I settled myself in the chair by the window, and passed the next hour or so quietly reading. It carried me back, as so many things did. I could almost imagine Katrina beside me, the two of us there in the dark of the theatre and lost in the magic the actors were weaving with just a few props and their voices. Of course it had helped that the young actor playing Bassanio had been so hugely good-looking that right from the opening scene, when he’d leant on a railing directly above us bemoaning his fate, he’d commanded our sympathy.
It had likely been his fault, as much as the play’s, that Katrina had taken up acting. She’d met him in person once, years later, making a film, and had been unimpressed. ‘A walking ego,’ she had called him, when she’d come round to my place that evening as she sometimes did after a long day’s shooting, to relax.
I’d made brown sugar sandwiches, my mother’s bedtime specialty, and asked her, ‘Really?’
‘Really. And to think, for all these years he’s been a fantasy of mine. I guess it’s true, you should be careful what you wish for.’
I could hear her voice within my head again now, though I didn’t need the warning. I already knew it to be true. I’d just come halfway round the world myself in hopes that at Trelowarth I could touch the past and hold what I had lost a little longer, and now here I was. I’d touched the past all right, but I had missed Katrina by three hundred years, and in this strange place I felt more alone than ever.
Evening came, and brought the realisation that I might be on my own for longer than I’d thought. I’d had to leave the study and the books with some reluctance and come back downstairs. The darkness here could not be held at bay by switching on a light, and though the house had no shortage of candles they had to be lit to be useful. Besides, since I’d now eaten the last apple, if I didn’t want to starve I’d have to find a way to somehow cook the barley. I would have to light a fire.
The iron grate inside the kitchen fireplace had a dusting of cold ashes underneath, but it already held a stack of fresh wood waiting for a flame. Except I wasn’t good with fires. Not even with a modern box of matches, which I didn’t have to hand, although a quick search of the crannies near the kitchen hearth produced a metal tinderbox, the kind I’d only read about in books. I knew the theory of the tinder-box: I was supposed to take the flint and steel and strike some sparks onto a small pile of the tinder, in this case a mixture of wood shavings and bits of cloth. When the sparks caught on the tinder I was then supposed to blow on them and coax them to a flame that would in turn ignite the wood stacked in the fireplace. Foolproof.
Only this was me, and after working at it for what felt an hour I’d only managed to produce a few small sparks that flashed and smouldered and did no more than consume my precious scraps of tinder before burning out completely in a listless puff of smoke. My face was smudged, my temper frayed, my knees were stiff from kneeling at the hearth, but I’d been born too stubborn to let such a small thing beat me, so I focused all my concentration on the task and shut out everything around me that might serve as a distraction – every creak and groan the house made, and the rattle of the storm against the windows, and the wailing of the wind across the chimney-top above me.
And the door. I didn’t hear it, either, so the sudden heavy tread of boots behind me on the floorboards made me jump. I turned, expecting Daniel. Maybe Fergal.
It was neither.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
In the near-dark of this room the silent presence of the constable was something to be feared. My one advantage was that I had caught him off his guard as well – he clearly hadn’t been expecting to find anyone at home.
I stood with care, and tried to calm my racing heartbeat with determination.
He recovered first. ‘Mistress O’Cleary.’ There was no attempt to make even a mocking bow this time, no need to show respect since there was no one watching. Those cold, uncompromising eyes grew narrow as he processed this discovery. ‘Have they left you here alone for these past days?’ His gaze moved briefly to the hearth and back. ‘And with no fire. That was unkind of them. I confess when I did not see smoke from the chimneys I was myself convinced the house was empty.’
So that was why he’d come in unannounced like this – because he’d thought he could. He’d thought there would be no one here to notice or to challenge him, and that he would be able to poke round at leisure, undisturbed.
Except I’d spoilt his plans.
Now, like some reptile who could change the pattern of his skin when needed, he appeared to be adapting to this new twist of events. I saw his features lose a little of their hardness in a calculated way, and when he spoke again his voice made a deliberate stab at being civil. ‘Are you having difficulty?’
It was just as well that I was scared of him, because that fear prevented me from answering for long enough that I remembered I was not supposed to have a voice. I gave a wary nod.
‘Stand aside then.’ He did not appear to notice that my fingers shook a little as I passed the tinder-box into his outstretched hand. It took him time as well, but in the end he made a fire that grew steadily upon the hearth and cast a welcome light and spreading warmth into the dreary room.
When he straightened, it took all my effort not to take a backwards step away from him, because he seemed too close. ‘Now, how then will you thank me for my aid, when you have not the use of words?’ He saw my wariness increase, and seemed amused enough by it to push my panic button further, giving me a purposefully slow once-over, pausing on my loose hair. ‘I can see you were preparing for your bed. Perhaps you need assistance there, as well?’ He smiled at my reaction, and then went another route. ‘But no, some wine, I think, will be enough. A bottle of the best that Butler has and you may count your debt repaid.’