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‘I think it’s too late to change our minds now,’ she said rapidly. ‘The hotel will be expecting us. Besides, I didn’t really expect to have to do housework on my honeymoon.’
It should have sounded coquettish, but it came out as petulance, and she wished it unsaid. Gethyn’s dark face was still and enigmatic.
He said coolly, ‘As you wish, then,’ and drank his coffee with a slight grimace.
While he phoned for a taxi to take them to the hotel, Davina rinsed the beakers under the tap. She caught a glimpse of her reflection in the kitchen window, her eyes much wider and brighter than usual, but that could be the champagne, and a tiny flush of colour high on her cheekbones. She looked as if she was running a temperature, yet inside she felt deathly cold.
She was still cold when the hotel porter ushered them into the suite. Everything was there waiting for them— more champagne on ice, red roses—lovers’ flowers, filling the air with their scent, baskets of fruit. She glanced round and saw through the half-open door the gleam of a gold satin bedspread, and hurriedly averted her gaze. Gethyn was tipping the man, who was asking, after an appreciative word of thanks, if they wished to have dinner in the suite rather than downstairs in the restaurant.
‘We’ll dine up here,’ Gethyn said. ‘We can order later, I suppose.’
‘Of course, sir.’ The man’s voice was deferential, eager to please.
‘Oh no,’ Davina broke in, aghast. ‘I—I mean—wouldn’t it be more fun to have dinner downstairs …’ Her voice tailed away uncomfortably. She knew that they were both looking at her, the porter with a kind of sly amusement under his deferential manner, and Gethyn with an anger that held no deference at all. He turned to the porter.
‘My wife prefers the restaurant. Perhaps you would make the necessary arrangements.’
When the door closed behind the man, he said softly and chillingly, ‘Do you think you could manage to conceal this aversion you have for being alone with me in front of the hotel staff?’
He strode across the sitting room to a door on the opposite side and opened it, glancing in. He was smiling when he turned, but his eyes were like green ice.
‘The instinct that brought you here was quite right, lovely. Every modern convenience at your disposal—even a second bedroom for the bestowal of an importunate bridegroom.’ He stared round the luxurious sitting room. ‘And what shall we call this, eh? No Man’s Land, perhaps? Shall I wait for you here when it gets to dinner time, or would you prefer to eat separately too?’
She said, and there was a sob under her breath, ‘Gethyn?’ She was asking for his tenderness, his understanding, but he had gone and the door was shut behind him. She was alone and afraid.
With a long shuddering sigh, Davina sat up at her desk and pushed her hair back wearily from her pale face. She was still alone, she thought. But at least she was no longer afraid, and to prove it she would go to this place in Wales and meet Gethyn face to face once again.
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_e539676e-04f6-57d6-8dcd-e5325bef063f)
THE signpost for Moel y Ddraig had said four miles, but Davina seemed to have been driving for hours and there was still no sign of any habitation. The narrow road wound determinedly on ahead of her, leading her deeper and deeper into the very heart of the valley.
She had encountered little other traffic, so she had been able to pay some heed to the beauty around her. It was wild and rugged when compared to some of the rounded green hills she had seen that day, with harsh, rocky outcrops thrusting through the short green turf and clumps of purple heather. There seemed to be sheep grazing everywhere, like tiny tufts of cotton wool against the vivid landscape. The sky was a deep tranquil blue with only the faintest tracery of high white cloud.
If only this had been the start of a holiday, Davina thought ruefully, she might have imagined herself in heaven. As it was, not even the wild charm of the valley could rid her of the insidious feeling of dread that was beginning to pervade her consciousness. She was already regretting quite bitterly that she had ever set out on this strange journey.
But she wouldn’t turn round and go back. Now she was here, she would go through with it. In her briefcase was a letter from Uncle Philip, setting out details of the proposed American tour—her credentials for being here. Not that she expected Gethyn to be taken in by that for one minute. It was merely a face-saver and she knew it, but at least her presence here in Wales would mean that she could test his feelings about divorce.
She had tried quite vainly to explain this to her mother. Mrs Greer had been stunned into silence when Davina had awkwardly broken the news of her proposed trip and its dual purpose. Then, and more disturbingly, she had burst into tears.
‘You’re going back to him,’ she had repeated over and over again. ‘In spite of everything that’s happened, you’re going back to him.’
‘No.’ Davina had attempted to reason with her. ‘I’m going solely to find out, if I can, why he has ignored Mr Bristow’s letters. And I have some papers from Uncle Philip to deliver as well.’
‘Oh, yes, Philip!’ Her mother had rounded on her, her eyes flashing. ‘Naturally, he’s involved. He’d be glad to see you reconciled to that—creature, if only to spite me. He’s never liked me.’
Davina felt suddenly very weary. ‘If Uncle Philip really felt like that, I doubt whether he’d go to these lengths to show it,’ she said. ‘This tour that’s being laid on is quite genuine.’
Mrs Greer produced a lace-trimmed handkerchief and sat twisting it in her hands. Her eyes when she looked at Davina were brooding and full of resentment.
‘I still see no need for you to go,’ she said. ‘If it’s all that important, Philip could go himself—or send someone else.’
‘He is sending someone else,’ Davina insisted gently. ‘He’s sending me. I do work for Hanson Greer, you know. Please try to understand, Mother. The easiest way for me to get a divorce is to persuade Gethyn to agree to it. If he won’t answer letters then it will have to be in person. I just want us to end our marriage in a civilised manner …’
‘Civilised!’ her mother cut in, with a bitter laugh. ‘With that barbarian? He has no decent feelings—leaving you ill and alone while he gallivanted across the United States.’
‘I wasn’t ill when he went,’ Davina pointed out. ‘In fact it was you. You had that bad dose of ‘flu, and I stayed to look after you.’
‘Oh, I see.’ Her mother’s lips were trembling again. ‘So it’s all my fault. But for my inconvenient virus, you’d have gone trailing after him like some pet dog.’
Davina bit her lip. ‘I don’t know what I would have done,’ she said. ‘And there’s little point in discussing it now. I—didn’t go.’
Looking back, she realised it was not merely the nursing of her mother, who had been a fractious patient, that had made her so tired, but the early pregnancy she had only dimly begun to suspect. Mrs Greer had refused to have a private nurse, and had insisted on Davina doing everything for her during her illness and convalescence, and it had been while Davina was helping her mother downstairs one day that she herself had slipped and fallen and precipitated the loss of her baby.
Afterwards she had wondered sometimes if she had confided her suspicion that she might be pregnant to Gethyn whether it would have made any difference, but on the whole she doubted it. Gethyn had already chosen his own path, and his hasty marriage had only been a temporary aberration from this. His solitary departure for the States had been an acknowledgment of their mistake, and a repudiation of his part in it.
Perhaps, Davina thought painfully, it was just as well he had not responded to her urgent call for him when she was in hospital. They might have been together even now, tied only by her dependence and his pity. It was a speculation that she found frankly unbearable.
Ahead of her, down the hill, a thread of smoke was rising from a clump of trees. Houses, she thought with a quick thump of the heart. People. And among them would be Gethyn. So far she had refused to contemplate what she would say to him when they were actually face to face. The situation was a potential minefield, and she would have to rely on her instincts to guide her, although they had not proved to be very reliable in the past.
She drove slowly, telling herself it was because the road sloped steeply with sharp bends, refusing to acknowledge the emotional reluctance that kept her foot on the brake. But it was not such a terrifying prospect that faced her after all as she turned into the narrow village street. A handful of slate-roofed cottages facing each other. A post office, combined with general store. A petrol filling station and an inn. No estranged husband stood forbiddingly in the middle of the highway ordering her away. In spite of herself, her lips twisted wryly at the prospect. And the only dragon was a painted one—black with a fiery red eye—on the inn sign.
Davina drove carefully down the street. Some of the cottages had names, others numbers, but not one of them was called Plas Gwyn. And they didn’t seem right either, with their lace-curtained windows and neatly kept front gardens bright with summer flowers. What part had Gethyn with all this quiet domesticity?
She licked her dry lips. Her obvious course was to enquire at the post office, but it seemed to be closed for lunch. That left the inn, which was a much more inviting proposition. She had been driving for a long time with no refreshment except a cup of coffee purchased in Shrewsbury. And a board outside the inn had mentioned bar snacks. There was a tiny gravelled car park at the side, and she drove in there. She leaned round to the back seat to recover her handbag, and took a deep steadying breath as she got out of the car. She pushed open the front door and found herself in a small lobby, with dark wooden doors opening on each side of her. On the right she could hear the soft drift of voices, predominantly male, with an occasional burst of laughter, and guessed this was the public bar. She opened the left-hand door and found herself in a small room, comfortably furnished with oak tables and high-backed settles. An old-fashioned wood fire had been laid in the grate but not lit. An elderly-looking golden labrador had been lying on the rug in front of the hearth, and as Davina came slowly into the room he got up ponderously and ambled across to put a damp but welcoming nose into her hand. Then he put his head back and gave a deep-throated bark.
‘Quiet, you old fool,’ a woman’s voice called from the regions behind the bar. ‘What’s the matter with you?’
The curtain that hid the doorway through to the other bar was pushed aside and she came in, small and dark with glasses pushed up on her forehead. She put her hand to her mouth in mock dismay when she caught sight of Davina.
‘There now,’ she said. ‘Me calling him names, and he was only trying to tell me you were here. What can I get you?’
‘I’d like a lager.’ Davina hoisted herself gracefully on to one of the tall padded stools along the bar counter and returned the woman’s smile. ‘And a sandwich, if that’s possible.’
‘More than possible,’ the woman said briskly. ‘There’s ham, cheese or turkey. Or I’ve a menu somewhere …’ She began to fill a glass with lager, peering round for the menu card as she did so.
‘Turkey would be fine,’ Davina assured her.
‘Come far, have you?’ The woman set the glass down on a mat and pushed it towards Davina. Her twinkling eyes frankly assessed the classic lines of the cool shirtwaister dress, and the cost of the gold chain Davina wore round her throat.
‘Quite a way,’ Davina agreed noncommittally. The lager was ice-cold, frosting the outside of the glass, and she sipped it gratefully.
‘It’s chilly in here.’ The landlady hunched her shoulders in a slight shiver. ‘Shall I put a match to the old fire for you?’
‘Oh, no, please.’ Davina put out a detaining hand. ‘It’s a gorgeous day. Perhaps I could take a chair outside.’
‘No need for that. There’s a patch of grass at the back and a few tables. You can sit and look at the river and I’ll bring your sandwiches out to you.’
‘Do you get many tourists?’ Davina asked, gathering up her handbag and preparing to follow.
‘Oh yes. Surprising it is. Families, mostly, which is why I have the tables outside—for the children, see. Funny old licensing laws we have. And there’ll be more visitors, I daresay, if the old mill up the valley gets working again as they reckon.’
‘Mill?’ Davina raised her brows questioningly.
The woman nodded vigorously. ‘An old woollen mill. Very dilapidated, but they say it will work again. Fine thing, too, for Moel y Ddraig when it does. A bit of local industry to keep the youngsters from drifting away.’
She led the way along a narrow passage and flung open the door at the end.
‘Through the yard, see, and round the corner,’ she directed. ‘I’ll bring your lunch in a minute.’
It was a wide lawn, sloping gently down towards the river at the bottom. Davina strolled down to the bank and stood on its edge, gazing down into the clear fast-flowing water. It was quite shallow at this point, but further out there were deeper pools and in one of these two small boys stood fishing happily. They gave Davina a friendly wave, and she waved back, suddenly enjoying the fresh sparkle of the water and the kiss of the sun on her face.
The sandwiches which arrived with amazing promptness were delicious—thick slices of turkey breast with a slight sprinkling of salt laid between chunks of undoubtedly home-made bread. The butter too had a taste which had nothing to do with supermarkets. Even the crusts were good. When she had finished, Davina sat back with a sigh of repletion. She smilingly refused an offer of apple pie and cream, but accepted a cup of coffee.
‘You don’t do bed and breakfast, I suppose?’ She was only half-joking. It had occurred to her that she would need to stay overnight somewhere, and that the inn would make as good a base as any.
‘I’m sorry, I don’t.’ The landlady set a cup of coffee down on the small iron table and added a bowl of brown sugar. ‘But Mrs Parry might be able to help you, that is if she’s not full up with her pony-trekkers. Are you going to be staying long?’
‘I’m not sure.’ Davina realised with irritation that she was being deliberately evasive. Yet what was the point? Sooner or later she would have to ask someone if they knew Gethyn, and this woman was friendly and approachable. She hesitated. ‘As a matter of fact, I’m here on business. I—I’m looking for someone—a Gethyn Lloyd. He’s a writer.’
‘Mr Lloyd—a writer? Well, there’s a thing, now.’ The other woman sounded amazed. ‘You won’t have to look much further, though. He’s up at Plas Gwyn. In fact, it belongs to him.’
‘Yes, that’s the place,’ Davina said, relieved that her search was turning out to be relatively simple. ‘Can you tell me where it is?’
‘Why, of course I can. That’s where I was going to send you for the bed and breakfast. It’s Mr Lloyd’s aunt, Mrs Parry, who does all that side of it, and young Rhiannon who takes out the riders.’
Davina smothered a gasp of disbelief. Gethyn might have his reasons for burying himself in the solitude of a remote valley, but she found it hard to take that one of them could involve the running of a pony-trekking centre. And she was frankly dismayed to learn that the only accommodation she could obtain locally seemed to be under his roof. That had not entered her plans at all. She had taken it for granted that any interview she might have with him could at least be conducted on some form of neutral territory.
It was on the tip of her tongue to ask the landlady if she could not make an exception and put her up for the night, but she stifled the impulse. Friendly she might be, but this was only a small place and gossip would be rife. Davina guessed her arrival and revelation about Gethyn’s identity would be sufficient of a nine-day wonder without giving more grounds for speculation. And if she was only a business acquaintance as she had said, she had no real reason for rejecting Mrs Parry’s accommodation. All she could do was hope that Plas Gwyn would be full of pony-trekkers and that there would be no room for her. If that was so, she would have to start for home again that evening and trust to luck that she could find somewhere to stay on the road. It did not give her a lot of time to see Gethyn and talk to him, and she drank the remains of her coffee with a sense of resolution. She had little time to waste. She paid her bill, and listened to the landlady’s explicit directions on how to reach Plas Gwyn. She was thankful she had asked. Without them, she might have wandered round for hours, as it appeared the house itself lay at the end of an unmarked track which was unsuitable for cars. Pony-trekkers, she thought with a wry inward smile, must be an intrepid bunch!
She was so busy watching the road and looking out for the landmarks that would guide her that she quite forgot the implications of her visit. It was not until she climbed out of the car to open the big white gate which closed off the track that the old misgivings assailed her. She paused. It was still not too late to get in the car and drive away like the wind. Then with determination, she dragged the heavy gate into place behind the car and fastened it with the loop of wire provided for the purpose. She had the oddest feeling she had burnt her boats, as she set the car going again, bumping forward over the rapidly deteriorating track. She found the parking place the landlady had mentioned quite easily about half-way down. Three cars were drawn up there and a battered-looking Landrover. Davina parked her own vehicle and locked it after collecting her handbag and briefcase. Her suitcase she left where it was in the boot. Then she started to walk. The sandals she was wearing with their high wedged heels were not the most comfortable form of footwear for these conditions, she soon discovered. The track was deeply rutted and there were loose stones everywhere as an added pitfall.
Davina thought ruefully that she would be lucky to arrive at Plas Gwyn with her ankles intact, and was thankful she was not burdened with the additional hazard of her overnight case.
She rounded a corner and the house lay in front of her. It was a rambling two-storey building, half-timbered and obviously very old. Moss and lichen had gathered on the slate-covered roof, and the small square windows under the heavy eaves seemed to slant at crazy angles. It was very still, the only sign of life coming from the faint thread of smoke issuing from one of the chimneys. Davina walked forward uncertainly. There were two small lawns in front of the house, bordered by a low white fence. On one of them a cream-coloured nanny goat had been tethered and she looked up with bright, acquisitive eyes as Davina opened the squeaking gate and approached the front door.
The door stood slightly ajar and she pushed it open tentatively and went in. She found herself in a large square hall. A wide staircase in dark polished wood curved away to the upper storey on her right. The walls were panelled in wood too, and there was a big stone fireplace, swept and polished, its wide hearth filled not with logs but an attractive arrangement of dried grasses and leaves.
On the left a passage stretched away to the back of the house, and around the hall were three doors, all tightly closed. Davina looked around her a little helplessly. A big oak table stood on the left-hand wall, holding a small brass gong and what appeared to be a visitors’ book. After a moment’s hesitation, she trod across to the table and struck the gong lightly.
Almost before the echoes had died away, a voice behind her said coolly, ‘Yes, can I help you?’
Davina turned sharply, conscious of relief that it was at least a female voice. The girl facing her was, she judged, younger than herself, tall and slim with a cloud of dark hair hanging on her shoulders. She wore a pair of riding breeches, well-fitting but shabby, and a faded checked shirt. Her glance, while not exactly hostile, did not reflect the generally welcoming atmosphere of the house. It seemed to assess Davina and then dismiss her.
‘I’m looking for Mr Gethyn Lloyd,’ said Davina.
‘Oh?’ The girl’s brows rose interrogatively. ‘And who is it wants him?’
Davina hesitated. Her impulse was to tell this stranger to mind her own business, but she controlled it. Judging by what the woman at the inn had said this must be Rhiannon, and Davina had no wish to start off on bad terms with a member of the Plas Gwyn household. Things were going to be difficult enough without that. She decided to play it cool. After all, she had no means of knowing how much this Rhiannon might know of Gethyn’s private life or her own brief part in it.
‘My name is Greer,’ she said quietly. ‘Davina Greer.’
The girl took a step forward, and her eyes were blazing. Davina felt herself recoil instinctively before this fierce dislike.
‘Oh, is it?’ she said with a kind of angry derision. ‘Well, you can just go back where you came from. You’re not wanted here.’
‘Rhiannon!’ The shocked protest came from the stairs. Davina glanced up and saw they had been joined by an older woman. It was impossible that she and the angry Rhiannon could be other than mother and daughter. Mrs Parry’s dark hair might be silvering at the temples, and her eyes full of anxiety instead of sparking with temper, but their basic bone structure was practically identical.
She came down the stairs, casting her daughter a look of dismay. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she turned apologetically to Davina. ‘It’s quite true we are full at the moment, but that’s no reason for my daughter’s discourtesy.’
Rhiannon moved impatiently. ‘You don’t understand, Mam. She hasn’t come to stay. She’s come to see Gethyn. She’s his wife.’
The last staccato sentence died away into an awkward silence. Eventually Mrs Parry said nervously, ‘Oh dear—I wonder what … I suppose I’d better introduce myself. I’m Gethyn’s Aunt Beth—his father’s sister.’
It seemed ludicrous under the circumstances to express any kind of pleasure at the meeting, so Davina contented herself with shaking hands in silence.
‘I’m sorry if my arrival has upset anyone,’ she said at last. ‘But I am here on business.’ She indicated her briefcase, leaning against one leg of the table.
Mrs Parry eyed it almost distractedly. ‘Yes, of course, only … It’s so difficult, you see.’
‘Mrs Parry,’ Davina tried to sound reassuring, ‘I haven’t come to stay. I work for my uncle at Hanson Greer and I have some papers for Gethyn to look at. If I could just see him for a few minutes …’
‘Well, you can’t, then,’ Rhiannon broke in rudely. ‘Because he’s not here and he won’t be back until tomorrow or the next day. So you may as well take yourself off.’
‘Rhiannon!’ It was her mother’s turn to sound really angry now. ‘If you can’t be civil, you’d better go to your room. I’ll deal with this.’
Rhiannon’s lip curled. ‘Please yourself. If you want me, I’ll be in the stables.’ With a last inimical glance at Davina she walked out of the front door and disappeared.
Mrs Parry became galvanised into activity. ‘Won’t you come in, Miss—er—oh!’ She broke off in confusion. ‘I don’t even know what to call you.’ She threw open one of the doors on the left revealing a large sitting room furnished with comfortable sofas and deep armchairs covered in faded chintz. ‘Do sit down. I’ll go and make some tea.’
Davina halted her. ‘Please—not for me. Was Rhiannon right? Is Gethyn not here?’
His aunt looked troubled. ‘Well, no—not at the moment he isn’t. He’ll be back, of course, but it’s difficult to say when. He comes and goes as he pleases, you see.’
‘He hasn’t changed,’ Davina said quietly. She made herself smile briefly. ‘Well, that makes things—rather awkward. I had rather counted on seeing him. My uncle will be very disappointed.’
Mrs Parry appeared to think quickly and make up her mind. ‘Well, if you’d like to stay and wait until he returns, you’d be very welcome.’
Davina hesitated. It was obviously the most sensible course to pursue under the circumstances, yet she felt uncertain. For one thing she was putting Gethyn’s aunt in a difficult position, and for another she would have to cope with Rhiannon’s open hostility. Gethyn, it seemed, had not been reticent about the past with his young cousin.
‘I don’t know,’ she said eventually. ‘It’s very kind of you, but I thought you said there was no room.’
‘Oh, but you’re family.’ Mrs Parry gave a quick, rather shy smile. ‘That makes all the difference. We can find a corner for you.’
Davina bit her lip. To describe her as family under the circumstances was pitching it a bit high, but Mrs Parry clearly meant well and it would be churlish to reject the relationship or the hospitality, so she merely thanked her quietly.
The room she was shown to was quite a large one at the back of the house, overlooking a small orchard with a glimpse of the river in the distance, and beyond that the steep outline of the mountain. It contained a wide brass bedstead covered in a Welsh tapestry counterpane, and matching curtains hung at the windows. There was a tall dressing chest in one corner topped by a mirror on a swivel, and a matching mahogany wardrobe on the other side of the room. There was a small table under the window and an elderly easy chair close beside it. The floorboards and furniture gleamed with polish and a faint fragrance of lavender hung in the room.
‘It’s delightful,’ Davina said after the first appreciative glance around.’
