Lure of the Falcon Read online

  'It wasn't Mrs Tylar as had your room changed to this one, miss.' Nanny turned a puzzled look at Wyn. 'It was Mr Russell as suggested you ought to be moved. You saw him talking to me when you joined him in the hall this morning?' She spoke as if she thought Russell had told her all about it, and Wyn felt a flash of irritation dim her pleasure in her new abode. Russell certainly was a peculiar man, to have her room moved without saying a word to her. 'Perhaps he wanted to surprise you, miss,' her companion beamed, and Wyn

  nodded, her vexation evaporating. If he had wanted to surprise her, he had certainly succeeded, she agreed silently, and relief coursed through her at the thought of what she might have said to him if Nanny hadn't come along in the nick of time and stopped her impulsive flight.

  `Mr Russell said only to move if you wanted to, miss,' the elderly woman told her, with a tinge of anxiety in her voice. But there,' the anxiety vanished at the brightness of Wyn's smile, 'I knew you'd want to move in here. It's a pretty room, like I said. It's known as the bride's room,' she confided, and there was a look of wistful remembrance in her face as she spoke. 'All the Tylar brides spend their wedding night in here,' she told Wyn softly.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  `COME and play in the maze with us this afternoon,' Jane begged Wyn at lunchtime. 'It's fun. You have to try and find your way out.'

  `Scamp managed it,' her brother butted in, and the small girl shook her head severely.

  'He cheated,' she claimed. `He jumped over the hedge.'

  `Right over the top?' Wyn eyed the small wirehaired terrier dubiously, and Louise Tylar laughed.

  `Eat up your pudding before it gets cold,' she turned Jane's attention back to her neglected lunch. `The maze is in the old knot garden on the other side of the house,' she explained. 'The walls are made of box hedges, they're close, but not very high, and as soon as we got here Russell clipped them so that the children could enjoy the fun of the maze without being frightened by hedges they couldn't see over.'

  Where his niece and nephew were concerned he was thoughtful, Wyn admitted. When he had first moved to the Grange, believing it to belong to him, there must have been a multitude of jobs presenting themselves for his attention, and yet he took time off to attend to the needs of the two children.

  `After tea maybe I'll be able to come out and see the maze,' she compromised. 'I must do some work this afternoon.' She did not relish the thought of Russell returning to find her playing outside in the garden,

  however tempting the sunshine made their offer. And when he came back she would have to thank him for moving her room. She had not expected such consideration from him after her frigid reception. Maybe his conscience pricked him, she thought hopefully.

  `There's so much Russell wanted to do here,' the children's grandmother spoke regretfully. 'He intended to restore the knot garden, and he'd already instructed a local builder to start renovating the Lodge.'

  `Nanny told me you'd given up your home when you came here.' Wyn's voice was sympathetic. Elderly people did not take kindly to moving house, and the sheer uncertainty of their future accommodation must be most unsettling to Louise.

  `Yes, I let my house furnished to an American couple,' Louise answered. 'They're in this country for three or four years—the husband's at the Embassy,' she explained. 'It seemed an ideal arrangement at the time. They were glad to move into a working household, they settled in right away, and we were equally glad to move into our family home. The children will be here with us until they've finished school, and Russell was keen for them to be brought up in the Lodge. I can't possibly ask the Americans to vacate my house now they've settled in, can I?' she asked worriedly. 'We were so sure, you see, that Russell was the only heir. And I always did love the Lodge, it's the dower house to the Grange, so it's plenty big enough for Nanny and me, and the children when they're not at school. And now, of course, everything's so uncertain, since this business cropped up about the will. If only we'd known right away we needn't have burned our boats so completely ...'

  The anxiety in her voice haunted Wyn as she made her way back to the panelled room from which she and Russell had started their tour of the house that morning. Tempest Tylar's will hung like the. Sword of Damocles over the whole family, she thought. Russell and Corporal Benny had both sacrificed their Army careers, and Louise her home. The fact that Tempest Tylar's wife had had a son was common knowledge, and his paternity claim would be hard to refute.

  She settled down to work, the search she had to make lending a keen edge to her concentration. The solitary picture on the panelled wall gave her no clue, it was a landscape with neither people nor hounds in evidence, and for a moment she felt a sense of disappointment; the study had seemed an ideal place for a man to secrete a document.

  `It seems the logical place,' she shared her thoughts with Louise as she propped open the study door to allow a cool breeze through the room just as the older woman was passing along the hall.

  `I'm afraid logic won't help you in your search.' Louise paused as Wyn straightened up, releasing the wrought iron top of the heavy leather-covered doorstop, one of a pair that 'stood beside the double study doors for when the occupier might want them propped wide, as Wyn had done now. 'Unhappiness turned my brother-in-law into a hermit,' she pointed out quietly, 'so logical reasoning may not have dictated his subsequent actions,' she warned delicately. A shadow touched her fine eyes as she spoke, that looked beyond Wyn into the past. Remembering. Regretting.

  Watching her, Wyn wondered what Tempest Tylar had been like. Russell's dark head appeared in her

  mental vision; but it was possible that he was nothing like his uncle to look at. Still it persisted, with its straight black brows and grey, brooding eyes, and behind it appeared Diane's cold blue ones, her fair hair tossed in haughty arrogance as Wyn had seen her that morning. She wondered if Russell had succeeded in making friends again. She shrugged her shoulders, dismissing them both. A lovers' tiff was none of her business. She was here to do a job, and nothing more.

  I'll look in all the unlikely places as well as the likely ones,' she promised, and turned back to the table where she had been examining a pair of silver jugs and an ornate candelabrum.

  'I think I prefer the plainer pieces, myself.' Louise pointed to the candelabrum, and Wyn nodded.

  `So do,' she agreed, 'but this started its life plain enough. The rococo work was added at a much later date—early Victorian, I'd say, and it's done in a baser metal than the original, piece. If you look closely, you can see the difference.' She pointed it out, at her ease with Russell's mother, completely sure of herself on her own subject, and knowing she had an interested observer.

  The Victorians had some horrible habits,' her companion said disapprovingly, regarding the highly decorative work with disfavour.

  `They only followed the fashions of their day, the same as we do, I suppose.' Wyn countered ,tolerantly. `When their plain pieces of silver began to look old-fashioned, they had them modernised, and rococo was popular then,' Wyn added the candelabrum to her growing list in small, neat handwriting, and put a figure beside it that made Louise's eyes widen.

  'Goodness! Is it worth as much as that?' she cried. 'I had no idea ...'

  'Don't let my estimates prevent you from using the pieces you like,' Wyn begged. 'They're better for being, used, that's what they were made for in the first place.'

  'Of course I shall use them,' her companion retorted promptly. 'I love beautiful things—as you do,' she acknowledged a kindred spirit. 'It's simply that I've never thought of them in terms of real money before.'

  'You're the kind of owner we like to find for anything special that comes into our hands,' Wyn told her with a smile. 'But there may not be too much of this stuff,' she gestured towards the candelabrum. 'These jugs, for instance, they're all one period. The strap work and the cut card work on them were put on when they were made—it served a useful purpose in strengthening the vessels, as well as being ornamental.'

  'I prefer the
se,' Louise handled one reverently.

  'It's just that our present-day tastes more nearly match those of the earlier period,' Wyn smiled. 'Maybe in another hundred years or so, people will prefer the more ornate ornamentation.'

  'Well, I don't,' retorted Louise fervently. 'Thank goodness the Victorians confined their alterations to the silver, and left the house alone ...'

  'Gran, do come!' Frantic footsteps clattered along the hall, and Jane's voice implored from the doorway.

  'Whatever's the matter?' Louise rose hurriedly, the silver forgotten.

  'Scamp's chased a cat up a tree, an' Jon's shouting at him to stop barking, an' Nanny'll be cross 'cos she told us to keep quiet.' Echoes of canine hysteria, punctuated

  by ineffectual commands of 'Quiet, Scamp!' took Louise in haste to the door.

  'I'd better go and restore order,' she sighed. 'Did you look ...?' she paused for a moment, turning back.

  'I've looked in both jugs, and even tried the base of the candelabrum, to see if it comes away from the stem,' Wyn answered her. It did not, and she put it away from her and regarded the rest of the room. I'll start on the desk, she decided. She had better not touch the picture on the wall until Russell returned, there was no point in arousing his wrath unnecessarily. Despite the change in her bedroom, she still felt very much on probation so far as he was concerned.

  She pulled the desk top down, revealing tiers of small drawers inside. She reached out and slowly pulled one towards her, revelling in the craftsmanship that made the fit of it so perfect that when she slid it shut again, the air it displaced puffed out the drawer below for nearly an inch.

  'They really made things, then.' She stroked her hand across the perfect marquetry of the drawer face, the jigsaw pieces of differently grained wood so smoothly fitted together that the pattern might have been painted on the surface.

  The drawers were empty. She went through them all, paying meticulous attention to each one. Each joint was perfectly formed, and as firm as the day on which the desk was made, telling of careful use by appreciative owners.

  Things stand the test of time better than people. The senior Stapleton's philosophy returned to Wyn with forceful truth. I'm getting morbid, she scolded herself,

  determinedly feeling at the back of each drawer. Russell should have no cause to criticise her thoroughness while she searched, and once or twice she had discovered a concealed drawer in a similar piece of furniture, so why not in this oner

  Deftly she slipped under the kneehole of the desk, anxious not to miss even an inch of the wood facing, and grateful not for the first time that slacks were an accepted item of feminine apparel. Slowly she ran her fingers under the rims of the carved edges, feeling for something—anything—that might be even slightly loose, and so betray the presence of a hidden drawer.

  'Have you had any luck?' Something clattered with a metallic sound on the floor of the study; a pair of black-clad legs appeared in Wyn's range of vision, and Russell's voice greeted her with unconcealed eagerness.

  'Not yet.' Her own voice was muffled because she was curled up in a tight ball under the desk. She stretched out her legs cautiously, careful not to kick against Russell's feet. It simply wasn't done to kick a client, though more than once since coming to the Grange she had felt the temptation with this particular one, she remembered grimly. 'I haven't got far yet, I started on the pieces of silver on the table, and then tackled the desk. It takes a lot of time—ouch!'

  She forgot the carved edge of the kneehole, and as she shuffled out her head came in brutal contact with a leaf cut-out, with a force that momentarily rocked her back on her heels. She recovered her balance, and emerged into Russell's view, shaking her head to clear her hair from her eyes. Agilely she swung to her feet, and immediately the room began to rotate round her like a circus merry-go-round.

  'Oh, my goodness!' She put her hand to her head dizzily.

  'You're hurt.' Russell's voice floated out of a foggy void, coming from somewhere close above her head, and two arms went round ther as she swayed. She felt a hand on her shoulder, pressing her downwards. She resisted, trying to remain on her feet, but her knees refused to hold her and she obeyed the pressure of the hand and let her legs give way. The arms guided her gently but accurately on to something that felt soft but firm beneath her. They pulled her head back to rest on something else that smelled faintly of expensive after-shave lotion, and she lay back thankfully and closed her eyes, and wondered why anyone should put after-shave lotion on a cushion.

  'You're not going to pass out, are you?' Anxiety tinged the voice above her head, and she opened one eye experimentally. It focussed on the over-ornamented candelabrum, which obligingly stood still, so she opened the other eye with more confidence.

  She rubbed her head ruefully, feeling the swelling that was already beginning to 'rise above her right temple. 'I saw stars for a -few seconds, that's all.' She sat upright gingerly, holding on to the edge of whatever it was she leaned on.

  'Don't get up too soon, give it time to pass.' Russell tightened his hold on her, preventing her from rising to her feet, and she realised she was still clinging to the thing she had rested against. Her thumb and forefinger discovered well cut tweed, that her startled glance told her rode its wearer's shoulder like a glove.

  'I'm sitting on your lap,' she realised weakly.

  'Tell me a better way to hold on to a fainting female,'

  a wrinkle of amusement creased lines about his grey eyes, and strong white teeth glinted in a smile.

  -but ...' Hot colour suffused her cheeks, creeping down her throat with rosy fingers, and confusion gripped her as he looked down into her face, the smile in his eyes deepening as he watched the tide of pink flow and recede in her cheeks.

  'No buts,' he said firmly. let me see the bump.' She felt his supporting hand leave her back, confident that she could now sit upright on her own. Gently—so gently—his long, slender fingers gripped her chin, turning her face towards him, when she would fain have buried it in the loosely woven lapel of his jacket and hide the blush that had brought the smile to his eyes.

  'I promise I won't hurt you, but I must see ...' Equally gently, his other hand stroked the soft brown waves of her hair back from her forehead, seeking the injury with a touch so light that it was no more than a breath against her hot cheeks.

  He had the fingers of a musician. The thought came to her from nowhere. The sensitive fingers of an instrumentalist, stirring notes of sweet Pan music that drew chords of response from her wildly beating heart which until now had lain unawakened, but from now on, because lie had touched her, was destined to carry with it a throbbing awareness of the man in whose arms she rested, feeling the strength of them about her, holding her safe, and his touch on her hair that was as soft as a caress, yet drew from her trembling lips a gasp of exquisite pain.

  `Did I hurt you? I'm sorry.' Instantly he lifted his hand, not knowing that its withdrawal hurt more than its touch, and she shook her head slowly, with the dazed

  feel of a sleeper arousing to a make believe world that so far had only existed by other people's telling, but now, engulfed herself, she recognised as real.

  'I don't want ...'

  shook her head.

  She didn't want to fall in love, but she could not

  love with him. She had never visualised that love would be like this, she had always thought it would be the other way round, she thought numbly. First friendship, deepening into love, and always on the man's side first, her own heart left to uncurl its petals like a flower responding to the warm rays of the sun, sure of its eager reception. She had never thought it could descend on her in this black whirlwind of emotion, storming her defences with a ruthless strength that left her helpless and bewildered, her eyes as they sought his as dark as a mountain peat stream when a storm has devastated the heights, then passed on, leaving the bleak rocks as indifferent as before it came—as Russell was indifferent to her.

  'Don't look so scared,' he misinte
rpreted her expression, and his head bent lower over her upturned face, closer so that the smell of his after-shave lotion was like a faint spice between them. Suddenly she struggled, pressing herself away from him, afraid that he might kiss her—afraid that he might not—and if he did what her own response would be. The touch of his fingers on her hair had been sufficient to rouse feelings she did not know she possessed; if his lips touched hers only lightly—only once—she would be unable to hide those feelings from him. Mortification coloured her cheeks

  tell him so. Particularly, she did not want to fall in 'What?' he asked her softly, watching her, and she

  again, and she dared not look up at him, knowing he would still be smiling. TO him a kiss would be a moment passed, much as he might have kissed Jane after a tumble, partly for reassurance, partly for comfort while he held her in his arms, nothing more than that, and as quickly forgotten. To her the touch of his lips would mean the surrender of her whole heart, and with her last vestige of control she fought to remain its master.

  'I don't want anything on the bump,' she remembered her words and made them sensible. 'The skin's not broken, and I'm feeling all right again. It was that leaf cut-out—oh, look!' The sight of the carved piece of wood, swinging out now at right angles to the desk, froze her feelings and shocked her back to awareness of what she had been doing before Russell held her in his arms.

  'It's broken. Heavens! You did give your head a crack!' He was concerned for her, not for the antique desk. Through her shock that fact had time to register with a small, warm glow.

  'It isn't broken, it's swung out on a hinge,' she said wonderingly.

  'A hinge? I didn't know there was a drawer ...' He stopped and stared at her, realisation of what they were both looking at dawning on him.

  'I was looking for a concealed drawer—it looks as if my head found it.' Unresisted this time she slid off his knees and on to her feet, her one hand still unconsciously holding on to his for support, for the success of her efforts had left her still slightly shaky.