Summer Of The Raven

She was quite satisfied with her evening’s endeavours when she closed the book and slipped it under her pillow again. She switched off her bedside lamp and was soon dreamlessly asleep.

She did not know what woke her. She only knew that she was sitting up in the darkness, her heart thumping, listening intently. Then she realised what she was hearing. Someone was moving round in the living room. She sighed and her whole tense body relaxed in relief. It was only Antonia.

Yet Antonia did not have so heavy a tread, she thought with sudden unease. Nor did she normally bump into the furniture. Then she heard an unmistakably masculine expletive, and without considering the wisdom of her action, she pushed back the covers and jumped out of bed.

She flung open her door and took a step forward into the living room. She saw him at once. He was tall and lean, with tawny hair springing back from his forehead and curling slightly on to his neck. As Rowan entered, he turned to look at her and she saw that he was very tanned, as if he spent a lot of time abroad, and that in contrast his grey eyes were almost silver. He wore a dark green velvet dinner jacket and a frilled and ruffled shirt with a casual elegance that was in no way effete.

She had the craziest feeling that she knew him, that she’d seen him somewhere – perhaps in a newspaper or a magazine, but his name eluded her and the reason he had been photographed.

Then she looked beyond him and with a little cry of alarm she saw Antonia lying on the sofa, very white. The man had been bending over her, and there was a glass in his hand.

Rowan started forward. ‘What have you done to her?’

He stood very still and looked at her, a long hard stare encompassing her from the soles of her bare feet to the top of her head, and she blushed to the roots of her hair, realising what a spectacle she must make in her schoolgirlish gingham nightdress. It was a good job it was opaque, she thought, as she hadn’t bothered to throw her dressing gown on over it.

‘Who the devil are you?’ His voice was low and resonant with the faintest drawl.

‘I’m Rowan Winslow.’ Her voice faltered as she stared anxiously at Antonia.

‘Rowan?’ He frowned. ‘Oh, yes, the child. I’d forgotten …’

Antonia stirred slightly and muttered something and he turned back to her.

‘What’s happened to her?’ Rowan took a further step into the room, her hands tightly clasped in front of her. ‘Is she ill? Did she faint?’

His mouth twisted. For the first time she noticed a slight scar on his face near the corner of his mouth.

‘That’s a delicate way of describing her condition,’ he said sardonically. “‘Passed out” is the more usual phrase.’

‘What?’ Rowan’s eyes went disbelievingly from his face to Antonia’s unconscious form. ‘You can’t mean that – you’re saying that she’s …’

He nodded. ‘As a newt,’ he said pleasantly. ‘If you’ll indicate which is her room, I’ll put her to bed. And you’d better get back to your own before you catch your death of cold.’

Rowan was not listening. ‘You took Antonia out and got her drunk,’ she accused hotly. ‘That’s a swinish thing to do!’

He gave her another more searching look. ‘I took her out, yes.’ His voice was cool. ‘But I can assure you that her over-indulgence in alcohol was all her own idea.’

He bent and lifted Antonia into his arms. She was no lightweight, but he held her as easily as if she were a doll. There was something vaguely obscene about her helplessly dangling legs and the way her head lolled back against his arm, and Rowan swallowed uncomfortably.

‘Her room’s through there.’ She pointed. ‘If – if you’ll just put her down on the bed, I’ll do what’s necessary.’

His brows rose. ‘Aren’t you a little young to be coping with this sort of thing?’ he demanded. ‘Or is it quite a normal occurrence?’

She was just about to give an indignant negative to both his questions, when it occurred to her that perhaps it was no bad thing in the circumstances that he thought she was much younger than she actually was. If Antonia had been drinking to that extent, he could hardly be stone cold sober himself, and it was very late, and they were practically alone together.

‘It isn’t at all a normal occurrence,’ she assured him rather bleakly. ‘If you’ll wait a moment, I’ll fetch my dressing gown.’

It was a warm, unglamorous garment in royal blue wool which had seen service during her boarding school days, and she felt oddly secure once its voluminous folds had enwrapped her.

When she got to Antonia’s room her stepmother was already lying on the bed. The man was standing beside the bed, looking down at her, his face sombre and rather brooding.

‘Do you want me to help you with her dress?’ he enquired as Rowan came in. ‘Your wrists are like sparrows’ legs and you might have difficulty turning her over.’

‘I shall leave her as she is, thank you,’ she replied with dignity, resisting an urge to tuck the offending wrists out of sight in the sleeves of her dressing gown.

‘As you wish,’ he sounded totally indifferent. ‘But if she’s – er – ill in the night and ruins an expensive model gown, she’s unlikely to thank you.’

‘It’s really quite all right.’ She sounded like a prim old maid, Rowan thought despairingly. ‘You don’t need to stay. I’m quite capable of looking after her.’

He smiled suddenly, and she felt her mind reel under the sudden, devastating impact of his charm. Suddenly he was no longer an intruder – the stranger who happened to have brought Antonia home. He was very much a man to be reckoned with in his own right. Absurdly she found herself wondering how old he was. Possibly Antonia’s age, she thought, judging the hard, incisive lines of his face. Perhaps a year or so younger.

‘Do you know,’ he said slowly, ‘I almost believe you are. The question is – who looks after you?’

She was blushing again, and the disturbing thing was she didn’t really understand why.

She gave him a formal smile. ‘We really can manage now.’ She looked down rather uncertainly at Antonia. ‘I –I’m very sorry about all this,’ she ventured, then wondered vexedly why she should have said such a thing.

‘I’ll tell you one thing,’ he said softly. ‘Antonia will be a damned sight sorrier when she wakes up. She’s going to have a head like a ruptured belfry when she eventually opens her eyes, so I’d keep out of her way if I were you.’

He nodded to her and walked out of the bedroom. Rowan padded after him to the living room door, where he turned and subjected her to another of those lingering head to toe appraisals.

Then, ‘See you,’ he said lightly, and went out.

‘Not if I see you first,’ she thought as she secured the latch and shot the bolt at the top of the door. And then she realised with frank dismay that she didn’t actually mean that at all. In fact, she didn’t know quite what she did mean, and her mind seemed to be whirling in total confusion, although that could be because she had been startled out of her sleep.

She leaned against the door for a moment and took a long, steadying breath. It was then she remembered that she had never found out who he was.

She went slowly back to Antonia’s room and stood looking down at her. It was true, it was a lovely dress, and sleeping in it would do it no good at all. It was a struggle, but eventually she got Antonia out of the dress, and hung it up carefully in the wardrobe. Then she pulled the covers up over her stepmother’s half-clothed body, flushing a little as she remembered the stranger’s half-mocking offer of assistance. He was probably adept at getting women out of their dresses, whether they were conscious or unconscious, she told herself scornfully.

At least he’d had the decency to bring Antonia home, she argued with herself as she switched out the light. But then, returned a small cold voice inside her, what other course was open to him? Antonia’s condition had ruined the natural conclusion of the evening for them both.

Usually Rowan slept like a baby, but when she got back into her chilly bed, sleep was oddly elusive and she lay tossing and turning. In the end, she sat up in bed and said fiercely, ‘This is ridiculous!’ and gave her pillow an almighty thump as she did so.

She had met an attractive man; that was all that had happened. She had met others in the past, she thought, her mouth trembling into a rueful smile, and they hadn’t noticed her either. Nothing had changed, least of all herself. He was very adult, and very male with that tanned skin and those pale mocking eyes, and he had looked her over and seen what there was to see, and he had called her a child.

‘Perhaps that’s what I am.’ She squinted sightlessly through the darkness towards the window where a paler light was beginning to be perceptible through the thin curtains. ‘A case of arrested development, small breasts, chewed nails and all.’ The thought made her smile, but it did not lift her heart, and when she fell asleep she dreamed the small unpleasant dreams that cannot be recalled to mind the next day, yet hang about like an incipient headache.

The next day was Saturday, so there were no lectures, but she had to go to the library to exchange an armful of books, and there was the weekend shopping to be done. She breakfasted quickly on toast and coffee and looked round Antonia’s door to see if she wanted anything before she departed, but Antonia was still sleeping like the dead.

Rowen bought vegetables and fruit from a street stall at the corner on her way home from the library and agreed with the vendor that winter really did seem to be over at last, wriggling her shoulders in the pale warmth of the sunlight.

She felt almost cheerful as she walked in at the front door and came face to face with Fawcett, their landlord. He was making his weekly rent round, and she said smilingly, ‘Good morning. Did Mrs Winslow hear you knock? If not, I can …’

‘I have the rent,’ he said rather dourly. ‘I’m very sorry to hear that you’re leaving us. You’ve been good quiet tenants. I could hardly have wished for better.’

Rowan stared at him. She said at last, ‘I don’t quite follow—are you giving us notice?’

He looked quite shocked. ‘On the contrary, Miss Winslow. Your stepmother told me herself that you would be leaving at the end of the month.’