uncle,’ he supplied equally bleakly. ‘Who does exist, thank you. He’s upstairs in his room at this moment studying chess problems.’
She looked at him, startled. ‘Then—may I see him, please?’
‘No, you may not. Whatever business you feel you may have in this house, you can settle with me.’ He flicked a hand towards the paintings. ‘I assume it has something to do with these. If you’re hoping to sell them, then I should tell you at once that you’re wasting your time.’
‘I don’t,’ she denied swiftly, her glance in spite of herself going to the discoloured marks on the walls.
His eyes followed hers and he smiled thinly. ‘You’re quite right, of course. There were pictures hanging there once, and of considerably more value than these offerings.’
‘I admit they’re not her best work,’ Morwenna said, biting her lip. ‘But they do have a certain value—sentimental value, perhaps. Or that’s what I believe, or I would never have come here.’
‘Why?’ he said. ‘Because the subjects bear a certain superficial resemblance to certain buildings and landmarks locally? I think you’ll have to do better than that.’
‘Of course not,’ she flared at him, stung. ‘Because she—my mother, Laura Kerslake, the woman who painted those pictures, used to live here. This was her home when she was a girl. The Trevennons were her family—the only family she had until she married my father. Oh, I know that she seemed to have lost contact with you all, but….’
‘Did she send you?’ he interrupted, his voice glacial.
Morwenna shook her head, conscious that there was a sudden lump in her throat, but reluctant to reveal her distress to this man’s cold hostility. ‘She—died, several years ago,’ she said constrictedly.
He made a slight restless movement. ‘I’m sorry.’ It was a perfunctory remark, made simply to satisfy the conventions, and oddly that hurt most of all.
She lifted her head and stared at him dazedly. ‘I’m glad she can’t hear you say that,’ she said, almost in a whisper. ‘I’m glad she’s not here to know how little the people she loved really thought of her.’
‘You’re very quick with your judgments.’ He thrust his hands into his pants pockets. ‘You said she seemed to have lost contact with us. Did it never occur to you to ask yourself why? I don’t know how much or what she may have told you about her life here, but I’ll dare swear she never told you about the misery she left behind her when she went.’
‘You’re lying!’
‘What reason would I have to do that?’ he shrugged. ‘What I’ve said may be unpalatable, and light years removed from Laura Kerslake’s glossed-over version of her time at Trevennon, but it’s the truth for all that.’
It wasn’t so much his words, but his tone revealing so clearly that it was immaterial to him whether she believed him or not, that carried conviction. Morwenna stared at him numbly, unable to think of a thing to say.
He broke the silence himself eventually. ‘And what about your father—the gallant Sir Robert. Does he know that you’ve come here?’
‘My father’s dead too.’ She had to dredge the words up from some deep, painful recess of her mind. ‘And my brother Martin. They were killed in a road accident only a few weeks ago. The estate went to his cousin. All I have left are these pictures.’
‘My God,’ he said very quietly. ‘So that’s it. Your mother’s stories must really have got to you, my dear. Thirty-five years ago she found a refuge here, so you thought you’d do the same.’ He shook his head disbelievingly. ‘Well, I give you full marks for tactics. What a pity you were so totally misled about your likely reception.’
The contempt in his voice seemed to curl down her spine. She wanted to strike at him, to rake her nails down his dark face, and had to clench her hands into fists at her side. His face did not alter, but she knew all the same that he was quite aware of her inward battle with her temper and even faintly amused by it.
‘You are also very quick with your judgments.’ She stared defiantly across the room at him. ‘I admit I did come here to ask for a home—but only for these pictures. I thought you might store them for me until I got a place of my own. I thought that if you wouldn’t do it for my sake then you would do it for my mother’s. I know now that I was wrong.’
He gave a short, unamused laugh. ‘Disastrously wrong. So that was the favour you wanted to ask. I’m afraid I can’t accede to it. There are still people in this house for whom such an overt reminder of your mother would be undeservedly painful. My uncle is one of them, and he’s been a sick man for some years, so I would prefer him not to be upset in this way.’
She could hardly credit what her ears were telling her. What had happened here all those years before to leave this aftermath of bitterness? Whatever it had been she could not believe that her mother had ever been aware of it. Nothing had ever shadowed Laura Kerslake’s affectionate memories of Dominic Trevennon. She felt herself shiver, and moved her hands in a slight negative gesture.
‘I can’t pretend I know what’s going on here,’ she said, steadying her voice by a tremendous effort. ‘But under the circumstances all I can do is leave at once, and apologise for my intrusion.’
She picked up her rucksack from the sofa and walked towards the door, but he stepped away from the desk and into her path.
‘Just a minute,’ he said peremptorily. ‘It isn’t quite as simple as you seem to think. Just what did you hope to gain by coming here like this?’
‘Very little,’ she said wearily, her head bent. Her hands were clenched tightly round the straps of her rucksack, the knuckles showing white. ‘Just a few feet of storage space, that’s all. I see now of course that it was too much to ask of strangers. It was just that I’ve never—thought of the people in this house as strangers.’
‘How very appealing,’ he commented cynically. ‘What a pity you didn’t take the trouble to write or telephone in advance of your arrival. You might have been spared a difficult journey. And for the record, I’m not convinced by this cock and bull story of yours. It’s just unfortunate for you that giving refuge to waifs is no longer among our family failings. And you have your mother to thank for that.’
Morwenna lifted one shoulder in a shrug of resignation. ‘Believe what you want,’ she said shortly. ‘But what I told you happens to be the truth.’
‘Come now, Miss Kerslake.’ The cynicism in his voice deepened. ‘Are you trying to tell me that it never once crossed your mind that there might be a home for you here?’
It would have been wonderful to lift her head and damn his eyes and fling his insinuations back in his mocking face, but she couldn’t lie, not even to save her own face. Half-truths had got her into this mess, after all.
‘No,’ she said at last very quietly. ‘I can’t deny that it did cross my mind—briefly, once.’
As she spoke, she glanced up and saw an odd look cross his face, as if her admission had surprised him. But why should it have done? It was after all only what he had been waiting to hear, she thought. She gathered all her resolution and moved forward again towards the door. He made no attempt to get out of her way and she had
