Devil's Mount Part 18

"What do you know about that?"

"You know what I know. I was there! I told you-I saw her go into the room."

"You mean-you were-there? In the hall?"

"When she opened the door, yes." William hung his head. "Yes. I saw you with my father. I wasn't going to mention it, you know."

"Oh, William !"

"Well, I don't really mind," he went on slowly. "At least, not as much as I did before. I mean, I'd rather it was you than Nerys, if you see what I mean?"

"Oh, William, you couldn't be more wrong!"

"Why? Da likes you, I know he does. He told me."

Julie wanted to question him about that, but she was too used to quelling these kind of feelings. Instead she said: "Well, I'm glad you feel that way, William, but so far as your father and Nerys are concerned-I don't count."

William pursed his lips. "Did Nerys tell you that? I bet she did. I bet that's why she came here. To tell you to keep away from him!"

"I think you've been reading too many stories, William!" exclaimed Julie severely, her heart pounding, even so.

"No, I haven't. I know what she's like. She's mean and spiteful and-"

"Stop it, William!" Julie put her hands over her ears, her nerves strung to screaming pitch by his acute perception. "She could become your stepmother one day, and it won't help-"

"She won't!" William interrupted her fiercely, and although he spoke violently, there was no sign of his usual breathless- ness. "Da wouldn't have her years ago, before she married Uncle Richard, so I'm sure he wouldn't marry her now."

"You don't know what you're saying, William," she exclaimed, but it was a feeble remonstrance and he knew it.

"Yes, I do. You think I don't know about my mother, don't you? Well, I do. I know she left me in a children's home. Dulcie told me that ages ago. And when I asked Da just recently, he said it was time I was told the truth." He sighed. "She was a lot older than he was, you see-my mother. He met her in Cardiff, and-I suppose they must have loved one another-for a time. Then Uncle Richard married Nerys, and Da went abroad, and it wasn't until he came back and went to find her that he found out about me."

Julie found her throat was dry. William had such a touching sincerity, and it was so much easier to believe him than to believe what Nerys had said. But who was telling the truth?

"Well-he brought me out of the home," the boy was saying steadily, "and he found someone to care for me while he was away. I-I didn't see a lot of him in those days, but I knew he was there, and that he must have wanted me or he would have left me in the home, wouldn't he?"

"Yes, William."

"But when I was older, when I wanted to go abroad with him, he made me go to school. It was all right for a time, but I was never any good at games, and sometimes I'd get so upset that I couldn't breathe.

That was when it was discovered that I had this nervous asthma, and I'm afraid I used to use it, shamelessly."

"To get yourself expelled?"

"Yes." William shook his head. "I thought that if I was expelled enough times, Da would relent and take me with him, wherever he went."

"But-wasn't he fighting in-in wars, and things?"

"He was a mercenary for a time," agreed William, nodding, "but after being injured in Central Africa-"

"Injured?" Julie couldn't deny the automatic response.

"Yes." William frowned. "An African fractured his spine with the b.u.t.t of his rifle."

"Oh, but I-" Julie broke off, her hand pressed to her throat.

"I-something like that happens in-in the book."

William didn't look surprised. "I expect it does," he remarked casually. "It's all true, you know. Or as much of it as he dare publish.

That's my father's story you're typing, Julie. Didn't you guess?"

Julie's legs gave out on her, and she sat down with a b.u.mp. Of course!

She ought to have guessed. There was so much in the book that only first-hand knowledge of a similar situation could have made possible.

And the man Barnabas, the man she found so endearingly honest and humane, matched exactly the image she would like to have had of Rhys ...'

"I've read it, you know," William added proudly. "Da said not to mention it to you, not until it was finished, but I think he wouldn't mind, in the circ.u.mstances."

"Oh, William!" There seemed nothing else to say.

"So whatever Nerys has said to you, ignore it," he concluded. "She's getting fed up with being here, and now that Da is going to employ some more people, I think she's realising that he won't be s.h.i.+fting back to London at the drop of a hat." He grinned. "Perhaps she will be, though."

Julie didn't know what to think. Was it possible that this new William, this increasingly confident William, might find it possible to weather the storm of his father's infidelity? Might he find it in his heart to forgive him for something that had happened seven years ago? Or would Nerys' revelations destroy everything? And if so could she, Julie, take it upon herself to be the arbiter of his fate?

Late that night, after William was safely in bed, and the house was settling into silence, Julie still paced the floor of her bedroom. Nerys had not come to see her again as she had half suspected she might, but she knew that in the morning the problem would have to be resolved, one way or the other. But the idea of walking out, of leaving both William and his father to discover her apparent treachery, sickened her.

And yet she could see that it was a way out. If she attempted to confront William with the news that she was leaving, and he attempted to stay her, she didn't know if she would have the strength to withstand him.

She went to the window and looked out. It was a clear frosty night, much different from the afternoon it had been, the cold air sharply defining the curve of the headland. A pale moon illuminated the breakers rolling into the sh.o.r.eline, and with a pang, she realised that she might never walk on that sh.o.r.eline again.

With a feeling of inevitability she shed her robe and pulled on her jeans over her underwear, adding a thick sweater for warmth. Then her tweed coat completed the ensemble, the scarf wound round her neck, imprisoning her hair in its folds.

The house was silent as she stole down the stairs, and she was reminded of that other night she had crept down here when the wind had been howling through every nook and cranny. Tonight there was no wind, just the sighing of the sea below the headland.

Haggar had bolted the door, and h wasn't easy to draw the bolt. But she succeeded at last, and turning the key, let herself out the door. She had never been out in the dark before, except in the lighted streets of a town, and there was something rather terrifying in the awareness of her own vulnerability.

She ran lightly down the two flights of steps, and circled the house, keeping to the gravelled footway. Rhododendron bushes looked eerie in the moonlight, a hiding place for intruders and William's earlier remark about Count Dracula came back to haunt her.

But she thrust such fanciful thoughts aside, and reaching the cliff edge, began the descent to the beach. It was jarringly cold and she was glad of her scarf to keep her ears from freezing. But her hair blew wildly about her face, and she had to keep wiping strands of it out of her mouth.

Down on the rocks it was a little less cold, the frost tempered by the salty tang of the sea. She stood for a while just staring towards the horizon, taking great breaths of the keen air, hoping for some inspiration to clear the confusion in her head. But at least one thing had been explained to her. She knew now why sometimes Rhys moved so stiffly, and the image evoked by William's blunt words of a rifle b.u.t.t in the back brought gooseb.u.mps out all over her flesh.

When she heard the sound of pebbles tumbling down the cliff, she did not immediately a.s.sociate them with anyone's approach. But an awareness that she was no longer alone and un.o.bserved, made her glance round, and her heart caught in her throat at the sight of a dark figure quickly jumping down the face of the cliff.

She remained where she was for a moment, frozen with shock, but then the lateness of the hour, and the fact that the house had been in darkness when she left, forced her to the possibility that he could be the intruder she had thought about earlier.

With a gulp, she looked about her. There was no escape. The beach stretched ahead of her, bare and uninhabited, but ending in the blank wall of rock that formed the headland. Moonlight illuminated her position with the clarity of a spotlight, but the shadowy figure was shrouded in darkness.

"Who is it?" she called jerkily, her voice faint and faltering. "Who's there?"

"Well, it's not Count Dracula!" answered a laconic voice, and her breath escaped from her on a deep shuddering sigh.

"Rhys!" she breathed, unaware of the feeling in her voice at that moment, and he vaulted down the final curve to the path to land on the rocks beside her.

He must have jarred his back because he uttered a low oath, but it was only a momentary spasm before he strode towards her, his expression rather daunting in that pale light.

"What do you think you are doing?" he demanded, stopping right in front of her, and she thrust her hands into her pockets so that he should not see how they were shaking.

"I-I could ask you the same thing," she countered, and he shook his head.

"I came after you," he said, and she tried not to read more into those words than there really was.

"How-how did you know ..."

"... that you were down here?" She nodded. "I saw you from my study window."

"Oh!" Julie swallowed hard. Then another thought struck her.

"Why-why did you say that-about Count Dracula?"

His lips twisted. "Isn't that what William said to you? When you told him Nerys had come to your room to enquire about your health?"

Julie gulped. "Will-William told you about that?"

"Of course."

"I see."

"Why shouldn't he?"

"N-No reason."

He regarded her intently, seemingly unaffected by the cold even though he was only wearing a dark battle jacket over his s.h.i.+rt and pants.

"Tell me something," he said quietly, "did you believe what he told you?"

"What who told me?" she cried, playing for time.

"William." His eyes narrowed. "Don't play games;, Julie. I want to know. Did you believe him-or Nerys?"

"What do you know about Nerys?"

Rhys sighed. "Enough. Enough to know that after what I told her this afternoon, she did not come to see you for any philanthropic reason."

Julie stared at him. "Wh-what did you tell her?"

"I asked you a question."

Julie pursed her lips. "I-I believe that William believes what he told me."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Julie bent her head. "It's not supposed to mean anything. I'm just rea.s.suring you that William has no doubts-"

"d.a.m.n you, I don't need your rea.s.surance!" He was breathing quickly. "I know my son, Julie. Maybe not a lot better than you do, but some. I told him the truth, for what it's worth. I have never lied to him."

Julie acknowledged this silently. Then she said quietly, "You don't have to explain yourself to me."

He swore then, and she took a step back from him. "I know I don't have to explain myself to you, but I want to!" he muttered. "Have the decency to listen."

Julie s.h.i.+fted her weight from one foot to the other. "It's nothing to do with me," she protested, knowing that every word he said was deepening the eventual pain of parting.

"I disagree." His eyes glittered. "You ought to know the truth.

"Oh, what does it matter?" she exclaimed defeatedly.

"I want you to know why I did what I did."

Julie's shoulders sagged. "I know what you did. You left Devil's Mount when you found that Nerys was going to marry your brother, and-and consoled yourself by making some girl in Cardiff pregnant!"

Her voice had risen as she spoke, and when she was finished the silence seemed that much more tense. How had she dared to say those words? she asked herself in dismay. She who had always endeavoured to remain impartial in all things.

Rhys expelled his breath on a heavy sigh. "So that's what she told you," he said flatly. "And you believed her."

Julie moved her shoulders helplessly. "Isn't it true?"

"Well, the facts are all there. The way they were presented might bear some examination, though-" He paused. "I presume Nerys told you that I didn't want her to marry Richard?"

Julie nodded.

"Well, I didn't." Julie's heart slumped. "But not because I was jealous." He shook his head. "It's so easy to misconstrue the facts. It's like one of those problems that has more than one solution. You have to decide which solution is the logical one." He raked a hand through his hair. "I can just as easily say that Nerys married Richard to spite me. That fits tie facts, too."

Julie s.h.i.+vered. "And William's mother?"

Rhys nodded. "Oh, yes, William's mother. I'll get to her. But first, just in case you have any doubts about Nerys' story, I should tell you that I was engaged to her-once." Julie's eyes widened, and he gave a rueful grimace. "That surprises you? It shouldn't. Nerys always was a beautiful woman. And I was young and inexperienced-immature, if you like. But it didn't take me long to discover what she was really like, selfish-self-seeking-mercenary, and-cold."

"Cold?"

"Yes. Cold." Rhys' lips twisted. "Emotionless-in any normal s.e.xual way. I think the word they use today is frigid."

Julie gasped. "But-but-"

"I eventually broke off the engagement. You can imagine the furore that caused. Arrangements for the wedding were already under way, and my father was furious. He said I was making a fool of him-of the whole family. He demanded that I change my mind or-get out. I got out."

"Oh, Rhys!"

She was hardly aware of using his name, but he went on: "You can guess what happened. Richard was not as strong as I was. My father could intimidate him. He married Nerys in my stead, and lived to regret it."