‘I think you should go now,’ she said.
‘And if I don’t?’
‘Then perhaps it’s time I took myself to the Green Room,’ Meryl said decisively. The feeling of being at a disadvantage was unfamiliar, and hard to cope with. She moved past him, giving him as wide a berth as she could, but his hand shot out and grasped her bare arm.
‘Will you please let me go?’ she snapped.
‘I’d prefer not to.’
‘What about your honour as an English gentleman?’
His laugh had a dangerous edge that hadn’t been there before. ‘My what? My ancestors fought and subdued this countryside by force. What they wanted they took, and if the other side didn’t like it, they shrugged. I promise you, acting like a gentleman never came into it.’
Silence. She met his eyes, trying not to let him see how disturbed she was. Her heart was thumping with something that wasn’t fear but a kind of heady excitement.
At last he released her, very slowly, and stepped back. He was breathing hard, and she wondered if he could tell that her pulses were racing.
At the door he stopped and glanced back over his shoulder, not looking at her directly.
‘Tomorrow you leave,’ he said, and went out.
Meryl stood motionless, looking at the closed door, feeling him still there.
‘I don’t think so,’ she told Jarvis Larne’s image. ‘Not now, when I’m just starting to enjoy myself.’
She breakfasted alone next morning, Jarvis having already eaten and departed; to avoid her, she suspected.
She still had the feeling of his presence. It had been with her all night so that she’d awoken in the early hours to the mysterious conviction that he was there in the bed, holding her. Then she’d had to remind herself that he’d only held her arm, not encircled her body as she could feel him doing now, and as he would have liked to; she was certain of it.
It had begun as a demonstration of power, warning her to back off. But he was the one who’d backed off, because his own power had alarmed him. He’d been a whisper away from kissing her, but he hadn’t dared because he didn’t trust himself to stop.
She could have lured him into that kiss, but she too had retreated. Cold feet? Or just the instinct that said, Not here and now? But one day. Soon. And inevitably.
Her new wardrobe yielded up a pair of brilliant orange trousers and a loose shirt with a pattern of leaves. A scarf that matched the trousers exactly completed the set. She considered her battle attire with satisfaction.
Hannah evidently approved also, because when she served Meryl’s breakfast in the downstairs room she gave a brief nod of complicity.
‘You shouldn’t have put me in Lady Larne’s room,’ Meryl said. ‘He was none too pleased.’
‘Oh, him!’ Hannah snorted as though her employer’s opinion was no more than a minor irritant.
‘I think he feels I ought to move to the Green Room.’ Meryl’s tone invited conspiracy.
‘Well, maybe I’ll have time to shift your things this morning,’ Hannah said. ‘But I’m awfully busy.’
‘I wouldn’t want to disrupt your schedule.’
They understood each other.
‘Mr Ashton called to say he’ll pick you up in half an hour,’ Hannah added.
Meryl hurried her breakfast and was soon ready. As she left the morning room she became aware that the entire household was present. Most of the castle was closed for economy’s sake, but even the little that was open took a lot of work. Hannah kept it going with the help of a married couple, Seth and Annie, too old and slow to do very much, but whom Jarvis kept on because they had nowhere else to go.
They were all there, hovering in the hall or on the stairs. Eyes bored into Meryl as she appeared, then turned back to the open Library door, from behind which came the hum of voices.
‘Some of his lordship’s tenants have come to see him,’ Hannah muttered. ‘They’ve heard the news.’
‘What news?’
Hannah’s look spoke volumes. Meryl went closer to the door. She could see Jarvis standing there, facing what appeared to be a deputation of five men, one of whom, a burly individual, was speaking for the others.
‘My missus said it was the best news she’d heard for years,’ he was saying.
‘Hal, I don’t know exactly what you’ve heard-’ Jarvis said awkwardly.
‘Why, about this heiress who turned up in the storm-enough money to save us all, that’s what they’re saying. We all knew you would manage it, one way or another.’
‘Hal-’
‘There’s plenty who’ll sleep better tonight.’
‘Don’t take too much for granted,’ Jarvis said gently. ‘Nothing is settled.’
Another voice from the back of the group said, ‘We’ll just leave the details to you. Not another word until it’s sorted, eh?’
As they neared the door Meryl moved quickly back, but she wasn’t fast enough. They saw her, leaving her no choice but to come into the room. She tried not to meet Jarvis’s eyes, but she was intensely aware of him, tense with displeasure.
‘I’m sorry to disturb you, Lord Larne,’ she said, speaking more calmly than she felt.
The other five men regarded her as though she’d risen from the sea at that moment. She smiled back, and courtesy forced Jarvis’s hand.
‘Gentlemen, this is Miss Meryl Winters, my guest since she was stranded a couple of days ago.’
She shook five hands as the names washed over her. The men might have come out of the same mould. Their shapes varied but they were all middle-aged, roughly dressed, with hands that looked as though they worked hard. And all bore the same air of weary stoicism, hope too long deferred and dread fended off by fragile defences.
She felt an inner pang. This wasn’t an adventure for them. It was life or death.
‘I must go now and see to the rescue of my car,’ she said at last.
‘May I speak to you a few moments before you go, Miss Winters?’ Jarvis requested. ‘Perhaps I could join you in the garden?’
Whatever he wanted to say to her, she didn’t want to hear it until she’d had time to think.
‘Would you mind very much if we put it off?’ she said hurriedly. ‘I mustn’t keep Ferdy waiting.’
She hurried away before he could answer, but not before she’d sensed a frisson of surprise in the others. She wondered how long it had been since anyone had told Lord Larne to wait.
As they sped across the water Ferdy said, ‘I saw the deputation on the way out. Have they been giving him a hard time?’
‘They told him they knew he’d manage it one way or another, and they’d leave the details to him,’ Meryl said wryly.
Ferdy shouted with laughter. Yesterday she might have joined in, but now, for some reason the sound made her wince.
The haulage firm had been at work since low tide, in the early hours, and the car was already safe on land, looking somewhat the worse for wear. Meryl retrieved her luggage from the trunk, where it had escaped the worst. A representative of the car hire firm was on hand to take back the vehicle with much wringing of hands.
They had a good lunch at her expense, followed by a trip to the bank. Here matters proceeded satisfactorily. The manager, after an initial scepticism, made some calls to New York, during which his manner grew markedly more deferential. When Meryl departed she was once more ‘Miss Winters’, armed with a special emergency cheque book, and a promise that the official one would be ready next day.
The causeway was clear when they reached the shore, and the first thing they saw was Jarvis’s elderly Jeep making its way cautiously to the end. He stopped when he saw them and Meryl went up to his window.
‘You mad at me?’ she asked.
‘Certainly not,’ he said politely. ‘But we do need that talk.’
‘I agree.’ Before she realised what he meant to do she darted around the front of the vehicle and hopped up into the passenger seat.
‘Drive on,’ she said. ‘Bye, Ferdy.’
Ferdy had been transferring her baggage to the Jeep. He retired, grinning.