By the time that Rachel had divested herself of her spencer and straw hat, and had taken the basket back to the kitchens, Lady Odell was in the library, removing some artefacts from a large packing case. Rachel wandered into the room. The bright morning light illuminated the cracks in the plaster ceiling and the threadbare patches on the carpet. Midwinter Royal was no worse than the other two dozen houses that Rachel had lived in and it was a lot less shabby than some. She had no expectation that she would stay there any longer than she had in the other places. Six months was a long time for Sir Arthur and Lady Odell to remain in one place.
Lavinia Odell was a stocky woman whose face habitually wore an expression of vague sweetness. Her eyes were a warm brown flecked with green and gold and were her finest feature, a feature that her daughter had inherited from her. Her hair was a faded mouse colour, lighter than Rachel’s chestnut brown, and her skin had long since given up the struggle against harsh sun and abrasive sand, and was sunk in lines and wrinkles. One unkind
ton
dowager had likened Lady Odell’s face to a leathery boot, crumpled and tough. Lady Odell, to whom a parasol was an alien notion, had laughed heartily when she heard this piece of spite.
‘I met Cory down by the river just now, Mama,’ Rachel said. ‘You did not tell me that he was to visit.’
Lady Odell looked confused. ‘Did I not? I had a letter from him only yesterday saying that he would be joining us on our excavation. Is that not simply splendid? And you say that he is here already?’
‘Yes, Mama.’ Rachel smiled. ‘He was taking a morning swim. I believe that he will be joining you once he has got his clothes back on.’
‘Good, good…’ Lady Odell said vaguely. She held out what looked to be a statue of a small cat. The cat was brown and very shiny, its expression malevolent, its legs braced as though it were about to scratch. Rachel grimaced when she saw it.
‘I thought that this could go on the drawing-room mantelpiece. It will bring us luck.’
Rachel shuddered. ‘Mama, pray do not. The only thing that it will attract is the flies. I fear that it
smells.
’
Lady Odell looked affronted. She clutched the cat protectively to her large bosom. ‘It does not smell! This is an antiquity, Rachel, from the third millennium before Christ—’
‘Which is why it smells, Mama,’ Rachel pointed out. ‘The poor creature has been dead several thousand years and should be permitted to rest in peace now. It is no wonder that it looks so very bad-tempered.’
Lady Odell sighed and placed the cat reverently back in the bottom of a half-empty packing case next to a Greek vase. ‘Well, perhaps you are correct. Embalming methods were not always completely successful.’
‘No, Mama,’ Rachel said. She knew all about the success or otherwise of ancient embalming methods for she had absorbed a great deal of knowledge simply through travelling with her parents. She had not learnt through inclination. Once, as a small child, her maternal aunt had found her sitting on the carpet, chewing a human bone that she held
clutched in her small, fat fist. The aunt’s scream had brought Lady Odell hurrying in, to coo with delight over her only child’s precocious interest in antiquity.
It was the only sign of interest that Rachel was ever to show in her parents’ work. At the age of six she had chosen to be addressed as Rachel rather than Cleopatra, her given name, and had refused to answer anyone who tried to call her otherwise. Shuffled from pillar to post as the Odells pursued their eccentric hobby around the world, Rachel had taken an utter dislike to her parents’ passion. She would have given a great deal for a dining room full of Wedgwood, with not a barbaric death mask in sight.
‘I do not believe that the ladies of the Midwinter villages are quite ready for your collection, Mama,’ she said now. ‘I doubt that anyone will call if they find themselves confronted by your set of Anglo-Saxon skulls.’
Lady Odell shrugged her plump shoulders under the cambric shirt that she always wore for working. ‘I shall not have time to do the pretty with the visitors anyway, with all the work that is required on the excavation. I shall leave that to you, Rachel.’
‘Of course, Mama,’ Rachel murmured. She had done the pretty for their visitors in houses all over England. It was her role in life. Organising her parents, exhorting the servants, dealing with all the minutiae of daily life…Rachel had fulfilled such a role since she was about twelve years old.
She followed her mother out on to the front steps of Midwinter Royal. By now it was another hot June day. The grass along the carriage drive was already turning yellow from lack of rain and the sky was a hard steely blue without a cloud in sight. The weathercock on the top of the stables was motionless. In the fields to the south, Rachel could just make out the figures of her father and a couple of the servants measuring the length of one of the haphazard scatter
of burial mounds that lay between the house and the river beyond.
Lady Odell sighed happily. ‘What a perfect day for the digging. After all these years I still dislike excavating in the wet.’
‘Pray be careful that the sides of your trenches do not crumble away into dust,’ Rachel said, unable to help herself. ‘It is very dry at present. Remember how you were buried under that landslide at the barrow in Wiltshire and Cory and I had to dig you out? Don’t let that happen again. And Mrs Goodfellow and I shall have prepared a cold luncheon for you all at twelve. Please do not forget, Mama.’
Lady Odell patted her hand absent-mindedly. ‘Of course not, my love. Now I must get back to work. Your father has already been out above an hour and a half.’
‘I saw him down at the excavation,’ Rachel said. ‘Make sure that he is wearing a hat, Mama. The sun can be most fierce at this time of year.’ She squinted along the line of dusty elm trees that shaded the drive, and was not surprised to pick out a figure riding towards them. ‘I do believe Cory is here now.’
‘Oh, how splendid!’ Lady Odell positively ran down the steps, her necklace of Persian beads clicking excitedly.
Rachel followed more slowly. The advancing figure had now resolved itself into a gentleman on a grey horse. The horse was a prime bit of blood and Rachel could see that, whether his clothes were on or off, Cory Newlyn was what many ladies would also consider to be a prime specimen. He was considerably more formally dressed now, but he still looked extremely attractive.
Rachel watched, lips pursed in disapproval, as Cory galloped up to the steps of the house and dismounted in one fluid movement that sent the gravel flying from the horse’s hooves. She instinctively stepped out of the way and grabbed the grey’s bridle. Someone had to take charge and Cory was too busy greeting Lady Odell to notice that his
highly bred steed was in danger of trampling them all to death.
Cory was smiling as he bent to embrace Lavinia Odell. His teeth were very white and his grey eyes were full of laughter and looked remarkably bright against his tanned skin. Cory always brought with him an air of warmth and laughing good humour. Rachel watched her mother respond to it as she had seen ladies respond to Cory’s charm time and time again. It mattered not whether they were young or old, he bowled them over just the same. She, of course, was quite indifferent to him. Even so, a little prickle of awareness ran along her skin as she remembered her reaction to seeing him down by the river.
‘How are you, Lavinia?’ Cory asked, holding Lady Odell at arm’s length and looking her over, a twinkle in his eye. ‘You look in fine form!’
‘Cory! Dear boy!’ Lavinia Odell was clinging on to him and squeaking like an excited schoolgirl. ‘We are so very pleased that you could join us!’
‘Wouldn’t miss it for the world,’ Lord Newlyn said, releasing her gently and planting a smacking kiss on her cheek. ‘The Midwinter burials are famous, you know. I’ve been wanting to get my trowel into those mounds for years, ever since I heard about the Midwinter Treasure!’
‘If anyone can find the Treasure, it will be us,’ Lavinia Odell said, eyes sparkling. ‘I feel it in my waters!’
‘Where is the stable lad, Mama?’ Rachel interrupted, trying hard to hold the thoroughbred, which was currently exhibiting its quality by dancing skittishly on the gravel sweep. ‘I suppose that he is down in the field with Father?’
‘Of course, my love,’ Lady Odell said, looking vaguely puzzled, as though it were natural for everyone to employ their servants as excavation assistants. ‘I could send for him, I suppose, but your father needs someone to help him measure the barrows—’
‘I’ll put Castor away myself,’ Cory said, the gravel
crunching under his boots as he came towards Rachel. He took the bridle from her hand and soothed the grey with a gentle stroke of the nose.
‘Good morning again, Rachel,’ Cory said. He gave her a smile that was slightly more quizzical than the one he had bestowed on Lady Odell. The smile deepened the creases at the corners of his eyes and for a moment it seemed that the morning sunlight was trapped in their silver depths. ‘Are we to pretend that we have not yet met?’
He took her hand in his and Rachel was shocked and more than a little disconcerted to find her pulse racing at his touch. Two images flashed before her eyes: the real one of Cory standing before her now, fully dressed, and the other of him stark naked as he emerged from the river, the water rolling down his skin…She felt all hot and shaky again, as though she had sustained a sudden shock. Her knees actually trembled.
She swallowed hard, closed her eyes and by dint of sheer willpower banished the picture. This had to be an aberration. She was determined that her thoughts would not be haunted by the image of Cory’s virile, unashamed nudity. She did not wish to think of her childhood friend in that manner.
But even so, she suddenly had the lowering feeling that it was going to be a far more complicated summer than she had ever imagined.
Chapter Two
I
t felt like a full minute later, but was possibly only a few seconds when Rachel became aware that Cory was still holding her hand and was waiting for her response with a faintly concerned expression on his face. She pulled her hand out of his grasp, pushed her feelings of self-consciousness back down where they belonged and looked him up and down. Cory might be fully clothed now, but he still looked completely disreputable. His boots were scuffed, his shirt neck open to reveal the strong, brown column of his neck, and on his tawny hair was a hat so disgusting that Rachel thought it fit for nothing but the bonfire. Concentrating on Cory’s personal shortcomings served to steady her somewhat. He was a friend, and one of the privileges of friendship was that she could say whatever she chose to him.
‘How do you do, Cory?’ she said primly. ‘I am very well, thank you, though I have to say that you scarcely look better with your clothes on than without. That jacket looks as though it has been slept in.’
‘It is delightful to see you too, Rae.’ A slight edge had come into Cory’s voice now. He leaned forward and kissed her cheek lightly. ‘I am glad that you have overcome your discomfiture and are back on astringent form.’ He held out the tartan rug to her. ‘I must thank you for the loan of your
blanket. I can have it laundered for you before I return it, if you would prefer.’
‘Thank you,’ Rachel said, ignoring the sarcasm. ‘I shall ask Mrs Goodfellow to arrange it.’ She took the rug and folded it over her arm.
Cory gestured to Castor. ‘Perhaps you could show me the way to the stables?’
‘Of course,’ Rachel said. She touched her mother’s hand. ‘I will see you later, Mama. Remember to make Papa wear a hat, and please do not forget that luncheon is at twelve sharp. Oh, and leave your bead necklace with me. You would not wish to get it caught on one of the buckets.’
‘A good idea, my love,’ Lady Odell said, beaming. She slipped the bead necklace over her head, put it into Rachel’s outstretched hand and adjusted the battered hat that sat askew her faded brown hair. ‘We shall see you shortly, Cory,’ she said. ‘Arthur will be so delighted that you are here!’ And with that she strode off to the stile in the picket fence, threw a leg over and started across the fields towards the excavation.
Rachel sighed. She turned to see Cory watching her with amusement in his eyes. ‘What is it?’ she asked, a little ungraciously.
Cory shrugged lightly. ‘You. You cannot resist managing them, can you? It is always the same.’
Rachel felt a sharp stab of irritation. She thought it rather impertinent that Cory, who should understand her situation, should be the one to criticise. He had known her parents for almost as long as she had, and knew perfectly well that, left to their own devices, they were incapable of managing anything practical at all.
‘Someone needs to take charge of them,’ she said, ‘or they would both starve. That is if the sunstroke did not catch them first.’
Cory shrugged again. A hint of a smile still hovered at the corner of his mobile mouth. ‘Then you must be pleased
to be settled in Suffolk for a space, rather than the Nile Delta. It is considerably less dangerous.’
Rachel set off towards the five-barred gate that separated the drive from the stable yard. ‘Settled? We are no more settled here at Midwinter Royal than we were in the twenty-five places that went before. Once the excavation is finished we shall be on the move again. Papa was speaking of Greece for the winter, hoping that it would be safe to travel on the continent again.’
‘That seems like a particularly bad idea with Bonaparte running rampage abroad and the danger of invasion growing stronger each day,’ Cory said. He unlatched the gate and stood back to allow her to precede him through. ‘Can they not go to Cornwall instead? I have unearthed a very fine Iron Age fogou in the grounds of Newlyn.’
‘Congratulations,’ Rachel said politely.
‘You are the only person I have met recently who does not need me to explain what a fogou is,’ Cory said wryly, ‘or is it that you are simply not interested, Rae?’
‘Fogou—an underground passage or tunnel that is a feature of the Iron Age landscape, function unknown,’ Rachel said economically. ‘Please do not encourage Mama and Papa to go to Cornwall, Cory. The Midwinter villages are very pleasant and I wish them to stay here for a while.’