The Evil at Monteine. Brian Ball
here.”
I had been talked about. No woman likes it.
“I’m Monica Sievel,” the woman said. She had been handsome once, but now her square, angular face looked ravaged. “I work here.”
I put on my cool look. “How do you do?”
I knew that I disliked and distrusted her intensely the moment I looked at her smoothly made-up face and saw the carefully guarded caution in her eyes.
This woman was inimical to me. I felt it, a skin thing, and I saw it in her eyes. She would do me harm. And Richard. He grinned at her.
“Monica’s one of the staff—drinks like a fish and knows all my secrets. I was just telling Anne about the job—oh, I know it’s unofficial!” he said, as she was about to interrupt. “Nothing signed and sealed yet, and I’m not to discuss it with anyone as Falco said, but Anne’s special! She doesn’t know it yet, but Ulrome’s got her future planned. Come on, Anne, let’s have a drink!” He stopped suddenly as he was pulling me along. “Monica, the house-rules allow guests, don’t they?”
Her charm and ability to handle any and every situation made a nonsense of my first reaction, She tucked her arm into Richard’s and said that house-rules didn’t exist at Monteine Castle.
“Richard’s got to bring you to dinner,” she said firmly. “One of the privileges of living in a castle is that occasionally one can act with an altogether aristocratic open-handedness. Anyway, International can afford it.”
I looked for a wedding ring, saw none, and wondered why she hadn’t married. I wondered if she was attractive to men, then immediately I thought of Richard without me for three days, and that wasn’t a line of speculation I wanted to go into.
She had already gauged my feeling with an exact nicety that proved her intelligence, and set out to disarm me at once.
“He mentioned you,” she said. “There had to be someone special.”
Even after her charming invitation, I had the urge to grab Richard by the shoulders and push him hard into the car and drive off. Then I thought of Richard, and myself no longer alone, and the woman was so obviously good-natured and sincere that I told myself not to be a fool.
I looked at Monteine Castle again. It didn’t look so forbidding, it gave an impression of strength and nobility. A few seagulls wheeled around the cliffs. The thick grey clouds were breaking up and I could see a patch of blue sky, miles away over the sea. A strong shaft of sunlight caught the towers, making a picturesque scene more vivid. Why had the Castle seemed menacing, in that one instant? It didn’t now.
“It’s kind of you,” I said, “but I’d thought of staying in the village, There’s a pub,” I said. I explained about the circuit. Tomorrow morning I’d go on to my two Lancashire artists, then motor through to Cheshire. I said I’d dropped in because I’d happened to find myself near; not much of an excuse, however one looked at it. “Richard, I’m tired, why don’t we go down and get a room for me?”
“But they’ve got guest rooms here! It’s a marvellous setup—Monica, can you fix it?”
The woman’s eyes were calculating again; the warmth had gone. It was just a flicker, but I thought I saw that glint of menace again. She recovered immediately.
“Of course!” she said. “Why didn’t I think of it—it’s far too late for you to start worrying about a room at the Landing.”
I saw the look and didn’t like what I saw.
I began to prepare my apologies, but Richard gave me no time. Besides, I was full of cautious elation, a good deal of curiosity, and just a touch of fury because Richard had given me such a bad time, leaving me to believe he’d come to Monteine Castle to fix the race sponsorship. He hustled me into the passenger seat. “Anne, we’ll have a large one to celebrate—in you get, Monica,” he said.
“No thanks, darlings—you drive on. I haven’t had a breath of fresh air all day. It’s rained nonstop. You two go ahead. I want a few minutes out here. If you go to the bar, I’ll know where to find you when I’ve arranged Anne’s room. See you soon!”
She walked away and turned to the rear of the Castle.
Richard flicked through the gears, and in seconds we were before a pair of iron-studded oak doors. Richard hadn’t stopped talking—how wonderful the opportunity was, something about the Bahamas and interviews; but I was rather dazed. After all, I’d come to bitch at him and tell him that our relationship was over and by his choice. He was to have circumnavigated the globe. I thought I was inured to shock, and found I wasn’t.
Richard was about to hurl himself from the car.
“Wait,” I said. “Sit there till you’ve answered my questions.”
“Yours to command,” said Richard. “I could do with that drink, though—”
“Quiet! You didn’t tell me about any job. Why not?”
“It’s the Ulrome way, my love. I didn’t want you to get too excited about the prospect.”
“You could have told me. What is this job anyway? And don’t say it’s going to keep us apart!”
“No chance,” he said. “Would you believe it, International were looking for an adviser for their West Indies offshore concessions. They want someone who’s got a practical knowledge of conditions in the Caribbean. Then there’s the liaison aspect of the job. They want their man to know his way around Government circles. And, darling, it so happens that my extensive acquaintance includes half of the hoi polloi of Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad, and the other, smaller islands, to say nothing of the Bahamas, which, by the way, is where International’s Caribbean base is located. And, quite unofficially so they say, they’ve got their man. At a very high rate indeed. And how’s that for a washed-up sailor with an overdraft few banks can afford?”
“But you wanted to sail! You wanted to do the three Oceans Race!”
“I wanted you too, Anne.”
“But you’d have to live there!”
“How do the Bahamas grab you?”
I thought of myself and Tony and Richard on a long white beach, the kind they show in the brochures. Unreality and dreams, I thought. Things had never gone right for me.
“You’d never be happy in a job like that.”
“I had to grow up sometime,” Richard said. “The last of the Ulrome money’s gone. Sponsorships aren’t easy any more. Better sailors are getting the big combines to back them. I don’t want to start taking seasick tourists out for weeks in the Med, and I’m damned if I’m going to smuggle cigarettes and the rest of it. I could be out of debt in six months, Anne. And I think I could be worth their money. Offshore drilling is a hazardous game. I know the waters like my own backyard. They won’t be getting a bad bargain.”
“Let’s get this straight,” I said, trying not to sound and look as delighted as I felt. “You came here to be interviewed for a job in the Bahamas with the International Marine Oil Company, and they’ve offered you a job?”
“Not formally. Off the record, yes.”
“You told me you were going away for a year—”
Richard held me again. “I thought about it and decided I couldn’t leave you.”
No woman I know could have been other than flattered, exhilarated, and generally overwhelmed. Richard was the Richard Ulrome, the man whose name was synonymous with adventure, courage, and the extremes of physical danger. I was the woman for whom he was giving up a chance of sailing in the longest single-handed race ever.
He grinned. Naturally he didn’t remind me of my tantrum, but he couldn’t help a slight dig at me. “In a couple of minutes you’re going to be telling me that you want me at sea. Before that