Charade In Winter

Alix wished she knew what he meant. ‘Not—especially.’

‘Tell me, Mrs Thornton, what libraries have you catalogued where such qualifications were necessary?’

Alix trembled. So he had had her investigated, after all. He knew she was a fraud, and this was his way of breaking it to her. But how best to deal with it? Ought she to pretend ignorance until he confronted her with her duplicity, or confess her identity forthwith and pray that he wouldn’t use physical violence to eject her?

She was still trying to make up her mind, when he went on impatiently: ‘You’re looking worried again, Mrs Thornton. There is no need, I can assure you. I’m not about to divulge myself as the devil incarnate, nor do I particularly care to take my pleasures with unpaid members of your sex, however delectable they might appear! My dear aunt would not have sent you here otherwise. My questions are purely academic, pertaining to the issues I have to discuss with you. Now—are you reassured?’

Alix was not at all sure she was. But it seemed she had been hasty in assuming he had discovered her identity. ‘I—I’m afraid I don’t understand you, Mr Morgan,’ she ventured demurely, deciding to feign ignorance of the coarser remarks he had addressed to her, and judging from his scornful expression, she had succeeded in this at least.

‘Very well.’ His nostrils flared. ‘I’ll come straight to the point, Mrs Thornton. I did not hire you for a librarian.’

He had succeeded in shocking her now, and Alix came involuntarily to her feet, almost spilling her drink in the process. ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘You heard me, Mrs Thornton. I did not hire you to catalogue my library.’

Alix’s thoughts tumbled wildly. What did he mean? If he did not need to have his library catalogued, why should he go to the trouble of hiring somebody with those qualifications? She stared at him disbelievingly, and he removed his hand from the waistband of his pants to run it carelessly into the open neckline of his dark brown shirt. The movement released another button and the feelings evoked by the curling dark hair escaping through the gap made her realise how vulnerable a woman could be with a man of such unconscious sexuality.

Then he spoke again, and she lifted her eyes to his face. ‘For reasons I prefer not to enlarge upon, it was necessary to practise a little subterfuge, Mrs Thornton. My real purpose in bringing you to Darkwater may not be initially to your liking, but I think the remuneration I am prepared to offer will more than compensate you for any inconvenience.’

Alix’s fingers felt numb about the glass. ‘You said you would get to the point, Mr Morgan,’ she said, her voice remarkably even in the circumstances. ‘I don’t think you have—yet.’

He replaced his empty glass on the trolley, and then put both hands behind his back. ‘You’re impatient, Mrs Thornton.’ He moved to stand before the fire. ‘I perceive that’s one qualification Grizelda overlooked.’

Alix could feel the tension within herself rising. ‘If you don’t want a librarian, Mr Morgan, what do you want?’ she exclaimed, at a loss to know how her mother would have reacted in this situation, and with a sigh he turned to rest one hand on the mantel.

‘A governess, Mrs Thornton,’ he said astonishingly, his grey eyes cold and intent. ‘I need someone to prepare my daughter for boarding school next September.’

CHAPTER TWO

ALIX’S rooms were in the west wing. Carpeted passages led from the first floor gallery into the east and west wings of the Hall, and the overall impression was of great size and grandeur. But in spite of an adequate heating system, Darkwater Hall was too big to feel at home in, and as Alix unpacked her cases and put her belongings away in the capacious cavern of a wardrobe, she couldn’t help feeling vaguely anxious. So far as she was aware, she was the only occupant of the west wing, and all those vacant doors she and Seth had passed on the way to her apartments made her feel uneasy.

Not that there was anything to complain about so far as her accommodation was concerned. She had been given adjoining rooms with a private bath, and the sitting room which adjoined this bedroom was extremely comfortable. Most of the furniture was old, but beautifully preserved, and as well as the more traditional items there was a large colour television which would at least help to keep her in touch with the outside world.

The outside world! She shivered. Why was she suddenly thinking of it like that? She was very much of that world, and somehow she would have to maintain contact with it. Willie would be expecting to hear from her, and when he learned why she had been brought here, he would be as astounded as she had been. Oliver and Joanne Morgan had had no children. That had been put forward as one of the reasons for the breakdown of the marriage, for long before Joanne died it was known that the relationship between Oliver Morgan and his wife was deteriorating rapidly, and odds were being offered as to when they would eventually split up. But it hadn’t happened that way. Joanne Morgan had died instead, arousing a wealth of speculation from every quarter. It was typical of the man himself that he had refused to answer any questions concerning his wife’s death, and had left the country three months ago returning, not to London, but to this remote establishment.

No wonder he hadn’t wanted to advertise the fact that he required a governess, thought Alix incredulously. This child, whoever she was, was not his wife’s offspring, or there would have been no need of the subterfuge he had practised. But apparently the child needed educating, and he was willing to suffer a winter in the north of England if she could be prepared to enter boarding school next autumn. Whether he intended acknowledging her identity at that time, Alix did not care to consider, but her hands trembled when she considered the story this would make. She spread her palms, looking down at their unsteadiness. She must keep calm, she told herself fiercely. On no account must Oliver Morgan learn of her identity, or she hesitated to speculate what his reactions might be.

Fortunately he had taken her startled amazement downstairs to mean what it appeared—the disconcertment of a person hired to do one job who is suddenly faced with another. Anyone would have been shocked to learn they had been hired under false pretences, and indeed, not everyone might have accepted the new arrangements as willingly as she did. Had she been too willing? she asked herself now, and then dismissed the question. It was too late to worry about things like that, when she had so many other matters to worry about, not least her own reactions to the master of Darkwater Hall.

She had never considered herself an emotional person, and her career had always come first with her. The relationships with men she’d had had always remained within the acceptable bounds of affection; and her experiences had never led her to believe that lovemaking was anything more than a rather unnecessary complication she would rather avoid.

Making her plans to come to Darkwater Hall, knowing as she did the reputation Oliver Morgan had acquired, rightly or wrongly, over the years, Alix had never once considered that she might find him attractive. He was too old, for one thing; he was coarse and ill-tempered, and the sensitivity of his work was not reflected in his personal life. Why then did she feel this intense awareness of him as a man, when at no time during their interview had he been anything more than remotely polite with her? He was not handsome, his nose looked as if it had been broken, and the lines drawn so deeply beside his nose and his mouth were pale etchings in his swarthy complexion. And yet something about him sent shivers of anticipation along her spine, and she speedily decided she was mistaking attraction for fear. After all, she had reason to fear him. Nothing could alter that.

With an angry shake of her head, she thrust these disquieting thoughts aside, and marched to the door of the bathroom. She had not met the child yet, but once he had exploded his bombshell, Oliver Morgan had rung for Seth to show her to her room, and suggested she might like to freshen herself before dinner. Perhaps he preferred to give her time to adjust to her new situation before confronting her with her charge. Certainly the turn of events demanded adjustment, even for her, and she understood now why the qualifications had been so unusual. And yet it was not an unimaginative idea. Someone of her mother’s abilities would be quite capable of instructing a child to preparatory level, and Alix only hoped she was equally able.

The bathroom was as large as the other apartments, with an enormous sunken bath made of veined green marble. The mixer and taps were shaped in bronze, like a lion’s head; the taps the claws, the mixer the beast’s yawning jaws. Long mirrors lined the walls above the bath, and panelled the inner side of the heavy door. As Alix shed her clothes, she saw her reflection thrown back at her from a dozen different aspects, and a faint flush of colour stained her cheeks. She had never contemplated her nakedness in such detail, and she was glad when the bath was full of heated soapy water, and the mirrors filmed with steam.

Nevertheless later, as she towelled herself dry with an enormous fluffy green bathsheet, she found herself wondering what kind of woman would appeal to a man like Oliver Morgan. Not someone like herself, she decided. No doubt he preferred smaller women, some dark delicate creature, with consumptive pallor and blue eyes, similar to the pictures she had seen of his wife. Certainly not a tall, bosomy blonde, who looked well able to take care of herself.

Wrapping herself in a towelling bathrobe she had found behind the door, she went back into her bedroom and seated herself before the dressing table mirror. Her hair was shoulder-length and uncompromisingly straight, and she brushed it vigorously, finding a certain amount of release in the effort it required. Then she applied a mascara brush to her lashes, darkening the gold-flecked tips and outlining the wide spacing of eyes that were an unusual shade of green. Her eyes were her best feature, she had decided long ago, ignoring the generously warm fullness of her mouth.

She wasn’t sure whether or not she was expected to dress for dinner, or indeed where she would take her meals. Her knowledge of governesses didn’t encompass their eating habits, and the thought of sharing Oliver Morgan’s table every evening was a daunting one. During the day, she would no doubt be expected to supervise his daughter’s meals, but after she had gone to bed—what then? Other thoughts occurred to her. Were governesses expected to see their charges into bed? Who attended to the child’s physical needs, mended her clothes, combed her hair? Alix shook her head. It was as well Oliver Morgan had employed her as a librarian. At least he would not expect her to be au fait with the duties of a governess.

She eventually decided to wear a dress of dark green silk jersey, its midi-length skirt swinging about her hips, the deep vee of the bodice exposing the swell of her full breasts. It was not perhaps the most suitable attire for a governess, but after all, that was not her designation, assumed or otherwise, and she saw no reason to dress down to her position. Besides, the child was probably used to seeing much more extravagantly dressed women, and Alix wondered briefly where she had been brought up, and by whom.

She was giving her hair a final flick with the comb when someone knocked at the door of her sitting room. She glanced at her watch and saw with surprise it was already after seven. Guessing Seth had come to tell her that dinner was ready, she swung open the door, and stared aghast at the tiny figure outside.

Could this be Oliver Morgan’s daughter? she wondered fleetingly, and then speedily dismissed the idea. The creature before her, dressed in a lavishly-embroidered kimono, was female certainly, and scarcely above a child’s stature, but an infant she was not. The painted face staring up at her was lined and old, the lacquered hair obviously tinted, and slanting almond eyes had receded far into her head. Alix guessed she was Japanese, and wondered in amazement what she was doing in Oliver Morgan’s house.

‘Mrs Thornton?’

The woman was speaking in a shrill lisping tone, and Alix nodded her head quickly. ‘Yes, I’m—Mrs Thornton. I—can I help you?’

Thin lips curved in the semblance of a smile. ‘You have come to take care of my missy?’

Alix’s eyes widened. ‘Missy? That would be—Miss Morgan?’ She moved her head in a confused gesture. ‘I believe so. Who are you?’

‘My name is Makoto.’ The small figure performed an obeisance that came somewhere between a bow and a curtsy. ‘Most happy to make your acquaintance, Thornton san.’

Alix put out a deprecating hand. ‘Oh, please—that is—did you want to see me, Makoto?’

‘Missy wishes to meet new governess, Thornton san. You will come with me?’

Alix glanced round at the room behind her. Confusion was giving way to curiosity, but she had no idea whether Oliver Morgan would approve of her meeting his daughter without his knowledge.

‘You will come, please?’

The old woman was speaking again, and Alix turned back to her ruefully. Obviously Makoto considered her mistress’s commands should be obeyed, and if she was anything like her father, then perhaps that wasn’t so difficult to understand. All the same, Alix wasn’t happy about the situation.

‘Er—Mr Morgan is expecting me to join him for dinner—’ she began awkwardly, and then gave an exasperated exclamation when Makoto performed another of her low bows and began to walk away. The last thing she wanted right now was hostility between herself and Morgan’s daughter, particularly when the situation was turning out to be such an intriguing one. A remote house, a child that no one knew existed—and now a Japanese servant! ‘Hey!’ she called, impulsively going into the passage and closing her bedroom door. ‘Hey, wait! I’ll come.’

Makoto’s paper-white face expressed her satisfaction. She waited for Alix to catch up with her, and then adjusted her small, half-running steps to Alix’s larger strides. If anything had been needed to convince Alix of the disadvantages of her size, walking beside the tiny Japanese woman would have done it, although judging from the admiring glances Makoto kept directing towards her, in her case the opposite could apply.

They crossed the gallery at the head of the stairs, and continued on into the east wing. Alix couldn’t resist glancing down into the hall below, half afraid that Oliver Morgan might be standing there watching them, but there was no one about, and she breathed a little more easily.

Makoto halted at the door at the end of the corridor, and turning the handle indicated that Alix should precede her into her room. Alix did so, not without some misgivings, and then came to an abrupt halt at the foot of an enormous tester bed. A child, perhaps eight years old, was sitting up in the bed, almost lost among so many pillows, her dark hair hanging in one thick braid over her shoulder. She was wearing a white nightgown which accentuated the paleness of her skin, for although her features were European, her eyes had a definitely oriental slant. But she was beautiful, even Alix saw that in those first astounded moments, and when she smiled her small teeth were as perfectly formed as the rest of her. Delicately small hands plucked impatiently at the bedcovers, and her whole demeanour was one of suppressed excitement.

So this was Oliver Morgan’s secret, thought Alix, feeling curiously shaken by the revelation. This was why the child had been kept out of the public eye, and why he had chosen to bring her back to a house as remote from London as he could find. The child’s mother had probably been as Japanese as old Makoto who stood so proudly beside her, her gnarled hands folded into the wide sleeves of her kimono, while his wife had been as European as he was.

‘Hello. I’m Melissa.’ The child’s voice surprisingly bore no Eastern intonation, but was as English as Alix’s own. ‘Are you Miss Thornton?’

Alex collected herself with difficulty. ‘I—I’m Mrs Thornton,’ she amended reluctantly. ‘How do you do, Melissa?’

The little girl beckoned her nearer the bed. ‘Are you really married? Do you have any children of your own?’

Alix flicked an embarrassed look in Makoto’s direction, but fortunately the Japanese woman was regarding her charge with evident satisfaction. ‘No,’ she answered uncomfortably, ‘I don’t have any children.’

Melissa’s small shoulders sketched a regretful shrug, and then she went on eagerly: ‘Have you come to stay with us? Daddy says you have. He says I have to go to an English school, and learn to be an English lady, and you’re going to help me.’ she paused. ‘Are you an English lady, Mrs Thorn—’

‘Melissa!’

Oliver Morgan’s voice was full of irritation, and Alix turned her head to see the master of the house striding into his daughter’s bedroom with evident annoyance. His appearance—he was dressed in black suede pants and a black silk shirt—was sufficiently grim to daunt the most intrepid heart, but Melissa’s reactions were totally without fear. Pushing back the covers, she thrust her small legs out of bed, and rushed across the floor to reach him, and with only a half-hearted protest her father swung her up into his arms. But not before Alix had glimpsed the flaw in the perfection—Melissa was lame.

Her eyes lifted to encounter the incisive scrutiny of Oliver Morgan’s gaze, and she knew he was waiting for her reactions. But she refused to give him the satisfaction of knowing she had been shocked, about anything, and before the child could launch into her explanations, she said: ‘Melissa and I have been getting to know one another.’

‘You’re not cross, are you, Daddy?’

Melissa’s arms were around his neck, modestly hidden beneath wrist-length sleeves, but her leap into his arms had brought the hem of her nightgown up round her thighs and Makoto was trying desperately to pull it down.

Oliver Morgan brushed the Japanese woman away, and looked into his daughter’s mischievous face. ‘You were supposed to wait until tomorrow morning to meet Mrs Thornton,’ he told her, but there was indulgence in his tone, and Alix was amazed at the tenderness in his expression.

‘I couldn’t wait,’ said Melissa simply, his face cupped between her two small palms. Then she flashed a smile at Alix. ‘She’s not at all like you said she would be, is she?’

‘Young ladies do not make personal remarks,’ observed her father dryly, allowing her to slide to the floor. ‘And now, I suppose, Makoto will have the devil’s own job getting you settled down again.’

‘Makoto brought Mrs Thornton here,’ stated Melissa, reluctant to return to the bed, and Oliver Morgan’s eyes turned in Alix’s direction, subjecting her to another of those raking appraisals such as he had given her downstairs.

‘I guessed that,’ he conceded, irritation tightening his lips, as if he blamed Alix for upsetting the child. Then he turned to Makoto, and speaking rapidly in a language Alix couldn’t begin to comprehend made his demands known.

‘Daddy is telling Makoto that you are here to give me lessons only, not to entertain me,’ translated Melissa artlessly, arousing an impatient oath from her father, and Alix decided that the time had come for her to leave. But the child was intriguing, and she was loath to go without reassuring her on that point at least.

‘I’m sure we’ll have plenty of time to entertain each other,’ she told her lightly, as Melissa obeyed her father’s terse directions and limped back to the bed.

Alix walked pensively to the head of the stairs, and then began to descend them slowly. She had reached the central landing when Oliver Morgan caught up with her. He passed her without a glance, however, and then stood waiting at the foot of the stairs, watching her come down the rest of the way with what she was beginning to recognise as his usual taut expression. He made her nervous and in consequence she stumbled, but apart from a further tightening of his lips, he made no acknowledgment of her small accident.

‘Would you like a drink before dinner?’ he inquired when she had reached the comparative safety of the hall, but she shook her head. In truth, the whisky she had drunk earlier had been stronger than she had imagined, and she needed no further dulling of her wits where Oliver Morgan was concerned.

‘Then I suggest we go straight in to dinner,’ remarked her host briefly, and led the way across the hall and into the dining room.

Like the other rooms of the house, it was large, but as it was filled with a long polished table, flanked by a dozen tall-backed chairs, a pair of matching sideboards and a huge Welsh dresser, it did not seem excessively so. One end of the table had been set with two places—heavy silver cutlery, Waterford crystal and Crown Derby—and as they entered, a girl came through another door at the far end of the room which probably gave access to the kitchens.

Alix was relieved to see that there was a girl of around her own age at Darkwater Hall, and she looked pointedly at Oliver Morgan, waiting for him to introduce them. He seemed strangely loath to do so, however, although from the avid way the girl was looking at him, she had no objections. In fact there was something faintly repelling about the dog-like devotion in the girl’s eyes as she pulled out his chair for him, and the way her mouth gaped when he thanked her. Alix quickly subsided into the vacant seat to his right, and the girl cast a vaguely hostile look in her direction before disappearing again, no doubt in pursuit of the first course.

The room was illuminated from a central chandelier, and the light glowed ruby red in the bottle of wine Oliver lifted to fill her glass. ‘You look disapproving, Mrs Thornton,’ he said, his eyes mocking hers. ‘Myra and her mother, Mrs Brandon, take care of all the cooking and cleaning here.’

Alix’s fingers sought the stem of the glass. ‘I see.’

‘Do I detect disapproval in your tones?’ His brows ascended. ‘It might not yet have become obvious to you, but Myra—isn’t quite as other girls. What I’m trying to say, not very successfully I’m afraid, is that Myra’s mental capacity is limited.’

‘Oh.’ Alix felt chastened.

‘You hadn’t noticed?’

Alix shrugged. ‘Not really…’

‘You weren’t offended by her behaviour?’

‘Offended? No.’

‘Affronted, perhaps?’ His lips curled. ‘You have very expressive features, Mrs Thornton. You’ll have to learn to control your feelings if you don’t want me to know what you’re thinking.’

Alix, used as she was to awkward confrontations in the course of her work, could nevertheless feel a faint deepening of colour at his words. He was altogether too perceptive, and she would have to be on her guard for more reasons than he knew.

In an effort to change the subject, she said: ‘How old is Melissa?’ and saw the immediate hardening of his profile.

‘She’s eight,’ he replied abruptly, and was saved from continuing by the return of the girl, Myra, with a tureen of soup. ‘We can help ourselves Myra,’ he told her firmly, after she had set soup plates before them, and she nodded rather sulkily and left them again.

It was leek soup, home-made, Alix guessed, and aromatically delicious. It made her realise that she had eaten nothing since lunchtime, and she needed no second bidding to fill her plate. She accepted a roll from the basket he offered, and began to spoon up the creamy liquid eagerly. It took her a few minutes to realise he had not followed her example, and she looked up to find him watching her with a curious expression on his lean features, his glass of wine held lazily in his hand.

At once she was on the defensive again, and feeling rather like a child in the company of an adult, she put down her spoon and said: ‘I’m sorry. I—I was hungry.’

He leaned back in his chair at the end of the long table, looking very much the master of the situation, and she wondered why his eyes upon her made her conscious of every inch of flesh she was displaying. Her hand went automatically to the low neckline of her dress, seeking and finding the medallion that swung there between her breasts, holding on to it as if to a lifeline.