer, Polzion House Hotel was never exactly an “ongoing situation”.’ She reproduced the jargon phrase with distaste. ‘People on holiday want hot baths and swimming pools, and meals which aren’t quite so dependent on the whim of the cook.’

‘Elsa’s a very good cook,’ Mrs Pentreath said reproachfully.

‘Oh, indeed she is, when the wind’s in the right quarter, or the tea-leaves have looked hopeful, or the cards aren’t presaging doom and disaster.’

‘Well, she has got the sight,’ Mrs Pentreath offered pacifically.

‘Then I wish she’d “seen” the big freeze last winter. We might have been spared some burst pipes.’ Morgana sounded defeated, and her mother said briskly,

‘No wonder you’re moping, darling. It’s so gloomy in this room, and cold too. Why on earth didn’t you make up the fire? It’s nearly out.’ She got up, bustling over to the hearth and stirring the reluctant embers with the long brass-handled poker.

Morgana shrugged. ‘His electricity. His logs. Maybe we shouldn’t waste them.’

‘I cannot believe any Pentreath would deny his own kin anything as basic as a fire to warm themselves by,’ Mrs Pentreath protested.

‘He’s a stranger to us. We know nothing about him—except his name and the fact that he was too busy in America on some business deal to come to Daddy’s funeral.’ Morgana sounded suddenly raw. ‘And since then, not a word, except this curt communication from his lawyers that he would be arriving here today.’

‘I think that must be a mistake, don’t you?’ The fire revived to her satisfaction, Elizabeth Pentreath sat back on her heels and regarded her daughter. ‘It’s getting so late. It’s almost dark, and the letter did say he would be here this morning.’

‘Perhaps his car’s broken down. Or maybe someone’s been fiddling with the signpost again, and he’s taken the wrong turning and driven straight along the cliff path into the sea.’

‘Morgana!’ Mrs Pentreath’s hand clutched at her throat. ‘You mustn’t say—you mustn’t even think such things. Do you think we should telephone the farm—get a search party organised?’

‘No, I don’t.’ Morgana shook her head. ‘He’ll turn up. Bad pennies usually do.’

‘You sound as if you don’t care.’

‘Frankly, I don’t. Do you really expect me to?’ Morgana’s voice deepened passionately. ‘This—Lyall Pentreath—he’s an outsider, an intruder. He doesn’t give a damn about Polzion. He’s probably never been anywhere near Cornwall in his life. All he knows about us will be what he’s heard from his father and grandfather, and that will probably be lies. There’s never been any love lost between the two sides of the family. The only reason he’s coming here now is to take possession of his inheritance, such as it is, lock, stock and barrel. And our feelings in the matter won’t be of the slightest concern to him.’

‘You can’t really say that, darling. You don’t know him.’

‘Exactly the point I’m trying to make,’ Morgana argued. ‘I don’t—neither of us knows him. And he doesn’t know us. But don’t you think, in the circumstances, he might have made the effort?’

‘He’s in a difficult position,’ her mother began, and Morgana snorted impatiently.

‘And we’re not? After all, we’re the ones who stand to lose everything. And he’s the winner who takes all. Well, in my book, he should have made contact before this. Long before. And the fact that he hasn’t makes him a moral coward.’

‘You’re not being very logical.’ Mrs Pentreath sounded plaintive. ‘You’re blaming him for coming here at all in one breath, and now he’s on the way, or presumably so, you’re complaining that he wasn’t here days ago.’

‘Not days. Weeks, months, years—when Daddy was alive,’ Morgana said bitterly. ‘When it might have done some good. We could all have talked—made plans, perhaps. Mummy, have you really thought what we’re going to do? He may want us to leave immediately.’

‘I can’t believe that.’ Mrs Pentreath’s tone was depressed, and Morgana gave her a swift glance which mingled compassion with faint irritation.

Elizabeth Pentreath had led a sheltered life, in spite of the fact that there had never been much money. She had always been cossetted by her husband, which was all to the good in some ways, her daughter thought drily, but not so hot when it came to attempting to make her face reality.

Now, with an air of determination, Elizabeth rose and went round the room, switching on the lamps. There was a central pendant chandelier, but this was rarely used. For one thing, it used too much electricity, and for another in the lamps lower wattage bulbs could be used which helped to disguise how shabby the carpet and furnishings really were. As the hotel guests used this room for afternoon tea, and after dinner, this was a consideration, although Martin Pentreath had always worked on the lordly ‘What’s good enough for us is good enough for them’ principle. It was a point of view which Morgana had never shared. She felt the family should have used another room, so that the drawing room could become a hotel lounge proper, where the guests could say whatever they liked without being inhibited by the presence of the proprietor and his family.

Miss Meakins might allow her eyes to fill with sentimental tears now that Martin was no longer leading the after-dinner conversation, but she had become increasingly voluble about faults in the service at Polzion House in the last two weeks, Morgana had noted drily. Not that most of the complaints weren’t fully justified. She and Major Lawson might have been attracted to Polzion because the winter rates were more competitive than similar establishments in Eastbourne or Torquay, but they still expected the usual amenities of hotel life.

And in the past few weeks, life at Polzion had become increasingly difficult. Probate for Martin Pentreath’s will had been applied for, but Mr Trevick had warned dourly that there would be little money left when outstanding debts were settled, though there were a couple of small insurance policies from which Elizabeth would benefit. Martin had made no large-scale provision for his widow and daughter, but then, as Morgana was forced to admit, he had always seemed so indestructible, like the Cornish granite his house was built on. Remembering her father, she thought it likely he had meant to leave them provided for—one day, when it could no longer be avoided, in much the same spirit as he’d stuffed unpaid bills in the bureau.

Morgana groaned inwardly as she thought of them, and she suspected her mother’s reception at the coal-merchant’s could well be the first in a long line of similar refusals. No coke meant that the ancient boiler would eventually go out altogether, and she doubted that even a further reduction in their ‘competitive terms’ would reconcile their guests to cold water, so she and her mother stood to lose their small remaining amount of direct income.

But that, she reminded herself, would be lost anyway as soon as the unknown Lyall Pentreath arrived. She imagined he would have already learned that his inheritance was being run as a small country hotel, and she found herself wondering what his reaction had been. Contempt? Probably. Anger? Almost certainly. Perhaps Miss Meakins and the Major would also find themselves dumped bag and baggage into the damp chill of an October evening.

Except, as her mother said, that the new owner would hardly be coming now. He would be here in the morning to look over his new possession in daylight. Until now, they had counted each day at Polzion as a reprieve. Now, it seemed, they were reduced to hours.

Suddenly restless, she rose to her feet. ‘I’d better go and see about tea. It’s past the time already.’

‘I expect Elsa has been waiting, dear, for your cousin to arrive.’

‘My cousin.’ Morgana repeated the words almost incredulously. It was the first time her mother or anyone else for that matter had used them in relation to Lyall Pentreath. It seemed alien and uncomfortable to think that this stranger was actually of her blood, even though the relationship between them was a remote one. Because of the quarrels and the separation between the two sides of the family, the other Pentreaths might as well not have existed as far as she was concerned.

‘I wish they hadn’t,’ she thought fiercely, digging her nails into the palms of her hands as she left the room. ‘I wish none of them had ever been born.’

The passage leading to what in happier days had been known as the servants’ quarters was draughty, and Morgana shivered a little as she made her way down it. But the kitchen was warm, thanks to the big old-fashioned range—which also burned coke, she remembered dismally—on which Elsa produced delectable meals when she was in the mood.

What her mood was like today was anybody’s guess. Breakfast and lunch had been passable, but there were no noticeable preparations for dinner, Morgana noted sinkingly. Instead, Elsa was sitting at the kitchen table staring down at a worn pack of cards spread there.

‘Come in, maid, and shut the door,’ she said absently without looking up.

‘We were wondering about tea,’ said Morgana, unable to resist a curious glance down at the cards as she passed the table.

‘’Tes all ready, and the kettle’s on the boil.’ Elsa was built on generous lines, and her dark hair, liberally streaked with grey, was pinned back from her face with an incongruous selection of plastic hairslides in various colours and designs. Green butterflies and pink poodles were in favour that particular day, forming an unusual contrast to her bright blue overall, safety-pinned across her massive bosom. ‘And I’ve made a batch of scones along with the cake,’ she added sombrely.

‘They look lovely.’

Elsa snorted. ‘Can’t go by looks. They’m sad, same as this ‘ouse is sad. Same as these cards.’ She gestured at them. ‘Grief and misery, pain and woe, my lover—that’s what’s in store. And a fair man,’ she added as something of an afterthought.

‘Well, that’s something,’ said Morgana. ‘At least it won’t be Cousin Lyall. Pentreath men are always dark.’

‘That’s as mebbe,’ Elsa said with dignity. ‘But there b’ain’t no dark man coming into your life, maid, not so far as I can see.’

‘Then perhaps he really has driven over the cliff,’ Morgana said cheerfully. ‘Make the tea, Elsa darling, while I put the food on the tray.’

Whatever secret sorrow the scones might be nursing, they looked almost sprightly to her, she thought, as she picked up the plate, and the saffron cake which was one of Elsa’s specialities was golden-brown and mouthwatering.

‘About dinner—–’ she began tentatively.

‘Funny ol’ bit of meat the butcher sent.’ Elsa was at the range, busy with teapot and kettle. ‘Calls it beef, but I dunno. Looks tough as ol’ boots to me.’

‘Oh dear!’ Morgana wondered privately whether the butcher was taking some kind of subtle revenge for an unpaid bill she hadn’t discovered yet. ‘Do you suppose pot-roasting would make it more tender?’

‘I daresay.’ Elsa set the teapot on the tray with an uncompromising thud. ‘But I don’t need any young maid to teach me my business in my own kitchen.’

‘Of course not, Elsa darling.’ Morgana’s smile held its first real hint of mischief for some time.

‘That’s better,’ Elsa said with rare approval. ‘Now go and change out of that damned ol’ frock before that young man gets here.’

‘I’ll do nothing of the sort.’ Morgana lifted her chin and her green eyes flashed. ‘It’s perfectly suitable. This is the dress I got for Daddy’s funeral.’

‘Looks like the next funeral it goes to should be its own,’ Elsa sniffed. ‘But please yourself, though I can’t see no sense going round looking like something the cat dragged in. You’m not a bad-looking maid when you try.’

‘I’d better go before you turn my head completely,’ Morgana said lightly as she picked up the tray.

‘No danger of that, I reckon.’ Elsa’s fierce gaze softened as they swept over the girl’s slim figure. ‘You don’t fancy yourself like some I could mention.’

Morgana hid a smile as she carried the tray out of the kitchen. Elsa was not usually so forbearing, and Morgana could only attribute her unusual delicacy this time to the fact that up to the time of the funeral she herself had been seeing a great deal of Robert Donleven, and might react with hostility to any overt criticism of his sister—because she was well aware that Elaine Donleven was the subject of Elsa’s veiled remark.

Yet if she was honest, she had to admit that Elaine wasn’t one of her favourite people either, though she would have been hard put to it to say why. Ever since Elaine had come to live at Home Farm and help Robert run the riding stables there, relations between the two girls had been perfectly civil, but no more.

Perhaps it was inevitable it should be so, she thought as she went along the passage. After all, the Donlevens had bought the Home Farm, as Robert’s mother had made smilingly clear on more than one occasion, as an interest for her husband when he retired from being ‘something’ in the City of London. In the meantime it was run by an efficient manager, and Robert and his sister had started the riding stables there, again as a hobby rather than a living. Morgana felt sometimes that Elaine mentioned this rather more than was strictly necessary, as if to emphasise the gulf between those who had to work, and those for whom the world was a playground.

Apart from exchange trips to France and Germany when she was at school, Morgana’s holidays had been spent in and around Polzion, and she sometimes could not contain a little surge of envy when she heard Elaine talk so carelessly of skiing at Klosters, and beach parties in the Bahamas. Nor did it help to feel, as she often did, that Elaine intended her to feel envious.

Robert, on the other hand, was very different. For one thing his hair was inexorably sandy, instead of being deep auburn like Elaine’s, but his temperament was far more unassuming than his sister’s, and he took the day-to-day running of the stables far more seriously than she did, although ironically, Elaine was a spectacularly better rider. But then, Morgana thought, she did not have his patience with beginners.

For herself, she enjoyed Robert’s company. She liked him, and suspected that given time her feelings could become much warmer. Ever since the funeral, he had been assiduous in his attentions, sending her flowers, and phoning nearly every day. She was grateful for this, and a little relieved too, if she was honest. The Donlevens had always been charming to her, but she had been aware all the time in little ways that they felt Robert could do better for himself than the daughter of a country hotelier. Now that it was public knowledge in the area that, since her father’s death, the long-forgotten entail had come into force and that soon she and her mother would probably be not only penniless but probably homeless as well, she had wondered whether any kind of pressure would be exerted to persuade Robert to let their relationship slide.

If so, it clearly hadn’t worked, or had had the opposite effect, she thought, smiling a little as the image of Robert’s pleasant regular features and clear blue eyes rose in her mind. And of course he was the fair man Elsa had seen in the cards and he was going to propose to her and take her away from all this.

She was grinning to herself as she carried the tray into the drawing room, but the grin faded a little as she encountered the gaze of Miss Meakins, sitting bolt upright on the edge of her usual chair, clutching her knitting bag as a drowning person might clutch a lifebelt. Miss Meakins was elderly, and harmless, and Morgana felt sympathy for anyone whose life was a succession of cheap hotels, but she found Miss Meakins passion for attempting to be unobtrusive a trial. ‘Without wishing to be a nuisance …’ and ‘I wonder if I might …’ preceded even the most normal of requests and she seemed to spend most mealtimes in a state of permanent agitation.

A hotelier’s lot is not a happy one, Morgana thought grimly as she set down the tea tray.

‘Have you any idea where the others are, Miss Meakins?’

‘Major Lawson usually goes for a walk before tea,’ Miss Meakins said primly.

Major Lawson, Morgana thought, wasn’t daft. She and her mother sometimes wondered about him. They usually had two or three permanent guests each winter at Polzion House, but Major Lawson wasn’t in the usual mould at all. When his booking had originally been received, her father had been inclined to pooh-pooh his rank, saying he had probably been a clerk in the stores who had decided to promote himself after discharge. ‘Or a con man,’ he added cynically. But Martin Pentreath had been wrong.

Major Lawson was a tall, quietly spoken man, but there was an indefinable air of command about him. His clothes were not new, but their cut was impeccable, and the suitcases he’d brought them in were leather, and had been expensive. But in many ways he was an enigma. When pressed, he would talk about Army life, but he spoke in generalities with a certain diffidence. And he was a loner. Miss Meakins’ flutterings had not the slightest effect on him. He enjoyed walking, and he spent a good deal of time in his room, working on a small portable typewriter. He was very tidy about his work, whatever it was. They’d only found out about it by chance, through Miss Meakins—‘Not wishing to be any trouble, dear Mrs Pentreath, but the constant tapping … comes so plainly through the wall.’

Her eyes had gleamed with curiosity as she spoke, but it was doomed to be unsatisfied. Major Lawson had never volunteered why he spent several hours each day typing, and none of the Pentreaths were prepared to ask him. In the end Major Lawson was moved to another room, well out of earshot—to Miss Meakins’ secret chagrin, Morgana suspected.

Quite suddenly she knew she had to get out of the house for a while. It was ridiculous, because it was almost dark, and almost certainly raining, but she needed to breathe fresh air and be completely alone for a while. Since her father’s death, she had been rarely alone. Her mother had needed her and there were always things to be done, and at first she had welcomed this because it meant there was less time to think, and to worry and ask herself what she was going to do. But now, when there was so little time left for thinking and planning, she had to get away on her own for a while. It had been building up inside her all day, this need to be alone, to escape. That was why she had felt so restless earlier.

She flashed a brief smile at her mother as she passed her in the doorway. ‘I’m going out for a little while.’

‘Just as you please, dear,’ Mrs Pentreath responded.

Morgana went into the hall and on into the small cloakroom which opened off it. Her old school cape was there, and she swung it round her shoulders, pulling the hood up over her cloud of dark hair. As she re-emerged into the hall, the telephone rang, and she crossed to the reception desk to answer it.

‘Polzion House,’ she said crisply.

It was a relief to hear Robert’s quiet ‘Hello, darling. Just ringing to find out how everything went today. What’s he like?’

‘Your guess is as good as mine. He didn’t show up.’

‘Well, that’s pretty cavalier,’ Robert was plainly taken aback. ‘Hasn’t there even been a message?’

‘Nothing at all. We’ve spent the whole day on tenterhooks, and all to no avail.’

‘I suppose he could have had an accident,’ Robert said slowly.

‘We thought of that.’ Morgana laughed. ‘And at this moment he’s breathing his last at the foot of Polzion cliffs. I wish he was,’ she added hotly.

It was Robert’s turn to laugh. ‘Darling, what a little savage you are! It’s a good job my respected mama can’t hear your fulminations.’

‘Meaning her worst fears would be fully justified?’ Morgana asked coolly, then relented. ‘I’m sorry, Rob. Your mother can’t help the way she is, any more than I can. And I won’t say anything shocking in front of her, I promise. I’m just a little uptight over this whole business, that’s all. And the atmosphere in the house is deadly at the moment—Elsa prophesying doom all over the place, and Mummy’s trying to be optimistic and see a silver lining in everything. I was just going for a walk when you rang.’

‘In the direction of the Home Farm?’ he enquired hopefully.

She sighed. ‘Not really. I do need to be on my own for a time. You understand, don’t you?’

‘I’ll try to anyway,’ he said cheerfully. ‘You know I’m here if you need me. Perhaps I could pick you up later when you’ve walked your blues off, and we could have a drink somewhere.’

‘Now that would be nice,’ she said. ‘See you.’ She was smiling as she put the receiver down. Robert was sweet, she thought, and she’d forgotten to tell him he was the fair man that Elsa had seen in the cards, but it didn’t matter. Gems like that would keep, and she would enjoy telling him later, over their drink.

As she went out of the house, closing the side door carefully against the gusting wind, Morgana wondered why she hadn’t considered going down to the Home Farm, because until Rob had mentioned it, it hadn’t even crossed her mind to do so.

Was she being totally fair to him? she wondered. He wanted to help. The phone calls proved that. He was kind and concerned, and he’d been furious when he heard about the entail, calling it a ‘load of outdated nonsense and prejudice’. And although she agreed with every word, it wasn’t what she wanted to hear right now.

Nor did she really want to hear him ask her to marry him, which she suspected he might do. If and when he proposed, she wanted it to be for the right reasons, and that was quite apart from the fact that deep in her bones she felt they didn’t know each other well enough yet.

Of course, it might be that they would never know each other well enough. She and her mother might have to leave Polzion and go miles away, and eventually, inevitably, the gap that she and Rob had left in each other’s lives would be filled with other people. Journeys led often to lovers’ partings as well as their meetings, she thought with a little grimace. And ‘lover’ was a strong way of describing Rob, although she enjoyed the moments she spent in his arms. He was a normal man with all the needs which that implied, but he was not overly demanding. He preferred to let their relationship proceed steadily rather than sweep her off her feet into a headlong surrender they might both regret later.

But if she went to him now, with all her doubts and her troubles, he might interpret her need for comfort and reassurance rather differently, and that would simply create more problems.

‘And just now I have as many as I can handle,’ she muttered against the moan of the wind.

She buried her hands in the pockets of her cape, her fingers closing round the familiar shape of her small pocket torch, and it was that which decided her where to go for her walk. Her original intention had been to follow the lane round, perhaps even as far as the village, but now she knew she wanted the open spaces of the stretch of moorland behind the house. Even in summertime, it seemed bleak, the few trees bent and stunted under the power of the prevailing westerly gales, but Morgana loved it, in particular the great stone which crowned its crest.

It was an odd-looking stone—a tall thick stem of granite with another slab balanced across its top. In some guide books it was referred to as the Giant’s Table, but locally it was known as the Wishing Stone because it was said that if you put your hand on the upright and made a wish, and then circled the stone three times, the top slab would rock gently if the wish was to be granted. At all other times, of course, it was said to be immovable, but Morgana had always thought that a really desperate wisher could probably give fate a helping hand with a quick nudge at the cross-stone.

Sometimes she’d wondered if there had once been other stones there, so that the hillside above Polzion had resembled Stonehenge or Avebury, until people had come and taken them for building. Yet it was intriguing that they had left this one, and she had asked herself why often. Maybe it was because they sensed its power, or more prosaically perhaps it was because the cross-stone had proved more difficult to shift than anticipated.

Anyway, there it stood, like a mysterious signpost to a secret in the youth of mankind, surviving the initials which had been carved on it, the picnics which had been eaten in its shadow, and all the attempts of vandals to dislodge it, squat and oddly reassuring in its timelessness.

As she picked her way across the thick clumps of grass and bracken, the wind snatched at her hood, pulling it back from her head, and making her dark hair billow round her like a cloud. She breathed deeply. This was what she had wanted—the freshness of damp undergrowth and sea salt brought to her on the moving air. Rob would think she was mad if he could see her now, she thought, stumbling a little on a tussock of grass, but then he hadn’t been born here as she had. In fact she’d often wondered what had prompted his father to buy the Home Farm in the first place. Perhaps under his rather staid appearance he was really a romantic at heart, remembering the pull of the boyhood holidays he mentioned so often. Certainly Morgana doubted whether his wife’s wishes had much to do with his decision. Mrs Donleven’s roots seemed firmly grounded in the Home Counties.

Morgana was out of breath by the time she reached the wishing stone. The wind had been blowing steadily against her all the way, and by all the natural laws the stone should already have been rocking precariously on its pediment. But it wasn’t, of course. She leaned against the upright, regaining her breath, and looking about her. She could see the lights of Polzion House below her, and away on the right those of the Home Farm. She couldn’t see the village, because it was down in a hollow in the edge of the sea, where the surrounding cliffs provided a safe harbour for the fishing and pleasure boats.

She thought suddenly, ‘This could be the last time—the very last time that I stand here.’ She put her hand on the stone and it felt warm to the touch, but perhaps that was because she herself suddenly felt so cold.

It couldn’t happen, she told herself passionately. This was her place, her land, and she refused to give it up to an uncaring stranger.

She said quietly, but aloud because that was the rule, ‘I wish that he may never come here. I wish that he may renounce his inheritance, and that we may never meet.’ Then she began to walk round the stone, slowly and carefully, the wind whipping her cloak around her legs, her head thrown back slightly, her eyes narrowed against the gloom as she watched for a sign of movement.

She had never really believed in the Wishing Stone, had always dismissed it as an amusing local superstition, but now she desperately wanted the legend to be true, and to work for her.

But when her circuit was completed, the great stone remained where it was implacable, immovable. Her wish hadn’t been granted, and she could have thrown herself on to the ground and wept and drummed her heels like a tired child.

She stared at the stone, and sighed despairingly, ‘Oh, why didn’t you work?’

And from somewhere behind her, but altogether too close for comfort a man’s voice said, ‘Perhaps you used the wrong spell. Or simply asked for the wrong thing.’

Morgana spun round, her hand going to her mouth to stifle an involuntary scream, and found herself caught, transfixed like a butterfly to a cork, in the merciless, all-encompassing beam of a powerful torch.

CHAPTER TWO

HER heart hammering, Morgana stared back, lifting her chin defiantly. She didn’t recognise the voice. Low-pitched and resonant, with a trace of an unfamiliar accent, it struck no chord in her memory. And she couldn’t see him either, although she had the impression that he was tall.

She wondered why she hadn’t heard him approach, but supposed it had been partly because of the noise of the wind, and principally, because she had been so totally absorbed in what she was doing. All of which he had observed, judging by his opening remark. She felt the blood rush into her face with embarrassment, and her temper rising at the same time as she visualised him skulking up through the bracken, deliberately not using his torch, giving her no hint that she was no longer alone until it was too late, and she had made a complete and utter fool of herself.

She demanded sharply, ‘Do you enjoy spying?’

‘Not particularly, although I must confess it can be most instructive,’ he said. ‘And it’s not every day one gets the paces. But isn’t it a little early for this sort of thing? I always understood the witching hour was midnight.’

There was a trace of amusement in his voice which he wasn’t at all concerned to hide, and it stung.

She said stiffly, ‘I am not a witch.’

‘I think that’s just as well.’ The laughter was open now. ‘I don’t think you’d be very good at it. That stone’s supposed to rock, isn’t it?’

‘How did you know that?’

‘From a book I bought in the village. I hope you didn’t think it was a closely guarded secret.’

‘No, no, of course not.’ The fright he had given her, and her own anger, had knocked her slightly off balance, and she hated the way he kept her trapped in the damned beam of light, so that he could see her, but she could know nothing about him, except that impression of height.

Her voice sharpened. ‘Did your book also tell you that this is private land?’

It was only a technicality, and no one at Polzion House had ever dreamed of debarring any of the interested tourists from visiting the stone, but there was something about this man that flicked her on the raw, that made her want to put him down—to make him feel small in his turn. It was abominable the way he had stood there in the darkness and watched her, and listened, and then added insult to injury by laughing at her.

He said slowly, ‘Is it now? And do you think the owner would mind?’

‘We don’t like trespassers round here—intruders.’

‘I was always told the Cornish were very hospitable. And as for intruding, actually I was here before you. I was standing back so I could look at the stone from a distance when you appeared out of nowhere and began your incantations.’

‘I had every reason to believe I would be alone,’ she said coldly. ‘And do you think you could switch off that spotlight of yours—always supposing you have seen all that you want,’ she added with icy sarcasm.

The torch remained on. He said, ‘Tell me something—are you always so prickly? Even in that weird cloak with your hair all over your face, you’re an attractive girl. You must have had men look at you before this.’

‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘But I’ve always been able to look at them too. The present situation is a little too one-sided for my taste.’

He said, ‘But easily remedied.’ The torch beam swung up and away from her and she saw him properly for the first time. He was tall, his face thin, with prominent cheekbones, a high-bridged nose and firm mouth and chin. And his hair was fair, lighter altogether than Rob’s, and longer too, reaching almost to the collar of the black leather coat he was wearing.

Morgana thought, ‘A fair man—but it can’t be … it couldn’t be! I don’t believe it.’

As if he could read her thoughts, he began to smile, deep laugh lines appearing beside his mouth.

‘You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.’

She wanted to ask, ‘Who are you?’ but the words wouldn’t come. Then the torch snapped off, and there was only the darkness and the howl of the wind, and the tall dimly seen figure who said quietly, ‘And perhaps you have, at that.’

He was coming towards her, and she recoiled involuntarily, her hands flying up in front of her to keep him away. Then she stumbled against a clump of grass and went flying.

‘Dear God!’ The torch flicked on again, as she lay there, winded and humiliated, and he bent towards her pulling her up, his voice abrupt as he asked, ‘Have you hurt yourself? Are you all right?’

‘I’m fine.’ She’d twisted her ankle slightly and it hurt enough to make her wince when she put her weight on it, but she wasn’t going admit it. She didn’t want him to touch her again. He’d put his hands under her arms and lifted her as if she was a child, and she’d hated it.

He said harshly, ‘When I said you’d seen a ghost, I wasn’t trying to frighten you. There was no need for you to leap away like that. What I meant was that I thought I possibly reminded you of someone.’

Morgana could have said quite truthfully, ‘You remind me of a number of people. You remind me of at least half the portraits hanging in the long gallery at home, except that they’re all dark, and you’re fair.’ But she remained silent because there was still an outside chance it might all be a coincidence, and she could be wrong. Under her breath, she prayed that she was wrong.

He said sharply, ‘Well?’

She shrugged. ‘I don’t spend my life looking for chance resemblances to people I know in local tourists. We have too many of them.’

‘I wasn’t talking about chance, and I think you know it.’ His hand gripped her arm, bruising her flesh, and she said with ice in her voice, ‘Would you let go of me, please?’

‘When you’ve answered a few simple questions. For starters, what’s your name?’

‘If this is a new version of the pick-up, then I’m not impressed,’ she shot at him.

‘I’m tempted to make a very different impression on you.’ His voice slowed to a drawl, but now he didn’t sound amused at all. The torchlight was on her face again, and his hand moved from her arm to grip her chin. She wanted to pull away, but she wasn’t sure she could evade his grasp, and it would be another humiliation to struggle and lose. So she remained very still, making her eyes blank, enduring his scrutiny.

At last he said slowly, ‘I’m Lyall Pentreath. And unless I miss my guess, you’re my cousin Morgana.’

‘Brilliantly deduced,’ she said huskily. ‘And what are we supposed to do now—shake hands?’

‘I think it’s a little late for that.’ His voice was dry.

‘We expected you this morning.’

‘I was held up.’ He let her go and stepped back, and her breath escaped with a little gasp of relief.

‘More business, I suppose.’ She made no attempt to hide the bitterness in her voice.

‘Of a sort.’

‘I suppose it didn’t occur that my mother and I would be waiting for you—would be worried?’

‘Frankly it didn’t.’ A match flared as he lit a cheroot, his hands sheltering the flame against the snatching wind, and she saw his mouth twist cynically. ‘I hardly imagined I would be the most welcome visitor the Polzion House Hotel had ever had.’

She’d heard the edge in his voice when he mentioned the word hotel, and she made her own tone blank and a little wondering. ‘You resent the fact that the family home is now a commercial enterprise? I’d have thought as a business man yourself, you’d have been delighted.’

‘But then,’ he said coolly, ‘I would hardly describe that particular venture as a commercial enterprise.’

Morgana was silent for a moment, her brain working madly. Far from lacking interest in his inheritance, it now seemed he was only too well informed. But where had he gleaned his information? she wondered. Was that where he’d been since this morning? Going round Polzion, asking questions? She flinched inwardly as she thought of some of the answers he might have been given. On the other hand, it was far more likely that he’d found out all he wanted to know through correspondence between his solicitors and Mr Trevick, who would have been been bound to be frank.

She decided to proceed cautiously. ‘I admit we’re not the Hilton, but we make out.’

‘Do you really? You seem to be alone in that opinion. From what I’ve learned, the hotel seems to owe quite a lot of money to a number of people.’

She was mortified, but she made herself reply quietly. ‘Yes—we do, unfortunately. But it’s been a bad year.’

‘It must have been a succession of bad years if all I’ve been told is true.’

‘If you want to put it that way,’ Morgana agreed, numbly hating him.

‘I don’t, believe me.’ His tone was dry. ‘After all—a hotel in surroundings like these. It’s hard to see how it could fail.’

‘In the course of your snooping, you may also have noticed that Polzion isn’t exactly Newquay,’ she said sharply. ‘I’m sorry if we haven’t come up to your expectations, but no doubt you’ll be able to figure out the reasons why at your leisure.’

‘Unfortunately, I don’t have that much leisure to waste.’ He sounded abrupt again. ‘I’m going to walk down to the house now, and meet your mother. Are you going to come with me, or have you got more spells to cast?’

‘No,’ she snapped. ‘I’ll come down with you.’ She felt chilled to the bone, and cold and sick inside.

‘Good. I didn’t relish the prospect of being turned into a frog as soon as I turned my back.’

‘I think in the circumstances,’ she said tightly, ‘a rat would be more appropriate.’

‘If we’re playing at animal similes, I can think of one or two that would fit you quite well too,’ he returned equably, and Morgana flushed in the darkness. After a moment’s pause he turned away and moved off down the hill, without waiting to see if she was following or not. Morgana gritted her teeth and went after him, fumbling in her cape pocket for her own torch. It couldn’t compete with the powerful beam that his flashlight was sending out, but at least it gave her an illusion of independence.

He said over his shoulder, ‘Be careful you don’t fall.’

‘Thanks for the advice,’ she snapped, ‘but I do happen to know every inch of these moors.’ And remembered too late that he’d had to haul her up from the ground only a few minutes before.

‘Then 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 in wet weather?’

‘There’s a drying rack that works on a pulley in the kitchen. We’ve always found it perfectly efficient,’ she said coldly.

‘But then,’ he said smoothly, ‘the hotel has never precisely operated at full stretch, has it?’

‘As you say,’ she agreed woodenly. ‘That door leads to a courtyard, and the former stables. Do you want to look at them now? They’re rather dilapidated.’

‘I can imagine. Is there electricity laid on?’

‘Well—no.’

‘Then I’ll save that particular delight for another occasion. What kind of garden is there at the rear?’

She said reluctantly, ‘Beyond the stables there’s a walled area which is quite sheltered. We grow vegetables there, and soft fruit, but not to any great extent.’

‘And use the home-grown produce in the hotel dining room?’

She was a little taken aback. ‘Well, sometimes. We don’t grow all that much. There are a few apple trees as well.’

Lyall gave a sharp sigh. ‘Perhaps we’d better look at the rest of the ground floor rooms—leaving the drawing room out of the tour. I’ve had enough of the stares of the curious.’

‘I suppose you think we should have told our guests to go,’ Morgana said defensively.

‘I didn’t say that.’

‘No—but you obviously don’t want them here. Only it is—or it has been our living, and we didn’t hear from you, so we didn’t know what to do for the best.’

His mouth curled sardonically. ‘That last phrase I’d say sums up the present situation pretty accurately. Now, might we get on, please? As I’ve pointed out, my time here is limited.’

Oh, that it were true, Morgana thought in impotent rage leading the way along the passage to the dining room.

Lyall said little as she did the honours of the house in a small remote voice—like a bored house agent with a reluctant client, she realised with unwilling humour, as she heard herself uttering phrases like ‘original mouldings’ and ‘local stone’.

She tried to look at him as little as possible, so it was difficult to gauge his reactions to what he was seeing—to know whether he was impressed, appalled, or simply indifferent. One of his few abrupt questions was about central heating, and she had to confess there wasn’t any, but that they’d always fround the open fires perfectly adequate. It wasn’t true. Her mother had bemoaned the lack of radiators on innumerable occasions, but Morgana wasn’t prepared to admit that. As far as this—interloper was concerned, the present occupants thought that Polzion House was perfect, warts and all.

Besides, she didn’t want him to like the house. The solution to all their problems would be for him to refuse the inheritance, and he could just do that, if there were sufficient drawbacks. She could imagine the kind of accommodation that would appeal to him—some chic penthouse, she thought impatiently, with wall-to-wall carpeting, and gold-plated bathroom fittings, to go with his gold-plated image.

As she led the way up the broad, shallow curve of the staircase, her sense of purpose faltered a little. At the head of the stairs was the long gallery off which the principal bedrooms opened, with smaller wings at each end, and in this gallery the family portraits were hung. However much she might silently condemn him as an intruder and a stranger, she could not escape the fact that every few yards they were going to come face to face with his likeness, and it wouldn’t escape him either.

She made no reference to them as they passed, but took him straight to the master bedroom which her parents used to share, and where Elizabeth Pentreath now slept alone. He looked around it without comment, opening the door into the small dressing room which lay off it.

‘Are the guest rooms similar?’ he asked, when they were once again on the gallery.

Morgana hesitated. ‘Well, usually guests have a choice of rooms. We charge different prices for them, of course. At the moment Miss Meakins has accommodation in the West Wing, but we moved Major Lawson over to the other side because of his typing.’ He said nothing in response, and after a minute she added defensively, ‘There’s nothing wrong with the rooms in the wings. We always show the guests everything that’s available.’

She walked on quickly down the corridor, and Lyall followed.

He said, ‘Just a moment. Haven’t you forgotten something?’

She stopped and turned quickly. He was standing by a door, touching the handle, his brows raised interrogatively.

She said reluctantly, ‘Oh—that’s my room.’ She half expected him to leave it, and follow her, but he remained where he was.

‘I suppose you want to see it.’ She made no effort to disguise her resentment.

‘I want to see everything. I thought I’d made that clear.’

Yes, you did, she thought, as she walked back. And you’re also reminding me that this isn’t really my room any more. That it belongs to you, like everything else here, and that I’m only occupying it on sufferance. As if I could forget that, even for a moment! I just—hoped that you wouldn’t insist.

Her hand was shaking as she turned the handle and pushed open the door, fumbling for the light switch. Every step he’d taken in this house was an invasion of privacy, but this was the worst of all.

She had always slept in this room, from being a small child. Her whole life was laid out here for anyone to see. At a casual glance, Lyall could find out anything he wanted to know—could see the books, from childhood fairy tales to modern novels, which crammed the bulging bookcase—the worn teddy bear still occupying a place of honour on the narrow window seat—even the scent she used, standing on her dressing table, and her nightdress folded on the small single bed with its virginal white candlewick coverlet.

As it was, his glance was far from casual. He walked into the centre of the room and stood there, his hands buried deep into the pockets of the black leather coat he hadn’t bothered to remove. And he took everything in, while Morgana waited in the doorway, feeling as humiliated as if she’d been forced to strip naked in front of him.

It was deliberate, she knew that. Next time and every time that she entered this room, he intended her to remember his presence there, his scrutiny covering all her most personal possessions, lingering on the narrowness of the bed, while a half-smile played about his mouth which she had not the slightest difficulty in interpreting.

She thought, ‘Damn you!’ and was aghast to see his smile widen, and realise she had spoken her thought aloud.

He said softly, ‘It’s nice to know, darling, that one’s efforts are appreciated.’

She said, ‘When you’ve finished your—inventory, I’ll be in the corridor.’

He joined her there almost immediately. ‘I have to admire your choice of sanctuary,’ he observed rather mockingly. ‘I imagine that in daylight, the view from the window is quite spectacular.’

‘Yes—you can see the sea from all the first floor windows on this side.’ Her voice sounded stilted.

‘And I presume that the eyes I can feel watching me along this gallery are those of our mutual ancestors?’

‘Yes,’ she agreed resignedly.

‘Are they not included in the guided tour?’

She shrugged. ‘As you pointed out, they are our mutual ancestors. You probably know as much as I do.’

He said softly, ‘And you know that isn’t the truth. So suppose you tell me about them.’

There was a note in his voice which sent little prickles of apprehension running along her skin, like a storm warning. There was a brief, crackling silence, then she said, ‘Very well. The man on your left is Josiah Pentreath. He built most of this house at the height of the tin-mining industry, but it’s always been reckoned he built the stables out of his profits from smuggling. He had two sons, Mark and Giles—they’re over there. Giles didn’t just follow in his father’s footsteps, he overtook him. This has always been a bad coast for wrecks, and Giles is popularly supposed to have done his share in encouraging them. He’s one of the Pentreath black sheep. Mark, on the other hand, was converted to Methodism by John Wesley.’ She paused, then said, ‘Mark and Giles—and Martin too—have always been Pentreath names.’

She didn’t have to add, ‘But Lyall isn’t.’

He said, ‘I was named for my mother’s family. You can hardly blame my father for dispensing with family tradition under the circumstances.’

Her voice lacked expression. ‘I suppose not. Anyway, those rather downtrodden-looking ladies you see are their respective wives.’

He said almost sharply, ‘She doesn’t look downtrodden at all.’

‘Which one are you looking at?’ Morgana peered. ‘Oh, I didn’t mean that one. She’s my grandmother.’

‘Not one of the mutual ancestors,’ he said slowly. ‘She was very beautiful, wasn’t she? May I ask why she’s got up like a medieval princess?’

‘There was some sort of Arthurian pageant going on, and she was playing the part of Morgan le Fay.’ She was reluctant to complete the story, but she didn’t want him to probe either, so she went on doggedly, ‘That was where Grandfather saw her, and he fell in love with her at first sight. After they were married, he insisted on having her portrait painted in her pageant costume. They had no daughters, only one son—my father, and he made him promise that if he had a daughter he would call her Morgana.’

‘And here you are.’

‘Yes,’ she said tightly, ‘here I am. Grandfather was still alive when I was born, and he was so delighted to have the little girl he’d wanted at last.’

‘Having no idea, of course, that you’d be an only child. Quite one of life’s little ironies.’

‘You could put it like that.’ She bit her lip hard. ‘Do you want another instalment of family history, or shall we look at the rest of the bedrooms? There are the attics as well.’

‘I think the attics will have to be saved, along with the stables for my next visit,’ he said, glancing at his watch. ‘I must go. Purely as a matter of interest, you understand, which room was I to have been given?’

‘We’d put you in the East Wing,’ she mumbled.

Lyall lifted a sardonic brow. ‘I understood all guests were allowed a choice.’

Morgana shrugged again. ‘The same rule would have applied.’ She took a deep breath, forcing the words to her lips. ‘After all, they’re all your rooms—now.’

‘Yes, they are, aren’t they?’ he said silkily. ‘It’s just as well I decided to stay in Truro instead. I don’t think you’d have like my choice, Morgan le Fay.’

For a moment she looked at him uncomprehendingly, then as realisation dawned, an angry flush invaded her cheeks.

‘That wouldn’t matter,’ she said untruthfully. ‘As I shall have to move out eventually anyway, it may as well be sooner than later.’

He laughed, his eyes going over her in one swift, sensuous appraisal. ‘Who said anything about moving out?’

Her flush deepened. ‘How dare you?’ she stormed.

‘Oh, I dare,’ he said. ‘When you get to know me better, you’ll be amazed how much I dare.’

‘I haven’t the slightest wish to know you better. I only wish I’d never had to meet you at all.’

‘I gathered that when I heard you casting your spell on the moor,’ he said mockingly. ‘Also when I overheard you bemoaning the fact that you had to share a roof with me. I enjoy a challenge, and it occurred to me that it might be amusing to persuade you to share far more than just my roof.’

‘You’re out of your mind,’ she said bitingly. ‘Or perhaps your unexpected inheritance has gone to your head. It’s the house and its contents which belong to you. I don’t.’

He said very gently, ‘But you will, Morgan le Fay. You will. Because in spite of your little spells and maledictions, I’m here, and I intend to stay.’

He took one quick stride forward and pulled her into his arms, his mouth stifling her instinctive cry of protest on her lips. There was no mercy in his kiss, nothing exploratory or tentative, just an immediate hungry demand, which, against her will, against all her instincts aroused an eventual, shaming response. And at once he let her go, as if her capitulation had been all he’d been waiting for.

Morgana shrank back against the wall, her hand going up to cover her bruised mouth, too furious to speak, too shocked to know what to say. And the worst of it was that Lyall was smiling at her.

‘You bastard!’ she choked eventually.

‘From what you tell me, I come from a long line of them,’ he said coolly. ‘But I’m glad to know that you’re not the downtrodden sort. I’ll see you tomorrow, Morgana.’

‘I’ll see you in hell!’ she raged.

His mouth twisted. ‘Hell’s only the flip side of Paradise. Sometimes it’s hard to differentiate between the two, as you may find, my little witch.’

She whirled past him, into her room, and slammed the door. She leaned back against the panels, her breathing quick and shallow, her small breasts rising and falling as if she’d been running.

She didn’t know whether to scream, or burst into tears, and was sorely tempted to do both, because it was just as she’d feared. Lyall might at this moment be on his way to Truro, but this room was filled with him. She could close her eyes, and blot out his image, but that couldn’t destroy the taste of him, the scent, the feel of his body against her own.

For as long as she stayed in this house, she knew she would never be alone again, and the knowledge made her tremble.

CHAPTER THREE

MORGANA was still lying on her bed staring sightlessly up at the ceiling almost an hour later when there was a knock at the door, and her mother popped an apologetic head into the room.

‘Darling, are you all right? It’s almost time for dinner. Are you coming down?’

Morgana forced a smile. ‘I don’t think so. I—I’m not really very hungry, and Rob is picking me up later. We’ll probably go to the Polzion Arms and I can grab a sandwich there.’

‘You’re probably more than wise.’ said Mrs Pentreath with a little sigh. ‘Elsa’s behaving very oddly, and she won’t even discuss whether there’s going to be a pudding. I suppose if all else fails we can open some tinned fruit.’ She paused. ‘Well, what did you think of him? Really, he seemed very pleasant.’

‘That’s hardly the word I would use.’ Morgana swung herself to the floor and walked across to the dressing table.

‘Well, darling, it’s hardly any wonder. You were extremely rude to him. I was very dubious about allowing you to show him round, but Miss Meakins was being extremely difficult—most inquisitive, and so carping about all sorts of little things which she’s never mentioned before, and all done for effect, I’m convinced. So I was really grateful to Mr Pentreath when he made a tactful exit.’ She hesitated. ‘Did he give you any kind of hint—about his intentions, I mean?’

Morgana, brushing her hair, had an insane desire to burst into hysterical laughter.

She said gently, ‘No, love. At least, not in the way that you mean. I don’t know what his plans are.’

Mrs Pentreath sighed again. ‘He’s coming back tomorrow, so I’ve no doubt he’ll tell us then. I’ve invited him to lunch, and told Elsa to get a couple of ducks out of the freezer.’

‘I don’t think you’ll soften his heart with our brand of gastronomic delights.’ Morgana said drily. ‘He has an expense account air about him.’

‘Well, I must say I liked him much better than I expected to.’ Mrs Pentreath’s voice was slightly defensive. ‘He isn’t a bit like his late father—or what I remember of him at least. He must take after his mother’s side of the family. I wonder who Giles did marry?’

‘Does it matter?’ Morgana wearily replaced her brush on the dressing table. ‘It would have been far better for us if he’d remained a bachelor.’

‘I wonder if Lyall himself is married?’ mused her mother. ‘Did he mention a wife, or a fiancée?’

On the contrary, Morgana thought bleakly, but that doesn’t mean with his kind that neither of those ladies exists.

Aloud she said, ‘We didn’t really talk about personal things. He wanted to see the house, and learn something about the family history. I told him about Giles the Wrecker.’

‘That’s a terrible story,’ Mrs Pentreath said indignantly. ‘I’ve never believed one word of it.’

‘Yet you believe that old Josiah was a smuggler.’ Morgana shook her head affectionately.

‘Well, smuggling is different,’ Mrs Pentreath excused herself. ‘In those days, simply everyone did it. It was quite respectable.’

‘Tell that to the Customs and Excise!’ Morgana gave her mother a swift hug. ‘Shall I lay the dining table, or has Elsa done it?’

‘She was doing it when I came upstairs, and singing ‘Rock of Ages’ very loudly, and rather badly. I think this business over the entail has affected her almost as deeply as it has us.’

‘Nonsense,’ Morgana said robustly. ‘She’s wallowing in it. She’s seen a fair man, and grief and woe in the cards, and she’s in her element. We ought to start calling her Cassandra instead.’ She caught her mother looking at her oddly, and demanded resignedly, ‘Now what’s the matter?’

‘Nothing really, dear, except—oh, Morgana, that awful dress! I know it’s a mark of respect, but poor Daddy would have loathed it so. Such a depressing colour, and it doesn’t even fit you very well. I don’t know what your cousin must have thought.’

Morgana gave her reflection a rueful look. ‘I think it’s probably served its purpose,’ she conceded. ‘I’ll give it to the next jumble sale. But I couldn’t care less what Lyall Pentreath thinks about me, or my clothes,’ she added defiantly. ‘For two pins I’d wear the beastly thing every time he comes here.’

Mrs Pentreath shuddered. ‘Spare the rest of us, darling! And you couldn’t possibly wear it to go out with Rob.’ She gave a little sigh. ‘I’d better go downstairs and face the inquisition again. One can understand their concern, I suppose. This is as much their home, temporarily at least, as it is ours.’ She gave an uncertain little smile, said, ‘Have a lovely time, darling, and—–don’t worry. I’m sure everything is going to work out for the best,’ and went out of the room.

Morgana pulled off the despised dress and let it fall in a heap on the floor, before padding across to the wardrobe and viewing the contents. In the end, she decided to wear a pair of dark red corded jeans, and a cream Shetland wool sweater with a high collar. She had always liked simple clothes, and that was just as well, she thought wryly. She had found at school that she had a flair for dressmaking, and she had always ensured that the garments she made never had a home-made air, although nothing she wore could ever compete with the clothes of Elaine or Caroline Donleven, who bought many of their things from couture houses in London.

Robert had already arrived when she went downstairs and was standing in front of the drawing room fire, chatting to her mother. Miss Meakins had disappeared, she was relieved to notice, presumably to dress for dinner. Only Major Lawson was left, sitting quietly near the fire, completing the Times crossword. He glanced up as Morgana entered, and rose, giving her his pleasant, rather shy smile, and she thought, not for the first time, what a nice man he seemed, and what a pity all the guests they’d had staying at Polzion House over the years couldn’t have been like him.

She said a swift goodbye to her mother, then she and Robert walked out to where his car was parked at the front of the house.

‘I hear your unwelcome visitor arrived after all,’ Rob said casually as he opened the passenger door for her.

‘Yes, he did.’ Morgana tried to keep her tone non-committal, but was aware, just the same, that an edge had crept in.

‘Was he as you expected? Your mother seems to have been quite charmed.’

‘Mummy always tends to meet everyone more than halfway.’ Morgana said ruefully.

‘I gather that you weren’t equally captivated?’ Rob smiled.

‘I found him loathsome,’ she said coldly.

‘Good,’ he approved. ‘From your mother’s remarks, I’d begun to think I might have reason to be jealous.’ It was said teasingly, but there was an underlying serious note.

‘No reason at all,’ she said. She was glad the darkness in the car hid the sudden surge of colour in her face as she remembered unwillingly that uncontrolled response to his kiss that Lyall had forced from her. It made her feel sick with self-disgust to recall it to mind. If it had been a chance encounter, in some ways it would have been easier to forget, but Lyall had the right to return to Polzion House whenever he wanted, and every time she saw him, she was going to be haunted by the remembered searing pressure of his mouth on hers.

She asked lightly, ‘Where are we going?’

‘To the Polzion Arms. Mum and Dad have come down for the weekend, and they’re having dinner there. They’ve asked us to join them.’

‘Oh, lord!’ Morgana was aghast. ‘Why didn’t you warn me? I’d at least have put on a skirt.’

‘You look terrific just as you are,’ he said. ‘My cool, practical lady.’

Cool and practical! She could have laughed out loud. What would Rob have said if he could have seen her a couple of hours earlier, prancing round the Wishing Stone like a superstitious idiot, or boiling with tension and temper as she led Lyall Pentreath round the house she could no longer claim as her home? She’d made a fool of herself in every way there was, she thought, but she wouldn’t allow it to happen again. The next time she saw Lyall Pentreath, she would have herself well in hand. She would build a high wall around her emotions and retreat to a safe distance behind it—and whatever he threw at her, whether it was sexual innudendo or the rank injustice of the legal situation they found themselves in, then she would take it, coolly and practically. She wasn’t going to crumble at the knees because a man who undoubtedly had already had more than his fair share of success with women had made a pass at her.

Rob asked suddenly, ‘What is it, love? You’re as restless as a volcano about to go into eruption. Do you want to go home and change, because there’s time …’

‘No,’ she said hastily. ‘I’m sorry, Rob. It’s been an upsetting day, taken all round. I—I do need to relax.’

The Donlevens were already sitting in the firelit comfort of the lounge bar when Rob and Morgana arrived. Morgana saw drily that she wasn’t the only one wearing trousers, although the contrast between her own simple garb and Elaine’s aquamarine silk tunic and tightly cuffed harem pants could hardly have been greater. As she murmured the conventional greetings, Morgana was aware of the other girl’s eyes flicking over her in rather contemptuous satisfaction. She accepted the dry Martini which Mr Donleven offered her, and sat down on the high-backed wooden settle which flanked one side of the log fire, making herself relax, forcing herself to smile a response to Mrs Donlevan’s remarks, knowing full well that Elaine’s scrutiny had become speculative.

Eventually she spoke, breaking rather impatiently across her mother’s comments about the harvest of apples from the Home Farm’s orchard, ‘Did the missing heir turn up then?’

‘Yes, eventually.’ Morgana’s tone was short, and she picked up her drink and sipped it.

‘The whole thing sounds so incredibly unlikely.’ Elaine’s eyes were fixed on her face. ‘It all sounds like the plot for one of those old-fashioned romances.’

‘Well, I can assure you that there’s little of the old-fashioned romantic about my cousin Lyall,’ said Morgana, and instantly regretted it, because Elaine’s gaze sharpened with interest.

‘Dear me,’ she drawled. ‘Have the sparks been flying already?’

‘I hardly think that’s any of our business, Elaine,’ her father broke in repressively.

Elaine shrugged unrepentantly. ‘That doesn’t make it any less fascinating,’ she said. ‘On the contrary. So what’s he like, Morgana? Tall, dark and handsome?’

‘He’s tall,’ said Morgana, keeping her voice deliberately cool. ‘And I suppose some women might find him attractive.’

‘But not you?’ Elaine probed.

‘Certainly not her.’ Rob laid a hand over Morgana’s and smiled at her possessively. ‘Morgana only has eyes for me, haven’t you, love?’

Out of the corner of her eye, Morgana saw his mother glance at them quickly, then away, confirming her suspicions that Mrs Donleven would not break her heart if Morgana was forced to move far away from Polzion, and well out of Rob’s orbit. She wished suddenly that it was possible for her to lean across the narrow oak table that separated them and say, ‘Look, you have nothing to worry about. I like Rob enormously, but I’m not in love with him. Even if I’d been my father’s heir, I would still feel the same.’

But she and Mrs Donleven had never been on terms of sufficient intimacy for her to even to venture on such a comment. Besides, it was hardly the topic for a supposedly pleasant social occasion, and she had no wish to hurt Rob, although she supposed it was inevitable that their parting would be accompanied by a certain amount of pain, less on her side than on his, she was forced to acknowledge, and found herself wondering why she should suddenly be so sure of this.

She took the menu Elaine handed her with a condescending smile and studied it, the neat copperplate in which it was written dancing meaninglessly in front of her eyes.

‘Well,’ said Elaine, ‘attractive or not, he certainly seems to have given you food for thought.’

‘Is it any wonder?’ Morgana countered lightly. ‘He’s now the legal owner of the house I live in. If someone arrived to dispossess you tomorrow, I imagine you’d also be a little on edge.’

‘It’s a bad business.’ Mr Donleven shook his head. ‘Did you really have no idea what would happen? Didn’t your late father give you any kind of warning?’

As Morgana shook her head, she reflected that Martin Pentreath hadn’t been the kind of man who dealt in warnings, merely in optimism which was generally unfounded.

‘From what I can gather from our solicitor, my father preferred to ignore the other branch of the family altogether. For some reason, he genuinely believed that Giles Pentreath had died a childless bachelor. Of course, if he had done so, or if his child had been a daughter as well, then everything would have been entirely different.’

Mr Donleven sighed and drank some of his whisky. Morgana could guess what he was thinking, that if he had been in Martin Pentreath’s shoes he would have done everything possible to discover the truth beyond all doubt, and then taken some kind of action to protect his family from the eventual blow. There was little excuse to offer for her father’s ostrich-like behaviour, she thought sadly.

Rob bent solicitously towards her. ‘What would you like to eat, love?’

‘Oh—melon, I think, and fillet steak.’ She put the menu down. ‘I’m not very hungry.’

Mr Donleven gave the order to the hovering waitress, then turned back to Morgana. ‘Has your cousin given any indication of his plans for the house? Does he intend to live there himself?’

‘I don’t know.’ Morgana shook her head. ‘But I would have thought it was unlikely.’

‘You mean he might be prepared to sell?’ Mrs Donleven broke in rather too eagerly, and Morgana turned an astonished look on her.

‘Mother!’ Rob’s frown was thunderous. ‘You know we agreed we wouldn’t say anything.’

‘Say anything about what?’ Morgana said rather desperately, and Mr Donleven leaned forward conciliatingly.

‘Oh, it was just an idea that my—that we had.’ He gave her an uneasy smile. ‘We’ve always admired the house, you know, and we thought if it was coming on the market at the right price …’

‘Because it could be made charming,’ his wife intervened, and then flushed as if it suddenly occurred to her that she had been less than tactful.

‘Yes, it could,’ Morgana agreed wryly, thinking of the expensive transformation that had overtaken the Home Farm in recent years. But although it had become a charming, and even luxurious home, she supposed she could have guessed that it would only ever be second-best in Mrs Donleven’s eyes while Polzion House was only a mile away. She sees herself as the lady of the manor, she thought, and what a fool I was not to see it coming.

‘Well, what do you think?’ Rob asked her eagerly, and she turned a rather blank look at him.

‘About what?’

‘About the possibility of our buying the house.’

She gave a defensive shrug. ‘It isn’t really any of my business,’ she parried. ‘Any discussions would have to be with the new owner and his solicitors.’

‘Well, I know that, of course.’ There was a dawning puzzlement in Rob’s eyes as he studied her. ‘But how would you feel about it, Morgana? That’s important too. And it would be a solution, wouldn’t it?’

A solution to what? she asked herself stupidly. All she could see were more problems, proliferating like weeds, and judging by the fleeting expressions of alarm she had noticed on the faces of both Mrs Donleven and Elaine, she guessed that although they might covet Polzion House, the prospect of her permanent company there, presumably as Rob’s wife, had as little appeal for them as for her.

She sought to temporise. ‘I don’t really know what to say. It’s all been rather a shock.’

‘Of course it has,’ Mr Donleven interrupted soothingly. ‘We shouldn’t have mentioned it. This is neither the time nor the place.’ He gave his wife a warning glance, then determinedly changed the subject, leaving Morgana to pursue her reeling thoughts.

Polzion House was like a carcase with the vultures clustering round it, she told herself almost hysterically. Suddenly she couldn’t wait to get away. Mr Donleven, she knew, was a wealthy man, and could undoubtedly afford to pay any inflated price that Lyall Pentreath might place on the property. But the idea of Mrs Donleven and Elaine in particular queening it there was oddly abhorrent. And Rob must be mad to think she would ever seriously contemplate sharing her old home with his mother and his sister, she thought confusedly.

Even if they all thought the world of each other, it would be a difficult situation. As it was, it would be impossible.

At that moment, the waitress came to tell them their table was prepared. Morgana could not say that she particularly enjoyed the meal that followed, but Mr Donleven did his best to lighten the atmosphere with some amusing anecdotes of personalities in the City with whom he was in almost daily contact, and which to Morgana were merely names in the newspaper, or faces on television. She found his accounts of board-room coups and averted take-overs less than fascinating, but she appreciated his attempts to keep the conversation away from more personal issues.

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