Moreton's Kingdom (7 page)

‘Edinburgh is nearer home. I’m an accountant, but Glassary has always been my first love, quite apart from being a splendid investment. I run sheep in the glen and breed cattle to please myself.’

‘And that’s why you want Sandy so much,’ she concluded. ‘You need the satisfaction of knowing Glassary will always bear your name, that you have an heir to inherit all you’ve built.’

‘I don’t think I’ve looked so far into the future,’ he said, opening the door for her.

The hall was rapidly filling with big, tough-looking men, most of them in hand-knitted Aran sweaters and rubber boots up to their knees, looking as if they had just come off the hill. A few had made a concession to convention by donning shirts and a tie, but most of them were heavily bearded and didn’t seem to think them necessary. They were quiet men, ready to relax after a long day in the open, and they regarded her with surprise.

Charles was quite well known to them, but they treated him with obvious respect, although they used his Christian name.

‘Your friends?’ Katherine suggested.

‘I’m glad to say.’ He walked with her to the stairs. ‘We need that sort of contact up here, and you know about friendship, I think.’

It was an oblique reference to why she was in her present situation, she realised, remembering how he had asked what she was prepared to give to her own friendship. ‘Are you an obliging friend, Kate?’ he had asked when they had first met, and perhaps that was what he was thinking about now.

‘Goodnight,’ she said. ‘I hope someone will waken me in the morning.’

‘In case I go off with Sandy without letting you know?’ he queried with a sardonic smile. ‘I have no intention of doing that. Sleep well, Kate!’

He had used her Christian name with a new kind of caution, but she knew that he could not be offering an olive branch. He was still suspicious of her actions in taking Sandy from London, still angry and possibly seeking revenge.

CHAPTER THREE

In
the morning she rose early enough, but someone was up before her. She opened her window to a clatter of pails in the paved area below and the sound of hens clucking as they gathered round the back door. The air she breathed in was cool and sweet, coming straight from the hills with a hint of pine in it, and she saw the trees marching in their neat ranks up to the skyline, clothing the once barren moorland with lush green and the paler fronds of larch.

It was a magic world to discover after a restless night in which she had dreamed of pursuing Sandy and Coralie to the edge of a cliff where she inevitably lost them.

Shivering a little, she washed in ice-cold spring water which had come straight off the hill without the benefit of passing through an inadequate heating system, thinking that it was obviously too early in the day to expect the luxury of hot water and that it didn’t matter, anyway. It was no more than seven o’clock.

As she dressed she listened for the sound of movement in the adjoining rooms, but the walls were thick, as Charles had observed. Yet small children were often noisy when they first woke up in the joyous anticipation of a new day, and she wondered if Sandy had really been spirited away to Glassary in spite of Charles Moreton’s promise.

Finishing her dressing in haste, she pulled open her bedroom door and hurried towards Sandy’s room.

‘Are we awake?’ she asked before she saw that the bed was empty.

The curtains had been drawn back to their fullest extent, letting in the morning sun, but Sandy and his small tartan holdall were nowhere to be seen. Katherine ran to the window to look out. The hens were gathered in a squabbling clutch around some scattered corn, but the yard itself was deserted. Her heart seemed to miss a beat. They’ve gone, she thought. Charles has taken Sandy and double-crossed me!

When he had discussed Glassary so freely the evening before it had all been a tremendous bluff. A vague disappointment struggled with the anger she felt as she hurried down the stairs to the hall below. Someone had cleared up the debris of the evening before and the sound of voices came from the snug, Sandy’s high-pitched treble and a deeper masculine voice which she realised with a surge of relief belonged to Charles.

She found them both seated at the table supping porridge from white, blue-banded bowls.

‘You must have been up very early,’ she remarked, trying to keep the sound of relief out of her voice.

‘Sandy had to feed the hens.’ Charles rose to his feet. ‘Do you take porridge?’ he asked formally.

‘I will this morning,’ she agreed. ‘I suppose it’s the change of air that makes one feel so hungry.’

‘After London,’ he said, ringing the bell on the wall by the fireplace, ‘fresh air and an appetite comes as a surprise.’

Katherine looked at her watch.

‘I thought I might be up before anyone else,’ she said.

‘It’s quarter to eight.’ He pulled out a chair for her. ‘I’m going to take another look at your car—and don’t put sugar on your porridge!’ he warned in a tone he hadn’t used before.

Sandy greeted her thoughtfully.

‘This is the way you take it,’ he said, dipping his spoonful of porridge into the small side bowl next to his plate. ‘It’s—’ He hesitated before a word he had heard often enough. ‘Trinishinal,’ he declared on a note of triumph.

‘I must remember to be traditional!’ Katherine laughed, sitting down beside him. ‘You’ll have to show me how at first, because it seems I’ve been away from Scotland for far too long!’

A young girl in a flowered pinafore came in with fresh porridge.

‘That’s Kirsty,’ Sandy announced, spoon pointing. ‘She helped me to feed the hens.’

‘So I did,’ Kirsty beamed a shy smile in his direction. ‘And now you’ve eaten all your porridge you can have an egg.’

Sandy laid his spoon in his empty bowl.

‘Will I drink the rest of the cream?’ he asked obligingly.

‘As much as you like!’ Kirsty laughed. ‘I’ll bring some more.’

Sandy looked up from his bowl as Emma Falkland came in. She had evidently had her breakfast and no doubt she had tidied up in the lounge after she had finished.

‘I’m going down to the studio,’ she said after she had greeted Katherine with a brief nod. ‘Would you like to come?’

Sandy was on his feet in an instant, taking her hand, and Katherine was quick to recognise the affinity which existed between them.

‘What about that egg?’ she asked. ‘Kirsty was going to bring you one.’

‘I’ll wait till you finish,’ Emma promised, sitting down on the window-seat. ‘Did you sleep well, Miss Rivers?’ she asked.

‘Very well, and I thought I was up first this morning, but evidently I was last!’ Katherine wanted to be friendly. ‘Can I come to the studio, too?’

Emma looked surprised.

‘There’s nothing much to see.’ She hesitated. ‘Come if you like.’

‘There’s the bear with the funny nose,’ Sandy interjected as he battled with his boiled egg.

‘I’ve done something about his nose,’ Emma laughed. ‘Eat up your egg and then you can tell me how much improved you think he is!’

Sandy led the way through the garden to a makeshift shed where Emma evidently worked away from the house. It was full of an artist’s paraphernalia, brushes and old jars and squeezed-out tubes of paint jostling each other for pride of place on the work bench, while wonderfully lifelike little animals looked down at them from the shelves along the walls. Sandy went straight to a table in a corner, standing before it with a look of awe in his round blue eyes.

‘Can I really have it?’ he asked, gazing at the beautifully carved figure of a little bear without actually touching it.

‘I made it especially for you.’ Emma’s voice was exquisitely tender.

When she looked at Sandy her eyes lost much of their hardness and she was no longer cynical. Her work evidently meant a great deal to her and she had carved the little bear with love in her heart. Looking at her, Katherine saw Emma’s rather plain face transfigured by her affection for the child, a little boy who might have been her own.

Hastily she turned away to examine the other sculptures and suddenly there were tears in her eyes. It seemed as if Sandy had been a frequent visitor to the hotel when all was well with his parents’ marriage and he had been happy and content there with Emma. And Emma herself? There was a strange new glow about her as she spoke to the child which could be a reflection of what she felt for his father.

They’re not suited, Katherine thought—the arty-crafty Emma and down-to-earth Charles!

Emma came to stand by her side.

‘I hear you’re going to Glassary,’ she said.

‘I’m being
taken
to Glassary!’ corrected Katherine. ‘Charles thinks I’ll be safer there under his command. It’s outrageous, of course,’ she added angrily. ‘It’s going right back to the Middle Ages when people did these things!’

Emma smiled.

‘He won’t keep you at Glassary any longer than he can help,’ she declared. ‘You’ll be free to go as soon as your car is repaired, I understand. Charles isn’t the ogre you appear to think him and he’s far from being the feudal overlord, believe me. He’s a very busy man, as a matter of fact, running an estate and a lucrative business in Edinburgh into the bargain. Don’t underestimate him.’

She turned back to Sandy, who was now clutching the wooden bear.

‘Your work is beautiful,’ Katherine said impulsively, ‘but why are so many of your sculptures unfinished?’

Emma looked thoughtful.

‘Let’s say I’m out of inspiration,’ she decided. ‘It sounds better than having to admit that I’m lazy.’

The bitterness had crept back into her voice, although she still looked at Sandy with a fondness which could not be denied. It would be little use appealing to Emma for understanding, Katherine thought, far less help.

Charles came in search of them.

‘Time to go,’ he said. ‘I’d like to make Glassary before lunch.’

‘I’ve got a bear!’ Sandy rejoiced, slipping his free hand into his father’s. ‘An’ he’s got a stick to help him walk.’

‘Is that what it is?’' Charles laughed, glancing in Emma’s direction with a twinkle in his eye.

‘Perhaps he’s a lame bear,’ suggested Sandy with a frown. ‘Perhaps he needs a stick to help him.’

Charles turned away, a look in his eyes which Katherine found difficult to fathom, while a dark, angry colour stole into Emma’s cheeks.

‘I hope we’ll see you again before you go back south,’ she said to Charles. ‘I hope there’ll be no more complications.’

Charles was looking idly in Katherine’s direction.

‘I don’t think so,’ he said. ‘We’ve got the ball in our court now.’

Mrs. Falkland came to say goodbye.

‘I’m glad we met,’ she said unexpectedly, holding Katherine’s hand for the conventional few seconds. ‘I expect you’ll be continuing your holiday as soon as your car is repaired.’

There was an odd, waiting silence before Katherine answered.

‘I haven’t come very far out of my way,’ she confessed, ‘and I had no very definite plans.’

She knew that she would have been rejected if she had appealed to Morag for help because, like Emma, Morag would be firmly on Charles’s side, but she felt that she could have asked Emma’s mother for understanding. Perhaps Mrs. Falkland had known Coralie quite well in the past and liked her.

Charles opened the back door of the Rover for her to get in, reserving the front passenger seat for Sandy.

‘Hop in!’ he said. ‘I suppose you want to steer.’

Sandy raised adoring eyes to his.

‘Can the bear sit beside me?’ he asked.

‘Where else?’ Charles said his goodbyes, looking directly at Emma. ‘We’ll see you at Glassary soon, I hope?’

‘Whenever I can get away.’ She put a hand over his. ‘Goodbye, Chay!’

They travelled for the best part of an hour, going deeper and deeper into the mountain fastness, with giant bens crowding the skyline and flashes of bright water shining through forest trees. Charles handed over a road atlas.

‘There’s no reason why you shouldn’t know where you’re going,’ he said. ‘We’re travelling east, but we’ll go south again in a couple of miles.’

Katherine pored over the road map, her head bent to conceal the expression in her eyes. She could not fathom this man’s disposition, at one moment severe, the next warm and understanding, especially when he looked at the child. It had been the same when he had looked at Emma and, to a lesser extent, her mother. There was understanding, but there was something more. Had a long and abiding friendship turned eventually into love?

It was something she could only speculate about, not something she wanted to understand, she told herself defiantly.

Soon they were turning into a hidden glen, following a silver thread of water until they were finally at their destination. Katherine held her breath when she first saw Glassary, thinking that a more remote place could hardly be imagined. Remote and beautiful. She gazed at the surrounding peaks closing in the dark stretch of loch water and the turreted house set above it on a grey crag. The ultimate fortress, she thought with sudden alarm, a grim citadel which looked as if it might contain an ancient dungeon surrounded by an impregnable wall.

In the bright light of day, however, it smiled at their approach, and Sandy at least was happy to be there.

‘Can I go to see Fudge?’ he asked excitedly, forgetting Emma’s gift of the bear.

Charles smiled.

‘All in good time,’ he agreed. ‘We’ve been fattening him up for you!’

The blue eyes regarded him lovingly.

‘Did he miss me awf’lly?’ Sandy wanted to know.

‘Ponies and little boys generally miss each other!’

Again the face of understanding, Katherine thought. Charles really did love the child and therein lay the ultimate tragedy. However much they pulled apart, Coralie and her former husband had this much in common; Sandy was their only child, the little boy they must have loved in the beginning with all their hearts, one accusing the other with merciless intent because they both wanted him whatever the consequences. Because they loved him they would tear themselves apart all in the cause of love.

Studying the dark face of the man behind the wheel, she tried to see more than determination in the steely eyes and protruding jaw, but what she saw still disconcerted her. Then, as the morning sunshine still dazzled her eyes, she looked beyond him to the shadows cast by the surrounding mountains on the grey, turreted house above the loch.

‘Why have you left my car so far behind?’ she demanded as they approached it along a narrow spur of rock which stretched like an arm into the water. ‘Surely there’s a suitable garage nearer this—this fortress?’

Charles smiled at the words she had chosen as he drove steadily towards his home.

‘I left it at Killin because there’s really no great hurry,’ he said evenly. ‘I mean to keep you in “this fortress”, as you call it, until I can convince myself that you’re no longer a danger to us, that you’re not the sort of person I think you are.’

‘What does that mean?’ Katherine demanded when she recovered her breath.

Charles considered her through his driving mirror, meeting her challenge with a faint smile.

‘It means that you and I think along the same lines,’ he said. ‘You evidently despise me for taking Sandy away from his mother and I feel sure that you intend to trick us whenever and however you can. I don’t believe you were coming to Scotland entirely on holiday at the right moment; I think your sympathies were with Coralie all along.’

She gazed at his unresponsive back view, aware that her futile anger only amused him, and then she, too, was looking ahead at the house they were approaching.