The Colour Of Midnight

Her stomach clenched. When the armour he imposed over his emotions was breached he was gorgeous.

No wonder Stella had tumbled headlong into love with him. The thought sent a faint feeling of nausea through Minerva, as though by responding to that inscrutable, remote charm she had been disloyal to her stepsister.

Resting her head on the back of the seat, Minerva stared with unseeing, half-closed eyes at the rain-swept countryside, brooding yet again over Stella’s actions, wondering sickly what had driven her to take her own life.

There had been no reason for her to be depressed. She had had everything to live for; a husband she adored, a future that was shiny and sweet with the promise of happiness. She had been popular and loved, with an infectious, sparkling gaiety that attracted as much attention as her sultry, exotic beauty.

It was impossible to imagine Stella saving pills, stealing them from her mother and the housekeeper, hoarding them away in some horrible kind of squirrel’s cache until she had garnered enough to snuff out her life. She’d waited until Nick had gone away for three days, then swallowed them deliberately, carefully, until they were all gone. It was appalling, hideous, yet she had done it, and left them all bewildered.

The housekeeper had found her the next morning. That must have been Helen Borrows. No wonder she had looked so horrified when Minerva told her she was Mrs Peveril’s sister.

‘Suicide while the balance of her mind was disturbed’ had been the verdict at the inquest. Like Ruth, Minerva found this impossible to credit.

Stella had been so bright, so buoyantly high-spirited, so carefree as she flitted through her life. Oh, there had been moods. Stella’s glums, the family had called them, and joined in an unspoken conspiracy to jolly her out of them. But they had never been particularly intense.

At the inquest Mrs Borrows had said that she hadn’t noticed any signs of depression in the new Mrs Peveril, except that she seemed to be homesick and unable to settle in Northland. She had assumed it was because she didn’t like living in the country. Some people didn’t.

True enough. Yet Stella had seemed so in love with Nick that she would have lived anywhere just to be with him.

Admittedly, Stella hadn’t exactly had much staying power when it came to men. Had that swift, fierce, passion burned out so quickly?

No, her adoring, almost awed love for Nick had resounded through her letters. Yet something had gone wrong. The last communication Minerva had received had been written three months before her stepsister killed herself. By then her letters had become oddly remote, a mere record of events, as though Stella had been trying to hide her real feelings behind the words.

Minerva bit her lip. Meeting Nick, seeing Spanish Castle with her own eyes, had only added to the mystery.

CHAPTER TWO

IN SILENCE they finished the drive back to the homestead. Nick parked the Range Rover in a garage which formed one side of a courtyard at the rear of the house. More flowers and a bed of herbs filled the corners of the courtyard. Like the rest of Spanish Castle it was picture-perfect.

‘There’s room for your car next door,’ he said, and took her through into a double garage, one side of which was taken up by a large Mercedes-Benz saloon.

He opened the roller doors and watched while she drove Ruth’s small car-about-town into the space next to the aristocrat. Once out, she unlocked the boot.

Looking what he was, a man so sure of his position in the world that he had no need to prove himself, a man accustomed to command, he extended an imperative hand. Well, he was stronger than she. With a mental shrug, Minerva passed him the pack that had accompanied her around the globe; in his leanly elegant hands it seemed a battered, cheap thing.

‘This used to be a jumble of rooms,’ he said, leading her through a door into an airy passageway that looked on to the courtyard. ‘It’s now garages and offices and mud-room. This doorway leads into the house proper.’

Up three steps, another wide hall stretched in front of them. He opened a door halfway down. ‘Here’s the kitchen,’ he said.

It was superb. Checking it out with an authoritative eye, Minerva saw that it had been newly renovated and set up for entertaining. Not just the occasional dinner party, either. The French range had enough capacity to feed a hundred, and there was a big old wood range too, crackling softly to itself and giving off a very pleasant heat. Clearly she’d found the source of the unexpected warmth throughout the house.

‘Do you think you can manage the stoves?’ Nick asked.

‘No problem,’ Minerva said reassuringly, trying to project a brisk, businesslike manner.

Of course her hair chose that moment to slip from its knot at the back of her head and slither down her back. Nick’s gaze followed its downward passage until it reached her waist. Beneath the thick fringe of his lashes his eyes gleamed suddenly, something in that hooded scrutiny setting Minerva’s cheeks aflame.

Turning away, she caught the fine, flyaway mass in two hands and ruthlessly anchored it in a knot at the back of her head, forcing the combs into the slippery, silky strands.

So much for her effort to be composed and matter-of-fact!

‘I’ve cooked on everything from a campfire to a hotel range,’ she told him firmly, trying to regain ground.

‘Of course.’ The cool eyes scanned her flushed, averted face. His uneven smile held more than a hint of mockery. ‘You don’t look like my idea of a chef.’

‘Because I haven’t got a white hat on? I only wear one in hotel kitchens.’ Retreating behind a mask of expertise, she asked crisply, ‘What foods do you dislike?’

‘None. I’ll eat anything you put in front of me provided it isn’t too sweet.’ He glanced at the thin watch on his strong wrist. ‘We’ll talk about my tastes later, after I’ve shown you the rest of the house and your room.’

A large tabby cat strolled casually in through the door, looked around with the air of one at home, then headed straight for him.

‘This is Penelope,’ he said, bending down to scratch her in exactly the right place behind her ears. ‘Her official job is to keep any mice down.’

Minerva liked cats. This one, with its ineffable air of sleek self-respect, gave the huge kitchen a friendly, comfortable air. Purring, Penelope displayed herself sinuously about Nick’s ankles, then, when he stood up, leapt gracefully on to a stool and looked expectantly at Minerva.

She laughed softly. ‘Wait until dinner,’ she said. ‘And if I ever see you on the bench—watch it.’

The cat gave her a disgusted stare, yawned ostentatiously and settled down to wash its ears.

‘Don’t you like cats?’ Nick asked.

‘Love them, but with a cat it’s always wise to establish right at the beginning who’s boss. Penelope and I will get on very well, don’t worry.’ She stroked the blunt head, asking, ‘What’s your dog’s name? The one you were carrying on your horse?’

‘Rusty.’

Minerva’s brows shot up. ‘That’s funny. I’d have bet money on him being black and white, without a speck of brown.’

‘And you’d have won. I didn’t name him,’ he said, that half-smile softening his features.

‘Who did?’

‘The man who bred him. I’ve always assumed he was colourblind.’

‘Does he come inside?’ she asked. ‘Rusty, I mean.’

His eyebrows lifted. ‘No, he’s a farm dog.’

So farm dogs were not pets. You learn something new every day, she told herself.

‘I used to have a Labrador who did come inside,’ he said, ‘but Stella didn’t like dogs, so when he died I didn’t get another.’

There was a chilling lack of emotion in his tone, in his face, when he said his dead wife’s name. It was as though she meant nothing to him. Or perhaps, Minerva thought slowly, as though he still couldn’t bear to think of it, as though the only way he could cope was to tamp the emotions down.

‘And what is the horse’s name?’ she asked quickly.

His brows lifted but he said readily enough, ‘Silver Demon.’

Something in her expression must have given her away, because an answering amusement glimmered in his eyes. ‘I didn’t name him, either. Pretentious, isn’t it?’