Moreton's Kingdom (5 page)

An odd reluctance to part with him had made her hesitate, but there really wasn’t any room for sentiment at this stage, she tried to tell herself. Sandy wasn’t hers, although how anyone could part with him as casually as Coralie had done was beyond her comprehension. The word Coralie had used about him was ‘docile’, but it wasn’t quite true. At the tender age of three and a bit there was an odd sort of acceptance about Sandy which had already touched her heart.

By the time they had reached Loch Lomond he was asleep again and she was forced to make another decision—whether to go on or spend the night at Tarbet. Sandy was tired and so was she, but at least Sandy was able to sleep. She pressed on, reaching Ardlui as the sun dipped towards the western mountains and going into Glen Falloch in search of a suitable resting place for the night.

She had travelled that way before, but she had completely forgotten about its loneliness and the lack of amenities among some of Scotland’s grandest mountains. The Trossachs had been her vague destination, but now she was to the west of them with the great bens and lochs of the Highlands ahead of her.

To go on, or veer to the west towards Oban and the Isles?

The car made her decision for her. The engine noise of which she had been vaguely aware since Ardlui became more pronounced, reaching a grinding crescendo as she pulled into the next passing-bay.

Sandy slept on in blissful ignorance of their plight, undisturbed by the fact that the soporific motion of the car had ceased, and Katherine decided not to waken him even to offer him one of the left-over sandwiches from their alfresco lunch.

Lifting the bonnet, she gazed at the engine, realising how little she knew about the mechanics of her hitherto reliable mode of travel, and finally coming to the conclusion that she was in need of professional help. Looking about her, she was quickly aware that she could not have been stranded in a more lonely place. She was well into the glen surrounded on every side by formidable mountains rearing their heads against the paling blue of the northern sky as they crowded the horizon, one above the other, rising over three thousand feet to the knees of Ben More. The great ben dominated everything, with Stob Binnein and Stob Garb and Cruach Ardrain crowding around the lesser giants of the Grampians to form a barrier to her further progress.

The suggestion of their invincible might dismayed her for a moment until she forced herself to think back. A little way along the road she had passed a telephone kiosk. It could not be more than half a mile away and it was her only means of dealing with her present situation. In over an hour she hadn’t passed another car.

Tucking the travelling rug more securely around her sleeping passenger, she locked the back door and set out, but when she reached the kiosk it was out of order—vandalised. Not here, she thought. Surely not in a place like this!

The fact remained, however, that her one means of reaching the outside world had been denied her, and she hurried back to the lay-by. She had not passed one single vehicle in the time it had taken her to walk to the kiosk and run back.

Breathless, she opened the car door. Sandy had gone.

Seconds passed as she gazed incredulously at the empty back seat. Her travelling rug lay on the floor, the cushion which had cradled Sandy’s head tossed aside as if to suggest that he had no further use for it, yet nothing else had been disturbed. She searched the boot, but both her own suitcase and his little tartan grip were still there.

‘Sandy!’ she called in her desperation. ‘Where are you?’

It was a cry from the heart, she realised, a plea which she really didn’t expect to be answered, and her mind seemed to go blank for a moment, but finally she told herself that a child of Sandy’s age would hardly wander away from the security of a parked car even if the sun was still shining and only the great shadow of the bens darkened the glen.

She shivered as she looked about her at the stark beauty of the surrounding mountains which she would have appreciated so much under happier circumstances. There was no sound except for the gurgle of running water somewhere near at hand, nothing to suggest human habitation for the next few miles.

She listened, tensed, for the sound of another car, but all was quietness and peace. Peace in nature, but not in her own heart, she thought, knowing a sudden, panic fear. She had done the most foolish thing imaginable, leaving Sandy asleep in the car and locking the back door but not her own. It had been such a short distance to the kiosk, not much more than half a mile, but in the space of time it had taken her to reach the box and run back Sandy had disappeared.

Why had she felt impelled to run? Even before she had reached the lay-by there had been a sense of panic in her, the need to protect a little boy with curly fair hair and amazingly blue eyes who had put a small, trusting hand in her own and gone with her willingly into this absurd adventure.

Angry with herself and her mechanical ignorance, she explored the engine again, although with little real hope, her head under the bonnet as she checked water and oil, which was something she did know about. Then, shattering the silence, she heard the sound she had been waiting for. A car was approaching along the road ahead of her. Help was at hand.

Even before the Rover swung into the lay-by she knew who her rescuer must be.

‘Having trouble?’

Charles Moreton had caught up with her.

‘So it was you?’ Katherine glared at him angrily. ‘What have you done with him?’ She searched the back of the grey car. ‘You took Sandy, didn’t you? You’ve—kidnapped him!’

Charles looked slightly amused.

‘It’s a strong word to use, but yes, I’ve taken him,’ he agreed. ‘If you’re concerned about his safety, however, you needn’t worry,’ he added. ‘He’s in good hands.’

‘Yours, I suppose you mean?’ she challenged. ‘But that isn’t quite good enough. I promised to look after him, to—to protect him.’

‘You weren’t exactly doing that when you left him alone in a parked car with a door open,’ he pointed out, the smile fading from his eyes.

Katherine took a step towards him.

‘What have you done with him?’ Her voice was not quite steady, although it was absurd to suppose that he had harmed his own child. ‘Where have you taken him?’

‘He’s in safe keeping not more than a mile away.’

‘I demand to know where!’ She stamped her foot. ‘You’re not to be trusted.’

His eyes were ice-cold as he gazed back at her and there was a cruel twist to his mouth as he said:

‘I suppose Coralie told you that.’

‘She did, and I think it must be true. You’ve been following me for two days ever since we left London, and in the end you took Sandy without a word.’

The hard mouth looked even harder as he continued to gaze at her.

‘Has it never occurred to you that you might be equally suspect where I’m concerned?’ he asked. ‘Up until two days ago we’d never met, and then I discover you’re aiding and abetting Coralie in one of her wilder schemes.’

‘I was helping her to protect her child,’ Katherine cried defensively. ‘There can be no harm in that when she was at her wits’ end, not knowing what to do.’

‘You’re painting me a picture of a Coralie I’ve never seen,’ he assured her cynically. ‘How well do you really know her?’

‘Well enough to imagine how she must feel,’ Katherine declared. ‘I know how much she must hate the idea of parting with her child.’

‘Where is she now?’ he demanded as if he hadn’t heard her defence of Sandy’s mother.

‘I don’t know.’ It was a lame sort of admission even if it was the truth.

‘You can’t hope to protect her by lying.’ He took her by the arm, his fingers sinking into her flesh as he sought to detain her.

‘I’m not lying!’ Katherine cried. ‘I phoned her from the Lake District last night and again this morning—’

‘And?’ he prompted, still holding her.

‘There was no reply.’

‘That hardly surprises me,’ he said dryly.

She shook herself free.

‘I’m not going to discuss Coralie,’ she declared, ‘but I think I sympathise with her now, more than ever. You’re completely ruthless,’ she accused. ‘The man in authority, no doubt, in your own environment, but you have no right to take Sandy under the circumstances.’

‘I think I have every right.’ He moved towards the back of the car. ‘If you’ll give me your keys I’ll get Sandy’s bag.’

She rubbed her arm where she could still feel the grip of his strong fingers.

‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘I’m not handing him over like this as if he were some kind of chattel. I agree I was foolish,’ she rushed on, ‘leaving him alone even for so short a time, but he was fast asleep and I knew I hadn’t far to go to reach the phone box.’

‘Did it not occur to you that he might have wakened up and been afraid?’ he asked icily.

‘I thought of that, but it was the chance I had to take,’ she admitted.

‘You appear to take chances easily,’ Charles Moreton pointed out.

‘Not as a rule.’

‘But this time,’ he suggested with deepening sarcasm, ‘you couldn’t resist helping an old school friend? I find that touching in the extreme.’

He held out his hand, but she kept the keys.

‘I don’t intend you to get away with this,’ she decided. ‘I’m not going to hand over Sandy’s luggage just because you say so. He’s my responsibility at present.’

‘And mine.’ A flash of anger sparked in the grey eyes under the beetling black brows. ‘Please let me have your keys.’

He continued to hold out his hand, his angry gaze transfixing her, and foolishly Katherine put the keys on top of the boot. A physical struggle with this man was out of the question, she told herself.

‘Thank you!’

He opened the boot, taking out Sandy’s gay tartan grip and, surprisingly, her own suitcase, laying them aside on the road.

‘The case is mine,’ she pointed out.

‘I gathered that.’ He picked up both case and bag. ‘Have you a coat in the car?’

‘Yes.’ She answered him confusedly. ‘But what has that to do with all this?’ she demanded.

‘You’re coming with me. Obviously your car has broken down and. I’ve told you Sandy is safely installed for the night not too far away.’ He looked at her with a gleam of derision in his eyes. ‘Surely you don’t expect me to leave you where you are in the circumstances? You needn’t worry about your car,’ he added. ‘I’ll send someone to look at it in the morning.’

‘You’re very kind.’ There was a suggestion of sarcasm in her own voice now. ‘If it wasn’t for Sandy I’d refuse, but I don’t mean to lose track of him so easily.’

Charles walked towards the Rover.

‘Make sure you lock up properly this time,’ he advised. Katherine got into the parked Rover because it was the only thing she could do. Her heart was beating strongly as she took her seat beside her captor, belying her outward calm which she wanted him to recognise as determination.

‘I don’t intend to let Sandy go,’ she said belligerently.

‘I wouldn’t expect you to.’ His tone was cold. ‘You had a great deal of courage to come this far after your experience at Beck Cottage. You must have known you were on a wild goose chase by then.’

‘I wasn’t chasing anyone!’ Katherine declared. ‘It was you who was doing the following bit, like some shabby private eye!’

He evidently found that amusing, because he laughed outright.

‘What are you trying to say?’ he demanded. ‘That you have every right to Sandy and I have none?’

‘Coralie has more right than either of us,’ Katherine reminded him. ‘She is Sandy’s mother.’

His mouth tightened again and she found herself looking at him in profile as he drove on without answering her. There was something about the high, arched nose and dark, beetling brows which disconcerted her now, suggesting a bird of prey, although she had formerly admired them in London, and certainly Coralie had used similar words to describe him before they had parted. ‘My ex-husband wants Sandy because he’s the heir to a great deal of money,’ she had said agitatedly. ‘His uncle settled a considerable sum on him when he was one year old and my ex is determined to have full control of it.’

They motored on with long silences developing between them, although Katherine’s mind was actively at work. She did not trust this man now that she knew more about him. She had been primed to resent him, but she could not fail to recognise his strength.

‘Where are you taking me?’ she was forced to ask at last.

‘To Sandy. I thought that might be obvious,’ he answered. ‘He’s quite safe, I assure you, but I think you should remain with him till he’s completely settled in. He seems to have become quite attached to you.’

‘Settled in?’ she repeated. ‘And where might that be? You have no right to take the law into your own hands,’ she rushed on. ‘This is a—a double kidnapping!’

He smiled at the suggestion.

‘Believe me,’ he said, ‘it’s highly coincidental. You’re hardly a child, and when I have no further use for your services I’ll let you go. It’s quite obvious that Sandy trusts you and I have to protect him from the shock of too many strangers.’

‘But you don’t hesitate when it comes to the trauma of separating him from his mother, which is a child’s natural protection,’ she declared angrily.

‘No.’ The square, determined jaw was firmly set, the steely eyes cold. ‘You promised to look after Sandy and I mean to hold you to your word.’

Within an hour they had reached their destination. Turning the car off the road through the glen, Charles crossed a main highway to run along a wide strath where high peaks looked down on them in the gathering dusk, grim mountains crowding in on them from the north and east to make an easy prison from which it would be hard to escape.

Without the help of her road map Katherine felt completely lost, yet when they finally pulled up at the hotel their welcome could not have been warmer.

The proprietress came out to shake her companion by the hand, calling him by his Christian name.

‘I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you first arrived, Chay,’ she apologised, ‘but everything is arranged.’

She was a small, stout woman in her early fifties, amazingly reassuring in a well-fitting tweed skirt and matching cashmere jersey, and her curiosity when she looked at Katherine seemed only natural.