Mariana (22 page)

'Dress or casual?' was his only question.

'I beg your pardon?'

"The shoes,' he elaborated. 'Dress or casual?'

'Oh. Casual.'

'Right.
I'll be
there in five minutes.'

I relayed the message to Vivien, who smiled like a child getting a present. 'Wonderful,' she said. 'Come on through to the bar, you two, and I'll open a bottle of wine.'

Iain followed us through the connecting door from Vivien's rooms to the front of the pub, his eyebrows lifting. 'A vicar who drinks wine at ten o'clock in the morning,' he mused, speculatively. 'This I have to see.'

He got his opportunity when, true to his word, Tom pulled into the car park five minutes later. When Vivien opened the door to him, he was standing on the step balancing one of my tennis shoes on his upraised fingertips as though it were the glass slipper.

'I have brought you a tennis shoe,' he said dramatically. 'Does that qualify me to enter these premises?'
'Idiot,' I greeted him. 'Come on in.' I took the shoe from his hand. 'What, you only brought the one?'

'I could only find the one,' he responded dryly. 'Your cupboard is a disaster.'

'You can borrow a pair of my shoes,' Vivien assured me, laughing. 'I've got dozens.'

She found me a pair of well-worn loafers, and we spent a mirthful couple of hours sitting at the bar, watching the level of the wine bottle sink. I was pleased to see how well Tom and Iain got on together, after they had been introduced. One stray comment about politics, and the two men were soon deep in animated conversation, moving from subject to subject at the speed of light, while Vivien and I sat back on our stools and drank our wine at a leisured pace.

'I quite like Iain Sumner,' Tom told me later, when we had tottered out of the Red Lion and strapped ourselves into the car.

'I'm glad,' I said. 'Should you be driving?'

My brother sent me a superior glance. 'I only had one glass. Unlike some people.'

I attempted a dignified expression. 'Are you implying I'm drunk, or something?'

'Plastered.' He nodded. 'And before noon, at that.' He clucked his tongue reprovingly. 'I'm shocked.'

'Get over it,' I retorted good-naturedly, rolling my head sideways against the seat to look at him. 'It's good to see you, Tom. I don't think you ever visited me this much when I lived in London. You'll be wearing grooves in the motorway.'

He smiled. 'It's just a flying visit, this one. I'm on my way to a conference in Bristol. I just thought I'd stop and say hello, while I was in the neighborhood.'

I studied his face. 'Mother sent you to check up on me, didn't she?'

'Bingo.'

'Well, you can tell her I'm fine,' I said, looking back at
the windshield. We were on the road now, just leaving the village, the hedgerows closing in on either side of us.

'You can't really blame her for worrying,' Tom commented. 'That's what mothers are supposed to do. You had me rather worried myself, this morning, when I turned up and found you missing.'

'I couldn't get back to sleep after I got off the phone with Mum,' I explained. 'So I went for a walk.'

My brother slowed the car to let a hedgehog scramble across the road. 'You didn't lock the door when you left.'

'I'm not overly fond of that new lock,' I told him. 'It's very stiff, and I can't always turn it. So unless I'm going to be miles away from home, I just don't bother. Besides,' I added in a practical tone, 'Iain does work in that back garden, sometimes, and he might need to get a drink of water, or use the lav.'

"The village life, indeed.' My brother smiled, faintly. 'If I were a less trusting person,' he said, 'I might think that you'd gone on one of your little excursions into the Middle Ages.'

"The seventeenth century,' I corrected him.

If he asked me directly, I thought, I would have to tell him. I had never been any good at telling lies to Tom—he could always find me out. But he didn't ask.

'Whatever.' He shrugged, and gathered speed again, and we drove the rest of the way in silence.

Twenty-two

The month of June was a glorious one, long sun-filled days and warm, scented nights, when the summer breeze came drifting across the greening fields while a nightingale sang to its mate in the darkness, down by the murmuring river. Even the rains fell more softly, and the little dovecote garden crept shyly into bloom. The columbine and iris bowed down to make way for bolder sprays of red valerian, and a mingled profusion of clustered Canterbury bells and sweet william, pale blues and pinks intertwined, danced at the feet of more stately spears of deep-purple foxglove and monkshood.

The changing nature of the garden fascinated me. By borrowing books from Iain I learned the name of each and every new flower, and soon the flowers themselves were working their way into my drawings, lending joyful colour and variety to the dark medieval forests of my fairy tales. My editor was thrilled with the samples I sent her, and if she noticed that all my princes bore a peculiar resemblance to one another, she made no comment.

I, too, was blossoming, basking in the sweet exhilaration that heralds the beginning of a new romance.

Geoff had returned home two days after my walk by the
river, and on the Saturday evening, as promised, he treated me to dinner and dancing at an elegant restaurant this side of Swindon.

It was an incredibly magical night, like something out of one of the fairy tales I'd been so diligently illustrating. The restaurant itself might have been a
set
from a film—all candles and flowers and linen and waiters who never hurried. By the time we had finished our after-dinner cognac, I think I had fallen halfway in love with Geoffrey de Mornay. I'd have had to be superhuman not to.

We didn't really change toward one another, but as the month waned, it became apparent that something had been added to our relationship, a hint of potential yet to be realized that lurked beneath the friendly smiles and easy conversation. I was being wooed.

With my days divided equally between work and play, I had little time for further experimental trips into the past. Whenever I felt the warning dizziness begin to rise, I quickly forced it back, closing my eyes tightly and resisting the whirling darkness with every ounce of my being. Plenty of time for that later, I reasoned. But every morning, when I paused to finger Mariana's bracelet, the jeweled eyes of the birds of paradise stared up at me in mute accusation. 'I haven't forgotten,' I argued, speaking as much to the face in the mirror as to the gilt birds. 'I only want a little bit of fun, that's all.'

It was rather like being on holiday. Geoff and I walked the long paths that snaked through field and countryside, spent afternoons poking about antique shops, and evenings playing darts and sharing stories at the Red Lion, under Vivien's indulgent eye. I celebrated my thirtieth birthday at the Lion, and the taps flowed freely, each of the old men at the corner table insisting on standing me a birthday drink. I had forbidden anyone to buy me a gift, but still Geoff gave me roses, and Vivien produced a pair of earrings, and even Iain gave me a present—a shining garden trowel with a bow
tied round it. 'So you'll stop losing mine,' he told me dryly. 'There must be ten trowels rusting in the field as it is.'

At the month's end my parents finally flew back from Auckland, and Tom and I drove together down to Heathrow to collect them. True to form, they insisted upon seeing my house straightaway, before going home to Oxford. Their reactions were much as I'd expected. My mother, her mind full of plans for wallpapers and curtains, wandered round the rooms in a pleasantly preoccupied state, while my father bounced once or twice on the floorboards to check the soundness of the structure. Hands in his pockets, he lowered his chin to his chest and nodded, faintly. 'Very nice,' he said. It was the highest praise I could have hoped for, and my spirit swelled.

I grew reckless in my happiness. On one memorable afternoon in the first week of July, Geoff coaxed me into going riding with him, despite the fact that I hadn't been on horseback since my schooldays. Fortunately, only the horse seemed aware of my lack of skill, and I put on a brave show by keeping my back ramrod straight and my expression calm.

'You see?' Geoff turned an encouraging smile in my direction when we paused to rest the horses. 'You needn't have worried. You ride perfectly well.'

Leaning forward in my saddle I patted my mare's neck, silently thanking her for graciously allowing me to stay on her back. 'Yes, well.' I affected a casual tone. 'I suppose there are some things one never forgets.' The mare's ears twitched, catching the lie, but Geoff was already looking the other way.

'Well, this is it,' he told me. 'The end of the property.'

'Where?' I looked for a fence, and found none.

'Just beyond that row of trees. It used to go much farther,
of course,
but most of the land's been sold off
over the
years. It would be foolish to own that much land these days, I think. And selfish.'

It all depended, I thought, upon one's sense of proportion. After all, the manor lands stretched practically to my back door, and it had just taken us half an hour to ride from the Hall to the westernmost boundary of the property.

After a moment Geoff turned his horse to follow the line of trees, and with a graceful step my mare fell in behind, moving as cautiously as a thoughtful pony balancing a small child. I let the reins lie loose upon her neck, and enjoyed the scenery.

'It's so lovely, Geoff,' I said, watching a hawk trace lazy circles high over our heads. 'How can you bear to leave it as often as you do?'

He shrugged, and half turned in his saddle to speak over his shoulder. 'I don't know. I like variety, I guess. My home in France is just as beautiful. I don't think I could stand being tied to one place my whole life. Besides, this has always been more my father's house than mine.'

I was silent, thinking over something he'd said. 'Why France?' I asked him.

He turned again. 'I beg your pardon?'

'Why did you buy a house in France? Do you have family connections there?'

'Not really,' he replied. 'Though I suppose if I carried the family history across the Channel I'd find a whole army of de Mornay cousins populating the countryside. The first de Mornay was a Norman, after all. No, I bought the house because I liked it. It has a gorgeous view of the Mediterranean, and there's a harbor close by where I can keep my boat. And the sun shines all the time,' he added, 'which puts it a notch above Exbury, in my book.'

'I thought you said you liked variety,' I reminded him with a smile, and he shook his head staunchly.

'Not when it comes to weather.'

From the corner of my eye I caught the glimmer of a shadow moving among the trees to the right of us. Excited, I called Geoff s attention to it a split second before a stag—a majestic, powerful stag with branching antlers—broke clear of its cover and went bounding across the field in front of
us. When it had disappeared into another cluster of trees I turned to Geoff, my eyes still shining, and found him watching me with a quizzical expression.

'Who's Richard?' he asked me calmly.

'What?'

'You called me Richard just now.'

My smile was not quite natural. 'Did I? I can't imagine why. Sorry.'

'Old flame, is he?' He clung to it, persistent.

'Something like that.' I nodded, trying to turn it into a joke. 'Why, are you jealous?'

Instead of smiling back, as I had expected, he kept his eyes hard on my face for a long moment before answering.

'I'm not sure,' he said slowly. After another moment the smile came, the one I had been waiting to see. 'Come on,' he invited, turning his horse toward the tall chimneys of Crofton Hall, 'I'll race you back to the stables.'

The heavens took pity on me, and by some miracle I managed
to
remain upright for the thundering gallop back. In the stableyard I dismounted with dignity, my knees still shaking at the thought of how nearly I had escaped sailing over the mare's head into the manure pile when we'd finally stopped running.

'Stiff?' Geoff eyed me assessingly as the groom led our horses away.

‘A little.' Which was an understatement. I was hobbling like a bandy-legged cowboy, and I knew it. 'It has
been a while since I've ridden.'

He smiled knowingly. 'You did fine. Better than fine, actually.' He took hold of my elbow and steered me toward the house. 'Come on, let's see what we can find in Freda's kitchen.'

What we found, quite unexpectedly, was Iain, rocking back on a kitchen chair with his boots propped against the table rail underneath, smoking a cigarette in an attitude of wholly masculine satisfaction.

'What was that?' Geoff asked, pointing at the suspiciously empty plate 6% the table in front of his friend.

Iain grinned. 'Steak and kidney pudding,' he said, 'with homemade chips, a salad, and blackberry crumble.'

'You bastard,' Geoff said with a slow smile. 'How do you do it?'

Iain tilted his jaw indignantly. 'I've been working hard all day, my lad, not cantering about the countryside like the bleeding gentry. How was your ride, by the way?'

'I stayed on top of the horse,' I answered. 'It was a success.'

We didn't see much of Iain these days, it seemed. Now that the truly warm weather had arrived, he was too busy working his farm and the orchard to make it into town on a regular basis. I found I missed him, and his undemanding presence.

'How are the sheep?' I asked him, in my turn.

'Stupid as ever. I thought I'd take a break from them today and get some work done on the rose garden, here.'

Geoff sent him a fatherly look. 'We have a gardener to do all the slogging, Iain. You don't need to worry about it, you'll only wear yourself out.'

'When your gardener learns to do the job properly, I'll stop worrying,' Iain promised dryly. 'Besides, I thought I'd try something a little different this year. I'll be wanting your opinion on it, if you can spare the time.'

'When?'

Iain shrugged his broad shoulders. 'How about now? It shouldn't take long.'

Geoff checked his wristwatch, looked at me, and waited for my nod before answering. 'Okay,' he said. 'If you think you can still move after that meal you've eaten. Where is Freda, by the way?'

'She went to dust the library.' Iain took his feet off the table rail and brought his chair forward with a crash. 'That was about fifteen minutes ago.'
'Right.' Geoff turned to me. 'I don't suppose you could track her down for me?'

I looked at him dubiously. 'What, in the public side of the house, d'you mean?'

'Sure. You'll have no trouble,' he assured me. 'We don't take many tours through this late in the afternoon. You know which door to use? Good. See if you can't persuade Freda to whip us up some reasonable facsimile of Iain's feast, here.'

'I'll see what I can do,' I promised.

He sent me a wink and a winning smile before following Iain out the back door. The low hum of conversation and laughter rattled the windowpanes as the two men passed by on their way to the rose garden.

When they had gone, I went back down the dim, uneven passageway and pushed open the heavy door at the end, the door that divided Geoff s private domain from the public portion of the manor house. Passing through another door, I found myself standing in the Great Hall, staring up at the colossal fireplace and the carved and painted coat of arms that crowned it. The hooded hawks upon the bloodied shield looked fiercer than I remembered them, their golden talons grasping at air.
Indestructible.
That was the translation Geoff had given of the family's Latin motto. I looked at those talons again and shivered.

The great house was quiet, as Geoff had said it would be. No footsteps but my own echoed through the cavernous room as I moved from shadowed dimness into sunlight beneath the tall east-facing windows. I didn't really expect to find Mrs. Hutherson still in the library, but there was no harm in looking there first. And if I happened to waste a few minutes looking at the books, well, that could hardly be helped, could it? Especially since there were no tour guides or other visitors to spoil my enjoyment of the lovely room.

I had forgotten, of course, about the portrait.
His
portrait. From the moment I entered the studious silence of the library, I felt Richard de Mornay's eyes upon me, as surely
as if the painted image had been a living man. I stared hard at a shelf of books, even read the titles of some of the more beautiful volumes, but always my gaze kept returning to the black and towering figure, watching me steadily from his corner of the room.

Finally I gave up altogether and walked over to stand before the portrait, aware that the cleverly painted eyes had followed my approach. Clasping my hands behind my back, I tilted my head upward to get a better look, marveling at the skill of an artist who could so perfectly capture the arrogant set of a jaw, the placement of hand on hip, the barely discernible half smile that lingered knowingly on those lips....

What had become of this man, I wondered, that future generations had forgotten his name? 'We've dubbed him The Playboy,' Geoff had said to me when I'd first commented on the portrait. An inglorious legacy, certainly, for any man. I had looked for Richard de Mornay's name in the weighty registers of baptisms, marriages, and deaths that the vicar of St. John's Church kept locked in the vestry. The vicar himself had helped me, peering with failing eyes at the neatly handwritten entries, row upon row. 'My eyesight's not what it used to be,' the kindly old
man
had apologized. 'I used to do this sort of thing by the hour, you know, searching out names for Americans tracing their ancestry. No,' he had said finally, 'there doesn't appear to be a Richard. Of course,' he had added, by way of consolation, 'we don't have all the registers. Some were lost, you understand, during the Interregnum, when Cromwell was in power. It was not a pleasant time for the Church, I'm afraid.' He smiled gently. 'The Roundheads often destroyed records, and all things sacred to our Church, and even when they did keep up the registers the entries were sadly incomplete. This register here, you see, ends in the year 1626, and the next does not begin until 1653, nearly thirty years later. But you may perhaps find a later reference....'