Painted Wings Read online

ping.' kit ' She put a finger over his lips, her eyes Rling at his solemnity. 3on't fuss, Gerald. I'm quite capable of taking of myself. Besides,' she added with a thoughtful floats, in her eyes, 'he says he thinks of himself as my uncle.' 'Your uncle!' He stared at her unbelievingly. 'You must be joking, Deryn He was never uncle to a pretty girl .in his life!' I 'You don't know,' she argued determinedly, the idea intriguing her for the moment. 'He had that I that episode with that American girl, but you don't I know what he's been doing since he disappeared, and he seems all right.' I Tm glad you think so! Personally I wouldn't trust him any further than I could see him, and I don't like you being here alone with him.' I 'Don't you trust me either?' She spoke demurely, I but there was a bright sparkle of mischief in her I eyes when she looked at him and he sighed resignedly, kissing her on her forehead. E 'All right,' he sighed. Til say no more for the imoment, but just let him put one foot wrong, just once, that's all.' 4 'He won't i' ' i She traced the outline of his shirt collar with one finger, thoughtfully, her eyes following the movement of her hand, and wondering why she was being!quite so insistent on staying here when she couldj just as easily have gone with Gerald to some small quiet hotel only a few miles away. It was, she toldl herself, because she found the atmosphere at Llan welion so relaxing and peaceful, despite Dominic Gregory, and she was not to be easily moved once she had settled in. ' 'I hope you're right,' Gerald said feelingly. 'just hope you're right.' 43

  CHAPTER THREE

  GERALD came over to visit the cottage every day for next three days, sharing meals and still eyeing bominic Gregory with suspicion, and Hound with even more. For some reason best known to himfelf, Hound had decided that Gerald was the one person he did not want to be friendly with and he sat outside the back door during mealtimes, eyeing the unwelcome guest malevolently. 'I wonder you can put up with that great brute,' Gerald said to Deryn one day when Hound had left, reluctantly, with his master, and Deryn laughed. I 'Actually I'm rather fond of him,' she confessed. 'He used to be a terrible nuisance when he chased the birds all the time, but since he's been stopped jdoing that, he's as good as gold.' 'If you call lifting his lip at me being as good as gold!' Gerald retorted. 'I think Gregory's put him sup to it.' 'Oh, of course he hasn't,' she laughed, nevertheless feeling rather sorry for him as the sole object of Hound's dislike. 'Perhaps he well, perhaps he just doesn't like you.' ! 'I'm damned sure he doesn't,' Gerald agreed whole heartedly. 'And that's what makes it so odd, because usually I get along very well with dogs. They like me.' Oh well,' Deryn said airily, 'we'll just have to make sure he never gets you alone, that's all.' '43 They were sitting out in the garden, Deryn at her, easel, busy on a picture of a wood pigeon, and Gerald sprawled beside her on the grass, propped up on one elbow. She did not normally like having company while she worked, but it looked as if Gerald intended staying on for some time, and she I could not neglect her work for too long. I 'Does he wander about at night?' Gerald asked I suddenly, and Deryn broke her concentration to look at him curiously. I 'Who? Oh, Hound, you mean. I 'don't know. Why?' .i He shrugged, twirling a piece of grass between s thumb and forefinger. 'I just wondered, that's all. I was going to ask you to try and get me a couple of ! shots of that owl you were telling me about earlier, I and suggest I came with you. But with the Hound of the Baskervilles roaming around, I don't know I that it's a very good idea.' "He wouldn't hurt me.' Gerald pulled a face. 'I wasn't thinking about you. He'd tear me limb from limb at the drop of a hat.' She laughed, encouraged by the look of reproach he gave her. 'In that case you'd better let me go alone,' she said. I He frowned over that. 'I don't think that's a very good idea, either,' he told her. 'I don't like the ' thought of you wandering around on your own in i the woods at night.' ' 'It isn't exactly a wood,' she argued. 'It's just some trees by the river, and there's a full moon at the moment, so I'd have plenty of light.' 'The moon doesn't come up until the early hours,' 44 I argued. 'And even if it was earlier, I'd rather you in't go on your own, Deryn.' His words sounded too overprotective for Deryn's ing, and she frowned, her mouth set obstinately. wish you d stop treating me like some delicate ralid,' she informed him. 'It you want an owl for book, then I'll do my best to get you one. I'm ite capable, you know, andthere's not likely to be y dangerous characters prowling about in this lated part of the world, especially at night.' j I can think of one right on.your doorstep,' Gerald peclared bluntly, and she laughed. 'Oh, you idiot! Anyway, he'll be inside and never ?ven know I'm out there.' I 'Unless that wretched dog tells him.' . 'Oh, do stop fussing!' She looked at him in exasperation. Fond as she was of Gerald, there were moments when she could cheerfully have hit him, (and this was one of theffl. j. He looked at her for a moment dolefully. 'I'm sorry,' he said at last. 'I forget you don't like me to puss over you.' I 'I don't like anyone fussing over me,' Deryn jretorted. 'I'm quite capable of looking after myself.' I She had to admit to being much less certain of jthe fact, however, some hours later, when she left he cottage just after eleven o'clock that night armed vith the necessary equipment to take pictures after gelark and feeling a bit like a burglar setting out on a aid. It was some hours yet, as Gerald had said, until pie moon was due to appear, but she could manage uite well with the torch, and she knew the ground I ' 45 's s.u' fairly well too by now. If only Hound did not betray her presence as she went past the summerhouse, and if the owl obliged after all. She found herself tiptoeing, even over the sounddeadening grass, and giggled to herself softly in the darkness. It was ridiculous to be so elaborately cautious, as if she had no right to be out there. If she wanted to go photographing owls in the trees there was no earthly reason'why she shouldn't. She could just detect the soft glow of an oil lamp through the window of the summerhouse and for a moment felt a qualm of conscience when she thought of how makeshift the accommodation was. i It was a qualm that lasted only briefly, however, and she told herself that the remedy lay in his 'own s hands. If he insisted on choosing Llanwellon for I . his fishing and, as she had recently discovered, skindiving in the river, then he must make do with what was available to him. She gave the summerhouse as. wide a berth as I possible, but even so she could not be absolutely sure that she did not hear Hound's boisterous bark i ing. He did not appear, however, and she hoped his master would attribute the cause of whatever noise I he made to an animal moving about outside. The j light in the window remained the only one, so I apparently the door had not been opened and she csyAyVV oy xeA. asA AO&&&. ve yroV.CT&wm gale and let herself out, smiling her relief. Once down nearer the river and under the trees, she found to her dismay that the normal cool friendliness of the day now seemed only dark and shivery and full of strange sounds. She listened as 40 , she went slowly through the trees, trying to guess what some of the sounds were, and hoping the owl would not be too long in making his presence known so that she could get home to her bed. She admitted to herself to being nervous, but not of the animals and birds who were responsible for most of the soft, secret little sounds that rustled around her. Her fear was the ageold fear of man, of the night and of unknown things that snapped twigs and sent an indeterminable vibration tingling along her spine, making her body taut and her'teeth bite into her lip. " Another twig snapped, closer this time, not far behind her, and she swung round, released from frozen immobility by the suddenness of it, her heart hammering wildly against her side. A soft swish, like someone brushing against the scrub, and she froze again, her eyes seeking vainly in the shadowy darkness for the other alien abroad. Her fingers were tight, almost locked on to the equipment she carried and she could not have moved without her legs collapsing under her, of that she felt sure. Then a soft, low whistle reached her, and she heard her own breath drawn in sharply and audibly. Another whistle and she bit on her lip to stop herself from crying out, every'nerve end tingling like needles under her flesh. 'Deryn!' She closed her eyes, relief flooding through her in the same breath as anger, because she had been so frightened. 'Who is it?' she asked, although she was practically sure she knew who it was even before he told her. 47
'Dom Dom Gregory.' 'I might have known it!' , He was much closer than she had realised and he loomed hugely out of the darkness a second later almost on top of her. 'What in heaven's name are you doing out here at this time of night?' he asked, sounding, she .thought, rather like an irate parent questioning a straying daughter. 'Doing my job!' Her jangling nerves made her answer even more brusquely than she had intended, for in a way she was almost glad to see him. 'In the dark?' He sounded now as if he was laughing, and she was not in the least surprised. 'Owls,' she informed him with a touch of haughtiness, "are nocturnal.' 'Oh, I see.' 'How did you know I was here?' 'I didn't exactly,' he confessed. 'But Hound set up a din and he seemed rather restless about something, so I thought I should take a'look out. That's when I saw your torchlight bobbing about and decided I'd better come and investigate. It wasn't until I got here that I realised it could be you, though I couldn't for the life of me think why you should be roaming around in here at night.' He laughed softly. 'I never thought about owls,' he confessed. 'I was hoping to photograph them or it. I know there's one here because I've heard it the last few nights.' i 'So have I, the noisy. beggar!' He bent over suddenly and she wondered what on earth he could be doing, until he spoke again. 'You're not still bare4 foot, are you?' he asked. She giggled, despite her resentment of the question. There was something almost hilarious about standing in the middle of a wood at nearly midnight being asked whether or not she was wearing shoes on her feet. 'No, of course I'm not,' she told him. 'There's no of course not about it,' he retorted. 'You're just batty enough to be walking around the woods at nearly midnight with bare feet and in one of those saucy little shifts you wear. Like some goofy Uule witch going to a gathering.' 'Do you have to be so rude?' She was near to giggling again and found the prospect not to her liking. It would never do to let him think that she was enjoying his company. 'If you must know,' she told him, 'I'm wearing a coat and sandals.' "Good. I'm glad you've got that much sense.' 'I really don't see how it concerns you at all,' she told him. 'If I was barefoot it would be my business.' 'Oh, quite,' he agreed amiably. 'How long is this vigil going to last? All night ?''Perhaps.' 'Not really?' He was trying hard to see her in the dark, trying to judge how serious she was. 'It might,' she said, wondering how long he was prepared to share her watch. 'Huh! You really are batty, aren't you?' 'I don't see why,' Deryn protested. 'When else could I see owls?' 'Hmm, I see your point. Does that boyfriend of yours know you're out here?' he demanded then, and Deryn nodded, pointless in the dark, but she 49 didn't think of that. 'Yes. It was his idea, actually.' 'Really?' She could imagine his eyebrows expressing disapproval of Gerald's suggestion. 'He'd have been with me,' Deryn explained, 'only he isn't very friendly with Hound, and we didn't know if he was running around loose at night.' 'He isn't,' he said shortly. 'Even he's got more sense than that.' 'Well, you don't have to stay,' she informed him. 'Go back to your bed, I'm quite happy out here on my own.' He chuckled softly. 'Are you?' he said. 'Of course. What are you laughing at?' 'Nothing much,' he told her, chuckling again. 'Except that you gave me the impression that you were on the point of passing out with shock when I joined you.' 'Oh, nonsense,' Deryn retorted hastily. 'I'm perfectly all right. You go back and don't worry about me.' 'You'll be O.K.?' 'Of course I will.' Part of her hoped she sounded confident enough to convince him, and the rest of her, unashamedly weak and wishing he would stay, hoped he would see through her assurance. 'Right.' She sensed him shrug, and felt a small prick of disappointment that he was evidently convinced and quite prepared to leave her to her lonely vigil. 'You're going?' 'Yes do you mind?' 50 'No. No, of course not.' e 'Goodnight.' She murmured a brief response, and heard him, after a moment or two, making his way through the trees again, back towards the garden, she supposed, and the summerhouse. The quiet and the sense of loneliness after he had gone were unbelievable, and rather daunting and she found herself with an urgent desire to follow him and call him back a desire she hastily quelled and gave her attention instead to listening for the low, mournful voice of the owl in the trees above her head. It must have been a full ten minutes since Dominic had left, and she was perched, rather uncomfortably, on the branch of a fallen tree, trying not to yawn again. A glance at her watch revealed it only fifteen minutes short of midnight andthere was no sound of her quarry yet, although he had been audible long before this on several nights lately. . Another sound reached her suddenly, however, a familiar one from earlier that same night, and she smiled to herself in the darkness as she listened to someone approaching and recognised it at once this time. Prepared now for his approach, she turned in the direction of the sound and spoke first, instinctively using the familiar abbreviation of his name. 'Dom?' There was a kind of breathless silence for a second or two, then his voice spoke softly behind her, making her spin round swiftly, startled because he was in exactly the opposite place she expected him to be. 'Did I scare you?' he asked, and she laughed 51 softly, mostly with relief, she was the first to admit. 'Not this time,' she said. 'I heard you coming.' 'Ah, but how did you know it would be me?' 'I guessed. There's only one thing, though.' She looked back to where she thought she had heard him coming through the scrub and frowned curiously. 'I thought I heard I mean I expected you to come from the other way. I thought I heard you over there,' she told him, and he laughed. 'You're getting jumpy, my child. You'd better let me take you home and not bother any more about your precious owls for tonight.' 'I'm not going anywhere with anyone who calls me a child,' Deryn retorted. 'And there was someone over that: side, whatever you say.' 'Imagination ' 'It wasn't, I tell you I heard someone. I'm more sure than ever, now I come to think of it.' He sighed, deeply and resignedly. 'You heard me,' he insisted. 'And you must have misjudged the direction. It's easy enough in (he dark, especially when you're feeling nervous.' 'I'm not feeling nervous,' she insisted, but she was prepared to accept the suggestion rather than contemplate the idea of anyone else wandering about in among the trees, and because she 'did not want him to go off and leave her alone again, as he probably would if she argued with him. 'I thought you'd gone to bed,' she said. 'What made you come back?' She saw his smile, even in the darkness. "I wasn't hardhearted enough to leave you out here on your 53 own,' he told her. 'Besides, it's time you were in bed.' 'Oh, nonsense! I'm not a baby.' 'It's still not a good idea for you to be out here on your own.' She remembered Gerald using almost the same words, and could not resist a laugh when she recalled one of his reasons. 'Gerald didn't think it was either,' she told him. 'He thought I might be accosted by an undesirable character.' 'And I agree with him too.' ' Deryn giggled. 'But he was talking about you.' 'An undesirable character?' He considered it for a moment and sounded rather resigned when he spoke again. 'I suppose I am to a good many people,' he allowed at last. 'Do you feel like trusting me to see you home?' For answer she tucked her free hand through his arm and smiled up at him, although it was doubtful if he could see the smile. 'Just this once,' she told him, and laughed softly when he strode out beside her, his other hand covering hers and squeezing her fingers gently, as if in warning. Gerald did not appear until nearly lunch time the following day, and Deryn, making a belated cup of coffee, saw him coming along the path to the cottage and wondered what caused the frown he wore. His walk, too, betrayed something not to his liking. Hands in the pockets of his slacks, his shoulders hunched so that his hair looked even longer than it was, and an air of general vexation about him. She went out to meet him, hastily putting the 53 kettle back on to the range before she went, her own coffee still in one hand, the other raised in a greeting he barely acknowledged. He kissed her as fervently as always, however, but she thought it had the air of a gesture more of defiance than affection, and his eyes, now that she was near enough to see, had a darker, stormy look. 'Is something wrong?' she asked, as they went back into the cottage, and he did not reply. 'I put the kettle on again,' she added. 'You would like some coffee, wouldn't you?' 'Yes. Thanks.' He sat down at the kitchen table while she put coffee into a cup and put the sugar in front of him
. 'Isn't your your tenant here for elevenses?' he asked. 'Not this morning,' she answered quietly. "He's gone in to Glanreddin, I gather, to get some food for Hound.' 'You weren't invited to go with him?' Deryn looked at him, curiously, waiting by the range for the kettle to boil. 'No, I wasn't, but that's quite usual. Why should you ask that?' . ' Gerald looked away, uneasy. But he looked stubborn too, and she wondered what bee he had in his bonnet this time. Gerald was prone to making much of nothing and she knew the signs rather too well by now. 'Did you manage to get the owl last night?' he asked, and Deryn looked at him steadily for a moment before she answered, a small niggling suspicion at the back of her mind. 'No, as a matter of fact I didn't,' she said at last. 'It was pretty dark and spooky out there on my own 54 and I was glad to get back.' 'Oh yea?' 'Yes.' She made his coffee and carried it across to him, sitting down at the opposite end of the table and eyeing him curiously. 'What is wrong, Gerald? I know something is, and I wish you'd come out and say it openly instead of of stewing over it, and making loaded remarks. What's wrong?' 'He took a. long, slow drink from his coffee first, then studied the liquid in the cup for a while, as if he was searching for words. 'I came over lasf'hight,' he said then, and Deryn blinked at him, realising at last. 'Oh! Did you?' 'I didn't like the idea of you being out there on your own.' 'Gerald 'You weren't here,' he went on remorselessly, in the same accusing voice. 'Well, of course I wasn't. I told you I was going out after the owl last night.' He raised his eyes at last and held her gaze, his light blue eyes uncompromisingly accusing. 'Alone?' he asked. Deryn knew now that she hadn't been mistaken, , as Dominic has insisted. There had been someone else in the wood, and he must have seen and heard her with Dominic. It would explain both her own conviction last night and Gerald's mood this momiping 'I went out alone,' she told him, with a half truth to try out his response. 'But you didn't expect to be alone for very long, 55 obviously.' She looked genuinely puzzled. 'I did,' she said. 'I didn't expect you to take the chance of Hound being out.' 'You didn't expect me to be there, that was very obvious.' Deryn was growing both angry and impatient and she looked at him crossly down the length of the kitchen table. 'I wish you'd say what you mean,' she told him. 'You evidently came down to the river last night too, and I suppose you saw me or rather heard me, with Dom Gregory. I suppose that's what all this this drama's about, isn't it? Well, I did see him down there, but I didn't expect to, and you can believe me or not. I don't much care, Gerald.' 'If you weren't expecting him,' Gerald insisted sulkily, 'why did you call out to him, by name, just before he spoke to you?' 'Did I?' She looked genuinely surprised. "Yes, you did. I distinctly heard you call "Dom," and just afterwards he spoke to you.' 'I didn't realise.' 'I would have thought,' he went on, 'that if you'd heard someone coming, you'd have automatically assumed it would be me, not him. Unless you were expecting him.' 'I was expecting him in a way, I suppose,' Deryn allowed. 'But only because he'd been out there before, last night, and nearly scared the life out of me. I guessed it was him back again and I was right. I heard you too,' she added, a little maliciously, 'but you chose to stay hidden, I can't imagine why.' Gerald was already feeling sorry for his outburst, 56 that was evident, and she knew from experience that he seldom stayed angry for very long, especially with her. He would, also, be almost unbearably contrite for a while, now that he had been proved wrong.'Deryn darling, I'm sorry.' He put down his cup and came round to her, taking her hands and pulling her to feet. 'Please, darling, believe me, I really thought Gregory was getting to you. I thought you'd gone out there expecting to meet him, and I was livid. I didn't sleep a wink last night, thinking about it.' 'It serves you right,' Deryn told him, a smile taking the sting out of the words. 'Forgive me?' She nodded, and tiptoed to kiss him lightly beside his mouth. 'I'll think about it,' she told him. 'But you should know that Dom Gregory isn't my type.' 'Isn't he?' She laughed, shaking her head and convinced that she was right. 'He's much too square artd too bossy,' she said. 'You know how I hate being told what to do. Oh, heavens, no. Dom Gregory'd never do formel' . 57