Kitabı oku: «Myths Of The Moon»

CHAPTER ONE

HE’D fallen asleep. But, in spite of that long, hard body sprawled in the red wing-chair by the fire, he managed to retain an air of wary vigilance. In a position when most men would look vulnerable, this one looked threatening…

Carla hesitated in the doorway, tray in hand. Then she crept quietly into the cottage, and closed the front door behind her. She could feel her heart beating a touch faster than normal. Carefully, soundlessly, she put the tray down on the black oak sideboard by the door, and stared at him.

Who was he?

Not for the first time in the past twenty-four hours, she wondered bleakly what on earth she’d got herself into. It was all very well being a good Samaritan. And she being naturally stubborn, the words of warning from friends in the village had merely made her more determined to offer help…

She had the accommodation. She’d had this small self-contained cottage converted last year, from the stables of her stone farmhouse. She rented it out to holidaymakers in the summer. It had a superb view over the bay, and down along a mystical, timeless stretch of south Cornish coastline. It even overlooked the precise spot where the cliff accident had sent ripples of concern through this tiny Cornish village. The cottage was tailor-made for the accident victim’s recovery…

It wasn’t as if she was sharing her own house with a total stranger, was it? Back in the safety of the farm, she could shoot the bolts and turn the heavy old keys in the locks, and barricade herself in against potential night-time assaults, should he prove to be the crazed rapist of the village postmistress’s imagination…

And it wasn’t as if she was a naive, impressionable young girl, her reasoning ran on, bolstering her nerve. She was a twenty-five-year-old widow, a successful writer of detective novels, nobody’s fool…

So…why was she standing here, throat dry as sandpaper, staring at her mysterious lodger as if he were Jack the Ripper?

Catching sight of her wind-blown appearance in the big oval mirror above the fireplace, she pushed her fingers hastily through her tousled brown bob. She made a rueful face. Rufus had always complained that she didn’t take enough trouble with her appearance. And since his death in an accident last year she’d probably taken even less. Bundled up in heavy Aran polo neck, green cord jeans, and ancient, battered Barbour jacket, she felt quite sure that Rufus would have disapproved. But then she and Rufus should never have got married. They’d discovered that, very shortly after their wedding. Her late husband had envisaged a wife as someone who spent mornings at the hairdresser, afternoons painting her nails, and evenings cooking cordon bleu meals before slipping into slinky lace night-wear for torrid nights of pleasure. He had disapproved of just about everything he’d discovered about Carla, during their three brief years of marriage, and wasted no time in seeking consolation elsewhere…

Carla chewed her lip indecisively, wavering over whether to retreat, with the meal-tray, and return later. Lurking under the silver foil was a robust beef and red wine casserole, judged by her to be ideal food to fortify a large six-foot male recovering from concussion and temporary amnesia.

Could it endure a re-heat in the microwave, and still retain recuperative properties? she wondered wryly…

‘Hello.’

The husky voice made her jump with nervous reaction. The black-fringed eyes were open. Her visitor was looking at her, with a bemused expression.

‘Oh, you’re awake…! Sorry, did I wake you?’

‘Possibly.’ His mouth twisted in wry humour. ‘But don’t feel guilty. Something’s smelling good on that tray. Would it be presumptuous to hope it’s for me?’

She smiled stiffly.

‘Yes. It’s beef and red wine…with mushrooms. I hope you like mushrooms?’

‘Sounds delicious.’

He made a visible effort to straighten up, and lever himself to standing. With his left arm still in a sling, his progress was hindered. But he made it. In the low-ceilinged cottage, Carla found his height less alarming than she’d expected. Tall, lean, black-haired, with that villainous growth of stubble on his jaw, he should surely have exuded even more threat. But, with the slight hint of unsteadiness in his stance, perversely enough he now looked more vulnerable than when he’d been asleep.

With a rush of remorse, she grabbed the tray from the sideboard and hurried over to him.

‘Please, don’t stand up! Oh, dear, now I feel even worse. You’re supposed to be resting, getting better! I’m afraid I make a lousy nurse…’

‘I don’t need a nurse,’ he pointed out shortly, subsiding into the chair again with a grimace. ‘Physically the hospital pronounced me dischargeable. All I need is a good night’s sleep away from the chaos of a public ward, and my mind back.’

‘You haven’t lost your mind,’ she pointed out, quietly. She thrust the tray on to muscular, denim-clad knees, and lifted the foil to reveal a hearty portion of the casserole, flanked by creamed potatoes and buttered cabbage. ‘Just your memory. And it will come back soon. The less you worry about getting it back, the quicker it will come. That’s what the doctors said. And staying here, where you had the accident, should hurry up your recovery…’

She was wittering nervously, she realised, annoyed with herself. She stopped for a moment, meeting the contained expression in his face. Somewhere deep inside, she felt an unwelcome lurch of awareness.

Beneath the mass of straight black hair, his face was firm-jawed, with a powerfully aquiline nose. Even with the distraction of the pad of lint stuck to one temple, and the bluish bruising on one high cheekbone, it was a daunting sort of face. Maybe it was his eyes. He had lynx-like, penetrating eyes. Eyes which made her feel as if her private thoughts might be analysed, maybe before she’d analysed them herself. They were deep-set, beneath straight dark eyebrows. Against very clear whites, the irises were a curious shade of green. Not emerald, not sage. More the colour of the rock-pools on the beach on a cloudy day.

She straightened up abruptly, and stepped back.

‘I hope you like cabbage?’ she finished up foolishly. She felt unsettled by the faint flicker of humour in his gaze. ‘But leave it if you don’t. I…I made sure everything can be easily eaten with just a fork. Can you remember what you like and what you don’t like to eat?’

‘Cabbage is just fine.’

There was a pause, slightly awkward. He smiled a touch more widely, revealing even white teeth. Then he began eating, sublimely unselfconscious of her watching eyes.

‘Well, I’ll leave you to it…’

She retreated to the door, then hesitated.

‘Unless…’ She sought for the right words, desperate not to appear pushy, or, heaven forbid, forward in any way. She’d no wish to give him the wrong impression. ‘Unless you’d like some company?’

There was a silence. Then he nodded, with a brief, slightly haggard smile.

‘Thanks. I could do with some company.’

‘I’ll go and get my dinner, and join you,’ she said calmly, darting across the wind-swept cobbled yard and returning with her own meal on a tray, with a bottle of red wine and two glasses. She put the tray on the low black oak coffee-table in front of the fire, discarded her Barbour on the hook by the door, and began to uncork the wine.

‘It must feel so strange,’ she added, busying herself determinedly to maintain her poise under his scrutiny, ‘not being able to remember who you are, or what you were doing here…’

The dark head nodded slowly.

‘Like waking up in a dark cellar, and not being able to find the light switch.’ The thoughtful words were tinged with irony.

Carla glanced at him quickly, handing over a glass of red wine.

‘When you’re feeling like it, perhaps a walk along the same cliff-path might trigger something?’

‘Isn’t the path barred to walkers now?’

‘Well, yes. But you can still get partway, along the upper path. Close enough to see where the ground gave way…’

Involuntarily, she shuddered in memory. The recent drama rushed back to haunt her. Dusk falling, a stiff breeze blowing off the ocean, and with no warning near-death had beckoned, right in front of her eyes…

She’d taken a break from her intense concentration on her word-processor screen, leaning back to stretch and rub her eyes, and contemplate the next intricate twist of her plot. She’d been so absorbed in writing, she hadn’t noticed how dark it was getting. The greenish glow from her VDU was the only light in her study, and she’d been about to reach across and click on the Anglepoise lamp when her attention was caught by a movement on the cliff-top. From her study window the rugged sweep of coastline had been framed with perfect clarity. The sky was that brilliant, unreal shade of pale, duck-egg blue that came when the sun set on a winter evening. A full moon had already been visible. The movement she’d seen had been a man, walking along the coastal path. One moment the tall, broad-shouldered figure had been striding along in the direction of the farm. The next moment, with a muffled, doom-laden rumble of falling rock and crumbling earth, he’d disappeared over the edge of the cliff. A cloud of dust had risen to blot out her view. When it had subsided, all that remained was a jagged hole in the side of the cliff.

Seized with horror, she’d sprung up instinctively, hand over her mouth. Then, so stunned by the suddenness of the scene, she’d felt frozen to the spot. Common sense had finally reasserted itself. Snatching up the telephone, she’d rung the emergency services. Then she’d found a torch, dashed from the house, grabbed a coil of rope from the now empty barn, and rushed down the lane and out on to the cliff-top, to see if she could help. Inching as close as she dared, her heart pounding and her throat dry with fear, she’d steeled herself to peer over the edge. Dreading seeing a broken, bloodied body down below, she’d felt a slight surge of relief. The man had looked to be unconscious, but at least he was in one piece. Or as far as she could see, anyway, in the rapidly fading light…And he hadn’t plummeted all the way down to the rocky beach below. The fall of earth had somehow blocked his fall. The pile of rocks and earth had rolled halfway down the cliff, then come to a halt against the resistance of gorse bushes and brambles clinging to the cliff-side. The man’s face had been deathly white, though. And an ugly gash on his temple had been trickling ominously red.

Heart squeezed in her chest, trembling with apprehension, she’d called down to him, without response. All she’d been able to do was sit there, while the sky grew darker and the moon grew brighter, watching fearfully in case of further subsidence, until the coastguard, and the rescue helicopter from Culdrose, had arrived…

‘Are you all right?’

Her visitor was regarding her with bleak amusement.

‘I thought you were dead, you know,’ she said ruefully, pouring some wine into her own glass and taking a fortifying sip. ‘You looked like a ghost, lying down there on the cliff.’

‘Sorry. But, as you can see, I’m very much alive. In body, if not in mind.’ He took a drink of the red wine, and made a wry face. ‘I doubt if alcohol is the approved cure for extradural haemorrhage and amnesia, somehow.’

‘Oh…sorry.’

‘Stop apologising.’ The sea-green eyes levelled calmly on her face. ‘If anyone here should be constantly apologising, Miss Julyan, it’s me. I’m imposing on your time and hospitality. Being waited on, fussed over. And frankly, you’re a brave woman. You don’t know who I am. I could be a psychiatric case, a dangerous criminal.’

She bit her lip. Her earlier doubts were still so fresh in her mind, she stopped herself just in time from blushing bright red.

‘You don’t strike me as either.’

He shrugged slightly. There was a gleam of frustrated humour in his eyes.

‘I don’t feel like either. The hellish thing is not knowing.’

They stared at each other in silence for a few moments.

‘It’s going to take some detective work, that’s all,’ she said at last. ‘It’s a question of piecing together all the small things you can remember, until something jolts the rest…’

‘All I know is that my name’s Daniel.’

‘True…if that note was addressed to you.’

He frowned, then made a face.

‘It was in my shirt pocket. “Daniel, darling, hope you’ve everything you need—see you soon, all my love, R.”,’ he quoted flatly. ‘Are you saying I could have been about to give the note to someone? That I could be “R”?’

‘Well…’ The flaw in this theory had just struck her. She was too used to thinking up strange twists in her detective books. She coloured a little as he laughed.

‘If so, it could be that “Daniel, darling” and I have a relationship I don’t feel ready to admit to!’ He grinned. He was watching her embarrassment with a merciless gleam.

‘Well, there’s something else you know about yourself.’ She covered her loss of poise with a stab of teasing humour. ‘You’re heterosexual!’

‘As far as I can tell from analysing my thought-processes,’ he agreed.

There was an ironic gleam in his slow appraisal of Carla’s flushed, heart-shaped face, her slender figure hidden by the Aran sweater. The unabashed curiosity made her stiffen slightly. Then the implication of his words sank in. The heat which abruptly engulfed her was so all-consuming, she felt as if invisible flames were licking around her. The lurch of awareness was back, double strength. She was horrified to feel a shiver of physical reaction, new and deeply unnerving.

She looked quickly away, praying that he hadn’t noticed her hot cheeks and erratic pulse-rate…

‘Don’t look so anxious, Miss Julyan.’ He grinned. ‘I’m in no state to put any theories to the test. Besides, you brought sex into the conversation, not me!’

‘I wasn’t intending to look anxious.’ She defended herself as calmly as she felt able. There was an annoying huskiness in her voice. ‘And please stop calling me Miss Julyan…’

‘What would you prefer to be called? Ma’am?’

‘Carla. I’d prefer to be called Carla.’ She hung on to her temper with difficulty.

‘Then we’ll seal the intimacy. You call me Daniel,’ he said irrepressibly, finishing his meal with a nod of approval. ‘And you’re a great cook, Carla. One of these days you’ll make a husband a very happy man.’

‘My husband is dead.’ She said it without inflexion, embarrassed by his lack of knowledge. ‘He was thrown from his horse in a riding accident, a year ago. And, to be quite truthful, he wasn’t a very happy man when he was alive…’

What had prompted her to say such a thing? The confession seemed to hang in the air between them, out of place and unwarranted.

Daniel leaned back in the wing-chair, watching her intently. To cover her confusion, she stood up and took the tray from his knees, carried it to the sideboard. Pausing there, she pressed her hands to her hot cheeks for a few seconds, and drew a deep breath before she came back to sit down opposite him again.

‘You reverted to your maiden name?’ His curiosity was clearly aroused.

‘I…yes.’

He was searching her face, a dissecting light in his eyes.

‘Do I detect that your marriage was an unhappy one, Carla?’ There was a gentler note in his voice.

‘What makes you say that?’ She knew she sounded idiotic. She’d virtually told him it was unhappy, hadn’t she?

‘Dropped your married name only a year after being widowed? And what you said just now? About your husband?’ he suggested, quietly ironic.

‘Sorry—ignore what I said, would you?’ She managed to smile at him, sipping some wine while she grappled with her composure. ‘Rufus died just over a year ago. I guess I’m…I’m not really over it all yet…’

‘I’d say it takes a lot longer than a year to mourn the loss of someone you love.’ Daniel’s face was shadowed. The flicker of the fire lit one side only.

To evade further discussion, she nodded quickly.

‘That’s assuming, of course, that you did love your husband?’

‘I…’ She stopped, staring at him, mauve-blue eyes wide with indignation. ‘What a strange question!’ she finished up coldly. ‘I appreciate you’ve got time on your hands, but if you’re going to spend it making rude speculations about me I might regret offering to have you here…!’

There was a brief silence.

‘Would you like me to leave?’

‘No, of course not!’ she amended irritably, cross with herself for losing her cool.

‘Thanks.’ The edge in the deep voice was difficult to fathom. There was certainly more to it than gratitude, or remorse.

She forced a laugh. ‘I offered you company this evening. All we seem to have done is bicker!’

‘We don’t seem destined to hit it off,’ he confirmed evenly.

For some reason, this analysis made her feel even angrier.

‘The trouble is, we seem to have got round to talking about me, when the idea is to talk about you,’ she said hurriedly. ‘I’m convinced that if we adopt a logical approach to your memory-loss, something will trigger its return.’

‘You mean, like tracking back over your movements when you lose your wallet?’

‘Something like that. Why not?’

‘Why not indeed?’ His smile was far from reassuring. ‘You’re not a policewoman, by any chance?’

‘No. I write detective stories…’

His eyebrows lifted. ‘Are you published?’

‘Yes. I write under the pseudonym of Carl Julyan.’

He looked unflatteringly blank for a few moments, then his eyes betrayed a flicker of recognition.

‘Carl Julyan? You’re Carl Julyan? Creator of Inspector Jack Tresawna?’

‘Yes. Have you read any of my books?’

‘I must have done.’

‘And did you enjoy them?’ she felt forced to enquire, goaded by his lack of comment.

‘I did. Sorry, I wasn’t intending any insult,’ he added evenly; ‘I was waiting to see if this revelation brought anything else filtering back to mind.’

‘Has it?’

He shook his head slowly.

‘I don’t think so.’

‘But you can remember reading Carl Julyan books. That’s a breakthrough, of a kind!’ she said, excitement making her eyes glow. ‘Maybe if you reread one or two your memory might be jolted by something?’

‘Possibly. Although I’d hazard a guess that fiction is unlikely to.’ Lifting his uninjured hand to his forehead, he massaged his temples with a sudden, jerky motion.

‘Are you all right?’ She found herself quelling an instinctive urge to jump up and fuss like a mother hen.

‘Yes…I’m all right.’ He dropped his hand quickly.

‘Have you got a headache?’

He smiled bleakly. ‘Since I woke up in a hospital bed three weeks ago, I can’t remember not having a headache. I gather from the doctors that headaches and head injuries tend to go together.’

The put-down seemed deliberate.

‘I’m sorry, I’m probably tiring you out with all this talking. Would you like anything else to eat? Or coffee?’

‘No, thank you. Nothing else.’

‘Not even home-made apple pie and clotted cream?’ she tempted lightly.

‘Another time, perhaps.’

Carla stood up decisively. ‘Let me get you a painkiller, then I’ll leave you to go to bed…’

‘I’ve got pain-killers. I can manage to open the bottle and swallow a couple all by myself.’

Again, the sarcasm was unprovoked. She was evidently getting badly on his nerves. Wincing inwardly, she turned away.

‘Wait…’ Was there the faintest tinge of vulnerability in his curt voice? ‘Tell me something, before you go…’

She turned back to look at him. There was the shadow of physical pain in his eyes. In spite of her annoyance, a wave of sympathy and helplessness washed over her. This man was suffering, physically and mentally. And one thing was certain—he wasn’t a natural patient. He loathed being ill, loathed being at a disadvantage, hated being virtually dependent on others for his recovery. And she could think of few worse mental tortures than being unable to remember who you were…

The insight made his prickly behaviour more understandable. She felt faintly guilty for allowing his defensive taunting to provoke her. She definitely hadn’t missed her vocation in nursing, she reflected ruefully.

‘Yes?’

‘What made you offer to help me?’

Taken aback, she stared at him blankly. ‘I’m not sure what you mean…’

‘I mean you virtually saved my life,’ he persisted quietly, his expression obscure. ‘That would have been enough. Why did you offer to let me stay here?’

‘I didn’t save your life…!’ She met the penetrating stare with a fresh warmth in her cheeks. ‘I just happened to be looking out of my study window at the right moment, that’s all…’

‘Same thing. If you hadn’t been, I’d probably have lain halfway down the cliff all night. If I hadn’t been found promptly, the chances of surgery succeeding would have been diminished. I have it on reliable medical authority. So I was already in your debt, Carla. Why all this as well?’

She gazed at him in mounting confusion.

‘That’s a silly question,’ she protested, shaking her head. ‘It’s obvious why. You needed somewhere to recover. You had no obvious place to go. No access to money or anything…it seemed the only thing I could do!’

‘Not necessarily. The police, the hospital, Social Services, any of them could have offered a solution. So why you?’

The narrowed gaze searched her flushed face.

‘Well, I suppose having seen the accident, having found you…’ she caught her breath, feeling herself getting angry again and this time not at all sure why ‘…I felt a kind of responsibility to help. And staying so close to where you were walking…I thought it could bring your memory back quicker…’

What was he getting at? Did he suspect her of some ulterior motive? Was he implying that she must be the typical ‘lonely widow’? Or, worse still, the typical ‘merry widow’? Her heart seemed to contract in her chest. What was it about this man which seemed doomed to rub her up the wrong way? Did there have to be some hidden motive for offering simple kindness?

‘I think you should get an early night,’ she advised, adopting her most formal manner. ‘Can you manage by yourself…?’

‘You’re not offering a full nursing service, by any chance?’ he teased lightly. ‘Because I think I can still remember how to wash my face and clean my teeth.’

‘Good.’ Hateful, sardonic, ungrateful man. Why was she wasting any sympathy on him at all? ‘In that case, I’ll say goodnight.’

‘Good night, Carla.’

She risked one parting glance at him, and wished she hadn’t. The cool green eyes seemed to be far too dissecting, as he observed her suppressed resentment.

Loading everything on to one tray, she made a bolt for the relative safety of the main house, and her own kitchen.

She felt as if she’d just been put through some psychological mangle. Daniel Whoever-he-was was the most disruptive man she’d ever met.

With angry precision she unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher, stacked fluted white porcelain in dark oak cupboards, wiped green-tiled worktops, then finally collapsed on to the ancient oak settle by the Aga. She glared distractedly at Moppy, a fluffy, apricot Persian, stretched as close to the warmth as he could get. Moppy stared back, and blinked lazily, golden eyes forgiving. With an apologetic smile she reached down to stroke him. He might be hopeless as a country mousing cat, but he was a comforting presence, and she loved him dearly…

She thought about phoning someone, anything to calm this strange agitation inside her. But it was gone ten, too late to ring her friend Becky at Carperrow Farm—she’d have tucked her small, well-behaved daughter into her cot and leapt eagerly into bed with her husband Tom by now. And ringing her mother, probably still engrossed in a bridge four in her genteel Regency flat in Bath, was equally out of the question. She’d immediately think some dreadful disaster had occurred.

Carla shook herself out of her reverie and stood up. She could ring Becky in the morning, console herself with a light-hearted natter with a friend, before buckling down to work on chapter fifteen. She had a deadline on this book. Getting sidetracked and thrown off-centre by Daniel’s overpowering personality was the very last thing she needed…

But upstairs in bed, showered, hair vigorously brushed, teeth energetically scrubbed, clad in demure pale blue silk pyjamas, she lay wide awake and tense beneath her cream duvet.

It was his parting probe which had unnerved her. He wasn’t a mind-reader. That was too far-fetched. But even so…his questions had made her examine a disturbing truth. In some way, some unexplained way, she’d been aware of an underlying emotion behind her practical offers of help…

Frowning into the darkness, she tried to make sense of it. She couldn’t. All she knew was, ever since that moonlit night, when she’d kept her lonely vigil on the cliff-top, she’d felt this invisible pull…

It was scary, she decided angrily. And it was ridiculous. Was she behaving like Inspector Tresawna’s rather fey female sidekick, in her novels? Imagining psychic auras?

The best thing she could do, she decided, squeezing her eyes shut and willing herself to sleep, was help her mysterious visitor to get his memory back, and get him out of her life, in that order, as fast as she could.

But, even though he was across the yard, in the cottage, she was aware of Daniel’s presence. Mentally, and, to her continuing shame, physically. A feathering of goose-bumps broke out all over her skin, simply at the memory of those cool green eyes…The sensation was so strong, he could be standing here, in the same room…

With a burst of anger, she sat up and clicked on her light, glaring round the bedroom to allay her ridiculous imaginings. Then she subsided back against the pillows, and tossed feverishly on to her side.