Hold Back the Dark Read online

She said coldly, ‘I have talked to him, and I don’t think you’ll have any more trouble.’

  ‘Right. Now,’ he gestured towards the desk and the papers on it, ‘I’ll need another hour or so on this; will you meet me here afterwards?’

  ‘Discussing business?’

  ‘No.’ He seemed to have put the problem of Danny out of his mind. ‘Shall we say one o’clock?’

  He was waiting for her reply, although the last time he got no for an answer must have been long ago. After a moment she shrugged and said, ‘Why not? I’m not likely to get a better offer.’

  She was disappointed and she was riled. She had told Nicolas how much she owed to Danny and, knowing that, she had flattered herself that he would make allowances for the old man. But he didn’t ‘suffer fools’, and she should have been prepared for that; there weren’t many tolerant tycoons about. From now on she must remember how tough and uncompromising he was, and she must talk less about Danny—she had tended to go on about him—and keep him away from Nicolas Dargan.

  Life might be simpler if she kept out of his way herself, but she no longer had a choice there, because although he was harder than nails there was nobody she would rather be with.

  She had her warm scented bath and she changed into her last pair of clean jeans and a polo-neck Aran sweater. She brushed her hair until it shone, and she creamed her face and brightened eyes, cheekbones and lips, then sat for a while, elbows on the dressing-table, fingers laced under her chin, killing time like someone waiting for a show to start.

  What they would do this afternoon she had no idea. She was walking into a bedroom, but she would have the surprise of her life if she ended up on the King’s bed. Last night, in the storm and the darkness, it had seemed that Nicolas Dargan was her secret lover, but she couldn’t see him seducing her in broad daylight, under the same roof as Danny and Fiona and the rest of them.

  She hugged herself at the thought. As a thought it was better than any novel, and she daydreamed a little, but it was not going to happen, although just being with him made life brighter and sharper as if danger was never far away.

  She was not losing her head over the man. He must like her, but there must be so many other women who could take her place. He could replace her, no trouble. Fiona Stretton was nearer his match and she hadn’t managed any kind of commitment.

  Clarry knew all that, but when she walked into the King’s Room, and Nicolas came out of the office to meet her, her heart began racing as if she had been running in a marathon and her knees went weak. I may be keeping my head, she reflected ruefully, but he’s having an extraordinary effect on the rest of me!

  ‘It’s stopped raining,’ she said tritely. It had stopped before they got back, and she chattered on, ‘When would you like me to start on the griffin?’

  ‘Certainly not now.’

  ‘What are we doing now?’

  ‘I thought we might start your rehabilitation,’ said Nicolas.

  ‘My what?‘

  ‘Facing the phobias.’

  ‘You are joking?’ She started to laugh. ‘How? Don’t tell me you’re putting me back in the priest’s hole and I won’t feel a thing this time?’ Of course he was joking. ‘Maybe I wouldn’t, I’d be ready for the lid closing, but I really do not fancy that.’

  ‘That wasn’t the idea,’ he said, ‘although our safe place was considered a model. Charles said it was one of the best he’d come across, and he knew his hides. At that time his loyal subjects were shoving him into them the length and breadth of the country.’

  Clarry pulled a face and gave an exaggerated shrug. ‘So it had the royal seal of approval, but nobody’s getting me in there again.’

  ‘So we’ll start on the horses.’

  She had not been on a horse since the accident, but that was not because she had been left with a fear of them. It was not as if she had seen the animal rearing over her or been dragged along screaming. The last thing she remembered everything had been fine, and if Nicolas Dargan was taking her riding she was willing to go. She knew she would be safe with him. ‘Shall we go round the Shire Horse Centre?’ he was asking her, and she said,

  ‘I’ll go anywhere.’

  ‘I’ll remember that.’

  ‘I’ll get my coat.’

  She went to fetch her duffel coat and looked into the parlour where Danny was eating his lunch. There was food on the table and a place laid for her, but eating would have to wait. She took a bread roll, buttered it and slapped in a slice of chicken. ‘I’m going to see the Shire Horse Centre,’ she mumbled, getting the roll down as quickly as she could and hoping she would not get violent indigestion.

  Danny nodded, and that was all she told him. Then it was back into the car, with Nicolas at the wheel again, and although she didn’t look back at the house she knew they were being watched from more than one window.

  The Centre was only a few minutes away from the Manor House by car. It had been a dairy farm on the edge of the village, now it was a stud farm, a nature trail and a farm park, with the shire horses as the main attraction.

  They drove down the wide track, past the old farmhouse, a restaurant and a gift and tackle shop, into the car park, joining a smattering of cars. Weekend visitors. This was a wintry day, the summer months must be their best time.

  As they walked towards buildings an open wagon passed, with half a dozen passengers muffled up against the cold, off on a guided tour by the man holding the reins, and with a very large horse between the shafts.

  The driver flicked a long whip in salute. ‘Afternoon, Mr Dargan,’ and Nicolas signalled back.

  ‘Good afternoon.’

  ‘He doesn’t use that thing, does he?’ muttered Clarry.

  ‘The whip? Not on Drummer. He’s a gentle giant.’

  Passing by her, the shire horse seemed enormous, must weigh a ton, and when they walked into the stables a row of huge heads, looking over the doors, loomed above her. There was a notice—‘These Horses May Bite’—and with teeth that size you would have to be mad to touch them.

  But Nicolas did, stroking them, using their names, Trooper and Duchess, and Clarry thought, You’re a giant of a man, so maybe that evens things out, as a girl came hurrying down the central passageway, in khaki sweater and cords and green wellies, smiling broadly. ‘Oh, Mr Dargan, I thought I heard your voice.’

  Dargan Enterprises were backing this family enterprise, but Clarry could see that the girl was smitten by the man. She was young and pretty and she would have liked to touch him. Her fluttering fingers stopped just short of his arm, and the look she gave Clarry when he introduced them was frankly envious.

  She chattered breathlessly, rather as I do at times, Clarry thought. He can take your breath away. Business wasn’t bad at all, she said, and they had some special events planned over Christmas. Perhaps Mr Dargan might get along to some of them or the New Year’s Eve party.

  She said that wistfully, and he was charming and non-committal, promising nothing, and Clarry felt rather sorry for her, but she was obviously thrilled to have him here now. There was a booking tonight, she said, the Young Farmers were having a buffet supper and a barn dance; and the stables opened into an arena large enough for a horse show, with straw in squared bales stacked in seating tiers round the walls.

  At the far end a man was braiding the tail of a horse and the girl called, ‘Dad, it’s Mr Dargan,’ at which the man beamed a welcome too and began to tell Nicolas how they were making out, as though this might be an inspection tour.

  Clarry didn’t think it was, although she supposed Nicolas could be checking on his investment, and she couldn’t take her eyes off the horse.

  The more she saw of the shires, the more impressive they seemed to get. This one was gleaming black, with a white star on its forehead, towering above Clarry, a massively powerful animal.

  ‘What do you think of Humphrey?’ Nicolas was asking her.

  Humphrey looked down his long nose at her, his dark liquid eyes shining. �
�He’s magnificent.’ She stroked the muscular neck. ‘He’s gorgeous!’

  ‘You’re not nervous with him?’

  ‘No,’ she smiled.

  ‘Are you up to riding again?’

  She hopped well back at that. ‘Oh, my gosh, you’re not getting me up on one his size!’

  They all chuckled. Nicolas said, ‘They carried knights in armour once, but they’ve been haulage animals since armour went out of fashion. If the oil ever runs out they’ll be in big demand again. No, we’ll find you one nearer the ground.’

  The girl took over braiding Humphrey’s tail and her father went with them to other stables, in a yard behind the farmhouse. The horse they brought out for Nicolas was a bay hunter, handsome and haughty, snorting and pawing the ground, and Clarry was glad he was not for her.

  They brought her a grey mare, plumper and steadier, and Nicolas insisted she wear a hard hat, and held the reins while she put her foot in the stirrup and hauled herself astride. She was a novice, that morning with Nigel he had been only her second time in the saddle, but she had been managing well enough so far as she remembered, and this seemed a docile mount, not too far off the ground.

  She settled into the rhythm as they trotted out of the yard, crossing a field and passing an ornamental lake where farmyard white ducks and turquoise-feathered wild mallards swam together. In summer tourists would be picnicking on the banks, but today there was no one around and the two horses plodded on.

  Nicolas was holding the hunter back, and when Clarry gave the grey her head she began to trot. ‘All right?’ Nicolas asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  She surely was. She could not remember a time when things had been more brilliantly right. She felt a surge of confidence, as if she had won a gold medal and was mounting a rostrum, a winner who knows that the gods love her. Her horse went from a trot to a canter and she wanted the wind through her hair. ‘Can I take off my hat?’ she asked.

  ‘No, you may not.’ But he was laughing with her, and now they were galloping, and Clarry was so high that if they had come to a five-barred gate she might have believed she could jump it. If she had she would have gone over alone, because the grey was not built for jumping anything, and after a few minutes at full stretch the mare slackened her pace and they were back to a canter.

  ‘You’re a natural,’ Nicolas told her.

  ‘Am I?’ His praise made her glow, it was the gold medal, something to treasure. With anyone else she would have ridden competently, but with him it was as if there were no limits to what she could do. She couldn’t explain it, she just knew.

  He checked his watch. ‘We should be getting back.’ She would have liked to ride on, but he was turning towards the Centre again and they reached the stables, where a groom came out to meet them.

  Nicolas handed the reins of his horse over and helped Clarry dismount, and as she slid down she said, ‘Another phobia dealt with—that was lovely!’

  She had been cheating, letting him think she was nervous about riding, but she was certainly nervous now in his arms, stretching up, looking up, so that he only had to bend a little to touch her lips.

  That was unlikely, in front of the groom and who knew how many more, and words ran through her mind...I’ve never wanted to make love with any man since Nigel jilted me. Is that another hangover from the accident? Could you help me there?

  But she could never say that, and he loosed her as soon as she was steady on her feet, and ten minutes later they were in the car driving back to King’s Lodge. On the way Nicolas said, ‘I have to be in London this evening. Will you come with me?’

  She was unprepared for that. She gasped, ‘Leaving right now?’

  ‘In about half an hour.’

  Dreaming was fine, she could control dreams, but this panicked her so that she was stammering, ‘I have to go home and collect things I shall need here. And business mail—I do have a business to run.’

  ‘Another time, then? Maybe next weekend?’ That was not a business offer, but he could hardly have sounded more casual if it had been, and when she couldn’t get her voice working he said, ‘Think about it.’

  She managed, ‘I will, I’ll think about it.’ Outside the house she said, ‘Goodbye for now, thanks for everything,’ and scrambled out and walked ahead, not seeing or hearing anybody as she climbed the stairs and reached the little parlour.

  Danny was snoozing, in an armchair in front of the fire, and she sat down and thought about it.

  She had been propositioned. Nicolas Dargan had admitted he wanted her, and she wanted him so much that it terrified her. If he had followed it up she would have been a pushover, her defences were so fragile when she was near him that it was hard to think clearly. But she knew that in the long run an affair with him could cause her more pain than she could bear.

  Away from him, and away from here, she might be able to weigh the pros and cons with a cooler mind, and if Nicolas Dargan was not in King’s Lodge her reason for staying had gone. She admitted that to herself and said, ‘Danny,’ leaning forward and waiting for Danny’s eyelids to flutter.

  When he seemed more or less awake she said, ‘It isn’t late, we could get home early evening if we leave now. What do you think?’

  Danny got up. ‘I’m ready,’ he said.

  * * *

  It was dark well before they stopped, first at the trading estate where Clarry collected her mail from the unit, and then parking the van in the garage beside the bungalow. She turned on the house heating and fetched fish and chips for supper. In the shop they asked, ‘How’s it going?’ and she said, ‘Fine, it’s a fabulous old house,’ and wondered what the servers and the customers would think if she told them, ‘I’m going crazy for the multi-millionaire who owns it, and Danny hates his guts.’

  Back in his own home Danny was in a mellower mood. He ate his supper and watched television and chuckled over a comedy series, while Clarry sat at the living-room table dealing with Rickard Restoration matters.

  She rang the girl who had been going into the unit each day and keeping her posted at King’s Lodge, and they chatted like the friends they had become since they found themselves neighbours on the trading estate a year ago, but Clarry never mentioned Nicolas. And when Lucy suggested Clarry joined her and a few others in a Saturday night fling at a nightclub she pleaded that she was dead beat and had to be away again early tomorrow.

  She gave the same excuse to a man who rang, who was one of her dates, and when he asked if she would be home next weekend she said, ‘I’m not sure, I may be working.’

  She was telling herself then that she did not know how she would be spending next weekend. She was being sensible. She waited until it was late and she was in bed and the house was quiet and there were no distractions, then she tried to consider her problem in a calm and reasonable way.

  She was no glutton for punishment, and beyond next weekend there might be nothing. She could be a one-night or two-night stand for Nicolas Dargan, and what would that do for her pride? He had given her no reason to imagine she was more than a brief diversion. A few days ago he had never set eyes on her and a few weeks hence he could have forgotten she existed. The way things were between them now was good, almost fantastic. If they went on like this she could still be in one piece, still her own woman, when they parted.

  Letting him make love to her could be madness, but it was no longer a fantasy, and her reasoning went haywire as anticipation coursed through her, sending her blood singing, loosing fountains of delight.

  ‘If you fly you can fall,’ he had said, looking at the griffin’s broken wing. If I fly I will fall, Clarry thought. Soar and burn and come down like a spent rocket, but the soaring and burning will be glorious, and it seemed she had known this for a long time.

  Of course she would go with him. She had no pride where he was concerned. She would have gone today if he had given her a chance to get her breath before he said, ‘Another time?’ And what was the use of trying to listen to the small war
ning voice in her mind when every other nerve in her body was going wild with joy?

  * * *

  Danny was quiet next morning, but Danny was always quiet, and Clarry did all the things she had to do. While he finished the lunch she had prepared she collected the materials and equipment for repairing the griffin from the unit; then another fifteen minutes clearing up here and everything was loaded into the van but Danny.

  He was still pottering around, and she said, ‘Come on. I’d rather get there before dark.’

  ‘I’d rather not get there at all,’ said Danny.

  ‘You mean not go back?’ That was a lunatic idea. ‘We’ve got to. We’ve taken on the work and we’ve got to finish it.’

  ‘Might well be the finish, girl,’ muttered Danny, and her mouth fell open.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ He looked shrunken, without hope, and she said incredulously, ‘You’re not frightened of Nicolas Dargan, are you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did you know something about him I don’t know?’

  ‘No,’ he said again, and met her puzzled eyes unblinkingly, but for the life of her she couldn’t tell if he was lying.

  After that he got into the van and they set off. Danny had never been possessive before. If friends suited Clarry they suited him, and he wanted her to find the right man and get married, but he seemed to loathe everything about Nicolas Dargan.

  If he knew she was rushing into an affair there it would probably give him a heart attack, so she would try to keep it from him, spinning a story for next weekend. It might be a hole-and-corner arrangement anyway, Nicolas might not want other folk knowing. But whatever happened, whatever the cost, she was going.

  The journey went smoothly with no delays. When they reached King’s Lodge Clarry parked the van out of the way against the wall and got out carrying her case. Danny was trundling his smaller case, and as they went into the hall the housekeeper hurried out of the kitchen. Mrs Haines had been intrigued after Clarry’s last night away from here, but this time she seemed bewildered.

  ‘Miss Rickard,’ her voice was strained, and when Clarry turned, ‘Mr Dargan said, as soon as you got back, he wants to see you.’