Hold Back the Dark Page 5

  So Danny was right again... ‘His sort never change.’ What Nigel had said about Cole never buying a wedding ring still held.

  ‘Poor old Fiona,’ said Clarry, and Paul Burnley agreed,

  ‘She’s a poor little rich girl. The old man has always given her everything, and she can’t believe there are some things she can’t have. And some men.’

  ‘What’s she like, apart from born lucky?’

  ‘A bit of a bitch,’ he admitted, and Clarry grinned,

  ‘Well, he can be a bastard, so they could make a matching pair.’ She sat back now, still smiling. ‘It might be a lark if he does think he’s using me. Do you think I should play up to him?’ and immediately Paul was anxious again.

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t advise that.’ Nor would I, she thought. ‘Would you—?’ He stopped to clear his throat. ‘Would you have dinner with me tonight? There’s a little place I know.’

  ‘Thank you, but not tonight.’ Lunch had been meal enough for today, and she had had more than enough of her new friends for now.

  ‘Clare and I are old friends,’ Nicolas had told Fiona, implying something that did not exist, using Clarry from the beginning to distance Fiona.

  When she left the office she went into the cloakroom on the ground floor to splash her face with cold water. The white streak in her hair seemed to blaze and blur as she blinked water from her lashes.

  She should not have needed the warning against a manipulating man; the white streak should have been warning enough. But now she knew the reason for that ‘truce’ every time she spoke to Nicolas Dargan, or smiled when she was near him, she would feel like a puppet on a string, dancing to his tune. The hell I will, she promised herself, the hell I will!

  * * *

  Of course Clarry had not mentioned Paul Burnley’s warning to Danny last night, and by the light of a new day it might have seemed no big deal. If Nicolas Dargan had explained the situation to her she might have said something like, ‘Pleased to be of service, Rickard Restoration aims to help.’

  No, she might not. She was still doing a slow burn as she sat brushing her hair, so hard that it sprang up following the brush. How dared he try to use her in any way but her professional capacity? She would not put herself out by a hair’s breadth to make life easier for Nicolas Dargan. He was the last man on earth she would be doing any favours.

  She had had the full charm treatment yesterday, and she should have wondered why he was wasting so much of his precious time on her. Well, she had the explanation, and she went on brushing her hair furiously until she realised she was creating a wild halo. Then she put away the brush and smoothed her hair down with her hands.

  In workman’s dungarees she went down to breakfast. Danny was in the same uniform, although his overalls were shabbier and older, and after breakfast they parted, Danny back to the mirror frame, to inspect and sketch and maybe dream. And Clarry to the King’s Room.

  She knocked on the door. It was after nine o’clock and she would have expected Nicolas Dargan to be an early riser; but this was his bedroom—she couldn’t be wandering in. If he was still occupying the King’s Bed, should she curtsy and say, ‘Excuse me, Your Majesty, but would you close the curtains, the workers are here’?

  It was no joke. Pretending it was was a nervous reaction she had to control. She drew deep breaths and waited, and when no one answered she opened the door.

  The coverlet over the bed was smooth, and a step into the room reassured her that the room was empty. She was glad of that; she certainly did not want Nicolas around.

  Perhaps he had slept in another bed last night. Fiona’s, perhaps. Although not if he was supposed to be taking up with his ‘old friend Clare’ again. More likely he was up and about his business. He could be in the office behind the heavy panelling.

  Clarry knew where the door was, but there was no indication of it on this side. Originally it was probably a robing-room, or even the priest’s hole, although it was on the large side for that. Those hiding places were designed to conceal usually one fugitive in the smallest possible space.

  This room was a likely location. The walls, wood panelled from floor to ceiling, offered no clues, and she began running her fingertips round moulding edges because that was where pressure points might be.

  Suddenly one panel moved, so easily that it seemed to swish back, a sliding door opening not on a priest’s hole but a bathroom. And Nicolas Dargan, stark naked and dripping wet, stepping out of a shower.

  Clarry’s throat closed as if a hand had gripped it and her mouth fell open. She lurched back, landing sitting on the edge of the bed, not knowing where to look or what to say.

  He took the two strides to the door, and she managed to croak, ‘S-sorry, I was going to start work.’

  ‘Don’t let me stop you.’ The door slid shut, and for the first time in her life she got the curious sensation of an all-over burning blush.

  Some time, when she was a long way away from here, this would be something to laugh about, but right now she was scalded with embarrassment. She had seen naked men before, but now she was as confused as a gauche schoolgirl, and she got off the side of the bed and went to the window as if the wind that was stirring the trees could reach her.

  Should she clear off for a while, give him time to get dressed? Although that was probably a dressing-room as well as a bathroom. He’d have a bathrobe at the very least, he’d be covered when he came out, and if it seemed she couldn’t face him she was going to look such a ninny.

  So, she had walked in, but he should have locked the door. He probably never bothered, he would hardly be expecting visitors, but that wasn’t her fault.

  ‘Sorry about that,’ she would say, cool and casual, if only she could stop blushing to the roots of her hair. He wouldn’t be embarrassed, she was sure. He probably swam in the nude, slept in the nude.

  The big frame carried no spare weight over the muscles. He was in superb physical shape, and it was no surprise to her that he was at home in his skin. He had that kind of confidence. Nakedness would not make him vulnerable. In a well cut suit or the way she had just seen him he was still Nicolas Dargan, man of power and don’t you forget it.

  She went over to the fireplace, taking her tools out of her bag, and repeating in her mind like a mantra... It was nothing to fuss about, nothing at all. But when she heard the bathroom door slide open she practically stuck her head up the chimney.

  ‘Early for Christmas,’ he said.

  ‘I’m looking for loose bricks,’ she said, lying without a qualm. ‘I hate things falling on me.’

  ‘I know how you feel, I’m not fond of sudden shocks myself.’ She had to straighten up and face him.

  He was dressed formally, shirt, tie and jacket, and his dark hair was thick and strong enough to have shaken off the shower. ‘Did you want the bathroom, or were you checking the panelling?’ he asked, and she stuttered.

  ‘I didn’t know—there was a bathroom, I thought there might be a priest’s hole. There is, isn’t there? Charles hid in it, didn’t he?’

  ‘Not down here. On the top floor.’

  ‘Fascinating, aren’t they?’ In her effort to sound at ease she was sounding shrill, and he shrugged.

  ‘You’ve seen one dark hole, you’ve seen them all.’

  ‘But the atmosphere—’

  ‘Ah, yes, there’s always the atmosphere,’ he agreed.

  He pushed aside the panel that was the office door, went in and closed it behind him, and Clarry shrugged too, lifting her shoulders high and wriggling away the tension. An awkward situation had been defused because it was nothing anyway. It would send her friends into gales of laughter, but she didn’t think she would tell anyone. What she would do was forget it.

  Her first chore was brushing down the chimneypiece, in clean white gloves with a white hogshair brush, collecting the dust in a vacuum dustette. She pulled on the cotton gloves and began painstakingly, but within minutes Nicolas Dargan was back.

  Seeing
how she was treating his chimneypiece was bound to interest him. Perhaps not for long, because it was slow work, but he was watching her every move, standing close behind her, and she thought, If I had a chisel in my hands I could slip with it and do some real damage.

  Not much could go wrong with a brush, but she was sure her fingertips were stiffening, and the back of her neck was knotting up, and when she turned and met his heavy-lidded scrutiny she snapped, ‘I don’t like working with somebody looking over my shoulder. Do you?’

  ‘Makes no difference to me,’ he shrugged.

  She laughed harshly. ‘Come off it! I don’t believe you. King of the dodgy deals!’

  ‘Who told you that?’ He sounded amused.

  ‘Gets around,’ although Nicolas Dargan was generally described as audacious and far-sighted, not dodgy, and he tutted at her as though she was a cheeky child.

  ‘Spreading rumours can be very expensive.’

  Clarry knew it would be wiser to shut up, but she couldn’t help muttering, ‘A really good one might be worth it,’ and he said,

  ‘It seems I’ve got myself a sparring partner after all.’ After all the attention he’d paid her yesterday he must be wondering where the rapport had gone. ‘Well,’ he said with a grim weariness, ‘never say I didn’t warn you.’

  CHAPTER FOUR

  WHEN Nicolas Dargan went into the office this time he left the door open. Clarry heard the phone ring and she heard him answer it, and listening to him was almost as bad as having him breathing down the back of her neck.

  His voice was deep and carrying. He wouldn’t need to raise it to sway a crowd or to be in charge of a board meeting, and she thought sourly, If he should ever start bellowing he’d have them running for cover!

  There was no trouble on the phone; things seemed to be going well with whoever it was who had rung this number. Nicolas sounded amiable, but Clarry made a move to shut the door panel. Then she stopped herself. The office was small, it could be oppressive for such a big man, and she could hardly explain that something about his voice was really getting to her.

  Everything would be easier when she was through in here. She finished the initial dusting of the chimneypiece and began to check for tiny cracks and roughness of salt formation under the undercut sections; and all the while she was conscious of his nearness. He was dictating now, and although his voice was hardly more than a murmur he made her so tense that the muscles across her shoulderblades were literally aching.

  It was a gloomy day. She hadn’t noticed that particularly until he came out again, and again stood watching her. Then she said, ‘You’re in my light.’

  ‘Switch the lights on,’ he said, reasonably enough.

  There were wall brackets, most of the ceilings were too low for anything else, and she complained, ‘Now I’m in your shadow.’

  ‘That,’ he said, ‘is your problem,’ and as soon as he walked out of the room Clarry came out of the spell.

  It was like a spell, as if his voice stirred dark memories, and his shadow lay heavy on her. She could only work comfortably when he was nowhere near, and she wasted no time for the rest of the morning. For lunch she got sandwiches from the kitchen and worked while she ate. By mid-afternoon she was testing the stone for porousness and applying one of Danny’s pastes to tar stains.

  Paul Burnley found her doing that when he came looking for her with the photographs. He had taken the film for developing at breakfast time, and when the door of the King’s Room opened she thought at first that Nicolas Dargan was back. She would rather see anyone else, and she gave the agent a welcoming smile and put down her tools.

  The photographs had come out clearly, showing what they were supposed to show. They discussed them for a few minutes, then she asked him, ‘Where’s the priest’s hole? It wouldn’t be in the room I have?’

  She would have liked that, but he told her, ‘It’s in a store-room—would you like to see it?’

  ‘Yes, please.’ She could do with a break, and she was fascinated by the hiding place that had saved a king.

  The store-room in the attics was almost filled with packing cases. Paul hauled one out of a corner, and the floorboards beneath were old and gnarled. It was hard even now to make out a trapdoor. When it was first constructed it would have been completely concealed. He raised the flap on the blade of a Swiss pocket knife, high enough for a fingertip hold, then lifted it up for Clarry to peer in.

  It wasn’t a bad size. Charles had been six feet tall, head and shoulders above the average for those days.

  The wooden seat left room to stretch your legs and he could have stood almost upright, but everyone must have held their breath while the King hid here and the soldiers tramped through the house.

  As Clarry stared down entranced Paul Burnley suggested, ‘Try it,’ and she swung herself down on to the seat. As she sat he explained, ‘It bolts on the inside, otherwise the weight kept it shut.’

  He was holding the lid, and she put up her hands and he let her take the weight. It was heavier than she expected, pushing her down and slamming, plunging her into blackness with no glimmer of light.

  Ever since the time of her coma darkness had terrified her, and now she was gasping for breath as if she was strangling, sagging against the wall with no more strength in her limbs than she had had when she opened her eyes in her sickbed.

  Then blessed light flooded in, and Paul Burnley’s pleasant blunt-featured face swam above her.

  ‘Not bad, is it?’ he said cheerily. ‘No light, but air gets in. It might get claustrophic after a while, but it was a good hiding place.’ Clarry still couldn’t move, and his cheerfulness went. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked anxiously.

  ‘Help me out,’ she gasped.

  He had to jump down and lift her, and when she managed to lurch to her feet her teeth were chattering. ‘Sorry—I’m claustrophobic. The door slipped.’

  Now he was all concern and apology. ‘I thought you’d shut it to get the feel,’ he explained. It could only have been closed for seconds, but that was long enough to take her back to some deep dark haunted place, and leave her nauseous even while she was gasping, ‘I’m all right now.’

  ‘Sure?’

  ‘I could do with some air,’ she admitted.

  There was dust up here and her stomach was heaving. Paul put an arm round her and she stumbled down the staircase, coming face to face with Nicolas Dargan on the first floor. ‘Clare’s feeling faint,’ Paul declared.

  Nicolas said nothing. Neither did his expression, except that he was waiting for further explanation.

  ‘It was the priest hole,’ said Paul, and Nicolas said smoothly,

  ‘She seems to have trouble with priests’ holes. She should stick to chimneypieces.’

  Get on with her work, he meant, and stop fooling about, and Clarry wondered what would happen if she told Paul Burnley, ‘I was looking for one in the King’s Room this morning and I came on this character stark naked. A sight to give anybody claustrophobia!’ Not on, but tempting.

  She had stopped shaking. A flare of temper had done her a power of good. She had worked through her lunch hour; why shouldn’t she take ten minutes off? She smiled at the estate manager and said, ‘Thank you so much. Sorry about this, and I really am fine now.’

  Nicolas held the door of the King’s Room open for her. She said sweetly, ‘See you later,’ to Paul Burnley and went in. Nicolas followed her and closed the door behind him. She didn’t look at him. She went to the photographs she had left on an oak chest and began sorting out the shots of this fireplace, and he said:

  ‘Burnley’s a good lad, but in some aspects he’s inexperienced. Don’t take advantage of him.’

  That made her look up and yelp, ‘That’s rich, coming from you! You take advantage, don’t you?’

  ‘I’m employing him.’

  ‘Of course you are.’ Her voice rose. ‘And you’re employing me.’ She glared. ‘As Rickard Restoration, and damn all else!’

  She fel
t like an angry cat, spitting and showing its claws, and she got a half smile, that was only a quirk of an eyebrow and a hint of laughter in the voice. ‘What else did you think I had in mind for you?’ he drawled. ‘Apart from a sparring partner?’

  Too uneven a contest, he had said, and in a fight she would be no match. They stood apart now, as though they measured each other, and Clarry wondered, Where the hell are your weak points?

  He confused her and he angered her, but she would never underestimate his power. He must be so used to exerting it, charming and using, and if that failed dealing as he did with Nigel... ‘Do as I say or else...’

  ‘By the way, what happened with the priest’s hole just now to have you tottering downstairs in Burnley’s arms?’ he asked.

  ‘I was shut in,’ she explained.

  ‘How long for?’

  ‘No time really,’ she admitted. ‘A few seconds.’

  ‘But long enough for the atmosphere to get you?’ His amusement was sardonic now. ‘You are a sensitive plant!’ and she said:

  ‘I used to be, but I got tougher when I got this.’

  She touched the white streak in her hair, and he drawled, ‘My advice to you is to dye that, before you develop a fixation on it.’

  ‘When I want your advice—’

  ‘You’ll ask for it,’ he finished.

  ‘Don’t hold your breath!’ she snapped.

  ‘Don’t be childish.’

  She thought, You’ve changed your tune from when I was ‘all woman’, but she was sounding brash, and she turned back to the photographs and was very relieved when Nicolas walked out.

  There was plenty still to be done on this fireplace, but tomorrow she would start on something else so that when he was in here she could keep out. Being near him was causing her stress she did not need.

  While she was alone she worked fast and efficiently, and a couple of hours passed before she had another interruption.

  Fiona Stretton could have stepped out of a fashion magazine, and Clarry could understand why she kept her distance. Pale blue trousers and pale blue cashmere sweater, perfectly matching pale blue eyes, might have been contaminated by dusty dungarees, although she was making quite a show of keeping clear of the fireplace and Clarry, edging round the room.