Dark Castle

‘Julie, there are no guest-houses open in Achnacraig at this time of the year. It’s almost November. The tourist season is long over.’

Julie felt upset and frustrated. ‘Then where am I to stay?’ she demanded, steadying her voice with difficulty.

‘At Castle Lochcraig, of course. Where else?’

‘Castle – Lochcraig?’ Julie gathered the lapels of her coat together with a gloved hand. ‘But – but that’s your – your—’

‘Castle? Yes, I know.’ Jonas sounded almost indifferent. ‘But don’t let that intimidate you. It’s not a very large place. Now – my car’s parked over here.’

‘I’m not coming with you!’

Julie remained where she was, her handbag clutched tightly between her fingers, shivering as much with reaction as cold now. This was the very last thing she had expected. That Jonas should meet her was startling enough. That he should expect her to stay at his castle was – ludicrous!

Jonas shrugged and crossed to where a sleek sports saloon was parked, its expensive outline visible in the shadowy light. He opened the door, tossed her briefcase and suitcase on to the back seat and then levered himself behind the wheel with lithe easy grace. It wasn’t until he slammed the door and she heard the roar of the engine that she realized he had accepted her refusal and intended leaving her there. She couldn’t believe he would do such a thing, but the sports car was most definitely beginning to move.

‘Wait!’

She rushed across the station forecourt and reached his side of the car as he slowed and rolled down his window.

‘Yes?’

Julie bit her lip. ‘Where do you think you’re going? You’ve got my suitcase – my briefcase!’

Jonas regarded her from between narrowed lids. He had long thick lashes and they successfully concealed his expression. ‘You can collect them tomorrow when you come for that interview,’ he remarked dryly.

‘Oh, don’t be so ridiculous! I shall need my things tonight.’ Julie stared impotently round the station yard. ‘There has to be habitation here somewhere. Surely someone will put me up for the night.’

Jonas’s mouth thinned. ‘Don’t be so childish, Julie,’ he snapped cuttingly. ‘What’s the matter? Are you afraid to stay at my house?’

‘Of course I’m not afraid—’

‘Then where’s your problem?’

‘I’d rather not accept your hospitality,’ she declared vehemently.

His smile was not pleasant. ‘Oh, really? Then I suggest you take the next train out of here. There may be one later. I’m not really sure.’

Julie gasped. ‘You can’t – you can’t mean you’d refuse me the interview after I’ve travelled all this way …’ Her voice trailed away into silence.

Jonas tapped his fingers impatiently against the steering wheel. ‘Are you going to get into the car, Julie?’ he inquired, in ominously level tones.

Julie straightened. She licked her lips and took another look around the dark station yard. The train had departed to continue its journey, and apart from the light in the ticket office, everywhere seemed desolate. She looked down at Jonas again.

‘I – that’s blackmail,’ she protested, shivering uncontrollably.

He thrust open the passenger side door. ‘You’re going to get pneumonia if you don’t make up your mind soon,’ he observed. ‘Get in. You have no choice, do you?’

Julie’s fists clenched. She felt she had never despised anyone as she despised him at that moment. Without another word she walked round the vehicle and climbed into the squab seat beside him, tucking her skirt down over her knees and slamming the door. But she still continued to shiver. Not even the warmth, the reassuring smell of leather and good tobacco, could rid her of that mingled sense of indignation and resentment, and – yes, apprehension.

The car swung out of the yard, its headlights illuminating hawthorn hedges and the narrow road ahead. Once on to the road, Jonas pressed his foot down harder on the accelerator, and the sleek vehicle almost leapt forward. Jonas had always liked travelling at speed, Julie remembered, but he had always been in control and she had never felt nervous with him. Now, however, it was different, and as the road curved first this way and then that, and the headlights caught the winking blackness of a stretch of water on their left, she felt sure he intended plunging them both into its chilling depths.

‘Must you drive so fast?’ she exclaimed at last, driven beyond bearing by his oppressive silence.

Jonas dropped his speed by five miles an hour and she pressed her hands tightly together. It was scarcely a concession. She turned her head and tried to see some indication of where he was taking her, but there was no sign of life. Just the water, and shadowy clumps of trees and bushes, and occasionally the unexpected glimpse of some night creature. They had covered perhaps four miles already. How much further was Castle Lochcraig?

Presently the car began to slow and a bend in the road brought them to a gravelled area by a stone jetty which jutted out into the murky water. She saw the outline of what appeared to be a boathouse although a few moments later she realized it was a garage – for this car.

Jonas stopped the car, got out and unlocked the garage doors. Julie, the chilliness in her bones dissipated by the tension of the journey, opened her door tentatively.

‘Wh-what are you doing?’

Jonas opened the garage doors wide and then said: ‘You can get out. This won’t take a minute.’

Still Julie hesitated. ‘Is – is this it?’ she ventured, despising herself for the tremor in her voice.

Jonas cast a disparaging look in her direction, his features clearly visible in the light from the headlamps. ‘Hardly,’ he commented dryly, and came back to drive the car inside.

Julie hesitated only a moment longer and then got out, watching mutinously as he garaged the vehicle and closed the doors securely. The jetty mocked her and she refused to look towards it. It seemed apparent that Castle Lochcraig was not on the mainland.

‘What – what is this stretch of water?’ she asked, as he came towards her carrying her cases.

‘Loch Craig.’

‘A loch? Oh, of course.’ Julie sighed. ‘I thought it was the sea.’

‘It could have been, but it isn’t. There are sea lochs, you know, mere continuations of the sea into inland lakes. However, we are some distance from the sea.’

Julie felt suitably reprimanded. It had been a silly statement. The train had travelled inland from Inverness. Jonas walked towards the jetty and in the pale light from a moon tossed about by clouds she saw a small boat with an outboard motor.

‘Come on,’ he said, unceremoniously tossing her belongings into the bottom of the craft. ‘It’s not much further now.’

‘How reassuring!’ Julie spoke with a sarcasm she was far from feeling. ‘You didn’t warn me that your castle was on an island.’

‘Does it matter?’ He sounded resigned. ‘Look, Julie, you’re beginning to annoy me. You asked for this interview, not me. Have the decency to behave like a mature adult. This kind of childish bickering is going to get us nowhere.’

Julie felt her cheeks begin to burn in the darkness, not least because of the truth in what he had said. She had asked for the interview, albeit on Mark’s behalf, and since her arrival she had done nothing but argue with him. But that was because everything had gone so horribly wrong, she justified herself defensively. How had she been expected to know that Achnacraig was little more than a halt on the line and that she would be unable to find accommodation? All the same, if Jonas hadn’t come to meet her things might have been even worse.

With a reluctant shrug of her shoulders she moved towards the jetty. ‘I’m – sorry,’ she mumbled ungraciously.

Jonas put out a hand to help her into the boat, making no response to her unwilling apology, and she put her hand into his. Even through the material of her glove she could feel the hard strength of his fingers and for a moment when she dropped down into the boat beside him she was close enough to feel the warmth of his breath against her forehead. A quivering awareness of him spread over her, and as she huddled into the plank seat at the end of the boat she felt resentfully aware that his sexual attraction was as strong as ever. She was glad she had not succumbed to the fleeting desire to wear her most attractive clothes and do her hair in a loose and appealing style. The temptation had been there, to show him that she was not allowing his defection to ruin her appearance, that she was still capable of attracting men, but it had been discarded. And now she was glad it had. She would have hated him to think she was using this interview as a futile means of showing him exactly what he had lost. No, dressed as she was, in her plain city clothes, the thick, waving coil of golden chestnut hair confined in the unbecoming chignon, she would incite no man’s interest, least of all a man like Jonas Hunter …

CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_40cf714d-cc24-5315-8a20-92bbb0f723b8)

THE outboard motor started at the first attempt and soon they were moving away from the jetty, bouncing across the wind-choppy water to where a dark mound could just be seen rising out of the loch. As they drew nearer, Julie could distinguish the twin towers of a small castle that stood in the middle of the island, and the thick belt of firs that surrounded it. It stood on a rise, and the ground fell away sharply in places towards a shoreline fringed with jagged rocks like giant’s teeth. Julie wondered how on earth anyone could land here, but Jonas circled the island until he came to a shingled stretch, perhaps six feet wide, where he could beach the boat. He stepped out into the water in his boots and dragged the craft up the shingle before offering Julie his hand again to climb out.

The high heels of her boots sank into the small stones as Jonas lifted her cases out of the boat and then drew a torch from his pocket and handed it to her.

‘Here,’ he said. ‘You may need this. I know my way. Just follow me.’