Witchstone

‘No, later on will do,’ replied her uncle, reaching for his pipe from his jacket pocket.

‘I should think so, too,’ exclaimed Mona. ‘The lass has just got home from school. She’s hungry, aren’t you, love?’

Ashley wrinkled her nose doubtfully. Obviously her aunt had chosen to forget that not too long ago she had been chiding her for eating too much. Changing the subject completely, she turned to her uncle and said: ‘I’ve decided to take that job at the library after Easter—if they’ll have me.’

David looked up from filling his pipe. ‘Have you?’ He looked pleased. ‘I’m glad.’

‘Are you?’ Ashley felt all warm inside. She lifted her shoulders and let them fall again, spreading her hands in an encompassing gesture. ‘Well, so am I.’

Karen didn’t finish work until five-thirty and by the time she got home Ashley and her aunt had usually finished the main washing up of the evening and the Golden Lion had opened its doors to its patrons. David had a couple of women who helped in the bar in the evenings and they arrived about six. They were two young married women, supplementing their husbands’ income by working in the evenings when their husbands could look after their children. Ashley didn’t know them very well yet, but Mark had told her that the husband of one of them worked for the Setons, too.

Ashley looked forward to Mark coming home. They got along well together. Although he was twenty-eight he had not as yet shown any inclination towards marriage and seemed to find his young cousin quite adequate company. He had taken her to the pictures a couple of times, and once to a horse sale at a nearby estate. But mostly he seemed to find the horses more absorbing, and Ashley, with her own love of solitude and the fascination of academic things, could appreciate this. Perhaps that was why they got along so well – because they each had other interests.

Ashley was coming along the hall later than evening, her arms filled with the small bottles of soda water, dry ginger and tonic her uncle needed, when Mark came through the door which led from the cobbled yard at the side of the hotel. It had begun to snow earlier on and flakes glinted on his fair hair. Ashley started to say: ‘Are you frozen——’ when she saw that her cousin was not alone. Another man had followed him into the hotel, a man as dark as Mark was fair, with the kind of tan impossible to achieve in these northern climes.

Mark grinned. ‘What’s this?’ he queried, indicating the bottles. ‘Secret drinking?’

Ashley’s lips twitched. ‘Hardly. Your father needs them. Excuse me——’

‘Wait!’ Mark glanced round at his companion. ‘This is my cousin, Jake. Ashley, I’d like you to meet Jake Seton.’

Ashley could have wished that Mark had waited until she had shed the load of bottles before introducing her to his friend, but it was too late now to do anything about it. Instead, she was forced to stand there and offer a greeting, her face almost as red as her sweater.

‘Hello, Ashley!’

Jake Seton’s voice was low and deep, his eyes disturbingly intent between the longest lashes she had ever seen on a man. But if his lashes were unusual, they were the only effeminate thing about him. He was tall, taller even than Mark who stood a good five feet eleven in his socks, with a lean, yet powerful body. He was not handsome in the accepted sense of the word, but Ashley thought, even with her small knowledge, that there was little doubt that some women would find the deep-set eyes, the harsh planes of his cheekbones and the somewhat thin lips attractive. Sideburns grew lower than his earlobes, while dark hair lay thick and smooth against his head, brushing the collar of his suede jacket. He appeared to use no hair dressing and consequently it looked glossily healthy. She thought he looked about Mark’s age, but she couldn’t be sure. Either way, it was nothing to do with her.

Realising that she had been staring, she turned away in embarrassment, making some comment about her uncle waiting for the bottles, and she sensed, rather than saw, Mark and his companion go down the hall and enter the private lounge at the back. In the bar, David Sutton regarded her flushed cheeks with some amusement.

‘What’s happened to you?’ he asked, putting the back of his hand against her forehead. ‘You running a fever or something?’

Ashley unloaded the bottles on to the floor behind the bar and began stacking them on the shelves. ‘Of course not,’ she denied swiftly.

David looked down at her bent head. ‘Well, someone’s responsible for that or I’m a Dutchman!’ he declared.

Sighing, Ashley rose to her feet. ‘Mark’s just come home.’

David frowned. ‘So what did he say to you?’

‘Nothing. He—er—he wasn’t alone.’

‘I see. Who was with him? Don’t tell me he’s brought some girl home!’

Ashley moved her shoulders reluctantly. ‘No. It was a man, actually. Someone called – Jake Seton.’

And only as she said the words did realisation of his identity come to her. Seton was the name of the people who lived at Bewford Hall. Sir James Seton was Mark’s employer. Jake Seton had to be some relation.

Her uncle was grinning broadly now. ‘Oh, I’m beginning to see,’ he chuckled, much to her annoyance. ‘It was Jake who spoke to you, was it? Yes—well, the lassies get a bit hot and bothered when he’s around.’

Ashley assumed a defiant stance, her thumbs tucked into the low belt of her jeans. ‘Do they really? Well, I was just embarrassed, that’s all.’

Her uncle nodded thoughtfully. ‘Of course. You won’t have met him yet. But you’ll soon get used to seeing him. He and Mark are good friends in spite of the differences in their backgrounds. I hadn’t heard that he was back.’

In spite of herself, Ashley was curious. ‘Back?’ she echoed.

‘Yes. From Austria. Jake’s been away about six weeks, I guess. Just after Christmas a group of them went on a skiing holiday.’

‘I see.’ That explained the tan, she supposed. ‘Well, do you need any more—bottles, I mean?’

David looked at the neat rows. ‘I don’t think so, love. You go and talk to Mark and Jake. Where’s Karen?’

‘She’s gone out with Frank.’

Her uncle grimaced. He could have wished his daughter was more like Ashley when it came to choosing her friends. ‘All right,’ he said now. ‘I’ll let you know if I need you later.’

Ashley nodded, but when she left the bar she stood rather hesitantly in the hall, wondering whether she dared to go up to her room instead of having to join her aunt and the two men in the lounge. She was hovering near the foot of the stairs when her aunt came out of the lounge closing the door behind her, obviously on her way to the kitchen.

‘Oh, there you are, Ashley,’ she said, when she saw the girl. ‘I’m just going to make some coffee. You go in there and speak to Mark and Mr. Seton.’

Ashley smoothed her fingers over the rounded knob at the end of the banister. ‘I—er—I was just going upstairs, Aunt Mona,’ she murmured.

Mona frowned. ‘Why? What’s wrong with you?’

‘Nothing’s wrong. I—well, I knew Mark had a guest, and I thought I’d go and read——’

‘Oh, get along with you!’ Mona clicked her tongue impatiently. ‘It’s only Jake! Go on into the lounge, and stop talking such nonsense. I shan’t be long.’

Heaving a sigh, Ashley crossed the hall and opened the lounge door. Both Mark and Jake Seton were settled in the easy chairs at either side of the blazing fire. They looked relaxed and comfortable, and Ashley felt as though she was interrupting them when they looked up at her entrance.

Jake Seton got immediately to his feet, indicating his chair. ‘Would you like to sit here?’ he asked.

Ashley closed the door and quickly subsided into a smaller chair quite close by. ‘No, really, thank you. I’m perfectly all right here.’

‘Very well.’

Jake exchanged a glance with Mark and then resumed his earlier position. For a few awkward moments nobody said anything and whatever conversation had been going on before Ashley’s entrance had clearly been broken up. Ashley shifted uncomfortably. She should have insisted upon going upstairs.

But then Jake drew out a slim case of cheroots and offered them to Mark, saying: ‘Mark tells me you’re still at school, Ashley.’

Ashley flashed a quick look in Mark’s direction, but he was leaning forward to light his cheroot from the lighter Jake had proffered and didn’t notice. ‘Yes, I am,’ she replied, rather tersely.

Jake lay back in his chair inhaling deeply on the tobacco. ‘And what do you intend to do afterwards? Go on to university?’

Ashley tugged a strand of her hair. ‘I don’t think so. I—well, I shall probably take up library work. That’s really what I want to do.’

‘Library work,’ considered Jake thoughtfully. ‘Where? In Bewford?’

‘As a matter of fact, yes.’ Ashley didn’t altogether care for this interrogation.