Summer of the Raven
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

ENDPAGE

COPYRIGHT

CHAPTER ONE

ROWAN transferred the weight of the shopping bag wearily to her other hand, and paused to catch her breath before mounting the remaining stairs to the flat. Just for a moment, she thought nostalgically of the lift which had operated so smoothly between floors in the previous luxury block they had lived in, but it was the only thing she did regret. She had never liked that flat, and never regarded it as home. Now, as she looked around her at the chipped paint and peeling wallpaper, then down at the worn lino covering the stairs, her lips twitched in spite of herself.

‘So this is home?’ she asked herself with a kind of desperate gaiety.

And the answer to that was – yes. It was the only home she had now. The cottage in Surrey which contained all her happiest memories had been sold to buy the Knightsbridge flat, and now that had gone too.

She sighed and hoped very much that Antonia would have a cup of coffee at least waiting for her, but it was doubtful in the extreme. Antonia had spent most of her life in an environment where cups of coffee and meals appeared as long as there was a service bell within convenient reach. Antonia had been born to be a rich man’s wife, and Rowan’s father, Victor Winslow, had filled the bill admirably as a doting and indulgent husband.

Rowan had always taken the background of money very much for granted too, until two years ago when the plane that was carrying her father to New York had crashed without survivors, and a series of long and ultimately embarrassing interviews with solicitors and accountants had revealed how very little money there was after all.

There was some money left in trust for Rowan when she was twenty-one from her late mother’s estate, and there was a small income for Antonia and herself, dependent on certain conditions. And the main one was that she and Antonia should live under the same roof until she, Rowan, was twenty-one or until she married, or Antonia married again, whichever came first.

It wasn’t a condition which had held much appeal for either of them and Rowan had been quite willing to renounce her allowance and seek her independence, but when she had suggested this, Antonia had become almost hysterical.

Before she had married Victor Winslow, Antonia had enjoyed a marginally successful career as an actress. She’d done some television work and a few minor stage roles – it was at an after-the-show party that she had met Rowan’s father – and Rowan had assumed that Antonia would resume her career. But this, she soon discovered, was the last thing her stepmother had in mind. At thirty-seven, Antonia Winslow was an outstandingly beautiful woman with auburn hair and enormous violet eyes. She could have knocked half a dozen years or more off her age without causing anyone to raise a sceptical eyebrow. But the life of a pampered wife of a tycoon suited her far better than the rat-race of acting. Antonia had no wish to have to sell herself in the market place all over again. She was quite content to accept the allowance, and Rowan was made to see that any attempt to carve out a life for herself and thus deprive both of them of this income would be arrant selfishness.

‘Your father obviously wanted you to stay in my care,’ she had declared tearfully. ‘They were his last wishes, Rowan, and you can’t ignore them. Even you wouldn’t be so heartless.’

Rowan accepted the implication that she was a cold fish without comment. There was, she supposed, a certain amount of truth in what Antonia had said, but what she could not understand was why her father had imposed such a condition, knowing as he must have done that all too often a state of armed neutrality existed between his second wife and his daughter.

When he had married Antonia, Rowan had been twelve, a slender gawky girl with her light brown hair, pale skin and wide hazel eyes. She had a brace on her front teeth and she bit her nails, and no one could have described her as a pretty child.

Antonia could possibly have enjoyed a pretty child, someone to dress up and take around with her, and reflect her own charms, although there would probably have been friction of a different kind in the years ahead. There was no friction with Rowan of this nature. If Antonia had ever asked ‘Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?’ the mirror would have given her the answer she wanted.

But from the first, she simply hadn’t been interested in Rowan, and had made it perfectly plain, and Rowan had looked back at her with clear scornful eyes that seemed to see that beneath the expensive clothes and flawless complexion there was a mean, rather spoiled little mind.

Now, at nineteen, Rowan was a little more tolerant. She had few illusions about her stepmother. She recognised that Antonia was lazy and selfish, and lived consistently beyond both their means, but at the same time there could be a curiously helpless and childlike quality about her.

Antonia, Rowan thought cynically, always has to have someone to look after her. First it was Daddy, and now it’s me, and I have to do it for Daddy’s sake. It wasn’t, she realised, that Victor Winslow wanted her to remain in Antonia’s care for a few more years. It was the other way round, and it came to her rather sadly, that in his own way Victor Winslow had also been rather selfish.

She had managed a little independence for herself. She had been forced to abandon her ‘A’ level course at boarding school, because the money that was available wouldn’t cover the remaining fees, but she had enrolled at a local college of further education and was in the throes of a two-year course there. If she was successful, it had occurred to her that she might try for a degree on the Social Sciences side at one of the Polytechnics.

Life was by no means perfect, but there seemed to be a certain order and pattern emerging from the frank chaos that her father’s sudden death had left. Money was always in short supply, largely thanks to Antonia’s ideas of budgeting. This was why Rowan did the shopping herself now, on the way home from her classes. She did a lot of the cleaning too, and most of the cooking, and tried to fit her studies in as best she could.

Every so often, Antonia would bestir herself and announce that she was going to get a job. She had done a little demonstrating at various exhibitions, and some clothes modelling in the restaurant of a West End department store, relying heavily for these breaks on contacts she had known in her acting days, but she was not reliable and the offers of work were rarely repeated.

She had even managed at one stage to become a partner in a boutique which was about to open. Rowan had been frankly appalled. Where, she had wanted to know heatedly, had Antonia got the money to invest in this chancy venture? Boutiques came and went like April showers, and often their erstwhile owners found themselves facing the Official Receiver.

But Antonia had waved her objections irritably aside. They had backers, she said, people who were not afraid to risk their money on possible success. She was so evasive on the subject that Rowan guessed this unknown backer had to be a man, but she was neither shocked nor disturbed by the knowledge. Her father had been dead for two years now, and Antonia was a man’s woman in every sense of the word.

Rowan herself was still thin rather than fashionably slender, and her brown hair remained as straight as rainwater, and about as interesting, she thought detachedly. Her teeth were straight now, but she still bit her nails on occasion. The chances, she decided objectively, of her getting married before she was twenty-one were remote in the extreme. Her only hope was that Antonia would beat her to it, preferably with someone who could keep her in the style to which she had been accustomed.

This mysterious backer, whoever he was, seemed hopeful. And he must have money to burn if he was prepared to risk it on the prospect of Antonia undergoing some kind of sea-change into a successful businesswoman.

She had waited resignedly for the inevitable crash. Neither Antonia nor her partner, another ex-actress called Alix Clayton, had any real working knowledge of the exigencies of the rag trade. They assumed blandly that they would get by because of their eye for style and colour, and that their friends would flock to support them. As it was, they lasted a bare three months before the sad ‘Closing Down Sale’ notices went up in the window, alongside the announcement that the lease was available again.

Rowan had wondered uneasily how much liability Antonia would have to bear for the failure of the business, but nothing had ever been mentioned on this score. The boyfriend, she decided drily, must be besotted as well as rich if he was prepared to write off that kind of loss. Or maybe he was doing it for tax reasons.

Anyway, Rowan thought as she pushed her key into the door, she’d heard nothing more on the subject, and at least Antonia had been fairly subdued since, with no more wildcat schemes for making her fortune in the offing.

The air in the small living room was thick with cigarette smoke when she entered, and Antonia was lying on the sofa in the act of lighting another from the previous butt.

‘Chain smoking, yet?’ Rowan dumped the heavy shopping bag down on the table.

Antonia surveyed it sourly. ‘What have you got there?’

‘Nothing very exciting,’ Rowan said lightly. She ticked the items off on her fingers. ‘Mince, stewing steak, carrots, onions, potatoes, spring greens …’

‘God!’ Antonia shuddered. ‘You should get a job catering for some kind of works canteen. Well, have fun with your nice mince, sweetie, because I shan’t be here for dinner tonight, thank heaven. I’m going out.’

Rowan sighed. ‘You could have told me,’ she observed with resignation.

‘I couldn’t tell you because I didn’t know myself until an hour ago,’ Antonia returned. ‘And I shall probably be late, so don’t bother to wait up for me,’ she added with evident satisfaction.

Rowan went into the tiny cramped kitchenette and began stowing the meat away in the ancient refrigerator, and piling the vegetables into the rack that stood beside the sink unit. She would make do with a poached egg later, she decided. She did the odd bits of washing up that had been left for her, then made herself a cup of instant coffee and carried it back into the living room. She set the cup down on the table and took her college file out of the bag, together with the reference books she had brought from the library that day.

‘More work?’ Antonia queried without interest. ‘You know what they say – all work and no play …’

‘Makes Jill a dull girl,’ Rowan concluded for her rather bleakly. She’d heard it all before. And she also knew that if she never lifted another finger as long as she lived, it would make her no less dull to Antonia.

‘You ought to get out more – enjoy yourself a little,’ Antonia declared. ‘You could look quite reasonable if you just took a little trouble with your appearance. As it is, no one would dream that you were nineteen.’

Rowan opened one of her books and studied the index with minute interest.

‘I’m not really concerned about appearing in other people’s dreams at any age,’ she remarked rather shortly. She was used to Antonia’s sniping by now, and didn’t let it disturb her particularly. Besides, she knew quite well that Antonia was quite satisfied that she appeared to be much younger than she actually was. It wouldn’t have suited her book at all to have a grown-up stepdaughter; she would have considered it ageing. When they had first moved to this particular flat, Rowan was quite aware that Antonia had informed some of the neighbours that she was her younger sister, and she had never bothered to correct this impression. If that was what Antonia wished people to think, then it was all right with her.

Antonia got up from the sofa and wandered across to look in the long mirror what was fixed to the wall.

‘I’m putting on weight,’ she complained, turning sideways to study herself. ‘It’s all this starchy food we eat. I shall have to go on a salad diet for a while.’

‘Do you realise what salads cost at this time of year?’ Rowan frowned as she tried to concentrate on her reading. It would be more sensible, she thought, to forget about trying to write an essay until Antonia had gone out, but on the other hand, Antonia was clearly in one of her difficult moods and Rowan wanted to avoid an overt row if possible. She shrank from scenes and raised voices, and always had done. Usually if she buried herself deeply enough in a book at times like this, Antonia contented herself with a few shrewish observations on her intellectual abilities and then relapsed into sulky silence.

‘That’s all you seem to think about – the cost of things!’

‘Well, someone has to,’ Rowan said temperately. ‘If we’re careful, we can manage, but …’

‘I’m sick of being careful – sick of managing!’ Antonia’s face was flushed with temper and her eyes were stormy. ‘Cooped up in this damned hole, day in, day out! At least you have that college of yours to go to.’

Rowan had to smile. ‘Well, you could always enrol for a course yourself if you wanted. And you do get out. You go anywhere you want, and you know it. You play bridge each week with Celia Maxwell and that gang and …’

‘I haven’t played with them for weeks.’ Antonia passed her hands over her hips, smoothing away the non-existent surplus.

‘I didn’t know that.’ Rowan gave her a surprised look. Bridge had always been one of Antonia’s passions.

Her stepmother’s lips tightened sullenly. ‘There’s a lot you don’t know. It’s all very well for Celia. When she loses at bridge, all she has to do is stretch her hand out to good old Tom and he’ll pay up without a murmur. She doesn’t realise it isn’t that simple for all of us.’

Rowan laid her pen down and regarded Antonia with startled eyes and parted lips.

‘Toni, do you owe Celia Maxwell money?’

‘Yes, I do as a matter of fact. Quite a hell of a lot, if you must know. I went on playing because I thought my luck was bound to change, only it didn’t. It just got worse.’ Antonia’s tone was bitter. ‘And if you don’t pay your debts in that circle, you’re soon persona non grata.’ Her voice sharpened. ‘And don’t look like that, for heaven’s sake. You must have known I played for money.’

‘I suppose so.’ Rowan pressed a hand to her head. ‘It just never occurred to me before. What are you going to do – ask Mr Tomlinson to advance you some of next quarter’s allowance?’

‘I asked him already,’ Antonia snapped, ‘and the answer was no. Instead I got a sermon on extravagance. My God, he’d never have dared when your father was alive!’

‘Maybe it would have been better for both of us if he had done,’ Rowan said soberly. ‘Will – will Mrs Maxwell insist on your paying?’

‘I don’t know what she’s planning. We’re not exactly on close terms at the moment.’ Antonia sounded petulant. ‘But I’ll find the money somehow. I’ll have to. Celia could make things damned uncomfortable for me if she wanted to.’

‘I wish you’d told me before,’ Rowan said unhappily.

Antonia’s brows rose. ‘Why? What good would it have done? What good has it done now?’ she asked. ‘Now I have you looking down your nose at me as well as old Tomlinson. Well, just don’t imagine I’ll stand a lecture from you. I’ll manage without any help from you.’

‘Is it this man?’ Rowan bit her lip as she met Antonia’s inimical stare. ‘The one you’re going out with tonight, I mean. Is he the one who advanced the money for the boutique?’

‘Yes, it is – if it’s any affair of yours.’ Antonia flounced back to the sofa and sat down, lighting another cigarette.

Rowan hesitated. ‘Do you think it’s wise – to put yourself so much in his power, I mean?’

‘My God!’ Antonia gave her a look full of derision. ‘You sound like the heroine of some Victorian novelette! Miss Puritan herself. This is the 1980s, sweetie, and the permissive society has been here for quite some time, although I can see it may have escaped your notice,’ she added with a curl of her lip. ‘You should give up writing essays and start on moral tracts. Everything in this world has to be paid for, my dear, even marriage with your estimable father.’

‘That’s a vulgar, hateful thing to say!’ Rowan said passionately.

Antonia was not offended, she appeared instead almost amused. ‘But the truth, sweetie, often is vulgar and hateful, as you’ll probably find out before you’re much older. I was younger than you when I realised what life was all about.’

‘I hope I never do, if that’s the case.’

‘That’s rather a forlorn hope.’ Antonia’s voice was bored. ‘You not only look like a child, Rowan, you are a child. But even you will have to grow up some time. And now I’d better do something about my nails. I wish to God I could afford a decent manicure.’ She got up, flicking ash casually on to the carpet, and wandered off towards her bedroom.

Rowan sat staring down at the table feeling utterly wretched. She supposed that ultimately it was none of her business what Antonia did. Her stepmother had her own life to lead, and her own values to lead it by, and she had not the least right to interfere. But at the same time, she felt that if she had kept silent she would in some strange way be letting her father down.

By the time she was ready to go out Antonia had recovered her good humour. She looked striking in swirling chiffon patterned in jade, peacock, lilac and gold, and she wore long gold ear-rings, and a collection of bracelets on one wrist.

‘Goodbye, sweetie.’ She tapped Rowan carelessly on the shoulder as she went towards the door. ‘Don’t read too much or you’ll get wrinkles and damage your eyesight. See you later.’

Rowan watched her go, and then on an impulse got up and went over to the window. The April sky was fading into twilight, but she could see quite clearly that there was a car parked just outside the front door of the flats. It was long and low and sleek, in some dark colour, but she could not catch a glimpse of the driver. No doubt he would be dark and sleek too, she thought with a grimace of distaste. She moved back as Antonia came into sight, and returned to the table and her studies. Pride forbade that her stepmother should glance up at the window and catch her peering out at them like a gossipy neighbour. But at the same time her ears were pricked for the sound of the car drawing away, even though common sense told her that those kind of engines rarely made any sound.

She found herself wondering where they would go. Out to dinner, of course, as Antonia had said – to some restaurant where the lights were low and the prices correspondingly high. And where did people go after that? Perhaps to some fashionable night-spot like Annabel’s, or even to one of the gaming clubs where Victor Winslow used to take his wife. Antonia had a passion for all games of chance.

Rowan stifled a sigh and pushed her books to one side. She could not concentrate tonight. She got up and walked across the room and stood studying herself in the mirror, much as Antonia had done, but without the same satisfaction. Antonia was right, she thought soberly; she did look like a child. In sudden dissatisfaction, she lifted the long straight fall of hair and piled it on top of her head experimentally. Other girls wore this style and managed to look graceful and careless; she looked merely untidy. She pulled a face at herself and let her hair fall back around her shoulders again.

She was too thin. Her top half was all collarbones and shoulder blades, and her breasts were too small. Her lower half looked good in the denim jeans she usually wore, because her hips were slim and she had long legs. Taken all in all, she thought, she looked totally colourless.

She remembered with painful vividness a remark she had overheard Antonia making to one of her cronies in the early days of her marriage. ‘Oh, the child is no bother. Darling, she’s so quiet, she’s practically non-existent.’

That’s me, Rowan told herself ironically, Miss Nonentity, and she made herself a small mocking bow.

She cooked herself the promised poached egg and ate it without appetite while she watched an old film on television. Then she switched off the single bar of the electric fire that she had been using, emptied the ashtrays, switched off the lights and went to bed with a glass of hot milk.

Their flat occupied the top floor of a large Edwardian house, and had been attics and servants’ rooms. As well as the living room, and the kitchenette which had been divided off from it, there was a large bedroom, occupied by Antonia, and a smaller room which had been divided into a minute bathroom and a boxroom. It was this latter that Rowan slept in. She had barely room to move round, but at least she had privacy. She would have hated having to share a room with Antonia.

She undressed and got into bed, then felt under the pillow, extracting a notebook and a ballpoint pen. This was her own time, and Antonia was not the only one to have a secret. Rowan wrote short stories. She had begun at school, encouraged by her English teacher, and she tried to write a little bit each evening before she went to sleep. She had always kept it from Antonia because she knew she would laugh at her. Of course, she was used to Antonia laughing at her really, but she didn’t think she could bear to have scorn poured on this. She had no idea whether what she wrote was any good. In fact, she rather doubted it. One day she would acquire a secondhand typewriter and send some of her work out to magazines, but not yet. If there was going to be a sad awakening for her, she did not want it to be quite so soon.

She was quite satisfied with her evening’s endeavours when she closed the book and slipped it under her pillow again. She switched off her bedside lamp and was soon dreamlessly asleep.

She did not know what woke her. She only knew that she was sitting up in the darkness, her heart thumping, listening intently. Then she realised what she was hearing. Someone was moving round in the living room. She sighed and her whole tense body relaxed in relief. It was only Antonia.

Yet Antonia did not have so heavy a tread, she thought with sudden unease. Nor did she normally bump into the furniture. Then she heard an unmistakably masculine expletive, and without considering the wisdom of her action, she pushed back the covers and jumped out of bed.

She flung open her door and took a step forward into the living room. She saw him at once. He was tall and lean, with tawny hair springing back from his forehead and curling slightly on to his neck. As Rowan entered, he turned to look at her and she saw that he was very tanned, as if he spent a lot of time abroad, and that in contrast his grey eyes were almost silver. He wore a dark green velvet dinner jacket and a frilled and ruffled shirt with a casual elegance that was in no way effete.

She had the craziest feeling that she knew him, that she’d seen him somewhere – perhaps in a newspaper or a magazine, but his name eluded her and the reason he had been photographed.

Then she looked beyond him and with a little cry of alarm she saw Antonia lying on the sofa, very white. The man had been bending over her, and there was a glass in his hand.

Rowan started forward. ‘What have you done to her?’

He stood very still and looked at her, a long hard stare encompassing her from the soles of her bare feet to the top of her head, and she blushed to the roots of her hair, realising what a spectacle she must make in her schoolgirlish gingham nightdress. It was a good job it was opaque, she thought, as she hadn’t bothered to throw her dressing gown on over it.

‘Who the devil are you?’ His voice was low and resonant with the faintest drawl.

‘I’m Rowan Winslow.’ Her voice faltered as she stared anxiously at Antonia.

‘Rowan?’ He frowned. ‘Oh, yes, the child. I’d forgotten …’

Antonia stirred slightly and muttered something and he turned back to her.

‘What’s happened to her?’ Rowan took a further step into the room, her hands tightly clasped in front of her. ‘Is she ill? Did she faint?’

His mouth twisted. For the first time she noticed a slight scar on his face near the corner of his mouth.

‘That’s a delicate way of describing her condition,’ he said sardonically. “‘Passed out” is the more usual phrase.’

‘What?’ Rowan’s eyes went disbelievingly from his face to Antonia’s unconscious form. ‘You can’t mean that – you’re saying that she’s …’

He nodded. ‘As a newt,’ he said pleasantly. ‘If you’ll indicate which is her room, I’ll put her to bed. And you’d better get back to your own before you catch your death of cold.’

Rowan was not listening. ‘You took Antonia out and got her drunk,’ she accused hotly. ‘That’s a swinish thing to do!’

He gave her another more searching look. ‘I took her out, yes.’ His voice was cool. ‘But I can assure you that her over-indulgence in alcohol was all her own idea.’

He bent and lifted Antonia into his arms. She was no lightweight, but he held her as easily as if she were a doll. There was something vaguely obscene about her helplessly dangling legs and the way her head lolled back against his arm, and Rowan swallowed uncomfortably.

‘Her room’s through there.’ She pointed. ‘If – if you’ll just put her down on the bed, I’ll do what’s necessary.’

His brows rose. ‘Aren’t you a little young to be coping with this sort of thing?’ he demanded. ‘Or is it quite a normal occurrence?’

She was just about to give an indignant negative to both his questions, when it occurred to her that perhaps it was no bad thing in the circumstances that he thought she was much younger than she actually was. If Antonia had been drinking to that extent, he could hardly be stone cold sober himself, and it was very late, and they were practically alone together.

‘It isn’t at all a normal occurrence,’ she assured him rather bleakly. ‘If you’ll wait a moment, I’ll fetch my dressing gown.’

It was a warm, unglamorous garment in royal blue wool which had seen service during her boarding school days, and she felt oddly secure once its voluminous folds had enwrapped her.

When she got to Antonia’s room her stepmother was already lying on the bed. The man was standing beside the bed, looking down at her, his face sombre and rather brooding.

‘Do you want me to help you with her dress?’ he enquired as Rowan came in. ‘Your wrists are like sparrows’ legs and you might have difficulty turning her over.’

‘I shall leave her as she is, thank you,’ she replied with dignity, resisting an urge to tuck the offending wrists out of sight in the sleeves of her dressing gown.

‘As you wish,’ he sounded totally indifferent. ‘But if she’s – er – ill in the night and ruins an expensive model gown, she’s unlikely to thank you.’

‘It’s really quite all right.’ She sounded like a prim old maid, Rowan thought despairingly. ‘You don’t need to stay. I’m quite capable of looking after her.’

He smiled suddenly, and she felt her mind reel under the sudden, devastating impact of his charm. Suddenly he was no longer an intruder – the stranger who happened to have brought Antonia home. He was very much a man to be reckoned with in his own right. Absurdly she found herself wondering how old he was. Possibly Antonia’s age, she thought, judging the hard, incisive lines of his face. Perhaps a year or so younger.

‘Do you know,’ he said slowly, ‘I almost believe you are. The question is – who looks after you?’

She was blushing again, and the disturbing thing was she didn’t really understand why.

She gave him a formal smile. ‘We really can manage now.’ She looked down rather uncertainly at Antonia. ‘I –I’m very sorry about all this,’ she ventured, then wondered vexedly why she should have said such a thing.

‘I’ll tell you one thing,’ he said softly. ‘Antonia will be a damned sight sorrier when she wakes up. She’s going to have a head like a ruptured belfry when she eventually opens her eyes, so I’d keep out of her way if I were you.’

He nodded to her and walked out of the bedroom. Rowan padded after him to the living room door, where he turned and subjected her to another of those lingering head to toe appraisals.

Then, ‘See you,’ he said lightly, and went out.

‘Not if I see you first,’ she thought as she secured the latch and shot the bolt at the top of the door. And then she realised with frank dismay that she didn’t actually mean that at all. In fact, she didn’t know quite what she did mean, and her mind seemed to be whirling in total confusion, although that could be because she had been startled out of her sleep.

She leaned against the door for a moment and took a long, steadying breath. It was then she remembered that she had never found out who he was.

She went slowly back to Antonia’s room and stood looking down at her. It was true, it was a lovely dress, and sleeping in it would do it no good at all. It was a struggle, but eventually she got Antonia out of the dress, and hung it up carefully in the wardrobe. Then she pulled the covers up over her stepmother’s half-clothed body, flushing a little as she remembered the stranger’s half-mocking offer of assistance. He was probably adept at getting women out of their dresses, whether they were conscious or unconscious, she told herself scornfully.

At least he’d had the decency to bring Antonia home, she argued with herself as she switched out the light. But then, returned a small cold voice inside her, what other course was open to him? Antonia’s condition had ruined the natural conclusion of the evening for them both.

Usually Rowan slept like a baby, but when she got back into her chilly bed, sleep was oddly elusive and she lay tossing and turning. In the end, she sat up in bed and said fiercely, ‘This is ridiculous!’ and gave her pillow an almighty thump as she did so.

She had met an attractive man; that was all that had happened. She had met others in the past, she thought, her mouth trembling into a rueful smile, and they hadn’t noticed her either. Nothing had changed, least of all herself. He was very adult, and very male with that tanned skin and those pale mocking eyes, and he had looked her over and seen what there was to see, and he had called her a child.

‘Perhaps that’s what I am.’ She squinted sightlessly through the darkness towards the window where a paler light was beginning to be perceptible through the thin curtains. ‘A case of arrested development, small breasts, chewed nails and all.’ The thought made her smile, but it did not lift her heart, and when she fell asleep she dreamed the small unpleasant dreams that cannot be recalled to mind the next day, yet hang about like an incipient headache.

The next day was Saturday, so there were no lectures, but she had to go to the library to exchange an armful of books, and there was the weekend shopping to be done. She breakfasted quickly on toast and coffee and looked round Antonia’s door to see if she wanted anything before she departed, but Antonia was still sleeping like the dead.

Rowen bought vegetables and fruit from a street stall at the corner on her way home from the library and agreed with the vendor that winter really did seem to be over at last, wriggling her shoulders in the pale warmth of the sunlight.

She felt almost cheerful as she walked in at the front door and came face to face with Fawcett, their landlord. He was making his weekly rent round, and she said smilingly, ‘Good morning. Did Mrs Winslow hear you knock? If not, I can …’

‘I have the rent,’ he said rather dourly. ‘I’m very sorry to hear that you’re leaving us. You’ve been good quiet tenants. I could hardly have wished for better.’

Rowan stared at him. She said at last, ‘I don’t quite follow—are you giving us notice?’

He looked quite shocked. ‘On the contrary, Miss Winslow. Your stepmother told me herself that you would be leaving at the end of the month.’

‘Oh, no, there must be some mistake.’ Rowan drew a long breath. She said urgently. ‘Please, Mr Fawcett, don’t advertise the flat yet. My—my stepmother hasn’t been well lately and …’

‘She certainly didn’t look very well.’ His lined face was suddenly austere with disapproval. ‘But I hardly feel there’s any mistake. Mrs Winslow handed me her notice in writing. Perhaps it’s a matter you should discuss with her rather than myself.’

Rowan was breathless by the time she reached their front door. She pushed the key into the latch and twisted it, and the door gave instantly. Antonia was on her knees at the sideboard and she looked round as Rowan marched in.

‘I’m looking for old Fawcett’s inventory,’ she said without preamble. ‘It must be around somewhere, and I’m damned if I’m leaving anything of ours for the next tenants.’

‘So it’s true.’ Rowan dropped limply into one of the chairs beside the dining table. ‘What have you done? I know it’s not Knightsbridge, but it’s clean and quiet and cheap and he doesn’t bother us.’

Antonia got up from her knees. ‘You don’t have to sing its praises to me,’ she said shortly. ‘I’m quite aware of all its dubious advantages, including the low rent. Unfortunately even that is more than we can afford just at present.’

‘Since when?’ Rowan began to feel as if the world was tottering in pieces all around her.

‘Since last night.’ Antonia came over and sat down on the opposite side of the table, facing her. She was very pale, and her eyes were narrowed as if the light was hurting them. She looked across at Rowan’s suddenly bleak face and gave a small rather malicious smile. ‘But don’t worry, sweetie, we won’t be sleeping on the Embankment just yet. We do have another hole to go to.’

‘One that we can afford?’ Rowan moved her stiff lips.

‘Rent-free, my dear, in return for services rendered. Only not, I fear, in London.’

‘Not in London?’ Rowan repeated helplessly. ‘But Antonia, I can’t leave London—you know I can’t!’

‘I had no idea you were so devoted to the place,’ Antonia retorted. ‘I always had the feeling you preferred that place in Surrey.’

‘Well, so I did,’ Rowan stared at her with sudden hope. ‘Is that where we’re going—Surrey? Oh, that won’t be too bad. I can easily …’

Antonia shook her head. ‘So sorry to disappoint you, but our destination is several hundred miles from Surrey,’ she said rather harshly. ‘We’re going to the Lake District, to a place called Ravensmere. I don’t suppose you’ve heard of it and I understand it’s too small to have appeared on any but the most detailed of maps,’ she added with a faint curl of her lips.

Rowan listened to her in stunned silence, then moistening her lips, she said, ‘I—I don’t believe it! You even hated the place in Surrey. You said it was too remote, and now you’re actually considering going to the other end of England.’

‘I’m not considering anything,’ Antonia said flatly. ‘I’m going, and you’re going with me.’

Rowan shook her head. ‘No way,’ she said steadily. ‘I have a course to finish and exams to take, in case you’d forgotten.’

‘I’ve forgotten nothing.’ Antonia drew her pack of cigarettes towards her and lit one irritably. ‘Perhaps you’ve forgotten that all-important clause about our sharing the same roof until you’re twenty-one.’

‘Indeed I haven’t. We’ll just have to tell Daddy’s solicitors that we found it—impossible to comply with.’

‘We’ll do no such thing,’ Antonia returned inimically. ‘That money is a lifeline as far as I’m concerned, and you won’t find it so easy to make out as you seem to think once it’s gone.’

‘I’ll manage.’ Rowan lifted her chin stubbornly. ‘And if it means that much to you, you could manage too. We can catch Mr Fawcett and tell him you’ve changed your mind about leaving and …’

Antonia’s hand shot across the table and gripped Rowan’s arm. She had been on the point of rising, but she hesitated now, almost pinned to her seat.

‘Unfortunately, it’s not as easy as that.’ Antonia paused. ‘You remember all the trouble that Alix and I had over the boutique’s closure?’

‘Not particularly,’ Rowan said drily. ‘It seemed to me at the time that the pair of you had emerged virtually unscathed.’

‘But not quite,’ said Antonia with a little snap. ‘I’d arranged all the financing, as you know, and I believed that my—backer was prepared to write the whole thing off as a loss.’ She paused again. ‘But I was wrong. He’s demanding payment in full.’

Rowan gasped. ‘But when did you discover this?’

‘Last night.’ Antonia stubbed out her half-smoked cigarette in the saucer of a used coffee cup. ‘By the way, just as a matter of interest, who put me to bed?’

‘I did, of course.’

‘There’s no “of course” about it.’ Antonia sounded almost amused. ‘It wouldn’t have been the first time Carne had seen me without my dress, you know. I presume he did bring me back, and didn’t just abandon me to the mercies of some taxi driver?’

‘There was a man here.’ Rowan felt a betraying blush rise in her face and mentally kicked herself.

‘Was there?’ Antonia nodded gently, her eyes absorbing Rowan’s overt embarrassment. ‘I’ve known him for years, of course. His mother and mine were some sort of distant cousins—hundreds of times removed, of course, and too boringly complicated to explain or even remember. But Carne and I did see a lot of each other at one time. We even nearly got engaged. He was hopelessly in love with me,’ she added.

In spite of herself, Rowan found she was visualising that dark, proud face with its cool, sensual mouth, and trying to imagine its owner in a state of hopeless love with anyone. It was not easy.

Without thinking what she was saying, she asked, ‘How did he get that scar?’

‘My word, we were observant,’ Antonia mocked. ‘I’ve no idea, actually. I expect one of his women bit him. But don’t get any ideas, sweetie. He eats little girls like you for breakfast.’

‘How desperately unconventional,’ said Rowan, trying for lightness. ‘Has he got something against cornflakes?’

Antonia was not amused. ‘You know what I mean,’ she said petulantly. ‘He is out—but out of your league, ducky, and don’t you forget it.

‘I’m not likely to.’ Rowan felt suddenly listless. ‘Anyway, it’s unlikely that we’ll ever meet again, so let’s drop the subject.’

Antonia sighed abruptly and her shoulders seemed to sag. ‘Would that we could,’ she said. ‘But that’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. It’s dear Cousin Carne to whom I owe all this money, and as I can’t repay him in cash he’s insisting that it has to be in kind. He has this house at Ravensmere which an old aunt looks after for him. But she’s got arthritis now, or some crippling thing, so the idea is that I go there for a while and act as his housekeeper in her place.’

There was a long silence as Rowan stared at her in utter disbelief. Then, ‘Oh, God give me strength,’ she said, half under her breath. ‘Is he serious?’

‘Of course he’s serious. That’s the deal. I go up to this mountain hellhole of his for as long as it takes while I—purge my contempt, I suppose.’ Antonia’s lips thinned. ‘He’s also offered to pay off any other debts I may have, including Celia’s, so I can’t accuse him of being ungenerous.’

‘It’s not a question of that.’ Rowan shook her head. ‘You don’t even know how to keep house. Does he know that?’

Antonia shrugged. ‘The subject wasn’t raised. He knows I ran the Surrey house and the other flat without any problems. Naturally, he wasn’t a frequent visitor because your father, to speak plainly, sweetie, was jealous of him.’ She gave a little knowing smile that made Rowan feel sick. ‘Not altogether without cause, I may say.’

Rowan pushed back her chair and got to her feet. ‘That being the case,’ she said quietly, ‘the last thing you’ll want is my presence in the house. I’m sorry you’re in this mess, Antonia, but it’s of your own making, and there’s nothing I can do about it. From now on we go our separate ways.’

‘Oh, but we don’t.’ Antonia’s eyes glittered as she stared up at her stepdaughter. ‘I have no intention of serving my term and then finding myself without a penny. I do have—plans, naturally, but I also intend to keep all my other options open, and I’m not seeing your father’s allowance just whistled down the wind. Besides, the deal includes you. I told Carne about Victor’s will, and he was most understanding.’

‘How good of him!’ Rowan’s eyes flashed. ‘But I would prefer not to be carted round Britain like so much excess baggage. I can manage to support myself for the next two years. There are grants and …’

‘And what about me?’ To her horror, Rowan saw enormous tears welling up in Antonia’s eyes. ‘Your father wanted us to stay together, you know he did. You’re all of his that I’ve got left. You can’t leave me, Rowan!’

Rowan was aghast. ‘That’s cheap blackmail, and you know it,’ she began roundly, but Antonia was crying now in real earnest.

‘Rowan, you’ve got to come with me. It will only be for six months or so at the most. You can go on with your course afterwards—do what you like. If you don’t come with me, then the whole arrangement is cancelled and Carne is going to make me bankrupt. He threatened to last night. Why do you think I drank so much?’

‘But he hardly knows of my existence …’

‘Of course he does. And there’s another thing.’ Antonia bent her head over her wedding ring, twisting it aimlessly on her finger. ‘I—I let him think you were younger than you actually are. You don’t look your age, Rowan, you know you don’t. It wouldn’t be any hardship to pretend—just for a little while.’

‘How old?’ Rowan said baldly.

Antonia concentrated on her wedding ring. ‘Sixteen,’ she returned after a pause.

‘Sixteen?’ Rowan sank back on to her chair, her legs threatening to give way beneath her. ‘Antonia, you are unbelievable! You can’t do this to me.’

‘And you can’t do it to me,’ Antonia retorted sullenly. ‘They take everything from you when you’re bankrupt. There was talk of an investigation after your father died, but it was smoothed over. If Carne bankrupts me, the whole thing could start again. Do you want to see the Winslow name dragged through the financial mud?’

‘No,’ Rowan acknowledged. ‘But I don’t think it will come to that.’

‘Oh, yes, it will,’ Antonia said softly. ‘For one thing, Carne has never forgiven me for marrying Victor. When he offered to back me in the boutique, I thought it was an olive branch, but I realise now that he just wanted to have a hold over me. It was as if he knew the boutique was going to fail.’

‘Well, he wouldn’t have needed much business acumen to tell him that,’ Rowan said drily. ‘What is he? Something in the City? I thought I knew his face from somewhere.’

Antonia grimaced. ‘Well, it’s more likely to have been the gossip columns than the financial pages. You’ve heard of him, of course—I’m surprised his name didn’t ring a bell. He’s Carne Maitland.’

‘The painter?’ Rowan could hardly believe her ears. The most surprising element in the story was that Antonia should be even distantly related to one of the most famous portrait paiters in Britain and have failed to mention it.

‘The very same.’ Antonia smiled lazily, her tears forgotten. ‘Did you notice his tan? He’s been out in one of the oil states, painting a sheik. They’re about the only people in the world who can afford his prices these days. Of course, he doesn’t need the money. His parents each left him a fortune, and he still has the controlling voice in the family business. Painting was always his hobby when he was a child, but everyone was amazed when he went to art college and began to work at it seriously. Who says you need to starve in a garret to be a success?’

Certainly, Rowan thought, not the critics, whose laudatory remarks had greeted every new canvas in recent years. He had had some dazzling commissions of late, including the obligatory Royal portrait, and had fulfilled them brilliantly. And he was Antonia’s distant cousin, and a former lover, to judge by her words.

She got up and went over to the window, gazing down into the busy street outside with eyes that saw nothing.

‘So I can tell him it’s all right?’ From behind her, Antonia’s voice sounded anxious. ‘I can tell him to expect us both?’

Rowan moved her shoulders in a slight shrug. ‘Tell him what you like. That’s what you’ve done up to now, isn’t it? I’ll come with you, but for Daddy’s sake, Antonia, not yours.’

And not mine either, she thought, as she began the weary task of locating the missing inventory. Because the last thing she needed was to find herself in Carne Maitland’s orbit again. She could still feel the lingering scrutiny of those silver eyes, and the memory disturbed her more than she cared to acknowledge, even to herself.

Not that she had anything to worry about, she told herself ruefully, as she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the long mirror. The beautiful, the rich and the elegant—those were the type of women with whom his name was most often linked, and she didn’t qualify under any of those headings. Quite apart from the fact that he regarded her as a child, she had no doubt at all that he found her looks and personality about as fascinating as a—stewed prune.

And that was meant to be a joke, so why was she finding it so hard to smile? Rowan sighed, thankful that the tenor of her thoughts was known only to herself.

This could prove to be the most difficult summer of her life. And she thought, ‘I’m going to have to be careful. Very careful.’

CHAPTER TWO

THE motorway was far behind them, and the towering fells had closed in as if they were entering some secret citadel. Antonia was driving and Rowan sat beside her, the map open on her knee, although they hadn’t needed it so far as everything was so well signposted.

Rowan had never been to the Lake District before, and she supposed she could hardly be seeing it for the first time under better conditions. The soft blue April day was warm and the sun sparkled everywhere—on the grey-blue slate that faced the houses, on the rippling water, on the last traces of snow in the sheltered hollows of the fells, and on the masses of daffodils blooming wherever the eye could see.

She had read Wordsworth’s poem, of course, but she had never expected to see it brought to life with quite such extravagance. She felt she wanted to laugh out loud with the sheer unexpected gaiety of it all, and the mood of depression which had been gripping her lately lifted perceptibly.

All she needed now was someone to share it with, but Antonia had already made it patently clear that the rugged beauty of their surroundings had not the slightest appeal as far as she was concerned. Nor was she suited with the narrowness of the road they were now travelling on, or the frequency of its bends. She had grumbled constantly since leaving the motorway, and Rowan felt wryly that her attitude augured ill for what lay ahead of them.

It had been a difficult few weeks. Rowan had informed the college principal that she would not be returning after the Easter break, and he had not been pleased at the news. He had tried hard to persuade her to stay on and complete her course, but she had merely said that her family circumstances made it impossible at the moment, and left him to draw his own conclusions.

Rowan had not seen Carne Maitland again, although she had no doubt that he had visited the flat in her absence. There was occasionally the faint aroma of cigar smoke in the air when she returned. From odd remarks that Antonia let fall, she guessed that he had been as good as his word in settling her debts at cards, yet her stepmother seemed to have very little notion of what was going to be demanded of her in return. When Rowan asked the size of the house they were going to, and if any local help was employed, Antonia appeared vague to the point of indifference.

‘But you must have some idea,’ Rowan said at last. ‘Do you know whether you’re expected to cook as well as organise the housework?’

Antonia shrugged. ‘I haven’t the least idea. I’ll worry about that when it happens.’

‘But you can’t cook,’ Rowan pointed out. ‘The whole thing is utterly ludicrous! Does your cousin realise this?’

‘I don’t know whether he does or not.’ Antonia sounded bored. ‘This was his idea, not mine, if you remember. Anyway, if dreary old Sybilla has managed all this time, I’m sure we can.’

‘We?’ Rowan raised her eyebrows. ‘Just leave me out of the reckoning, Antonia. I’m going to Ravensmere strictly under protest, to safeguard your income from the estate.’

Antonia smiled lazily and leaned across to pat her cheek. ‘I know, sweetie, but all the same, you wouldn’t leave me in the lurch. And you can hardly live under Carne’s roof without doing something to earn your bed and board. By the way—–’ she reached for her handbag and fumbled in it, ‘this is for you.’

It was a cheque, and when Rowan looked at the amount it was made out for and the uncompromising signature at the bottom, she felt her brain reel.

‘What’s this for?’ she demanded huskily.

‘To enable you to do some shopping,’ Antonia said calmly. ‘Carne will be doing quite a lot of entertaining, I imagine, and he won’t want you to be lurking round in corners looking as if you’ve been dressed by War on Want.’

Rowan’s face was burning. ‘I see.’

For a moment she looked as if she was going to crumple the cheque up in her hand, and Antonia, alarmed, reached forward and snatched it away.

‘Don’t be stupid,’ she said sharply. ‘Not even you can pretend it isn’t nice to have something to spend on yourself. You can’t spend the rest of your life in jeans and sweaters. Get your hair done. Find someone to do a rescue job on those nails.’

‘Look my age, you mean?’ Rowan enquired ironically, and Antonia had the grace to look embarrassed.

‘Not exactly,’ she said shortly. ‘But you could try and get away from this waif and stray image. For heaven’s sake, Rowan, there must be something you want to buy for yourself!’

And there was, of course, though Rowan doubted whether the sturdy portable typewriter in its carrying case was exactly what the donor of the cheque had intended. She had expected a further tussle with Antonia too, but her stepmother seemed to have retreated into some private world of discontent, and would hardly have noticed, Rowan thought, if she had shaved her head and painted her skin with woad.

Antonia offered no explanation for her glumness, but Rowan suspected the fact that they were travelling to Ravensmere without Carne Maitland’s personal escort might have something to do with it. The estate car they were travelling in was a new one, and had been bought for Antonia’s use, although she did not seem particularly impressed by the fact. Rowan guessed she would have preferred to travel in the sleek sports model she had glimpsed at the flat that first evening. She was thankful that they had been given something less powerful. Antonia was not a bad driver, but she was inclined to be reckless and impatient when conditions did not suit her, and Rowan grimaced inwardly as she contemplated what these latter stages of their journey could have been like.

‘Well, here’s Ravensmere at last,’ Antonia commented petulantly. ‘What a dead and alive hole! How much farther now, for heaven’s sake?’

Rowan shrugged. ‘Your guess is as good as mine.’

She thought Ravensmere was an attractive village. It was very small—a few houses built of the inevitable slate, a pub with shuttered windows and creeper-hung walls, and a combined village store and post office—but it was clean and well kept and the cottage gardens burgeoned with spring flowers.

Rowan leaned forward and stared around her. ‘Is your cousin’s house actually in the village?’ She felt a twinge of nervousness assail her at the knowledge that they had nearly arrived at their destination. The palms of her hands felt damp and she wiped them surreptitiously on her denim-clad thighs. She wished very much that she was safely back in London, and that she had ignored all Antonia’s pleas and arguments. Oh, why had she ever agreed to come all this way to take part in what amounted to little more than a charade? And at the same moment it occurred to her that she knew exactly why and she felt a sudden warmth invade her body that had nothing to do with the spring sunlight. Fool, she castigated herself silently.

‘The house is called Raven’s Crag,’ Antonia was saying impatiently. ‘Wind your window down and ask someone. It’s getting late and I don’t want to be driving around in these mountains once the sun has gone down.’

There didn’t seem to be anyone about that they could ask, and eventually Antonia stopped outside the shop, and told Rowan brusquely to enquire there. ‘And get me some cigarettes while you’re about it,’ she added.

The shop was small, but its proprietor had clearly decided not to let that stand in his way. Rowan thought she had never seen such a wide range of goods or so many different brand names. Every surface, every nook and cranny carried its full complement, and even the grille over the Post Office counter in the corner was plastered with posters and notices.

There was a young girl wearing a white overall behind the counter, transferring toffee bars from a box on to a plastic display tray, and she smiled when she saw Rowan. ‘Yes, please?’

In spite of the range, they didn’t have the exact brand of cigarettes that Antonia wanted, so Rowan bought the next best thing, knowing that she would be faced with more complaints when she returned to the car. Then she asked where Raven’s Crag was.

There was open curiosity in the girl’s eyes as she studied Rowan. ‘You mean Mr Maitland’s house? You want to take the back road, and bear to the right. It’s a good climb, mind.’

The shop bell tinkled behind Rowan as she closed the door and walked back to the car. Something made her turn and look over her shoulder and she saw that the girl was peering through the crowded window watching her go, and that an older woman had joined her.

Rowan frowned slightly. It was true that Ravensmere was off the beaten tourist track, but surely the local inhabitants weren’t so unused to the sight of strangers? She had intended to mention it to Antonia as she got back into the car, but the fuss her stepmother kicked up over the cigarettes drove it out of her mind.

‘God, what a dump!’ Antonia stormed, putting the car in gear with a hideous screech. ‘It wouldn’t take much for me to turn right round and go back to London!’

‘Well, why don’t we?’ Rowan said quickly. ‘This is never going to work, Antonia, and you know it. You’ve never had to look after a house in your life. Someone else has always done it for you.’

Antonia swung the car on to the back road with a frank disregard for its tyres. ‘No, my dear simpleton, we’re staying. My clever Cousin Carne may have the upper hand at the moment, but that won’t last for ever.’ She gave a small provocative smile. ‘From housekeeper to lady of the house isn’t that great a step.’

‘You intend to marry him?’ Rowan asked dazedly.

Antonia shrugged. ‘I haven’t been able to work out yet whether he’s the marrying kind. But it makes very little difference these days. And there’s always been a—rapport between Carne and me. There are too many other distractions in London, but up here in the back of beyond he shouldn’t be too difficult to manipulate.’

‘I see,’ Rowan managed.

Antonia shot her a sideways glance. ‘I hope you do, sweetie. I’m sure you’ll know when and how to be diplomatic, and I’m relying on you to keep Sybilla out of the way too.’

The gradient was increasing sharply all the time, and there were frequent bends, so Antonia had to concentrate all her attention on her driving while Rowan sat silently beside her. So much, she told herself wryly, for being tempted into the realms of fantasy. From now on she would reserve her romantic dreams for her stories where they belonged.

What had she been hoping for anyway? A scene like something from an old Hollywood film where Carne would have seen behind the façade of the skinny sixteen-year-old and murmured, ‘My God, but you’re beautiful?’ And even if he had done, what then? She might be three years older than he had been led to believe, but even so she was a lifetime behind him in experience and sophistication. When he wanted a woman, it was obvious that his choice would be someone like Antonia, voluptuous and more than capable of catering to all of a man’s needs. Well, not quite all. Rowan’s sense of the ridiculous came to her rescue. Antonia couldn’t keep house or cook, but what would that matter in the light of her other eminently desirable attributes? She had called herself a fool, but she was worse than a fool, she was pitiful. And here she was in a situation where she was going to be hurt—a situation entirely of her own making. She could have stood out against Antonia. After all, if her stepmother’s plans came to fruition she would be in no need of the allowance from the Winslow estate. And Rowan herself could have found a grant to support her through her degree course. Other students survived; she could have been one of them. And now she had burned her boats behind her, it seemed. Once this strange summer was over she would have to pick up the threads of her life and Start over again. It was a bleak prospect, and it was no comfort to realise that she had brought it all upon herself.

‘What a road!’ Antonia’s derisive comment focussed her attention on the immediate present. ‘It’s more like a track. And do you see that notice?’

Rowan did indeed. It informed travellers quite unequivocally that the road was unsuitable for traffic in winter conditions.

Antonia shuddered. ‘Thank God I intend to be well away from here before the winter!’

‘But you said …’

‘None of my plans include settling down in this backwater,’ Antonia said dismissively. ‘Why, Carne doesn’t even spend that much time here himself.’ She changed down again. ‘Where the devil is this house?’

‘It’s right ahead of us,’ Rowan said almost laconically. No other house, she supposed, would have six-foot stone gateposts each surmounted by a carved stone raven.

Antonia turned the car cautiously into the gateway and up a steep gravelled drive, bordered on each side by a rocky wall supporting a mass of rhododendron bushes just coming into bud.

They seemed to be literally on the side of the mountain and still climbing, and as they turned the last curving bend, it was obvious why. Raven’s Crag seemed to have been built as an extension of the rock itself. It was starkly modern in concept and yet seemed to blend in better with its surroundings than a more traditional design might have done.

Above them, a large stone platform jutted out, supporting a covered terrace with glass roof and walls, with a view, Rowan realised, of the whole valley beneath. Beside this, a flight of stone steps led upwards to an entrance at present hidden from view at the side of the house. Below the terrace, and facing them, a row of wide workmanlike doors concealed garages and stores.

‘What a marvellous place!’ Rowan got out and stood drinking in her surroundings.

‘For mountain goats,’ Antonia said sourly as she joined her. ‘I hope there’s someone to carry our cases up those steps.’

Rowan looked about her. ‘There doesn’t seem to be anyone about at all,’ she said doubtfully. ‘Shall I go up and ring?’

Antonia leaned back against the car and lit one of the despised cigarettes.

‘What a splendid idea,’ she approved rather mockingly. ‘I can see you’re going to be a tower of strength, my dear.’

Rowan went up the steps two at a time, glad of the opportunity to stretch her legs after the hours of travelling. At the top, a massive door confronted her. There didn’t seem to be a bell, but there was a massive wrought iron door-knocker in the shape of a raven’s beaked head and Rowan used it without hesitation. The noise seemed to echo and re-echo through the house, and was followed by a long and deep silence.

It seemed an eternity before Rowan heard a shuffling footstep approaching. The door swung open and she was confronted by a small slender woman with very white hair. Her face was lined and she leaned heavily on a stick, but her eyes were blue and clear.

‘The door,’ she said in a quiet precise voice, ‘was not locked. You were expected.’ She looked Rowan up and down, missing nothing from the brown hair parted in the middle today and tied into two bunches to the denim-clad legs. ‘You must be the child Rowan,’ she commented. ‘Where is Antonia? Why is she not with you?’

‘She’s down by the garages. We were wondering whether there was anyone to help with the luggage,’ Rowan said rather helplessly.

The woman raised her eyebrows. ‘There’s myself.’

‘That isn’t exactly what I meant,’ Rowan said uncomfortably.

‘Then I’m afraid you must manage as best you can,’ the other one said with finality. ‘There’s no one else. Now you must forgive me if I don’t await your return, but I find it difficult to stand for any length of time. I shall be in the drawing room—the door on the right. Perhaps you and Antonia would care to join me for tea.’ She gave Rowan a cool rather remote smile and limped away.

Rowan returned back down the steps rather more slowly. Antonia looked up as she approached and threw away her half-smoked cigarette with an impatient gesture.

‘You’ve taken your time,’ she said. ‘Where is everyone?’

Rowan lifted one shoulder. ‘There’s no one—except for an elderly woman who I gather is Sybilla.’

‘No one at all?’ Antonia’s lips parted disbelievingly. ‘But where’s Carne? He must be around somewhere.’

Rowan turned towards the boot of the car.’ Apparently not,’ she said shortly. ‘If you’ll give me the keys I’ll start getting the stuff out. There’s some tea waiting for us.’

‘Tea?’ Antonia gave a strident laugh. ‘I’ll need something stronger than tea after a day like this!’

She picked the smallest case and started up the steps with it, leaving Rowan to follow with the rest of the luggage as best she could. Rowan was panting by the time she reached the top again. The front door was standing open and she walked through and dumped the cases and the typewriter down on the gleaming honey-coloured parquet floor with a feeling of relief.

She straightened herself, moving her shoulders ruefully, and took stock of her surroundings. It was a large square hall, and very light. When she looked up, Rowan realised that she could see right up to the roof of the house, which at this point seemed to consist of a massive skylight. The upper floors were reached by a wrought iron spiral staircase. A table stood against one wall, its antique surface glimmering with polish and reflecting back the lines and colours of the great pottery bowl filled with spring flowers that it bore. This and an old oak settle standing beside the stone fireplace which, though empty now, was obviously used to complement the central heating, was the only furniture.

The door on the right that the elderly woman had referred to was standing ajar, and feeling rather selfconscious, Rowan walked across and pushed it open. Again, her most immediate impression was one of space and light. One entire wall of the drawing room was glass—enormous sliding doors giving way to the terrace. The floor was covered by a magnificent Persian rug, and seating was provided by three luxuriously padded tweed-covered sofas in shades of cream and oatmeal and placed to form a large square with the fireplace. A small table had been set in front of one of them and a tray with a teapot and delicate-looking cups and saucers had been placed on it. Antonia was lounging on one of the adjoining sofas, her face set in discontented lines.

‘Oh, there you are,’ she said ungraciously. ‘I hope you want some of this tea. I’m already in Sybilla’s black books because I asked for a gin and tonic instead.’

‘She walks very badly.’ Rowan came forward and sat down wearily. ‘Couldn’t you have fetched it yourself?’

Antonia gave her a surprised look as she lit another cigarette. ‘Yes—if I knew where dear Cousin Carne kept his booze. I did enquire, as a matter of fact, but it appears to be a closely guarded secret. One of a number as far as I can gather.’

‘What do you mean?’ Rowan lifted the teapot and poured herself some of the fragrant brew, adding a slice of lemon.

Antonia gave a slight shrug. ‘Sybilla’s being very odd—although heaven knows I should have expected that. But when I asked her about staff—because no one will ever convince me that she’s solely responsible for all this spit and polish—she became extremely cagey and pretended that she didn’t know what I meant.’ She leaned forward and irritably tapped a breath of ash from her cigarette into the enormous carved stone ashtray on the table. ‘I only hope she means to be co-operative. This whole business is quite hellish enough without having to battle with her all the time.’

‘Oh, do hush!’ Rowan felt most uncomfortable. ‘She’ll hear you.’

‘Probably. But I can assure you that nothing I’ve said will come as any great surprise to her. We never got on, not even when I was a child.’ Antonia gave a faintly satisfied smile. ‘Frankly, she’s never approved of me wholly.’

The sound of Sybilla’s stick tapping on the parquet was clearly heard and Antonia relapsed into silence. Rowan jumped up as the older woman entered.

‘Let me take that for you.’ She reached for the tray that Sybilla was carrying with some difficulty.

‘Thank you, child.’ Sybilla looked quite through her. ‘But I’m not yet in my dotage.’ She set the tray down in front of Antonia and directed a quelling glance at her. ‘When you’ve finished your refreshment, I’ll show you the house.’

Rowan sat down again, feeling rather limp. It was clear that as far as Sybilla was concerned, they were not welcome. Could it be that she felt they were depriving her of a home, she wondered?

Yet Sybilla’s own words soon disabused her of this notion. ‘No doubt it will take you a day or two to become familiar with the layout of the house,’ she was saying. ‘You’ll find it’s been designed to take advantage of the light wherever possible. On the first floor there’s a central gallery and two wings opening from it. You and Rowan will occupy rooms in the East Wing, and share a bathroom. Carne’s rooms are in the West Wing, and his studio is directly above them. That’s one area where your services are not required. Carne looks after the studio himself, and no one else enters it without his express invitation. When he’s not here, it’s kept locked.’

‘And the remaining rooms?’ Antonia drew deeply on her cigarette.

‘Guest rooms and bathrooms. Carne entertains widely, as I expect he has mentioned to you.’

‘He hasn’t mentioned very much at all. And while we’re on the subject of Carne, where is he? I was expecting him to be here to meet us.’

‘Carne is in Barbados,’ Sybilla said blightingly. ‘And even if he were not, I doubt very much whether he would concern himself in staffing matters. I understood the position had been made clear to you.’

There were two bright spots of colour glowing in Antonia’s face. ‘Oh, it’s clear enough,’ she said. ‘You may choose to consider yourself as staff here, Sybilla, but I don’t. I’ve come here because it happens to suit us both for the time being. If it amuses Carne to pretend to you that I’m only the housekeeper, then I’ll play along for a while. Why not? But please don’t imagine you have to remain to oversee my efforts. I’m sure that’s the last thing either of us want.’

‘I have no intention of being any kind of overseer,’ Sybilla said. ‘But I’m afraid you’ve been misled about my continuing presence in this house. I have a small self-contained flat at the rear of the ground floor. This is my home and will always remain so. But you need have no fears—I value my privacy and have no intention of undertaking any supervisory role where you are concerned.’

Antonia ground her cigarette butt savagely into the ashtray. ‘How utterly delightful.’ Her voice was brittle. ‘It’s a deal, then, Sybilla. You keep out of my way, and I promise to keep out of yours.’

‘Just as you wish.’ Sybilla turned to Rowan. ‘Would you like some tea, child? I’m afraid this hasn’t been much of a welcome for you, after your long journey. There are some freshly baked scones in the kitchen if you would like to fetch them.’

Rowan moistened dry lips with the tip of her tongue. ‘I’m not hungry, thank you, but another cup of tea would be lovely.’ As Sybilla poured the tea, she searched frantically for another topic of conversation. ‘We—we came through the village. It’s very pretty.’

‘It is,’ Sybilla agreed as she handed her the cup. ‘It’s also very quiet, and this house is very remote. What will you find to do with yourself all day long? I understand you’re sixteen. Should arrangements be made for you to continue your schooling?’

Rowan felt herself crimson, and managed to stop herself shooting a recriminatory glance at Antonia.

‘I’m nearly seventeen, actually,’ she said improvising desperately, ‘I’ve left school.’

‘Did you sit the public examination?’

‘Yes. I passed in nine subjects.’

‘I see. Yet you didn’t feel it was worthwhile continuing with some form of further education. That seems a pity.’ There was a reproving note in Sybilla’s voice. She turned to Antonia. ‘Could you not have persuaded the child to continue with her training.’

‘Oh, Rowan does as she wants. She was never terribly devoted to school, were you, sweetie?’ Antonia lit another cigarette, her face bland as she looked at Rowan.

Rowan said grimly, ‘No, never,’ and took another sip of tea to fortify herself.

‘But you really don’t have to worry about her, either, Sybilla. She’ll keep herself occupied somehow. Youngsters these days always seem to be busy doing comparatively nothing.’

‘Hmm.’ Sybilla’s back was rigid with disapproval. ‘Then I daresay she’ll be able to help you with the housework. I presume she’s capable of that at least. Now, I’d better show you to your rooms.’

Rowan hastily swallowed the remainder of her tea and rose as Sybilla struggled to her feet. She would have liked to have proffered some assistance, but realised the kind of rebuff she was risking.

The rooms turned out to be the best part of the day. Rowan found hers quite charming with its green and white sprigged wallpaper, and the plain dark green cover on the continental quilt. Curtains in paler green hung at the window, which looked out over the valley, and the glint of water in the distance. With its white-painted furniture, it was very much a young girl’s room, not unlike the one she had occupied in Surrey, and Rowan felt a pang of nostalgia as she looked around her.

Antonia’s room was an altogether more opulent affair in brown and gold, and she was standing looking round her in evident satisfaction when Rowan came in search of her.

‘Carne doesn’t stint himself,’ she remarked.

‘No.’ Rowan came straight to the point. ‘What’s the idea of giving Sybilla the impression that I’m some kind of slob?’

Antonia shrugged casually. ‘If she disapproves of you, then she’s less likely to start asking awkward questions, and I thought you’d prefer that. She can be like the Grand Inquisitor when she gets going. That’s one of the things I’ve always disliked about her.’

Rowan gave her a long look. ‘I don’t mind her questions. I’ve got nothing to hide. The three years discrepancy in my age was your idea, not mine, although I’ll never understand what possessed you to say such a thing.’

‘Can’t you?’ Antonia sat down on her silk-covered dressing stool and took her lipstick out of her bag. She began to outline the full curves of her mouth with elaborate care. ‘It’s quite simple really. I’ve been saddled with this stepmother bit, but I don’t have to like it. And while a child is one thing, a grown woman’s quite another. Besides, Carne doesn’t know everything about the terms of Vic’s will. I had to tell him you were in my care. He wouldn’t have swallowed that if I’d told him your correct age—so—–’ she shrugged again.

Rowan said softly, ‘Just as long as we’re not still here in two years’ time when I become twenty-one, because then I shall be off, Antonia, and you’ll have to tell your Cousin Carne any story you please.’

‘Don’t worry, darling.’ Antonia replaced the lipstick in its gold case. ‘If I’m still here in two years’ time, it will be because I’m Carne’s wife, and you’ll be free to go, just as soon as that joyous day arrives.’

‘Then I have a vested interest in making sure it does arrive,’ Rowan said bitterly. ‘You can count on my support, Antonia.’

‘I’m delighted to hear it. It seems there’s cold chicken and a salad waiting for us in the refrigerator this evening, but from tomorrow we’re on our own—literally. Just before Sybilla left me, she informed me that no other help is kept. It seems there used to be, but now there isn’t—illness in the family or some such thing. So we have this great barracks of a house to look after between us, honey child.’ A glint of rare humour appeared in Antonia’s eyes. ‘I’m beginning to think bankruptcy might have been easier after all.’

Perhaps it might at that, Rowan thought soberly as she went back to her own room. Antonia seemed confident that she could ultimately wind Carne Maitland round her little finger, but he was calling all the shots at the moment. Her heart sank. All the cleaning, and the cooking as well! There would be no end to it, and she did not even dare contemplate what would happen if the guest rooms Sybilla had mentioned began to fill up.

That blasted boutique, she thought crossly. I wonder how much money Antonia owes him altogether? Surely she could have repaid him in some other way than this. I’ve a feeling he’s going to expect his pound of flesh and some over.

Rowan saw no reason to change her opinion as the first fortnight at Raven’s Crag pursued its tedious way. The house was as labour-saving as the ingenuity of twentieth-century man could make it, but it was large, with vast expanses of glass and pale surfaces which needed constant attention. Antonia’s constant grumbling did not help either, and nor, for that matter did Antonia herself for much of the time. She talked a lot about how much there was to do, and she was quick to notice if any thing had been overlooked, but her activities were largely confined to a little desultory dusting and flower arranging in between sporadic visits to Keswick, the nearest large town to Ravensmere.

One of the more obvious disadvantages of the deception over Rowan’s age was that she was unable to drive the car, even though she had passed her driving test while she was in the Sixth Form. She had assumed, of course, in the circumstances that she would accompany Antonia on her visits to Keswick, but this was far from being the case. There always seemed more perfectly good reason why her stepmother preferred to go alone. Rowan was disappointed. She would have liked to have a look round Keswick, and seize the opportunity of buying some fresh food while she was there too. Antonia seemed hellbent on filling the large freezer in the walk-in pantry which led off the kitchen with convenience foods, and she ignored Rowan’s protests.

‘I don’t intend to do any more cooking than I have to,’ she declared disdainfully.

Rowan could have replied that Antonia did the minimum as it was, but she bit back the reply. It would only lead to a quarrel, after which Antonia would sulk, and as they had no company but each other that would be a disaster.

Sybilla had kept her word about not intruding upon them. Indeed, she kept almost religiously out of the way, which made Rowan feel uncomfortable. She doubted whether Sybilla had confined herself so rigorously to her own quarters prior to their arrival on the scene. And after all, this was her home.

But it will never be mine, Rowan thought sometimes as she prowled restlessly through the immaculate rooms, waiting for Antonia to come back from one of her shopping expeditions. I’m only here for a few months, just passing through.

Sometimes she was tempted to go and knock on Sybilla’s door and ask if she could talk to her, but she had the uneasy feeling she would not be very welcome. She had encountered Sybilla a few times in the garden, and the older woman’s greeting, although courteous, had been distant. Rowan knew why, of course. Antonia’s careless words had done their work well, and she had to bear the burden of Sybilla’s unspoken disapproval as a consequence.

Rowan supposed she was a fool to allow it to matter. Sybilla was a complete stranger, not even a relation, so her opinion shouldn’t really bear any weight, and yet the realisation that Sybilla regarded her as an awkward teenager, even a drop-out, was oddly hurtful, and at the same time it was part of the ring of deceit which Antonia had deliberately enclosed her in.

Again she asked herself, why? She had always known that Antonia was touchy about her age, and had never liked being saddled with an adolescent stepdaughter, but she had never dreamed that she was prepared to go to such lengths to preserve her image of eternal youth. If it was as simple as that, Rowan thought, but what other explanation could there be? She was under no illusion that physically she could be any threat to Antonia’s plans for her future.

The future. Whenever she thought of that, a small sick feeling began to well up in Rowan. If everything worked out for Antonia eventually, Rowan would be quite alone in the world, her last tenuous links with the happier past severed totally, and it was a daunting prospect even for someone older and more mature than Rowan. She had always been sheltered in a way, she supposed. Her father’s money had taken care of every thing for most of her life, and then there had been boarding school. Perhaps Victor Winslow had thought he was extending that protection until his only daughter was safely launched on adult life. Maybe he had even imagined that his wife and daughter would draw together in mutual need after the sorrow of his death. Looking back, Rowan thought ruefully that her father had never been one to take a very practical view of relationships. Antonia had been coldly furious when she heard the terms of the will, but although she had recovered herself swiftly, Rowan had never been left in any doubt that she was simply making the best of things. Antonia had always made the best of things, or at least the best for Antonia. That was really why they were here. After all, her stepmother could have got a job of some kind and arranged to repay Carne any money that was owing to him out of her earnings, but instead she had chosen what she hoped would be a softer option. Rowan could only hope for Antonia’s sake that she had chosen correctly. She couldn’t imagine Carne Maitland being soft in any way.

And certainly he had upset all Antonia’s preconceptions by absenting himself without a word. Rowan knew what her stepmother had been daily expecting a letter, or even a card, but the postman’s visit brought only mail addressed to Carne, and the usual bills and circulars. The telephone remained silent too, although occasionally they heard the sound of a distant bell ringing, and guessed that Sybilla had her own private telephone in the flat. But if Carne was among her unknown callers, then there were no messages for the newcomers in his house, and Antonia was becoming increasingly restive. She had evidently been expecting a very different reception.

Perhaps Antonia had made a mistake when she had regarded Carne as the young man who had once been in love with her. Had she forgotten how people could change? Rowan could not imagine Carne as any woman’s slave. She remembered the cool, silver eyes, and the small scar which twisted his mouth when he smiled. He was no one’s idea of a lovesick swain, she thought wryly. He was hard and sexy and diabolically attractive, and he would take anything and everything life had to offer with both hands.

Rowan thought suddenly, ‘I was mad to come here. I should have stayed in London and shared a bed-sitter with someone. I’d have managed somehow. I could have worked as a waitress in the evening and studied during the day. I could have done something. But I’m no better than Antonia. I decided to come here too for all the wrong reasons, and now I have to live with it, and perhaps I should be glad that Antonia has told him I’m only a child, whatever her motives were.’

Her discomfiting reverie was interrupted by the arrival of Antonia herself, elegant in an Italian hand-knitted two-piece, a reminder of the boutique’s heyday.

‘I’m going into Keswick to do some shopping,’ she announced. ‘Is there anything you want?’

‘Into Keswick again?’ Rowan felt impelled to remonstrate. ‘But I thought you’d done the shopping on Tuesday when you went in to cash the housekeeping cheque. And we were supposed to be tackling the bedrooms today.’

‘All right, so I’m going to have my hair done,’ Antonia said petulantly. ‘You don’t grudge me that little luxury, I hope.’

Rowan held on to her patience. ‘I hope I don’t grudge you anything. I’ve certainly no right to do so.’

‘Then what’s the argument?’

‘There isn’t one,’ Rowan said defeatedly. ‘I’ll do the bedrooms. You don’t have to worry about them.’

Antonia shrugged. ‘I shan’t, sweetie. The last thing I try to think about is this benighted hole, believe me.’

‘Don’t you like the house?’ In spite of herself Rowan was curious.

‘If it were elsewhere, it might be tolerable. But I don’t like being perched halfway up a mountain, and I certainly don’t care for the climate. Do you realise that it’s rained every day that we’ve been here?’

‘I suppose it has, but everything’s so green and beautiful here. And we’ve had a lot of sunshine as well.’

‘You sound as if you’re trying to sell me the place.’ Antonia checked through the contents of her handbag, looking slightly amused. ‘It won’t work, you know. When Carne and I are married, I shall persuade him to sell this place and move to somewhere more civilised and accessible. God knows what possessed him to buy this site, when he could have lived anywhere.’

Rowan thought of the morning sun touching the remaining patches of snow on the crowding fells with pink and gold. She thought of the glimpse of turquoise which was Ravensmere far below them, and the moist cool scent of the garden where plants were showing green spikes through the rich dark earth, and she thought she could understand why anyone would choose to live here.

But not Antonia, of course, who thought anywhere more than a taxi ride from Harrods was the beginnings of outer darkness. And possibly not Carne Maitland either. The house had an untouched, unlived-in air about it, for all its shining luxury, as if its worldly, sophisticated owner had thought better of the whim which had brought it into being.

She heard Antonia’s car drive away, and with a sigh went along to the utility room which opened off the kitchen to fetch dusters and polish and the vacuum cleaner before commencing her onslaught on the bedrooms. It was a day when the outdoors beckoned. Early rain had given way to puffs of white cloud scudding across a pale blue sky, and although Rowan knew perfectly well that the weather could change in a moment with mist and heavy cloud coming down like a blanket, she wished she was out somewhere on a hillside lifting her face to the soft wind.

She began on their own rooms. Hers was relatively tidy, except for the small table which she had moved under the window and which held her typewriter and papers. She had started another story, and for her the creative process demanded a kind of organised chaos in the immediate environment.

She remade the bed, shaking up the quilt with deft flicks of her wrist, and changed the fitted sheets with their matching pillowcase for another set brought from the first floor linen room, where all the bedding, towels and table linen needed for the household were kept.

Antonia’s room was a different story, and Rowan gave a soundless sigh as she looked about her. Cosmetics, many with their tops and fids off, were strewn across the vanitory unit, which was coated with a faint film of spilled powder. Soiled tights and undies were draped across the dressing stool and the bedroom floor, and the dress Antonia had worn the previous evening was flung in a crumpled heap across the bed.

She thought, ‘I hope Carne Maitland can afford a lady’s maid for her, because she surely needs one!’

She was hot, sticky and cross by the time she had restored order, and was ready to move on to the guestrooms. These fortunately only needed a light dusting, and she opened the windows to let in some of the spring sun and air and get rid of the unused smell. She would take her lunch into the garden, she thought, and find a patch of sunlight to sit in. She wasn’t sure exactly how much of the land belonged to the house, and much of the garden was overgrown and in need of attention. It needs someone to live here and care about it, just like the house, she thought sadly.

She took her crispbread and lettuce and cottage cheese and found a flat stone under a tree which seemed dry and moderately sheltered. The April wind still held a nip, reminding her that there was still snow on the surrounding hills, and could be more, even this late in a golden spring. When she had finished her brief meal, she leaned back against the tree and let the sun warm her face. She felt wearied by her rather tedious morning’s work, and disinclined to start again, especially as her next port of call was Carne Maitland’s luxurious suite of rooms in the other wing of the house. Today was a day for working in the garden, she thought, for cutting back briars, and uprooting nettles and dandelions and dockweeds, and pulling away handfuls of the goosegrass which seemed to be encroaching everywhere under the roses and shrubs. Not that she knew a great deal about gardening. The garden of the cottage in Surrey had been very different from this one, with herbaceous borders alive with colour, and smooth lawns to the front and rear, and Mr Pettigrew from the village to look after it.

There was nothing smooth or ironed out about the garden at Raven’s Crag. Apart from the clumps of ubiquitous daffodils, any colour was planned for later in the season, and the general effect was bleak and rather stark like its surroundings. You couldn’t transplant the pretty traditional cottagey flowers they had grown in Surrey to this place, Rowan thought, but you could create a setting for the house which would be equally satisfying. But at the moment, the wilderness seemed to be taking over again.

She brushed the crumbs from her jeans and rose reluctantly. She probably didn’t need to clean Carne’s rooms. No one had so much as set foot in them since she had cleaned them last time, nor would do until she cleaned them next time, but she was determined that Carne Maitland should have no cause for complaint whenever he chose to honour them with his presence.

The door from the corridor led straight into a dressing room, and his bathroom and bedroom both opened off from this. It was a reasonably sized room, with one wall entirely occupied by fitted wardrobes and drawers, yet he didn’t have a lot of clothes, because she had looked. What there were, of course, were gorgeous—silk shirts and cashmere sweaters, and a leather coat as soft and supple as velvet. There were few toiletries in the bathroom, but those few were expensive and Rowan, sampling them out of curiosity the first time she had cleaned the bathroom, approved his taste.

The bedroom was something else again, with a carpet so thick that her feet sank into it as she walked across the room, and a king-sized bed, which was invariably made up with brown silk sheets. When they had first inspected the room Rowan had seen Antonia give the bed a long look, before she turned away without comment, and Rowan herself had felt hot with inexplicable embarrassment. Antonia, of course, was used to a bedroom of her own, and not merely since becoming a widow; however, Rowan doubted whether she would find the man she had chosen to be her second husband as mildly acquiescent to this as her first had been. There was a narrow divan in the dressing room, but Rowan could not imagine Carne Maitland being tamely dismissed there. Besides, a bed the size of the one in the master bedroom was for sharing, not for solitude.

There were blankets on this bed, instead of the duvets used in all the other rooms, and a dark brown satin quilted cover, all very restrained and masculine. The bed faced the windows which reached from floor to ceiling, giving a panoramic view over the valley to the fells beyond.

The sunsets would be fantastic, Rowan thought, and grinned to herself, in self-mockery. Anyone using this bed that early in the evening would probably not be staring at the sunsets, unless they’d used the ploy ‘Come and see my sunset’ instead of ‘Come and see my etchings’. Carne, she decided, could probably use either line and make it a winner. Probably had, as well, and very likely was at this very minute, whatever time it was in Barbados.

There was a full-length mirror on the wall, and she gave its surface a brisk rub with a clean duster, viewing herself with detachment as she did so, and deciding that she looked totally out of place in this room with her faded jeans and elderly sweater shirt with the sleeves pushed up. A satin dressing gown is what I need, she thought, the corners of her mouth lifting in derision, one that fastens at the waist and nowhere else, in a colour to harmonise with the dusters. She gave the mirror’s frame a final, cheerful flick and turned away, moving her shoulders wearily. She had worked hard, and she was tired. She deserved a shower and a rest before Antonia returned and it was time to start preparing the evening meal. She pushed the sandals off her aching feet and walked across the carpet relishing its softness. She leaned across the bed, straightening its already immaculate cover, testing the firmness of the mattress with a tentative hand. Then she said, ‘Oh, to hell with it!’ and jumped into the middle of the bed as she had been longing to do since she first entered the room. Forbidden ecstasy, she thought, bouncing up and down on other people’s beds, and how many years was it since she’d done so? She had been seven and not enjoying a stiff tea-party at Sally Armitage’s, until, when tea was over, she and Sally had discovered that the double bed in Mrs Armitage’s bedroom made a superb trampoline, and they’d bounced and leapt with undiminished energy until the arrival of a scandalised nanny had put a premature end to their game. A childhood incident she had not even given a moment’s thought to until now. And the Armitages’ bed had not been nearly as wide and opulent as this one. That’s what this house needs, she thought. It needs children, to fill up the empty rooms and climb the trees in the garden, and even bounce on the beds. But it wouldn’t get them. Even if Antonia was willing to have a child, which Rowan doubted, she couldn’t imagine Carne Maitland opting for that sort of family life.

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