Hold Back the Dark Read online

  Hold Back the Dark

  Jane Donnelly

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER ONE

  ‘LOOK at this!’ shrieked Clarry Rickard, to her staff of one elderly man. The letter that had arrived with the bills in this morning’s mail was certainly impressive.

  With an embossed address ‘King’s Lodge’, someone signing himself ‘Paul Burnley, estate manager’ was telling them that an Elizabethan manor had items including several period chimneypieces needing attention. If Miss Rickard felt that her team could handle the repair restoration he would be pleased to discuss the matter.

  Clarry tapped the number and waited, listening to the ringing. When a man said, ‘Speaking,’ in answer to her query she said, ‘Clare Rickard here. I’ve had your letter, and I’m very interested. Could we come down tomorrow and see what your requirements are?’

  The estate manager said he looked forward to meeting her, and they talked a little about the history of the house. Then she asked, ‘Who owns it?’

  ‘The Strettons have lived here since the late forties,’ he told her. ‘But it was recently taken over by Dargan Enterprises. Nicolas Dargan—you may have heard of him.’

  It hit her like a punch in the stomach, driving the breath out of her so that it was a few seconds before she could say, ‘May I call you back? Something has just come up.’

  She put down the phone and raised a set white face to Danny. ‘Cole Dargan owns King’s Lodge,’ she said flatly.

  A silent man was Daniel Hill, master craftsman and taciturn to the stage where some who had known him for years had hardly heard him talk at all. He said nothing now, but he looked as though there was a bitter taste in his mouth.

  ‘I can’t work for him!’ Clarry wailed, running a hand through her mass of dark chestnut hair, in which a white streak made a dramatic contrast. ‘Why should he choose us?’

  ‘Who says he did?’ said Danny, and indeed, a tycoon like Nicolas Dargan would hardly be bothering with small details such as who was doing minor repairs on his properties.

  They could certainly use the work. Clarry was managing to pay the rent on workroom, storage and office space in an industrial unit, and a living wage for herself and Danny. But this sounded like a prestige job that could lead to all manner of things as well as being a delight to do.

  She recalled the number and said, ‘Sorry about that. Tell me, who’s living there?’

  ‘The staff, of course. And the Colonel and Miss Stretton are staying for the time being. But we could accommodate your workers if it would be more convenient.’

  ‘That sounds lovely.’ She used her husky voice that customers seemed to like. ‘And will Nicholas Dargan be there?’

  ‘No, you’ll be dealing with me.’

  ‘We’ll be with you about midday, then. And I’m sure we can handle the work, it sounds exactly the kind of thing we specialise in.’ As she put the phone down again the tip of her tongue ran between dry lips and she had to swallow before she could say, ‘Nicholas Dargan won’t be there.’

  Danny grunted, and Clarry thought, it has to be over a year since I said his name, and it still hurts my throat to get it out.

  * * *

  When Clarry turned her van through the wrought-iron gates in the ivy-covered wall and saw King’s Lodge it was just about perfect. Not one of your sprawling great manors but a gem of a house, with its gables and tall chimneys, the diamond-paned windows keeping their secrets, each room with its own story.

  She would have envied anyone who lived here, but only in a cheerful lucky-for-some way, not with this seething resentment. That was because it was the property of Nicholas Dargan, and to him it would be just another investment. It seemed wrong that he should be master of a house so beautiful that it sent her misty-eyed.

  She stopped the van and got out, and almost at once the man she had spoken to on the phone came out to meet her. She had arrived on time in a van painted dark blue, with ‘Rickard Restoration’ in gold script on the side. So he hardly needed to ask if she was Miss Rickard. But he did, shaking her hand and holding it rather longer than necessary.

  Men were usually pleased to meet her, because she was a striking girl, with grey-green eyes over high delicate cheekbones, and a full sensuous mouth that sometimes gave them the wrong idea. Her hair was fastened back now, but on this blustery November day tendrils were escaping and the highlighted streak was eye-catching.

  When Paul Burnley had to turn to the little man who looked like an old jockey, who had climbed out of the van behind her, he seemed to be finding it hard to keep his eyes off Clare Rickard.

  For Clarry the house was as magical inside as out, as if time had stood still since the name was changed from The Hall to King’s Lodge, because Charles Stuart had found refuge here after the bloody battle of Worcester.

  He had slept, with a price on his head, in the four-poster bed in the King’s Room, hiding in the priest’s hole from the searching Roundheads. And after three days he had been smuggled out in the night to the next Royalist house on the escape route to France and the years in exile before his return as Charles the King.

  The fireplace in the King’s Room was top of the list, and in the agent’s office they worked out an agenda and agreed on terms, and everything seemed almost too good to be true.

  The bedroom Clarry was given on the top floor was like something out of a period film, with its dark cream plastered walls crisscrossed with black beams. The bed was under the window, and she was pleased about that: she didn’t sleep well in the dark.

  She ran fingertips over a little oak table that gleamed like satin and smelled of lavender, and the wind in the chimney of a small cast-iron fireplace sighed softly.

  It was a lovely little room, but she couldn’t wait to wander around on her own and soak in the atmosphere of the old house. As soon as the girl who had shown her up here had gone she came downstairs again. She was going to the King’s Room first, the heart of the house, where she would be starting on the carved stone fireplace in the morning.

  She met no one on her way down from the attics or walking along the corridors, and she slipped quietly into the empty room, looking around again at the dark oil paintings, the furniture, the massive bed.

  A faded brocade cover matched curtains looped around and the pelmet above, and impulsively she kicked off her shoes, swung her legs up and lay down, closing her eyes and staying very still.

  If Charles Stuart had slept in here it must have been from utter exhaustion, because he surely had had enough on his mind to keep him from sleep for ever. If he did sleep she hoped his dreams were of a golden future, and not the nightmare of civil war and the shadow of the headsman’s axe.

  She could still hear the wind in the chimneys, and imagine a footfall, a movement, someone coming closer, until she opened her eyes and saw a man at the foot of the bed and a face from her own nightmares.

  She shot up convulsively and rolled to the edge, nearly falling off, her feet scrabbling frantically for her shoes. He was so big, and thick dark brows, a thatch of dark hair and a slightly battered nose gave him the look of a bruiser. She had known he was a powerful man, but his physical presence was overwhelming.

  ‘I’m starting on the fireplace in the morning,’ she babbled.

  ‘You get a good view of it from the bed.’ Not lying there with her eyes closed, she wouldn’t, and the deep drawling voice seemed familiar too, although she had never spoken to him before.

  ‘Sorry.’ She hated apologising, but of course she shouldn’t be
lolling on priceless antiques.

  ‘Not many can resist trying the King’s bed for size.’

  Her lips wouldn’t curve so she couldn’t even pretend to smile back. ‘Even you?’ she heard herself ask.

  ‘Every night.’ With an ego like his it was a sure thing he would take over the King’s Room, and she had to get out or she would never stop shaking.

  ‘See you,’ she said inanely, and sidled from the room, almost running until she had turned a corner. Nobody was following. She could hear a clock ticking somewhere but no footsteps and no voices, and she leaned against the wall, her folded arms gripping so tightly that her fingers dug through the thick sweater into the soft flesh of her upper arm.

  Nicolas Dargan had given her the fright of her life. Anybody looming up like that would have startled her, but she was astonished at the violence of her reaction when she had opened her eyes and seen him looking down at her.

  Her heart was still hammering wildly, and it would not have taken much to have had her running again, right out of King’s Lodge. She might still do that. It was an option if she couldn’t pull herself together.

  The estate manager was still in his office on the ground floor, where they had discussed a contract that had been too good to be true if it meant working in Nicolas Dargan’s bedroom.

  ‘I’ve just met Nicolas Dargan,’ Clarry said. Cole to his friends—she was never of their number.

  ‘Good.’ Then he saw her expression. ‘No?’

  ‘You said he wasn’t staying here.’

  ‘I said you’d be dealing with me, but it is his house. It’s almost his village.’ A job lot with King’s Lodge thrown in, that didn’t surprise her. ‘Why?’ he was asking. ‘Is there a problem?’ and she countered his question with another.

  ‘Do you get much trouble with him?’

  ‘There’s been no trouble here. I’ve managed the estate for the last five years, I was taken over with it, and Dargan Enterprises have been the saving of us. But the boss does have a name for sailing near the wind.’ He sounded as if that was something to admire. ‘A bit of a buccaneer—have you come up against him before?’

  She made herself smile. ‘Oh, I’ve heard things. I just feel he could be dangerous, so I shall keep out of his way.’ He smiled with her, and she said, ‘See you later,’ and stopped smiling as soon as she was out of the room.

  She had hoped he would tell her that Nicolas Dargan would be gone tomorrow, but he didn’t know, and it was stupid to feel trapped. It was a small world and Dargan Enterprises covered a wide area, and this was just coincidence, but the lovely old house had lost some of its charm, and she wondered if Charles Stuart had been glad to escape from here.

  In the room under the eaves again she sat on her bed, slim jean-clad legs crossed, fingers laced over a kneecap, reliving what had happened to her that morning when she and Nigel Dargan had gone riding together.

  The Dargans were cousins. There was no one else, that was the family. Nicolas owned everything, but Nigel worked for the company, and Nigel had wanted to marry her.

  Clarry remembered how happy they had been. The sun had been shining and the cherry trees were a foam of pink blossom, but the blossom was long gone before she saw the trees again. Now she pushed back her hair, and beneath the white streak above her right temple was the familiar ridge of scar.

  She couldn’t recall the horse bolting and throwing her, nor the lost weeks of her life when she lay in a coma, but she would always remember that when she regained consciousness Nigel had been transferred to their office in Brussels. Nicolas had seen to that. Nicolas always made the rules. When he told Nigel, ‘Start living your own life,’ that was what had happened.

  There was even another girl. Nicolas’s choice again, but Clarry could imagine the pressure that had been put on Nigel. Nobody had held out much hope in the early days that she would not be brain-damaged, and seeing someone he cared for like that for weeks on end must have been hell for a sensitive man.

  Nigel had suffered, she knew, but there had been no pity from Nicolas. He had consulted the medical reports and decided that a Dargan’s best interests did not lie with a girl who could be a permanent liability. Nigel was given no choice, he was shipped out and kept away, and now she had seen and spoken to Nicolas in the flesh. Briefly, but it was enough for her to recognise a brute force against which Nigel would never have stood a chance.

  When she came out of the coma it seemed that she had lost everything: job gone, home gone; and when she asked for Nigel it was days before he came.

  She was weak, a shadow, and while he stammered she knew that she had lost him too. But her mind had been clearing, strength would soon be flowing back into her, and a fierce determination to be independent in the future was the best of therapies.

  She had never expected to see Nigel again, and God knew she had never wanted to meet Nicolas, but she had recognised him at once, although she had never met him before. He had turned up on TV and radio from time to time, being interviewed about this and that, and if she was alone she rushed to turn him off. If there was anyone with her she tried to shut the sight and the sound of him from her mind, but that had to be why he had seemed so terrifyingly familiar standing at the foot of her bed.

  Of course he wouldn’t recognise her, and she doubted if he had ever given the girl his cousin had once loved a second thought, once that little matter was satisfactorily settled. She was a stranger to him, here to do the restoration work, and if she should come across him again she would act the stranger. Because she had this crazy conviction that she must keep her secret, that once she had been Nigel’s Clarry. That if Nicolas Dargan found her out something shattering might happen.

  Just before seven she went down to the little parlour that would be their day-room while they were here. She was still wearing the casual clothes she had arrived in, but she had washed and applied fresh make-up and her hair fell loose, touching her shoulders.

  Once her hair had reached her waist. Then it had been a close crop. Before that her head was shaved, although she had hardly been aware of that. But she had watched the growing into an urchin cut, a short uneven bob and a longer, and now it waved strong and shining, the white streak the only reminder of unflattering styles that had gone before.

  The staircase linked three galleried landings. From any you could look down the stairwell to the quarry-tiled floor, and as Clarry walked down the plain wooden staircase from the attics a woman appeared on a lower landing.

  Wall brackets threw a good light on her silver-gilt hair, and what looked like a soft grey fur coat but these days was probably a high-fashion fake. On the stairs she heard Clarry’s footsteps above and paused to look up, staring hard and briefly, then continuing her descent well ahead.

  Who was that? Clarry wondered, and decided it was probably Miss Stretton, the lady of the manor as was. In that coat she was clearly on her way out somewhere, and Clarry hoped Nicolas Dargan was too, because if she should find herself at the same table as him she would never manage to get the food down.

  That worry came to nothing. A table was laid for three in the parlour, where Paul Burnley joined them. The estate was his pet subject, and how the recession had been draining them until Dargan Enterprises came to the rescue. He sounded, Clarry thought, like a schoolboy rooting for his football team, and she asked cynically, ‘What are Nicolas Dargan’s plans for this house? A conference centre, or an apartment block? And of course there’ll be a helicopter pad where the bluebell wood used to be.’

  ‘What bluebell wood?’

  He smiled uncertainly at her, and she said gaily, ‘I don’t know. He just strikes me as the sort who’d tarmac over bluebell woods. I don’t have much faith in rich men who are built like all-in wrestlers.’

  Danny’s leathery face was bland, and Paul Burnley said, ‘As far as I know, the house is staying a private residence.’

  ‘Do you live here?’ Clarry asked.

  ‘I’ve a flat over the stables.’

 
‘Are you married?’ She could not have cared less. Her aim was to stop him burbling on about Nicolas Dargan in that sickening fashion.

  ‘No.’ But he was flattered she’d asked and very ready to talk about himself. By the end of the meal they knew a lot about the estate manager, and most of it was rather boring.

  When Danny said, ‘Goodnight, all,’ and took himself off to his room, Paul Burnley said,

  ‘You haven’t seen the gardens, have you? I usually take a walk round the grounds last thing,’ and Clarry went with him to a back door to check on the night.

  The moon was bright and the stars were out. The wind had dropped to a chilly little breeze, and she borrowed a jacket from a row of coats and waterproofs hanging on the wall.

  She had a small torch in her shoulder-bag. She switched that on for the first few steps, but the moon gave enough light for a late-night stroll, mainly across lawns, but there was a rose garden, a kitchen garden, a small orchard and a maze.

  Paul Burnley kept pointing out what he considered the high spots, although Clarry would have welcomed a little silence in which to enjoy the old gardens by moonlight. He was like a puppy dog, so eager to please that she was tempted to pat him on the head and say, ‘Down, boy!’

  He led her to the entrance to the maze with a beaming smile, and it was an unusual feature—a Jacobean folly that had survived. Dense yew hedges were cut back straight and high, and by daylight it would be fun to roam around trying to find your way out. At night the narrow entrance was less inviting when Clarry peered in, shining her torch to where a wall of yew blocked the passage and one was faced with one’s first choice of left or right.

  ‘Do you want to go in?’ Paul asked.

  ‘Just a little way, then,’ and after a couple of turns they came to a stone bench. The paths were covered with soft moss, but somehow Clarry had managed to ship a small sharp stone into her shoe. She sat down and tipped it out and shivered, and said, ‘Think we could go back now? It’s not all that warm, is it?’

  As they came out Paul Burnley said, ‘If you’re interested, there’s a copy of the plan on the wall in my office.’