Read Online Wildfire at Midnight by Mary Stewart - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Mary Stewart
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kicked over, and put it back beside its fellow, They were handmade Laforgues, exquisite, absurd things with four-inch heels.- Marcia Maling's.
There was silence now behind the door. I almost ran down the stairs, plunging, heedless of the streaming candle flame, into the darker depths of the hall. I felt angry and ashamed and sick, as if I myself had been caught out in some questionable action. God knew, I thought bitterly, as I crossed the hall and pushed open the glass door of the lounge, it was none of my business, but all the same. . . . She had, after all, only met Nicholas tonight. And where was Fergus in all this? Surely I hadn't misread the hints she had dropped about Fergus? And where, too, did Hartley Corrigan come in, I wondered, remembering the look in his eyes, and, even more significantly, the look on his wife's face.
And here I paid for my speed and my heedlessness as the swing door rushed shut behind me and tore the flame from my candle into a long streamer of sharp-smelling smoke. Shadows surged up towards me, pouncing from the corners of the dim lounge, and I halted in my tracks and put a hand back to the door, already half in retreat towards the safety of my room. But the lounge was untenanted save by those shadows; in the glow of the banked peat fire I could see it all now clearly enough. I threw one haunted glance back at the hall beyond the glass door, then I went very quietly across the lounge towards where I knew my handbag ought to lie.
Marcia and Nicholas . . . the coupled names thrust themselves back into my mind. The odd thing about it, I thought, was that one couldn't dislike Marcia Maling— though I might feel differently about it if, like Mrs. Corrigan, I had a man to lose. It was to be supposed—I skirted a coffee table with some care—it was to be supposed that she couldn't help it. There was a long and ugly name for her kind of woman, but, remembering her vivid, generous beauty as she sat opposite me in this very room, I could not find it in me to dislike her. She was impossible, she was wanton, but she was amusing, and very lovely, and, I thought, kind. Perhaps she was even being kind to me, in a queer way, by attracting Nicholas's attention to herself when she guessed I wished to escape it—though this, I felt, was perhaps giving a little too much credit to Miss Maling's disinterested crusading spirit.
I grinned wryly to myself as I stooped and groped beside the chair for my precious handbag. My fingers met nothing. I felt anxiously along the empty floor, sweeping my hands round in little questing circles that grew wider and more urgent with failure . . . and then I saw the faint glint of the bag's metal clasp, not on the floor, but on a level with my eye as I stooped. Someone must have picked it up and put it on the bookshelf beside the chair. I grabbed it, yanked out with it some magazines and a couple of books, and flew back across the lounge with my skirts billowing behind me.
I was actually at the glass door, and shoving it open with my shoulder, when I heard the outer door of the hotel porch open, very quietly. I stood stock-still, clutching books and bag and dead candle to a suddenly thudding heart.
Someone came softly into the porch. I heard the scrape of a nailed boot on the flags, and faint sounds as he moved about among the climbing and fishing gear that always cluttered the place. I waited. Roderick Grant had told me the hotel stayed open all night. This was surely—surely— nothing more sinister than some late fisherman, putting his things away. That was all.
But all the same, I was not going to cross the hall and climb the stairs in full view of him, whoever he was. So I waited, trying to still my sickening heartbeats, backing away from the glass door as I remembered my white housecoat.
Then the outer door opened and shut again, just as softly as before, and, clear in the still night, I heard his boots crunch once, twice, on the gravel road. I hesitated only for a
There was silence now behind the door. I almost ran down the stairs, plunging, heedless of the streaming candle flame, into the darker depths of the hall. I felt angry and ashamed and sick, as if I myself had been caught out in some questionable action. God knew, I thought bitterly, as I crossed the hall and pushed open the glass door of the lounge, it was none of my business, but all the same. . . . She had, after all, only met Nicholas tonight. And where was Fergus in all this? Surely I hadn't misread the hints she had dropped about Fergus? And where, too, did Hartley Corrigan come in, I wondered, remembering the look in his eyes, and, even more significantly, the look on his wife's face.
And here I paid for my speed and my heedlessness as the swing door rushed shut behind me and tore the flame from my candle into a long streamer of sharp-smelling smoke. Shadows surged up towards me, pouncing from the corners of the dim lounge, and I halted in my tracks and put a hand back to the door, already half in retreat towards the safety of my room. But the lounge was untenanted save by those shadows; in the glow of the banked peat fire I could see it all now clearly enough. I threw one haunted glance back at the hall beyond the glass door, then I went very quietly across the lounge towards where I knew my handbag ought to lie.
Marcia and Nicholas . . . the coupled names thrust themselves back into my mind. The odd thing about it, I thought, was that one couldn't dislike Marcia Maling— though I might feel differently about it if, like Mrs. Corrigan, I had a man to lose. It was to be supposed—I skirted a coffee table with some care—it was to be supposed that she couldn't help it. There was a long and ugly name for her kind of woman, but, remembering her vivid, generous beauty as she sat opposite me in this very room, I could not find it in me to dislike her. She was impossible, she was wanton, but she was amusing, and very lovely, and, I thought, kind. Perhaps she was even being kind to me, in a queer way, by attracting Nicholas's attention to herself when she guessed I wished to escape it—though this, I felt, was perhaps giving a little too much credit to Miss Maling's disinterested crusading spirit.
I grinned wryly to myself as I stooped and groped beside the chair for my precious handbag. My fingers met nothing. I felt anxiously along the empty floor, sweeping my hands round in little questing circles that grew wider and more urgent with failure . . . and then I saw the faint glint of the bag's metal clasp, not on the floor, but on a level with my eye as I stooped. Someone must have picked it up and put it on the bookshelf beside the chair. I grabbed it, yanked out with it some magazines and a couple of books, and flew back across the lounge with my skirts billowing behind me.
I was actually at the glass door, and shoving it open with my shoulder, when I heard the outer door of the hotel porch open, very quietly. I stood stock-still, clutching books and bag and dead candle to a suddenly thudding heart.
Someone came softly into the porch. I heard the scrape of a nailed boot on the flags, and faint sounds as he moved about among the climbing and fishing gear that always cluttered the place. I waited. Roderick Grant had told me the hotel stayed open all night. This was surely—surely— nothing more sinister than some late fisherman, putting his things away. That was all.
But all the same, I was not going to cross the hall and climb the stairs in full view of him, whoever he was. So I waited, trying to still my sickening heartbeats, backing away from the glass door as I remembered my white housecoat.
Then the outer door opened and shut again, just as softly as before, and, clear in the still night, I heard his boots crunch once, twice, on the gravel road. I hesitated only for a
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