The Shadowy Horses

"What?" His look of horror was quite genuine. "Oh, my dear girl, that would never do. No, no, we have a room all ready for you, and my granddaughter's been fussing over it for days, buying curtains to match the coverlet, and that sort of thing. You'd not want to disappoint her, surely? Besides," he added, "I was rather hoping to hold you captive here until I'd managed to persuade you to join our motley little team." The hooded eyes touched mine, with stunning charm, and he smiled again. "You have your luggage with you?"

"Just one bag. It's in the car."

"Good." Still charming, the smile slid to Adrian. "Fetch it for her, will you? There's a good chap. You can put it in the guest room at the head of the stairs—you know the one? Then come and join us for a drink in the sitting room."

Adrian hadn't planned on staying—I could tell as much from the tiny frown that creased his forehead for the span of a single heartbeat. He had simply meant to deliver me, and make the necessary introductions, and then get back to whatever it was he'd been doing when I'd interrupted him. Chivalry, I thought dryly, was a word that Adrian Sutton-Clarke had never learned to spell. He'd been the same when we were dating, always vanishing from parties when it suited him, and leaving me to find my own way home.

He hesitated, looked at Quinnell, looked at me, and turned away obediently. "Right. Won't be a moment."

When the front door had opened and closed again, Peter Quinnell drew back a pace to study me with interest. I pretended not to notice the appraisal, letting my own eyes wander around the little hallway in which we stood. There was nothing in it, really, save a few pairs of tumbled boots and shoes and a leaning stack of empty flowerpots. I gathered that the proper entrance hall lay somewhere in the dark behind my host, beyond the French doors flanked by matching window panels that reflected my own image back to me. My reflection, thankfully, didn't look the least bit nervous.

Peter Quinnell finished his inspection and tipped his head to one side. "I must say, I am surprised. You don't look anything like I expected."

I smiled. "That's just what Mr. Fortune said. I met him on the bus," I explained, as Quinnell raised an enquiring eyebrow. "I gather everyone thought I'd be tall and blond, and more ... well, more ..."

"Quite. Our Mr. Sutton-Clarke does have a certain reputation," he agreed. "And he did say, my dear, that he knew you rather well, so naturally one builds a certain image in one's mind . .." He smiled, and shrugged.

"Sorry to disappoint."

"Good heavens, I'm not at all disappointed. And no more, I suspect, was David Fortune. You met him on the bus, you say? Out visiting his mother, was he?"

I admitted I had no idea where he'd been. "Is he a local man, then?"

"David? Oh, yes. Eyemouth born and bred, is David. He hasn't lived here for some years, mind, but his mother has a cottage on the coast, north of St. Abbs." He turned away to pull the French doors open, letting the light creep uncertainly into the large front hall beyond. "Please, do come through. I'll put the light on ... there." A switch clicked somewhere and a warm lamp glowed as if by magic from atop a Spanish chest; glowed again within the mirror hung behind it, and in all the frames of all the prints and sketches grouped around the great square entrance hall.

In fact, one scarcely saw the wallpaper, there were so many pictures, and with the weathered Oriental carpet on the floor the overall effect was one of cultured and eclectic taste.

Ahead I saw the glimmer of a window, and a gaping darkness that might have been a stairway, and the corner of a passage, but my host didn't force me into a guided tour. Of the three closed doorways leading off the entrance hall he chose the nearest on my left. "The sitting room," he told me, as he fumbled for the wall switch. "Not the posh one, I'm afraid—that's over there," he nodded across the hall, "but it isn't very comfortable for sitting. I much prefer this one."

When the light snapped on, I saw why. Deep red walls hugged around on every side, set off by more Oriental carpeting and a leather sofa, creased and weathered from years of use, on which two cats were curled around each other, sleeping. A matching armchair sat surrounded in its corner by bookshelves crammed with volumes old and new, and more prints and drawings hung haphazardly about the room. The one large window had been simply hung with panels of a floral-patterned chintz, worn in spots and faded from the sun. When the curtains were open, I thought, one would be able to look out over the drive.

Even as I formed the thought, the front door banged and Adrian went thumping past with my suitcase. His footsteps faded up an unseen flight of stairs.

"Please, do sit down." Peter Quinnell waited until I had settled myself on the sofa beside the cats before he folded his own long frame into the armchair, slinging one loose-jointed leg over the other and tilting his head backwards to rest against the leather.

This was his room, I thought—it had the stamp of him, somehow, in all its corners. Not pristine and tidy, but comfortably masculine, the sort of room that men of old had taken refuge in when wives began to scurry around the house with purpose. Here papers could be left spread out on chairs without reproach, and one could smoke, or drop a biscuit crumb onto the carpet.

'"Don't mind the cats," he told me, "they're quite harmless. Stupid creatures, really, but I'm fond of them. Murphy—that's the big black beast, there—he's been with me seven years now, and his girlfriend Charlie came to us last winter, when we bought this house." A sudden thought struck him, and he frowned. "You're not allergic, are you?"