Charade In Winter. Anne Mather
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won’t,’ she assured him tautly, wishing she was not so conscious of his nearness.
‘You must have married out of the schoolroom,’ he observed insistently, and she saw his eyes move to the quickening rise and fall of her breasts.
‘Not—not quite,’ she stammered, feeling exposed, and with an indifferent shrug he moved away from her, leaving her weak and shaken by emotion.
‘Goodnight then, Mrs Thornton.’ He was opening the door for her, and she passed him with a mumbled salutation, crossing the hall to the stairs on legs which had never felt so uncertain.
She hadn’t expected to feel relieved to reach the isolation of her room, but she did. She closed her sitting room door and leaned back against it wearily, aware of feeling more exhausted than circumstances warranted. Then she expelled her breath on a sigh and straightening, walked through the lamplit apartment to her bedroom.
Someone had turned down her bed in her absence, and her nightgown had been draped carefully across the sheet. She wondered whether Myra had done it, and thinking of the other girl reminded her of the way she had looked at Oliver Morgan. However retarded her mental condition, physically she was a woman, and it was as a woman she had looked at her master. But how did he see her? She was not an unattractive girl, and he was a man with the same needs as any other man. And yet he had told Alix that he preferred to pay for his pleasures. Did he pay Myra?
She shuddered at the inclination of her thoughts, and tightening her lips, began to undress. But before she put on her nightgown, she ran her hands down over her breasts, her palms covering the hardening nipples. She felt strangely disturbed by the knowledge that a man like Oliver Morgan could arouse her in this way, and she stared at her reflection with unconcealed dislike. She had never felt this sense of discovery about herself before, and it was galling to find it coming between her and her work.
With a grimace of annoyance she reached for her nightgown, and allowed its filmy folds to fall about her ankles. Then she went into the bathroom to wash and clean her teeth, determinedly putting all thoughts of Oliver Morgan out of her mind. She was tired. Things would look different in the morning.
But once she was in bed, between sheets which she discovered were made of silk, it was not so easy to get to sleep. She had peeped through her curtains before getting into bed, and the mist outside seemed to be pressing against the window panes, imprisoning her in this isolated oasis of civilisation. Last night, sleeping in her own bed in her flat in London, she had had no notion of the complications she would find at Darkwater Hall, and there was something rather frightening in the remoteness of that thought…
THE next morning Alix slept late, which wasn’t surprising after she had lain awake for several hours listening to the creaking of the old house as it settled down for the night. Her flat in London overlooked a busy thoroughfare, and the unaccustomed silence here, broken only by contracting boards and soughing trees, was all strange to her. But eventually she had slept, and she awakened feeling refreshed and relaxed.
But the relaxation didn’t last long. One look at her watch, which she had left on the table beside the bed, and she was thrusting back the bedclothes, crossing the carpet eagerly to draw back the curtains.
It was after ten o’clock, and a rosy haze was gradually dispersing the shreds of mist that lingered among the sheltering belt of trees. Now that it was light, she could see that her room was at the front of the house, and beyond the sweep of courtyard acres of rolling parkland stretched away in all directions. The grass still shimmered with the heavy dew left by the mist, and there was a clean, drenched freshness about everything that made even the bare branches of the trees project a tracery of beauty. Some of the trees still clung to their leaves, and colours of yellow, bronze and amber mingled with the heavy greens of pine and spruce. It was a world away from the urban surroundings she was used to, and Alix wondered at her own capacity to adapt to it without constraint.
But enchanting though the prospect from her window was, cold reality began to intrude. This was her first day at Darkwater Hall, and she had overslept. Hardly the way to begin, she thought ruefully, going into the bathroom, and turning on the shower. No matter how intriguing her surroundings might be, she was here to do a job, and not just the task Oliver Morgan had set her. Melissa’s presence could well turn out to be the key to the whole mystery surrounding Joanne Morgan’s death. What if Mrs Morgan had been kept in ignorance of the child’s existence, and had suddenly found out? What if she had threatened to expose him? He was a man of uncertain temper, everyone knew that. To what lengths might he have been prepared to go to stop her?
Alix shook her head impatiently, stepping out from under the invigorating spray and towelling herself dry. This was all pure speculation! Joanne Morgan had died as the result of a car crash. It had been an accident. The coroner had recorded a verdict of accidental death. Just because her husband had inherited a vast amount of money from her estate it did not mean he had had a hand in loosening the brakes or the steering wheel, or had crippled the car in some other way so that she wrapped it round a tree only half a mile from their house in Sussex.
Nevertheless, people were talking, and if it was ever revealed that he had had a Japanese mistress tucked away somewhere… Alix brought herself up short. What did she mean—if? Of course it would be revealed. This was her story, the one which would make her famous. She must not let sentimentality for the child undermine her determination. She would stay here just as long as it took to get to know Oliver Morgan, to find out what made him tick, and if possible to hear his version of his wife’s accident. Melissa’s mother was another story, and some other sensation-minded reporter could dig up those sordid details.
She dressed in slim-fitting orange pants and a shirt in an attractive shade of olive green. Make-up she limited to eye-liner and lipstick, and feeling the familiar pangs of hunger she hurriedly made her bed before making her way downstairs.
A grey-haired, middle-aged woman was working in the hall, polishing the carved chest Alix had admired the previous evening, and she looked up with evident curiosity when Alix came down the stairs.
‘Good morning,’ she replied in answer to Alix’s greeting. ‘Mrs Thornton, isn’t it?’
Alix’s thumb went self-consciously to the plain gold band she could feel on her third finger, but she nodded quickly. ‘That’s right. You must be Mrs Brandon. I’m sorry I’m so late, I overslept.’
The woman was taller than she had appeared from above, and they were almost on eye-level terms when Alix reached the hall. ‘Mr Morgan had breakfast a couple of hours ago,’ she added half-accusingly. ‘Will you be wanting a meal?’
Alix hesitated. But she couldn’t go all morning without food. ‘Perhaps some toast—and coffee?’ she ventured, and Mrs Brandon sniffed.
‘Very well, I’ll get it.’
‘Oh, please…’ Alix didn’t want to be a nuisance. ‘I can look after myself. If you’ll show me the way to the kitchen—’
Mrs Brandon shook her head, folding her arms across her flowered overall. ‘I said I’d get it, Mrs Thornton. The kitchen is no place for governesses!’
The way she said that word made Alix stare at her with troubled eyes. What was wrong with being a governess, for heaven’s sake? And in any case, surely Mrs Brandon must know she had been hired as a librarian.
The older woman gave her another contemptuous look, and then walked briskly across the hall to a door set beneath the curve of the staircase. Alix watched her go with misgivings, and then, shrugging her slim shoulders, she glanced round. She recognised the door to the library, with its distinctive leather soundproofing, and the door to the dining room stood wide, but there were several other doors and she decided to explore.
The first room she entered was a drawing room, high-ceilinged and magnificent, with a genuine Adam fireplace and an enormous grand piano. Long couches, upholstered in dusty pink velvet, were standing