Unlocking the door, he slid behind the wheel of the Mercedes sports. The engine fired at the first flick of his wrist, and a faint smile of satisfaction momentarily dispelled the deep lines beween his brows.
With Mrs. Harris’s directions, it was not difficult to find the Cragstone road, and not far outside the village he came upon a rambling stone building which could only be the Old Hall. Smoke drifted from chimneys so obviously someone was up and about, and an old station wagon was parked on the forecourt. Rusty wrought iron gates hung half off their hinges leaving the entrance wide for anyone to drive through. Joel had stopped just outside the gates, undecided whether to leave the car there or not, but then, with a characteristic shrug of his shoulders, he released the brake and drove between the gateposts, and cruised along the gravel drive to stop beside the station wagon.
His arrival aroused no immediate response beyond a halfhearted barking from the back of the house. He got out of the car and stood for a moment looking up at the blank windows. So this was where Rachel had lived — how long? The last two — three years, maybe? He flexed his shoulder muscles. Since her husband died, no doubt. Francis had said she was a widow. And Gilmour? Who was Gilmour? What had this man been who had married her so briefly? Why had she married him? Because she loved him? If so, love came more easily to her than it had done to him…
He flung the thoughts aside, and walked round the two vehicles to the porch. A bellrope invited usage, and with a tautening of his stomach muscles, he pulled, hard. The sound echoed and re-echoed throughout the house and he hoped that no one was sleeping in there. The noise would awaken the dead.
He waited. For a few minutes he began to think that either no one was in or no one was up. But the smoking chimneys and the station wagon seemed to negate such an idea. And indeed, after an interminable time footsteps sounded across the hall beyond the half fluted glass door and presently it was opened. A young man stood regarding him expectantly, a thin, reddish-haired young man, with a small beard and moustache that were no doubt intended to give his face maturity. “Yes?”
Joel was taken aback. He had half expected Rachel to open the door, and now she hadn’t he was temporarily speechless. Then he gathered himself, and said shortly: “I’d like to speak to Mrs. Gilmour.”
“Rachel?”
The young man raised his eyebrows, and there was a touch of hostility in the way he said her name. Joel felt a ridiculous temptation to grab him by his collar and demand whether he had been given the right to use her Christian name, but instead he replied: “Yes, that’s right. Rachel.”
The young man was definitely hostile now. “I’m afraid she’s busy at the moment,” he said. “Perhaps you could call back later.”
Joel contained his impatience. “Just tell her that there’s a Mr. Kingdom asking to speak to her,” he said. “I think you’ll find she’ll speak to me.”
“Kingdom?” The young man regarded him coldly. “You’re some relation of — James Kingdom, then?”
“Not that it’s any business of yours, but yes.” Joel put one foot on the threshold. “Now, will you please deliver my message?”
The young man shrugged and turned away to cross the parquet flooring of the wide entrance hall. Joel rested his shoulder against the doorpost and watched him sourly. That, of course, was the Hanson fellow Mrs. Harris had spoken about. He was younger than he had expected. He wondered what his relationship was with Rachel.
He half turned and looked back across the gardens edging the drive. Someone had taken the trouble to mow the lawn quite recently, and the rhododendrons would be quite beautiful when they were out. Something was jutting from beneath the rhododendron bushes, something that had once been red, but which was now streaked with dirt and dried leaves. It looked like a wheelbarrow, a very small wheelbarrow. A toy wheelbarrow, in fact. His lips twisted. The child — Sara’s — no doubt.
“You wanted to see me?”
The low voice sounded right behind him, and his head jerked round almost of its own volition. He had not heard her approach, but Rachel was standing just inside the doorway, her hands thrust into the pockets of the gingham apron she was wearing over shabby slacks and an open-necked shirt blouse. Her face was thinner than he remembered, unnaturally flushed in places and pale as death in others; her body was thinner, too, but her hair, the silky ash-blonde glory of her hair which he had always found such a sensual pleasure in burying his face in, was still as beautiful as ever, albeit unattractively confined at the moment in a severe knot at the nape of her neck. Joel straightened slowly, allowing his eyes to move over her in a deliberately insolent way, and was faintly gratified by the way she shifted under his gaze.
“Well, well,” he remarked mockingly. “Mrs. Gilmour, as I live and breathe.”
“What do you want, Joel? I’m employed here, and I have work to do.”
She spoke quickly, breathily, and she cast a fleeting glance over her shoulder as she did so. That was when Joel saw the man, Hanson, lurking in the background, and his patience snapped.
“Get rid of the watchdog and come outside and talk to me!” he snapped harshly. “We have things to say to one another which I don’t intend to discuss under Mrs. Grundy’s gaze!”
“Rachel —”
Hanson would have come forward then, but she gestured for him to keep out of this. “Joel, I realise you think you require an explanation —”
“You’re damn right, I do!”
“Your father promised he wouldn’t tell you —”
“Oh, did he? Big of him!”
“— and now he has —”
“Correction — Francis saw you together.”
“Oh, God!”
“He won’t help you now!” Joel glared coldly at her. “Now, do you get rid of your boy-friend, or do I?”
“Joel, I mean it!” she exclaimed unsteadily. “I — I can’t talk to you now. Colonel Frenshaw is waiting for his breakfsat, and — and —”
“Rachel, I warn you —”
She wrung her hands then. “All right, Joel, all right. I will talk to you. But not now. Not here. Not like this.” She glanced behind her again. “C—could you come back later? This — this afternoon, perhaps?”
Joel thrust his hands into his jacket pockets. If he hadn’t he felt sure he would have taken hold of her and shaken her until her teeth chattered. Standing there, talking about getting Colonel Frenshaw’s breakfast, when he had driven over two hundred miles to get the truth out of her. But losing his temper, making a scene here, would do no good. In fact she would be quite within her rights to refuse to speak to him again, and he had no rights here whatsoever. This was private property. Without anyone’s permission to remain, he was trespassing, and Hanson would see to it that Rachel was made aware of this.
Controlling himself with difficulty, he said: “Very well, this afternoon. What time?”
Rachel gave a nervous shrug. “I don’t know. Two o’clock — half past?”
“Two o’clock,” agreed Joel grimly, and without trusting himself to say another word, he strode back to his car. The door had closed before he had started the engine and he pressed his foot hard down on the accelerator and had the childish pleasure of spraying the station wagon with the gravel torn up by his rear wheels.
He spent the morning by a beck he found a few