Hidden (Marchwood Vampire Series #1) (10 page)

Madison had
bought a couple of large zip-up bags to pack their stuff in. She’d
also bought them a decent mobile phone each and a few clothes. She
had all this money she didn’t really know what to do with. When
she’d opened her bank account and seen the balance, she wondered
how she’d ever be able to spend it all. And she would be getting
the same amount every month. It was mental.

Their train only travelled as far as Bath, where they would
be met by someone called Morris, one of the caretakers of the house
...
her
house. He
would drive them to Tetbury where they would soon be
living.

Vasey-Smith
had told her about Esther and Morris Foxton, the caretakers of
Marchwood House. He’d said they would be very pleased to stay on
and continue looking after it, ensuring the house and grounds were
always clean and in good repair. Esther could also shop and cook
for them.

Maddy wasn’t
sure if she liked the idea of two strangers being in her house, but
Vasey-Smith assured her they would be very discreet and would only
be in the house between agreed times. They lived in a small cottage
on the edge of the Marchwood Estate.

Madison
thought about it. She had no experience of running a large house,
any house for that matter. She guessed it would take a lot of work
and it would be handy to have someone to take care of the cooking.
She agreed that, as long as they all got on okay, she’d like them
to stay. As the house was out in the sticks somewhere, a few miles
from town, Morris would be their driver.

At Paddington
the atmosphere had been frantic, noisy and rushed, but as they
pulled into Bath Station, things felt different, rural. People even
seemed to walk more slowly. Through the window, she saw hanging
baskets and tubs with flowers. It was – what was the word? –
Quaint. But if Bath was supposed to be a city, what would it be
like on the outskirts of a small village? She nudged Ben’s arm with
her elbow.

‘
We’re here, mate. You can stop killing things.’

Ben looked up,
stretched and shoved his DSi in his rucksack. Vasey-Smith expertly
shook his newspaper closed and left it on the table. They pulled
their travel bags out from the luggage racks and stepped off the
train. The solicitor asked if they were alright and then strode
purposefully towards the exit, where a man stood waiting. Madison
and Ben followed. The two men shook hands.

‘
Madison, Ben, this is Morris Foxton. He and his wife do a
wonderful job of looking after your house. Morris, meet Madison and
Benjamin Greene, the new residents of Marchwood.’

Morris was a
red-cheeked, stocky, middle-aged man, with thick, dark, greying
hair, wearing jeans and a checked shirt. For the first time in her
life, Madison felt her own clothes might be a bit much. She wore
her nose ring, a short kilt, black scruffy t shirt, laddered tights
and black biker boots.

‘
Hello, Miss Greene, Ben.’ He shook their hands. ‘If you
follow me, the car’s this way.’ Morris Foxton sounded quiet and
disinterested, a slight West Country drawl to his voice. He took
Madison’s and Ben’s bags from them, not leaving any time for them
to protest that they could manage. They followed him out into the
car park.

Once in the
car, a battered navy blue estate, Maddy began to feel queasy.
Morris and Vasey-Smith were making pleasantries in the front and
she and Ben sat in the back. She felt like a little kid and could
tell Morris wasn’t thrilled to see them. It wasn‘t anything he had
said or done, he hadn‘t even looked at them strangely. It was just
a feeling.

Ben also looked worried, so she pinched his knee and pulled a
weird face at him. He pulled one back and Maddy felt slightly
better. She looked up and saw Morris watching her stupid expression
in the rear view mirror. They made eye contact and he looked
away.
Oh no
,
thought Maddy,
he’s a right
weirdo
.

The drive to
Tetbury took about forty minutes. The road swept them up out of the
valley, high along a ridge which looked out across the fields and
villages. It was a bright but blustery afternoon and the wind
swirled around the car, making low wailing noises. They stayed on
the same road for a long time.

Ben asked
Maddy the odd question and they exclaimed over real live cows,
sheep and horses in the fields which neither of them had ever seen
before; unless you counted the huge scary horses that the mounted
coppers sat astride on Friday and Saturday nights, back in
town.

The house
would be legally hers, so why did Maddy feel like an impostor?
These emotions were alien to her. She was used to being a bit of a
tough nut, a rebel of sorts, fighting against the system. She knew
who she was and she knew the image she liked to project - to her
friends she was cool and to authority she was trouble. She always
looked good, if slightly intimidating, but she’d created this shell
around herself to fit in with a harsh environment. Here, away from
everything familiar, she felt small and insecure.

Maddy hated to admit it, but she really did feel like a
little kid out of her depth. She was being propelled towards
something new and grown up and solid. Something she wasn’t sure she
could cope with. But she
had
to cope with it. Ben needed her to be strong and
look after him.
She
wasn’t the kid,
he
was.

The car slowed
and they turned onto a narrower road, bordered by tall hedges.
Small birds flitted in and out of the foliage and Morris had to
pull in several times to let other vehicles go by. Ugh, it really
was the back arse of nowhere … and she had agreed to live here.

‘
Maddy, look!’ Ben pointed to large blue tractor trundling up
the road ahead of them, making them slow to a crawl. It was a huge
noisy thing, pulling a trailer loaded high with what looked like
large barrels, covered in black bin bags.

‘
It’s the harvest,’ Morris briefly turned to look at Ben.
‘That’s hay under the plastic, stops it getting wet.’

‘
Oooh arrr, Farmer Ben,’ Maddy whispered to Ben, who
giggled.

‘
Nearly there,’ Morris said, overtaking the tractor as its
driver waved them forward.

They drove
through a small, but gorgeous town with a large market square and
lots of pretty shops selling lots of expensive stuff. Antique
stores, clothing boutiques, posh wine bars and restaurants.
Snobby-looking couples holding hands, or sliding into sleek cars.
Kids with expensive clothes and no worries on their Gucci-clad
shoulders. Even the local supermarket had stone columns outside it.
This wasn’t Madison’s world.

They sped
through the town and came back out into open countryside. High
hedgerows lined one side of the road and a dry-stone wall bordered
the other. After a few minutes, Morris indicated left and swung the
car through a large set of open gates which sat between two stone
pillars.

‘
Welcome to Marchwood,’ he said without ceremony.

The vehicle crawled up a gently sloping tree-lined avenue
-
her
tree-lined
avenue! The trees swayed loftily and the long grass in the adjacent
fields turned from green to silver to grey as the wind stroked it
in different directions. As the winding avenue unfurled before
them, Ben clutched at Maddy’s arm in excitement, almost jumping up
and down.

‘
Deer! Look, Mads, those are deer. That’s the male ‘cos it’s
got antlers, we did that at school. We got deer, Mads. Can you
believe it? This is our place. My mates won’t believe it, when I
tell them! They’re gonna be so-o jealous. It’s wicked,
man.’

Maddy had to agree, it
was
‘wicked, man’. The brochure hadn’t done this
place justice at all.

‘
You’ll have to invite them to stay and then you’ll be the
most popular kid in the ...’ But Madison stopped mid-sentence, awed
into silence as they rounded the bend at the top of the hill.
Nothing had prepared her for this moment. For there, in all its
eighteenth century glory, sat the most breathtakingly beautiful
house she had ever seen.

Pale grey sash
windows with wooden shutters looked out from three floors of
perfect proportions. Mellow stone blended into lush, flower-filled
gardens and powder-purple wisteria climbed lovingly around the
large wooden panelled front door. It was a picture book house. All
her worries and doubts about Trevor and Angie and leaving London
and getting along with caretakers and everything else, evaporated
into nothing. Because at that moment, in that heart-stopping
second, she knew at last, this was where she was supposed to
be.

Chapter
Six

1881

*

The following
morning, the Chevaliers and the Swintons began the next leg of
their journey. Alexandre’s father had ordered four carriages to
collect them from outside their hotel at eight o’clock.

As they drove
through Smyrna, Alexandre absorbed the colourful sights and scents.
The city had a strong European flavour despite its Oriental roots
and he heard all manner of languages being spoken. He saw
smartly-dressed Greeks, pipe-smoking Turks, Armenians in flowing
robes and Bedouins with bare legs and covered heads.

Caught up in
excitement, his brother was pointing and exclaiming, asking
question upon question about everything, which Freddie did a good
job of answering. Alexandre felt a little resentful that, at
fifteen, Freddie was so knowledgeable whereas at eighteen he,
Alexandre, knew next to nothing.

They passed
small donkeys, mules, dejected dogs and haughty looking ostriches.
Camels swayed in single file with heavy loads of wheat or raw
silks. Crowded bazaars sold woven rugs, spices, scents, fruits and
clothing of every colour and texture.

There was no
train route to their final destination and the roads were unfit for
coaches so, despite Isobel’s reluctance, they were to take the
camel train. It started at Caravan Bridge, a Byzantine aqueduct
north of the main city.

It was a pretty area with antique fountains, twisting grape
vines and coffee gardens under shady cypress trees. Relaxed groups
of Turks dressed in loose kaftans squatted on cushions and rush
mats smoking long
chibouks
. Rows of camels stretched
their hessian necks and stared rudely at the approaching
foreigners. They ranged in colour from dark brown, through tan,
beige and honey to the palest sand, making up a desert
rainbow.

After
prolonged negotiations, the two families finally sat on pack
saddles atop the lumbering beasts whilst sturdy black buffalo
pulled crude wooden carts laden with their luggage and supplies.
And so they were on their way.

For the first
couple of days, they passed gentle scenery - dark pine forests and
clear running waters teeming with fish and croaking frogs.
Green-clothed mountains made up the backdrop, complete with
majestic eagles hypnotically circling their zigzag peaks. But as
the days went by, the landscape gradually became more monotonous,
harsh and barren.

The days were
hot and relentless, the nights, cold and short. The camel train
travelled for nine hours each day on roads of flattened earth and
the party spent most nights in the open air, on rugs and blankets
around pine log fires. Their armed Turkish guides ensured they all
slept safely, but that did not stop Alexandre clutching his pistol
under his straw pillow each night.

He did not
know why, but Leonora had finally softened towards him and he often
looked up to see her riding alongside him. Delighted at her
overtures of friendship, he gratefully stopped ignoring her. Now
there was just Isobel left to win over.

Alexandre
enjoyed making Leonora laugh with his witty conversation, regaling
her with watered-down stories of dare-devil exploits with college
friends back home.

‘…
and there we were, miles from anywhere in the
pouring rain without a single centime between us for a cab fare. It
was dark and so Antoine and I discreetly jumped up on to the
outside of a moving omnibus heading towards our
neighbourhood.

‘
We clung on to the back for dear life, praying the horses
would not take the corners too fast. But as bad luck would have it,
an awful lady inside the omnibus spotted us two fellows holding on
by our fingernails and do you know what she did?’

Leonora shook
her head.

‘
She took her umbrella and she poked us through the window
with it. The wicked old witch prodded and pushed at us until we
could hold on no longer.’

‘
Oh no!’ Leonora gasped.

‘
So we ended up bruised and battered, lying in the Bois de
Boulogne and forced to walk miles to get home, in the freezing cold
and very wet night.’

‘
I do not believe it,’ she said. ‘The perfect Alexandre
Chevalier lying in the gutter. So you are not quite the golden boy
you appear to be.’

‘
Golden,’ he retorted. ‘I should say dull lead, or maybe
tarnished copper at a stretch.’

‘
No, I think we can go one better,’ she replied, daring to
hold his gaze for a split second longer than strictly decent. ‘How
about sterling silver?’

‘
Silver? I’ll take it,’ he grinned.

After five
days of relentless travelling she still looked quite stunning. Her
cutaway coat fitted her slim body perfectly and her curves sat in
all the right places. He loved the way she looked up at him with
those pale eyes from under dark lashes, half-hidden by the net veil
on her hat.