Lure of the Falcon Read online

  Lure of the Falcon by Sue Peters

  Wyn Warwick was as well qualified as her boss to assess and evaluate the valuable antiques at Tylar Grange, so when he was unable to do the job himself and sent her instead, she didn't think twice about it. So she was more than a little indignant when Russell Tylar insisted that she wasn't up to the task. Happily, though, their initial antagonism soon faded and they came to a better understanding, and Wyn's personal future looked bright. But she had reckoned without the spoilt, ruthless Diane de Courcy, who had always got everything she wanted in life—and was not going to accept the fact that another girl might get Russell!

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  PORTRAIT OF PARADISE

  Mallets, her grandfather's lovely old manor house, had been left, as it should be, to Katie's brother—but he had asked her to go there and get things sorted out for him before he took possession. But Ross Heseltine, it appeared, had already been put in charge of Mallets—and Ross was going to give her more problems to cope with than the house did!

  LAIRD OF DOORN

  Far from disliking Duncan Blair the moment she met him, Sue felt an immediate feeling of friendship and warmth developing between them—and who knew how far it might have gone, had the jealous Fiona Redman not set about making all the mischief in her power ...

  ONE SPECIAL ROSE

  Pip loved her boss, Giles Shieldon, but she knew he would never name his beautiful new rose after her. Why should he, when Stella Garvey was so obviously important to him? But how much longer could Pip bear to watch them together? Wasn't she only building up hurt for herself?

  CLOUDED WATERS

  The feud between the Montagues and the Capulets was like a childish squabble compared to the long-standing quarrel between the Dane and the Baird families, and it had already ruined the romance between Marion Dane and Adam Baird. But now fate had brought Marion and Adam together again. Was fate in fact offering them a second chance?

  All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the Author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the Author, and all the incidents are pure invention. The text of this publication or any part thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

  First published 1977

  This edition 1978

  © Sue Peters 1977

  For copyright reasons, this book may not be issued on loan or otherwise except in its original soft cover.

  ISBN o 263 72542

  CHAPTER ONE

  `STAND in for me, Wyn.' Bill Stapleton's voice lacked its usual brisk confidence, and seemed as out of place as he did in the narrow hospital bed.

  `Appendicitis won't lay you low for all that long,' Wyn told him robustly. 'When you come out of here,' she wrinkled her small, uptilted nose at the clinical aroma that pervaded the ward, 'a week or two cataloguing antiques at—wherever this place is,' she skipped details airily, 'will, be just the sort of convalescence you need.'

  'Not a chance! ' Bill's wife butted in from the other side of the bed determinedly. 'I don't want to be an antiquarian's widow,' she stilled her husband's protest, 'I want my husband to become an antique himself, if possible. So when he's discharged from here, he's coming away for a long convalescence, like any normal human being.' Bill's wife had never entirely accepted the fact that antique dealing took her husband away from her side, sometimes for weeks at a time, to all parts of the globe, and for this reason, as well as for her own acknowledged expertise, Wyn found herself taking on more and more assignments abroad. She had just returned from one, and found a crisis on her hands that apparently only she could solve.

  'It can't wait, Wyn, it's an insurance job.' Bill's voice held a hint of desperation as she still hesitated, and Wyn capitulated.

  'Don't get worked up, I'll go,' she told him hastily. 'You'll have to give me the details, though—remember I only landed this morning, and I haven't had time to catch up on what's been happening while I've been away.' She had been away for three weeks, and was looking forward to a long, lazy weekend with her family, but that would have to wait now, she decided. 'I went straight from the airport to the shop,' she demoted the small but world-renowned business owned by Bill and his father, who if they had their way wanted to make Wyn their junior partner. There she had learned of Bill's malaise from a distraught manager, whereupon she immediately re-engaged her willing taxi and set out to learn the details.

  'Dad would have gone,' Bill's face cleared miraculously when he saw he had got her compliance, 'but he's had to go to the Continent to sort out a coin collection. That Leaves you,' he managed a grin.

  `To do what?' Resignedly Wyn hitched her chair closer to the bed, pushed back a brown wave that persisted in trying to get into her eyes, and bent her amber gaze on her unfortunate colleague with all the serious attention that she usually accorded to her work.

  . `To catalogue everything over one hundred years old at Tylar Grange, and give its estimated present-day value ...'

  `Does that include the owner ?' Wyn put in drily.

  'Not the present owner,' Bill chuckled. 'Russell Tylar's just inherited the place from his uncle. It seems the old boy was a bit of a recluse. A love affair gone wrong, or something,' he explained cryptically. 'Anyhow, the upshot of it was that Tempest Tylar—that's Russell's uncle, and the late owner of the Grange-

  buried himself in his home and spent his not inconsiderable fortune collecting antiques. Or should I say, adding to the collection,' he corrected himself. `Tylar Grange itself is very old, Tudor, I think Russell told me once,' he mused, 'so it must have contained a lot of period stuff when it came to the old man in the first place.'

  'Do you know the heir?' Bill spoke as if he was familiar with him.

  'I knew him when we were at Oxford together,' Bill told her. 'In a way I'd have liked to be able to do this job for him myself,' he said wistfully, 'it would have been pleasant to renew acquaintance. We got on rather well, he was very much a man's man,' he remembered, 'fond of sport and so on.' Bill Was a rugger blue, and anyone who was 'fond of sport' was acceptable in his eyes.

  'Then why don't you ...!' began Wyn, inspired by sudden doubt. From Bill's description it sounded as if the heir to Tylar Grange might welcome her companion through its august portals more warmly than he would welcome herself. 'Surely a week or two wouldn't hurt—even taking in your convalescence,' she added with a hurried sidewards look at the frown that had crossed the face of Bill's other visitor.

  `It's too urgent,' Bill dashed her hopes. 'Russell's inherited' a veritable storehouse of treasure, and when he came to check on the insurance and so on he found that most of the stuff isn't insured at all, and what is, the cover is thirty years old. You can imagine what the figures look like at the present rate of inflation,' he brooded uneasily.

  'What if there was a fire?' Wyn's professional self was equally horrified.

  'That's. what Russell said when he sent me an S.O.S. last week,' Bill retorted. 'His insurance company have arranged a block cover for him temporarily, on the understanding that the contents of the house are properly valued right away. Apparently they'd tried for years to make his uncle see sense about covering his possessions, but putting it mildly their approaches weren't welcomed.'

  Any more than hers was, thought Wyn ruefully, facing Russell Tylar's bleak grey stare the following afternoon, and wishing for the umpteenth time that Bill Stapleton had retained his normal rude health for just a few weeks longer, long enough to come to Tylar Grange and
do his friend's valuation for himself.

  'Bill Stapleton promised to come himself.' Russell's handshake was hard but perfunctory, and Wyn's fingers tingled with the force of his brief grip. She thrust her hand into the pocket of her stroller coat, flexing her fingers to bring the feeling back into them, and saw his glance drop to the movement under the cloth. Immediately she balled her fist, stilling her hand, feeling for an uncanny moment as if his grey eyes could see straight through the woollen material.

  'Bill's in hospital.' She explained his predicament. 'There was no time to let you know, and he said the job was very urgent, so he asked me to come instead.' Her voice was as curt as his own, and she tossed in the fact that Bill had asked her to come as an afterthought. Knowing that, he can hardly throw me out, she thought uneasily, and the fact that she had Bill Stapleton's blessing should be enough to convince him of her capability

  to cope with the job. She remembered her colleague's comment, and even though she didn't know Russell Tylar, found herself agreeing with it wholeheartedly. He's very much a man's man ... It was a gross understatement, Wyn decided. And Russell Tylar hadn't changed his outlook since student days, judging by his attitude now. It was almost feudal to refuse an expert's services merely because that expert was a woman. Yesterday her modern outlook would have rejected the idea as impossible; today, she was sorely tempted to remind her host of the sex-discrimination laws, but one glance at his lean, set face made her think better of it. His black brows, as dark and wiry as his hair, met across the top of his aquiline nose in an almost straight line, and discouraged academic argument on the subject.

  `There must be other antiquarians. This Stapleton man can't be the only one in the country,' a supercilious voice turned Wyn's attention to the occupant of a high-backed wing chair, cosily placed in the inglenook of the high-ceilinged drawing room. The sitter raised herself to an upright position with a languid movement that swung her flaxen hair back across her shoulders, revealing a pair of eyes that were deeply gentian, and cold as blue eyes had no right to be, Wyn thought with a shiver, feeling them fixed on herself with the same hostility that lay in the man's.

  They both want me gone because I'm a woman! she realised incredulously. If her professional pride had not been so sorely rubbed, Wyn could have laughed. Russell Tylar wanted to be rid of her because of sheer old-fashioned prejudice, and the girl—his wife?—because of fear, she guessed shrewdly. Any other woman of similar age and presentable appearance would be re-

  garded as a threat by this girl, she thought, and her heart sank. If it was only Russell Tylar who was against her she might have won him round with Bill Stapleton's backing. She had faced similar situations before, her dainty appearance usually drawing a response of sheer disbelief in the fact that she was an antiquarian of some renown, an opinion she always managed to quickly reverse by her own expertise. But if the girl Russell called Diane was against her as well, for whatever reason, she might as well leave her bags packed and return home by the next train. Which wasn't until next morning, she realised with a prick of dismay, and Tylar Grange was literally miles from anywhere. It had been half an hour's taxi' ride from the station at Tylar Barrow, which was the nearest village of any size in the area.

  'I'm sorry, Mr Russell, I came in to lay the tea.' The subdued chatter of a tea trolley preceded the abruptly opening door, and they all three turned to face a plump, motherly-looking woman who stopped disconcerted when she found the room unexpectedly occupied.

  'Don't worry, Nanny, we'd finished anyhow.' The man's tone gentled, as did his face, when he spoke to the newcomer.

  He's going to send me packing—now—right away. Without even a cup of tea! Wyn gazed at the lovely silver tea set resplendent on the trolley, and wished enviously that she might have been allowed to sample a cup. At Bill's urging she had not even stopped for lunch, and she was both hungry and thirsty. And this was all the thanks she had got for it, she thought sourly.

  'I'd be grateful if you'd show Miss Warwick to her room.' Russell Tylar indicated Wyn. 'The one in the long gallery that was prepared for Mr Stapleton,' he added smoothly. 'Unfortunately he's ill, so Miss Warwick's come in his place.'

  He was going to keep her after all ! Wyn stared at him for a second, taken aback by this unexpected change of front, until another thought struck her. He probably knew there wouldn't be another train out of Tylar Barrow until the morning, so he had little option but to offer her hospitality for the night. As she herself had little doubt that it would be for the night only, she thought ruefully; Russell Tylar did not look the type of person who would alter his opinions easily, and the gleam in the fair-haired girl's eyes as she caught Wyn's own confirmed that she would do everything in her power to make sure Wyn caught the first train in the morning back to where she started from.

  'Come with me, Miss Warwick.' The woman Russell Tylar had called Nanny gave her a friendly smile, and added to the man, 'Tea will be a few minutes late anyway, sir. Mrs Tylar and Mr Val have been out with the children, so Mrs Tylar asked for it to be put back ten minutes.'

  'I hope you'll join us in ten minutes, then.' Latent hospitality forced Russell Tylar into a show of amiability he must be far from feeling, thought Wyn bitingly. Perhaps he had caught her wistful glance towards the .teapot, but it was more likely that he did not want to appear rude in front of one of the house staff, even one so privileged as a nanny. She wondered who were the other people the woman had mentioned. It looked as if there were two families living at the Grange,

  Russell Tylar and his wife, and this other family. She shrugged. It was no business of hers, and she would be gone in the morning anyway, so what was the use of conjecturing about the Tylar family set-up?

  `I'll have your cases brought up for you, miss.' Her escort mounted the wide, gracefully curved staircase rising from the main hall, and in deference to her stout lack of breath Wyn slowed her own steps, which gave her time to study the portraits that mounted the wall beside them. Tylar ancestors, without a doubt, their family origin going back many hundreds of years, to judge by the changing costumes of the subjects, which marked each era and confirmed Wyn's guess at their age. Names of famous portrait painters of past centuries sprang to her mind as she gazed. Had she stayed, she would have been able to confirm her guess at the identity of the artists who wielded their brushes so long ago, but she would not be allowed the opportunity now. Bill would have to cope as best he could when he was fit again, she thought, angered in spite of her determination not to be upset by her frigid reception, and the fact that anyone would risk such possessions because of stubborn prejudice. There was a fortune hanging on this wall alone, she judged, and it followed them along the inner wall of what Russell Tylar had termed the long gallery, the typically long corridor of period houses with windows opening out on to what at one time must have been beautiful gardens and well cared for parkland, but now bore sad evidence of years of neglect.. Theinner wall of the gallery was punctuated by doors. leading off to bedrooms, Wyn guessed, and paused as her guide stopped short at one door and reached out for the knob.

  'You'll be comfy in here, miss,' Nanny told her, with a slight note in her voice that could have been doubt. 'We'd prepared for a gentleman visitor, of course ...'

  'This will do beautifully.' It didn't matter for one night, and the room was a pleasant one, beautifully furnished, though its overall appearance was slightly austere. As she imagined Russell Tylar's room might be. A man's room. A man's man, with no time for frivolities ...

  'Tea will be in the drawing room in ten minutes, miss.' Nanny drew her attention back to her surroundings, and she smiled her, thanks. Ten minutes would be ample time for a quick wash and brush up. A plentiful supply of soft towels lined the rail of the modern wash basin, and there was no need for her to change her light wool suit. No need for her to unpack at all, in fact. The cup of tea would be welcome, though. The thought of it drove her downstairs as urgently as the desire not to incur her host's criticism by unpunctuality. The door of the d
rawing room stood slightly ajar as she reached the bottom stair, and checked her own miniature timepiece by the moon face of the longcase clock standing in the hall. A buzz of voices came from inside the drawing room, and one voice rose above the rest.

  'Send her packing!' Diane's tone was as cold as her eyes, Wyn reflected, 'There must be other antiquarians who'll do the job for you.'

  'Not as good as the Stapletons. Not on this side of the Channel, anyway. And to get help from abroad would take time.' There was strain as well as impatience in Russell Tylar's voice.

  'She's not a Stapleton,' Diane was quick to point out the difference. 'She's only one of their employees.' Wyn

  bit her lip. She would have loved to tell them she had been offered a partnership with Bill and his father, purely on her merits. But that did not help her case now. She backed apprehensively up the stairway for a step or two, and wished she had not been so prompt in obeying Russell Tylar's ten minutes' time limit.

  `You can't send her away just because she's a woman,' another male voice objected. `If she liked to take it further, she could sue you under the Sex Discrimination Act.' The unknown man, probably the one called Mr Val, made her point for her, and Wyn silently applauded his bluntness that she herself had not had the courage to use.

  'I can't have a chit of a girl doing this job for me,' Russell Tylar replied harshly. 'It's too important.'

  suggest we all drop the subject for now.' The voice of another woman, soft and well modulated, but with a hint of firmness in it that effectively stilled the argument among her companions, brought Wyn hesitantly back downstairs again towards the drawing room door. She was dying for a cup of tea, and apprehension had dried her throat still further, and made her need even more urgent. 'Miss Warwick will be joining us for tea in a moment, and I won't have her embarrassed by your doubts.' The firmness was very evident now. 'Stay and have tea with us, Diane? You're very welcome.' She couldn't be Russell Tylar's wife, then, thought Wyn, if she had to be invited to a meal. She had noticed a platinum ring on the girl's engagement finger, and assumed it was a wedding ring. Probably it was an engagement ring, it looked old, so it could be a family heirloom.