“Prime is one of our daily communal prayers,” Geoffrey said when the monk had departed. “I’m excused. It’s because of Patrick.” He indicated another young man who waited for him at the sideboard. “Patrick is here because he wants to join our order, but he isn’t permitted into the monastery side of the castle until he’s certain of his calling. Father Stephen has asked me to look out for him.”
And Geoffrey, Leo decided, isn’t any more happy about playing nanny to Patrick than he is about Jennifer and me.
“Don’t worry, Geoffrey, we can take care of ourselves.”
An introduction to the breakfast buffet wasn’t a problem anyway. There were more than enough dishes to choose from when he and Jennifer helped themselves at the sideboard. Oatmeal, scrambled eggs, sausages, toast and fish. Why the English had a taste for fish at breakfast was something Leo had never understood. He took some of everything but the fish and the oatmeal. Jennifer, he noticed, had very little on her plate.
An introduction to the others when they joined them at the table was another matter. They struck Leo as a quirky bunch. Edgy, too, if he wasn’t mistaken, and his work as a P.I. had taught him to be fairly accurate in his observations about people. But the weather was probably responsible for that edginess.
“Any of you have a working mobile phone?” the woman seated across from him asked. “Mine absolutely refuses to cooperate.”
The others shook their heads.
“Well, there you are. We’re not only stranded here, we’re stranded without communication.”
“Have a battery-operated wireless,” a man down the table said. “A lot of crackle on it, but I was able to raise a weather forecast. More of the same filthy stuff on the way, I’m afraid.”
“Then we might as well make the best of it.”
Ignoring Jennifer, she smiled at Leo across the table. A smile that was more than just polite. Hell, was the woman flirting with him? Well, she was attractive enough, if you went for the brittle, consciously elegant type. He wasn’t interested. And wouldn’t have been, even if she wasn’t wearing a wedding ring.
“Sybil Harding,” she introduced herself. “And this is my husband, Roger.”
She indicated the man beside her. He had a moustache and wore a stolid expression on his lined face.
“Once upon a time Roger was one of the brothers here,” she went on to explain, “which is why he comes back to the monastery on retreat twice a year. A bit excessive, but I think he regards it as a holiday from me. One can only imagine his disappointment when, after dropping him off, a blocked road forced me to turn back.”
Roger Harding’s face reddened. “These people aren’t interested in hearing this, Sybil.”
“Dear heart, we’re all in this together, so why not be friendly?” She turned her attention back to Leo. “Let me see now. You’ve already met Geoffrey and Patrick, haven’t you?”
Leo glanced in the direction of the two young men. He hadn’t noticed it before, but the novice had shadows under his eyes, as if he’d slept badly. His charge beside him, skinny, round-shouldered and with a face suffering from acne, looked equally miserable. Maybe because he was painfully shy or because Geoffrey pointedly ignored him.
“And the other couple there,” Sybil went on, “are the Brashers. Fiona and Alfred, I believe.”
A timid-looking pair, they nodded by way of acknowledgment.
“If they have an exciting tale of their own,” Sybil said, “then we have yet to hear it.”
Alfred Brasher cleared his throat before responding with a quiet “Just travelers on our way to the coast and caught on the road like the rest of you.”
The group seemed to have already been told beforehand who he and Jennifer were, Leo thought, helping himself to more coffee from the pot on the table. And maybe how they had ended up at Warley themselves. No one asked, anyway.
“And our friend with the battery-powered wireless,” Sybil continued, gesturing toward the balding, thick-waisted fellow at the end of the table, “is—”
“Harry Ireland,” he introduced himself. “In sales. I call at the monastery every few months to take orders on goods the brothers like delivered to their gate, then move on to the next place. Some people still like the old-fashioned door-to-door service.” A laugh rumbled out of him. “Couldn’t move on this time, what?”
All of us trapped here in this isolated place, Leo thought, finishing his eggs. Was there something just a little too coincidental about that, or was he imagining it? And the edginess in the company he had noticed earlier…he was sure now he wasn’t imagining that. You could almost smell the tension in the air. Just the weather, or was there another explanation?
He didn’t have to wonder about the tension of the woman at his side. He already knew. Jennifer hadn’t spoken a word since they’d entered the dining parlor. But those wary green eyes of hers said a lot whenever he caught her watching him. She was definitely worried.
“Have I left anyone out?” Sybil wondered. “No? Then Mr. Ireland concludes the introductions.”
“Just Harry,” he insisted.
“Yes, just Harry. Well, it makes us a cozy party, doesn’t it? Although,” she added, looking around the room, “one could have wished for a cheerier setting.”
Leo hadn’t paid much attention to the surroundings before this. He had to admit that the time-worn, dark paneling made the room a somber place. But then the whole castle was like something out of a vampire movie. Count What’s-his-name would have felt right at home here.
“Roger told me that in centuries past this used to be the solarium where the family gathered after meals,” Sybil informed them, “which is why it has a good fireplace. I suppose one must be grateful for that, although that chimneypiece is a horror.”
This was something else that Leo hadn’t noticed until now. Carvings on the stone chimney breast depicted strange beasts and leering monsters, all of them crowded together and tumbling over one another. Not exactly what you’d expect to find in a monastery. Nor was the grotesque mask fitted into the paneling of the wall adjacent to the fireplace.
Jennifer, noticing him gazing at the hollow eyes of that stone face, spoke up for the first time. “It’s a squint,” she said.
Leo turned to her. “A what?”
“If this used to be the solar in the medieval days,” she explained, “then the great hall must be on the other side of that wall. A squint permitted the lord of the castle to look through those eyes down into the great hall.”
“A spy hole? Why?”
“It was a method for checking on the activity of his household to be sure they weren’t getting too boisterous in his absence.”
Leo had forgotten that Jennifer would know about this stuff. His brother’s wife had told him that, like Guy, Jennifer was connected somehow with the antiques trade.
“Aren’t you clever to know that?” Sybil cooed, then abruptly dismissed Jennifer with a casual “I’m not interested in solariums, but I do care about loos. And the scarcity of them in this place, along with the state of the plumbing, is not my definition of comfort.”
“Sybil, please—” her husband murmured pleadingly.
“Dear heart, it’s true. I don’t know how all of us will manage.”
If any of the rest of them had any feelings on the subject, none of them bothered to contribute them. There was a long, awkward silence while they concentrated on their plates.
Sybil Harding, looking around the table, ended the silence after a few moments with an exuberant “I do hope some of you play bridge.”
Leo