Hold Back the Dark Page 8

  ‘With wings?’ A winged monster, was the griffin.

  ‘Optional extra, but wings have got to be wonderful.’ Clarry was talking such nonsense.

  ‘Not always,’ he said. ‘If you fly you can fall.’

  There was a great crack through the wing on which the statue was lying, and she touched it gently. ‘Looks as if he did.’

  ‘That could be repaired.’

  ‘Of course it could. Can we take the griffin?’

  ‘We can.’

  She jumped to her feet, alight with delight, and when he held out a hand to steady her she clung to him, laughing. ‘Who’d have thought there’d be a griffin here? Did you know there might be a griffin?’

  Danny’s gift had been waiting for her on her birthday morning, and none of the other presents had thrilled her like the beautiful little carving. Danny knew it was her favourite of everything he had made for her. He had placed it by her bedside five years later so that it was one of the first things she saw when she came out of her coma.

  Now the same youthful elation of her fourteenth birthday had her practically flinging her arms around Nicolas Dargan and exclaiming, ‘Thank you!’

  This griffin was no gift, but when he said, ‘You’re welcome,’ it seemed as if it was. Then he kissed her forehead lightly, and it meant nothing except that their search had gone well and her exuberance was amusing him. But she wished he would kiss her mouth, because, against all her instincts and her better judgement, she seemed to be losing her inhibitions where Nicolas Dargan was concerned.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  WATCH it, Clarry warned herself. It was one thing to hug Nicolas Dargan in the excitement of the moment, but very much another to let him guess that if he had kissed her harder or longer her knees would have given way.

  When she moved he let her go at once—he had hardly been holding her, she had been doing the clinging—and she turned back to the fallen statue, keeping her voice light. ‘That’s it, then, I suppose. We go away and leave him here and you tell them you want him.’ She tugged at a brittle root around the base as if she was trying to free the griffin, and admitted, ‘I’ll be sorry to leave him behind.’

  ‘We can always take him with us,’ said Nicolas.

  ‘How?’ This was several hundredweight of rock up a mountainside they were talking about. ‘He’s too heavy to move, let alone carry.’

  ‘We’ll get help. Trust me.’

  He was smiling, and she said gaily, ‘Well, it was the right track, so of course I trust you,’ and she knew that if Danny could have heard her he would have said, You’re out of your mind, girl!

  They went back the way they came, past the simpering sisters, through the gates to the car. The air was no longer still, little gusts of wind eddied around them, and Clarry wondered what it would be like up here when night came down.

  While Nicolas was talking on the car phone she stood with her hands deep in the pockets of her duffel coat, looking through the open gates at the shell of the house. There would be no moon or stars tonight, the clouds were too heavy, and although it was still early afternoon she had been stupid wanting to wait until the griffin was uprooted and shipped down the mountainside.

  That would take time, and the rough ground would be a hazard. When she had said she was sorry to leave the statue behind she hadn’t expected Nicolas to say, ‘We’ll take it with us,’ as if it was as easy as loading something you’d bought in the high street into the boot of your car.

  She turned from the gate, as he put down the phone and leaned across to open the passenger door for her. ‘Do you think this is a good idea?’ she asked. ‘I mean, there’s no urgency, he isn’t going anywhere, he could be collected any time. I’m being a nuisance, aren’t I?’

  She was in the car and as she closed the door he said, ‘I’ll give you that. You can be a nuisance.’

  ‘So, stop them.’

  ‘But not at the moment.’

  He must mean over Nigel, when briefly she had presented him with a problem, and she said tartly, ‘I’m thrilled to know I’m not being a nuisance today. That really gives me a boost.’

  ‘Not after the sootfall,’ he said drily.

  ‘Are we talking about that? I thought we were talking about Nigel.’

  ‘There too. You have a talent for disruption.’

  At least she wasn’t boring him, and she asked, ‘Are you getting a removal gang?’

  ‘They’re on their way,’ he told her.

  ‘How are they coming?’ She looked up. ‘By helicopter out of the clouds? Are they going to pluck him up and carry him off?’

  ‘No. By tractor up the hill. They’ll dig him out and cart him down on to level ground and into our car.’

  Put like that it seemed simple enough, but it needed someone with Nicolas Dargan’s reputation to get this speed of action. He had probably rung the man with the statues and property to sell, who was anxious to oblige in any way. ‘There’s Dargan clout for you,’ said Clarry.

  ‘Don’t knock it,’ he said. ‘It has its uses.’

  ‘I know, I know. You not only have a talent for stirring things, you’ve got the big guns to back you up.’

  ‘Something else we have in common: we’re both stirrers.’ And somehow she was leaning against him, in the crook of his arm again with her head on his shoulder, as she had in the little green room at the heart of the maze. But this seat was softer and it was warmer, and it was a pleasant place and a pleasant way to wait.

  Nicolas’s jacket was dark grey, smooth against her cheek with the hardness of his broad shoulder beneath it. She remembered the coat she had buried her sooty face in had been a lighter colour, and she wondered if she should offer to get the soot marks off. She was good with stains, but she was sure his jacket would be professionally cleaned without her assistance.

  Her eyelids were getting heavier and she stifled a yawn. ‘Lack of food?’ he asked.

  She was not all that hungry. ‘Not really,’ she said. ‘Just comfortable.’

  ‘Go to sleep, I’ll wake you when the back-up team arrives.’

  He turned on the radio and there was atmospheric crackle, and she thought he turned if off again, because she did doze, curled up like a kitten against him.

  When he touched her cheek and said, ‘They’re here,’ she looked up into his face and was glad to see him.

  ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘How long have I been asleep?’

  ‘Hardly any time. We’ve got an express service.’

  Clarry sat upright. A farm tractor and a trailer were drawing up behind the car and three small wiry men jumped down as Nicolas got out and went to meet them. Clarry followed. Unlike the Dargans, there was a strong family likeness here; they had to be father and sons, and they had been briefed on what was wanted.

  ‘One of the beasts, is it?’ said Father. ‘Let’s be seeing it, then,’ and he walked ahead with Nicolas while his sons unhitched the trailer and dragged it along between them.

  Father did the talking. He remembered the garden when it was a pretty place, but a man who expected to keep it blooming up here must have taken his brains off with his bowler. It was always a daft notion, and now the house was as good as gone and another few years all that would be left would be a few old bricks and stones.

  He sounded as if that had been bound to happen from the start, and Clarry could imagine the locals shaking their heads when the ironmaster first arrived here with his crazy dreams.

  Reaching the pillar garden, the trailer was carried and hauled over the scrub until it was set down beside the griffin. Father and sons looked at each other. They knew all that was left in the garden, and the griffin seemed to be nobody’s favourite. ‘He’s a chiller,’ said Father. ‘And this is the one the lady wants?’

  Clarry had hurried ahead so that she was standing by the griffin before they were. Now she said, ‘Yes, please.’

  ‘And she wants to take it home with her?’ The older son spoke for the first time.

  ‘That’s wh
at she wants,’ said Nicolas, and the men looked at him with fellow feeling. They might not know who Nicolas Dargan was, except that it would be worth their while to get that monster out of the old garden for him, but Clarry guessed they had women in their lives who could surprise them. No accounting for women’s tastes, their expressions said, and a man like the big man here could probably afford to humour a whim.

  They thought she had done the choosing—in a way she had—and that this was being delivered to her home that was probably his home. Which it was for the next few weeks, but it was hysterical that they were seeing her as a woman whose wish was Nicolas Dargan’s command.

  She couldn’t resist giving him a swift teasing glance as they began unloading the trailer. ‘I don’t know what they imagine my role is here,’ she whispered.

  ‘Oh yes, you do,’ he said. ‘And they don’t think much of your choice of statues either.’

  ‘Can I help it if I fancy beasts?’

  ‘That’s a loaded question, I’ll need notice of that.’ They smiled at each other, and Clarry tossed her hair back and felt the wind lifting it like a caress as she looked up at him. This had been a day to remember. With anyone else the old garden would have been interesting, but Nicolas put an edge on everything as though she was waltzing through a wonderland. ‘Make yourself useful,’ he said. ‘Hold my coat.’ He took it off and handed it to her. ‘No sense ruining two jackets on the same day.’

  ‘Are you digging?’ she asked. They had picks and spades, something that looked like a cutter, ropes and sacking.

  ‘Of course I’m digging, they’re not needing a foreman.’

  Father measured him up, a giant of a man who looked as if he could handle himself or anything else, and enquired, ‘Don’t mind getting your hands dirty, sir?’

  ‘It won’t be the first time,’ said Nicolas, ‘or the last.’

  ‘Right then,’ said Father. ‘You can get on to the roots and we’ll start clearing the ground.’

  The uprooted tree was dead, but the tangle was dense around the base. Some roots Nicolas cut with the cutter, others he tore away, while the men worked on the undergrowth. It must have been quite a while since the griffin had tumbled, it was firmly embedded, and Clarry itched to get in there herself and move something, but they were doing too well as a team to make room for her.

  They dug and dragged and grunted and heaved, and under the scrub great clumps of earth cracked and resisted like rock. But at last they had ropes underneath, hauling and shoving until they rolled it aside towards the sacking that was spread out.

  Insects scuttled and swarmed, and Clarry kept well back until the displaced homesteaders had been brushed off, most of them with a large white handkerchief by Nicolas.

  The broken wing was left behind. While the men, lifting together, were getting the main figure into the trailer and roping it securely, she grubbed away beside the wing, down on her knees, until Nicolas picked her up bodily. ‘Out of the way, girl!’

  A temper spark glinted in her eyes. She resented being set unceremoniously aside, no matter how goodhumouredly it was done, and she snapped, ‘Who do you think you are—Danny?’

  ‘Danny wouldn’t care for that comparison. If you don’t want a one-winged griffin, let’s get the rest of him aboard,’ said Nicolas calmly.

  She noticed again how grimy and sweat-stained they all were. They wanted the job finished and she was getting in their way, but she said, ‘If there’d been another shovel I could have done more than just stand around holding your coat.’

  She wasn’t doing even that now. She had dropped it, but she picked it up again and shook off the twigs and loose grasses, and Father said encouragingly, ‘Of course you could,’ and to Nicolas, ‘You’ve got a very willing young lady here.’

  ‘I appreciate that,’ said Nicolas, and Clarry managed to say,

  ‘Only with shovels,’ before she burst out laughing.

  Getting the trailer, with the griffin aboard, back to the tractor, was sweatingly hard work. The sheep farmers—by now names had been swapped, and that was their farm at the bottom of the track—were tough. They could have managed on their own, but the muscle power of the fourth man was a mighty help, and Nicolas Dargan hauled with the best of them.

  Paul Burnley, who had told Clarry, ‘There’s a reserve about him...nobody gets familiar with him,’ would hardly have recognised his boss; but the estate manager only knew the tycoon, the ice-cool manipulator with nerves of steel, and Nicolas was all of that.

  But there was no restraint about him now. He was mucking in, pulling his considerable weight, talking with the men in Welsh, to Clarry’s astonishment. She did a double-take and listened carefully before she was sure.

  Back at King’s Lodge they only saw him immaculate and expensively dressed, the way most folk must see him. Now he could have been all-in wrestling on a dirt track, she was glad he was helping to bring the griffin down, and she thought he looked incredibly sexy, sleeves rolled up, tie and collar pulled loose.

  When the trailer was hitched to the tractor she had a mad urge to run her fingers through his hair and pretend to straighten his tie. But she didn’t think he would care for that, so she restrained herself to handing over the jacket and saying, ‘You could use a wash and brush-up.’

  They were all filthy. Clarry had black earth grimed under her own fingernails from her brief scrabbling around the wing, and Nicolas said, ‘We’re cleaning up at the farm.’

  She opened the car door for herself and got in as he said, ‘We’ll follow you,’ and Bryn Thomas, with sons Ralph and Mansell, climbed aboard the tractor, taking a wide turn to get it and the trailer ahead for the ride down the mountainside.

  Clarry inspected her nails and asked, ‘Who gets the bathroom first?’ Going by need, she was low on the list. The men all needed showers or baths, but she could make do with a kitchen sink. ‘Do they all live at the farm?’

  ‘Ralph does. Mansell’s married, he has one of the houses nearby.’ Nicolas had been getting his information while they had been talking in what to her was a foreign tongue. ‘But Bryn’s wife does bed and breakfasts, so there should be washing arrangements.’

  ‘Bed and breakfast?’ Clarry gasped before she could stop herself.

  ‘In our case a wash and a meal and on our way.’

  He was laughing at her, and she said, ‘Of course,’ and looked away from him, out of the window where the heavy clouds were breaking up, scudding in the wind. ‘I’ll clean up easily enough,’ she said, ‘but you’re going to need a lot of hot water.’

  ‘Come here.’ He turned her towards him, cupping her chin in one hand, rubbing a grimy fingertip over her cheeks and dabbing her nose. ‘That’s better.’

  ‘Is that for the soot?’ she managed to joke.

  ‘No, that’s for me. A little mud suits you.’ He reached to get a tissue and remove some of the grime from his hands before starting up the engine and following the tractor.

  She could still feel his touch. When he had held her and raised her face to his her bones had liquefied. Odd things were happening to her today, and she wondered, ‘What would they say back at King’s Lodge if they could see us now?’

  She looked all right, her turbulence was under the skin, but on the surface Nicolas Dargan looked rough. ‘Paul Burnley wouldn’t believe it,’ she said. He shrugged as if what the estate manager believed hardly mattered, and she added mischievously, ‘And I don’t think Miss Stretton would approve.’

  ‘Don’t you?’ Of course she wouldn’t, although she would be sugar-sweet to his face, looking daggers at Clarry when he was not watching her. Right now Fiona Stretton seemed as unreal as Paul Burnley, faint and faraway like characters in an old black and white film.

  Then Nicolas said, ‘That leaves Danny Hill.’ Danny was real and he would be waiting. ‘And I’ll deliver you back to him in pristine condition.’

  Clarry pulled a face. ‘Sounds like a detergent ad! Whiter than white.’

  ‘Pure and uncorrupte
d.’

  ‘Oh, that’s me all right.’ It was all a joke, but there had been no serious lovemaking since Nigel had edged himself out of her life. She was working hard these days, but she still had time for friends and fun, and she was never short of admirers. But no physical affairs. That white streak might be a warning against taking another chance on love, but quite simply she had never met a man who could put her beyond the reach of reason, where she stopped thinking and gave herself up to sensation.

  Not until now. But bumping along the rock road beside Nicolas Dargan, every time she lurched against him a pulse of pleasure throbbed in her throat and her wrists and deep down inside her. She would have liked to slip her hand through his arm and press close to him.

  That was what Fiona was doing last night, in the courtyard after the guests had gone. And into the house probably and heaven knew how long after, while Clarry, in her attic room and her lonely bed, experienced the cold sickness of jealousy for first time in her life.

  She had envied Fiona because Nicolas was with her, but he was with Clarry now, and she was learning a lot about him today. She said, ‘I didn’t know you spoke Welsh.’

  ‘Why should you?’ And there was no answer to that.

  ‘How many languages do you know?’ she asked.

  ‘Enough to usually follow what’s going on.’

  ‘I believe that,’ she said, and she thought, I don’t want you knowing what’s going on with me, that I’m fancying you rotten.

  Nicolas liked her, he might fancy her, but if he did it would be temporary, and she would be wiser and safer to put a damper on sexual stirrings that could burn her up if she let them get out of control.

  Just ahead of them the trailer’s load rolled in its sacking under the binding ropes, and she said, ‘I feel as if we’re coming back from an expedition bringing treasure.’

  ‘So we are. He’ll look magnificent.’

  ‘He’ll enjoy living in the maze after all those years with his face in the mud.’

  ‘You’ve made an old griffin very happy,’ he told her.

  She said impulsively, ‘It made me happy, finding him and you saying you’d have him.’