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Her stomach clenched. When the armour he imposed over his emotions was breached he was gorgeous.
No wonder Stella had tumbled headlong into love with him. The thought sent a faint feeling of nausea through Minerva, as though by responding to that inscrutable, remote charm she had been disloyal to her stepsister.
Resting her head on the back of the seat, Minerva stared with unseeing, half-closed eyes at the rain-swept countryside, brooding yet again over Stella’s actions, wondering sickly what had driven her to take her own life.
There had been no reason for her to be depressed. She had had everything to live for; a husband she adored, a future that was shiny and sweet with the promise of happiness. She had been popular and loved, with an infectious, sparkling gaiety that attracted as much attention as her sultry, exotic beauty.
It was impossible to imagine Stella saving pills, stealing them from her mother and the housekeeper, hoarding them away in some horrible kind of squirrel’s cache until she had garnered enough to snuff out her life. She’d waited until Nick had gone away for three days, then swallowed them deliberately, carefully, until they were all gone. It was appalling, hideous, yet she had done it, and left them all bewildered.
The housekeeper had found her the next morning. That must have been Helen Borrows. No wonder she had looked so horrified when Minerva told her she was Mrs Peveril’s sister.
‘Suicide while the balance of her mind was disturbed’ had been the verdict at the inquest. Like Ruth, Minerva found this impossible to credit.
Stella had been so bright, so buoyantly high-spirited, so carefree as she flitted through her life. Oh, there had been moods. Stella’s glums, the family had called them, and joined in an unspoken conspiracy to jolly her out of them. But they had never been particularly intense.
At the inquest Mrs Borrows had said that she hadn’t noticed any signs of depression in the new Mrs Peveril, except that she seemed to be homesick and unable to settle in Northland. She had assumed it was because she didn’t like living in the country. Some people didn’t.
True enough. Yet Stella had seemed so in love with Nick that she would have lived anywhere just to be with him.
Admittedly, Stella hadn’t exactly had much staying power when it came to men. Had that swift, fierce, passion burned out so quickly?
No, her adoring, almost awed love for Nick had resounded through her letters. Yet something had gone wrong. The last communication Minerva had received had been written three months before her stepsister killed herself. By then her letters had become oddly remote, a mere record of events, as though Stella had been trying to hide her real feelings behind the words.
Minerva bit her lip. Meeting Nick, seeing Spanish Castle with her own eyes, had only added to the mystery.
CHAPTER TWO
IN SILENCE they finished the drive back to the homestead. Nick parked the Range Rover in a garage which formed one side of a courtyard at the rear of the house. More flowers and a bed of herbs filled the corners of the courtyard. Like the rest of Spanish Castle it was picture-perfect.
‘There’s room for your car next door,’ he said, and took her through into a double garage, one side of which was taken up by a large Mercedes-Benz saloon.
He opened the roller doors and watched while she drove Ruth’s small car-about-town into the space next to the aristocrat. Once out, she unlocked the boot.
Looking what he was, a man so sure of his position in the world that he had no need to prove himself, a man accustomed to command, he extended an imperative hand. Well, he was stronger than she. With a mental shrug, Minerva passed him the pack that had accompanied her around the globe; in his leanly elegant hands it seemed a battered, cheap thing.
‘This used to be a jumble of rooms,’ he said, leading her through a door into an airy passageway that looked on to the courtyard. ‘It’s now garages and offices and mud-room. This doorway leads into the house proper.’
Up three steps, another wide hall stretched in front of them. He opened a door halfway down. ‘Here’s the kitchen,’ he said.
It was superb. Checking it out with an authoritative eye, Minerva saw that it had been newly renovated and set up for entertaining. Not just the occasional dinner party, either. The French range had enough capacity to feed a hundred, and there was a big old wood range too, crackling softly to itself and giving off a very pleasant heat. Clearly she’d found the source of the unexpected warmth throughout the house.
‘Do you think you can manage the stoves?’ Nick asked.
‘No problem,’ Minerva said reassuringly, trying to project a brisk, businesslike manner.
Of course her hair chose that moment to slip from its knot at the back of her head and slither down her back. Nick’s gaze followed its downward passage until it reached her waist. Beneath the thick fringe of his lashes his eyes gleamed suddenly, something in that hooded scrutiny setting Minerva’s cheeks aflame.
Turning away, she caught the fine, flyaway mass in two hands and ruthlessly anchored it in a knot at the back of her head, forcing the combs into the slippery, silky strands.
So much for her effort to be composed and matter-of-fact!
‘I’ve cooked on everything from a campfire to a hotel range,’ she told him firmly, trying to regain ground.
‘Of course.’ The cool eyes scanned her flushed, averted face. His uneven smile held more than a hint of mockery. ‘You don’t look like my idea of a chef.’
‘Because I haven’t got a white hat on? I only wear one in hotel kitchens.’ Retreating behind a mask of expertise, she asked crisply, ‘What foods do you dislike?’
‘None. I’ll eat anything you put in front of me provided it isn’t too sweet.’ He glanced at the thin watch on his strong wrist. ‘We’ll talk about my tastes later, after I’ve shown you the rest of the house and your room.’
A large tabby cat strolled casually in through the door, looked around with the air of one at home, then headed straight for him.
‘This is Penelope,’ he said, bending down to scratch her in exactly the right place behind her ears. ‘Her official job is to keep any mice down.’
Minerva liked cats. This one, with its ineffable air of sleek self-respect, gave the huge kitchen a friendly, comfortable air. Purring, Penelope displayed herself sinuously about Nick’s ankles, then, when he stood up, leapt gracefully on to a stool and looked expectantly at Minerva.
She laughed softly. ‘Wait until dinner,’ she said. ‘And if I ever see you on the bench—watch it.’
The cat gave her a disgusted stare, yawned ostentatiously and settled down to wash its ears.
‘Don’t you like cats?’ Nick asked.
‘Love them, but with a cat it’s always wise to establish right at the beginning who’s boss. Penelope and I will get on very well, don’t worry.’ She stroked the blunt head, asking, ‘What’s your dog’s name? The one you were carrying on your horse?’
‘Rusty.’
Minerva’s brows shot up. ‘That’s funny. I’d have bet money on him being black and white, without a speck of brown.’
‘And you’d have won. I didn’t name him,’ he said, that half-smile softening his features.
‘Who did?’
‘The man who bred him. I’ve always assumed he was colourblind.’
‘Does he come inside?’ she asked. ‘Rusty, I mean.’
His eyebrows lifted. ‘No, he’s a farm dog.’
So farm dogs were not pets. You learn something new every day, she told herself.
‘I used to have a Labrador who did come inside,’ he said, ‘but Stella didn’t like dogs, so when he died I didn’t get another.’
There was a chilling lack of emotion in his tone, in his face, when he said his dead wife’s name. It was as though she meant nothing to him. Or perhaps, Minerva thought slowly, as though he still couldn’t bear to think of it, as though the only way he could cope was to tamp the emotions down.
‘And what is the horse’s name?’ she asked quickly.
His brows lifted but he said readily enough, ‘Silver Demon.’
Something in her expression must have given her away, because an answering amusement glimmered in his eyes. ‘I didn’t name him, either. Pretentious, isn’t it?’
‘It suits him,’ she said solemnly, smoothing the soft fur behind Penelope’s ears to hide the flutter that smile set up somewhere in the region of her heart.
He shook his head. ‘It doesn’t. Although he’s a stallion he’s as placid as a gelding, which is why he’s here. We don’t breed horses at Spanish Castle, so there’s no place for a temperamental stallion, or mare, for that matter; this is a working station.’ He paused, then added without expression, ‘He doesn’t come inside, either.’
When Minerva laughed he watched her with an arrested expression, almost as though a laughing woman was a novelty. The amusement died in her throat. Abruptly, Nick turned towards the door. Answering the unspoken summons, she left Penelope in charge and followed him from the kitchen.
‘I’ll take you round the ground floor first,’ he said, ‘so you know your way about, then I’ll show you your room.’
The homestead was magnificent, furniture and fabric and the house itself combining to make a harmonious whole. The last room they went into was a splendid dining-room where an eighteenth-century mahogany table was set off perfectly by buttercup-coloured walls and a huge painting that should have been incongruous, a modern South American acrylic of the jungle. Yet the lush, almost naïve picture set off the big room and its elegant, traditional furniture with style and wit.
Gazing around, Minerva asked, ‘Who decorated the house? It’s brilliant.’
‘My mother.’
Was his mother still alive? Yes, Stella had written of a tall, charming woman who had married again. ‘She has great talent.’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Although most of the furniture was in the house, she re-organised the place to within an inch of its life as well as choosing the colours and the materials. In her day it wasn’t done for a young woman to have a career, but she’d have been a success as a decorator. She lives in Singapore now with her second husband, and is having the time of her life redoing his house and garden.’
The stairs led to a passage lit by an arched window above the staircase and a large double-hung window at the other end of the house. More pictures were displayed along the walls, some by artists Minerva thought she recognised, some unknown, but all chosen with discernment and the passion of the true connoisseur.
‘Did your mother collect the pictures?’ she asked, looking at one particularly impressive oil of a woman on the beach.
‘Some. My grandparents and great-grandparents bought some, and I’ve added to them.’
‘They have...’ Struggling for a way to express her feelings, she could only say lamely, ‘They seem to go to together, to make up a whole.’
‘Perhaps because we’ve only ever bought what we really like,’ he said.
Her room, just around the corner from the stairs, was surprisingly large, with a four-poster bed against one wall and a small door opposite. Going over to the bed, Nick turned down the spread.
‘It’s not made up,’ he said. ‘I’ll help you do it now.’
‘I’ll do it,’ she said swiftly. It was ridiculous, but she didn’t want him making the bed with her. ‘Where’s the linen cupboard?’
He nodded towards a massive French armoire on one wall. ‘In there. Are you sure? I do know how to make a bed.’
Minerva’s smile was hurried. ‘I’m sure you can, but honestly, it’s no trouble.’
‘All right. The bathroom is through the door beside it,’ he said. ‘Let me know if there’s anything else you want.’
Minerva looked away. The ripple of taut muscle as he swung her pack on to a chair set uneasy excitement singing through her. ‘I will,’ she said. ‘What time do you have dinner?’
‘Seven-thirty. I think Helen has left a sort of menu.’
‘Yes.’
He said without emotion, ‘Thank you for stepping into the breach. Helen was frantic to get to her daughter, but she wouldn’t have left me in the lurch.’
‘That’s loyalty,’ Minerva said slowly. Was the housekeeper devoted enough to answer a lawyer who asked questions about the relationship between husband and wife with, if not lies, at least a bending of the truth that favoured her employer?
After all, it would be pragmatic of her to be generous in her interpretation of the situation, even a little biased. Not only did Nick own Spanish Castle, he had interests in other businesses, mostly concerned with the agricultural and pastoral sector, including one extremely successful one he’d set up himself. Irritated by the lack of decent software for agricultural use, he had designed his own, marketed it, and now headed a firm which was expanding its exports by a quantum leap each year.
So he was clever, a creative thinker and an astute businessman as well as part of New Zealand’s landed gentry. The Peveril name was one to reckon with in the north. Nick was a local grandee, a power in the country. And he was kind; his concern for Mrs Borrows hadn’t been assumed.
Perhaps no one was all that interested in why his wife had died, especially as he hadn’t been there when Stella swallowed her deadly mixture of pills.
Nick’s broad shoulders moved a fraction. ‘She adored my mother,’ he said calmly, as though this explained everything. ‘Now, about payment. Family or not,’ his voice turned sardonic, ‘I certainly don’t expect you to give up your holiday without making it worthwhile for you.’
Minerva lifted ironic eyes. ‘The family bit cuts both ways,’ she said lightly, hiding even from herself her instinctive rejection of the idea of taking money from him. ‘You don’t pay family for coming to the rescue. It isn’t done.’
The cold fire of his gaze held hers for a pulse-thudding moment. He meant to ride roughshod over her; she could see his intention as clearly as though he had spoken the words.
Then something changed his mind and his expression altered into the chilly impersonality she was beginning to dislike. With a narrow, sharp-edged smile, he said, ‘Very well.’
Oddly enough, she resented his easy capitulation. She had, she realised, looked forward to crossing swords with him. Something told her that he would be a good enemy, hard but just, and that there would be an intense exhilaration in battling him. Minerva rather enjoyed a fair fight; in that she was completely different from Stella, who had hated quarrels and been unable to cope with them.
It seemed suddenly disloyal to bandy words and fence for position with the man who had been instrumental in some way for her sister’s death. Her lips tightened. She said too loudly, ‘Well, that’s settled then. I’d better unpack.’
When he had left the room she stood for a moment, her eyes fixed on the door, before breathing out with a sudden, explosive sound. Then she walked across to the wide bed and sat down on it, her eyes troubled.
He was too much, too tall, too good-looking, with eyes that saw too much and a mouth that promised too much, and a voice that sent too many shivers down her spine. Yet that uncompromising dominance wasn’t entirely physical; even curbed by will-power, the dark force of his personality blazed forth with an indelible impact. No wonder Stella had been overwhelmed.
More than anything, Minerva wanted to understand her stepsister’s state of mind in those last months before her death. Oh, she hadn’t come up here deliberately to spy and poke and probe, but that had to be part of the reason she had turned off Highway 10 and headed up the hill. For a year Stella’s death had nagged at her, demanding that she do something about it, that she make someone suffer for it.
She needed to find out what had driven her stepsister to take that final, irrevocable step into the darkness. If they knew, Ruth and her father could pick up the threads of their lives and find some measure of serenity and acceptance.
Initially she had blamed Nick, but now it seemed fairly clear that like Ruth, like them all, he was living in one of the darker corners of hell.
Minerva sighed, looking around with a troubled frown.
Perhaps Stella should be allowed to rest in peace, that lovely phrase which promised so much.
Biting her lip, Minerva stared down at the faded hues of the Persian carpet, watching the wonderful coppery red and brilliant blue blur through her tears into a jumble of undefined hues.
What had been Stella’s thoughts during the last night she had spent here?
No one, she thought sadly, would ever know. Stella had made sure of that by not asking for help, by giving no reason. Sometimes Minerva wondered whether she would have made a difference; whether, if she’d been home, Stella would have confided in her.
Although Minerva was a year younger, she had been the stronger, treading through the minefields of adolescence with a light foot and comparative ease, whereas Stella had made hard weather of it.
When Stella got drunk it had been Minerva who had smuggled her into the house and dealt with the aftermath, just as she had coped the time Stella had tried marijuana. Later, realising that Stella had embarked on the first of a series of affairs, it was Minerva who had expostulated. Stella had listened, said airily that making love with someone you liked was no big deal, and not let Minerva’s reasoned arguments affect her behaviour at all.
In spite of her light-heartedness and her fragility, Stella had never been one for confidences. Minerva’s hands clenched on her lap as she fought guilt and pain and a wasteland of emotions. Why should she think that she might have made a difference if Ruth hadn’t seen anything, if Nick had been unable to help the woman he had married, the woman who had loved him so desperately? Although it hurt to accept that there was probably nothing she could have done, she had to, or risk spending the rest of her life haunted by regret.
It was time to let the past bury its dead.
Wearily, she went into the bathroom, a room of Victorian splendour, claw-footed bath and all, only modernised in the most essential ways. As warm and dry as the rest of the house, it breathed the same indefinable air of luxury.
Staring into the well-lit mirror, she saw no ghosts, just her own somewhat plain reflection, its only claims to beauty a heart-shaped face and a pair of large, dark blue eyes set in thick black lashes.
