Sara Craven - Strange Adventure

She did not find it easy to rest the first night in a strange bed, but this time she was asleep almost as soon as her head touched the pillow. It was a long time later when she opened bewildered and sleepy eyes, wondering what had woken her. Then she heard the sound again. It was Michelle laughing, that uncharacteristic full-throated, sexy laugh that belied her chic, rather cool appearance. For a moment she wondered drowsily who her stepmother could be talking to at this time of night, then she heard the sound of a telephone receiver being replaced. So Michelle had got the message and probably identified the mystery man. All well and good, Lacey thought briefly before sleep claimed her once again.

‘DEAR Vanessa,’ wrote Lacey, ‘It’s hard to believe that I’ve only been at home for two weeks. It seems much longer. I was so happy to get your letter and know that you really are coming here for Easter. Kings Winston should be at its best by then.’

She laid down her fountain pen and stared reflectively out of the window at the smooth rolling lawn below the terrace. She was finding this letter unexpectedly difficult to write. It was very different from the carefree correspondence that she and Vanessa had enjoyed so far during their schooldays, because there was so much she was forced to leave unsaid.

She couldn’t tell Vanessa how shocked she had been by the change in her father when she had arrived home a fortnight before. Michelle had warned her that he had been ordered to lose weight by his doctors, but this had not prepared her for the stoop in his shoulders and the way his clothes seemed to hang on his tall, once-burly frame. His face too was lined and almost haggard. But it was the subtle alteration in his personality which had most disturbed her. Where he had been bluff and good-humoured, now his temper was uncertain and inclined to be querulous. Michelle handled him with kid-gloves, and Lacey, rather subdued, followed her lead.

She had had little private conversation with her stepmother since the revelations in the car on the way to Paris, but if Michelle was worried about the immediate prospects facing the family, she kept it well concealed. Occasionally her manner seemed slightly abstracted, but that was all. Again, this was something that she could not confide in Vanessa, nor her increasing feeling of uneasiness that there were still things that were being kept from her.

She sighed and put the unfinished letter back inside her writing case. It was a pretty lame effort so far, but they were giving a dinner party that evening and perhaps something would happen there that she could turn into an amusing story for Vanessa.

She was a little surprised as she went up to her room to find Mrs Osborne the housekeeper and one of the women who came in from the village to help with the cleaning engaged in turning out one of the guest bedrooms, and making up the bed. As far as she knew, tonight’s guests were all local people, and she hesitated in the doorway, watching them curiously.

‘Who’s coming to stay, Mrs Osborne?’ she asked at last.

‘Madame didn’t tell me the gentleman’s name, Miss Lacey.’

So it’s a man, Lacey thought as she went on her way. That explained it. It must be one of the bank’s directors, all of whom had been frequent guests in the past. Only the room was obviously being got ready for a single occupant—and all the directors were married men who usually brought their wives with them.

She had hoped the preparations for the dinner would have added a touch of excitement to an existence which had so far proved boring to the point of monotony. But nothing had changed. Her tentative offers of help were waved irritably away by Michelle, who seemed unusually on edge for such an experienced and accomplished hostess.

Lacey, rather huffily, decided she would take herself off to the village. At least Fran Trevor would welcome her help at the stables, she thought defiantly.

But even in this she was thwarted, for when she arrived at the stables, the place was deserted except for the girl who came in a couple of days a week to do the accounts and the bookwork, and she informed Lacey that Miss Trevor had taken out a group of people staying at the Bull who had welcomed the chance of an afternoon’s hacking round lanes and fields. So there was nothing for it but to trudge back to the house again and try to keep out of everyone’s way.

The guest bedroom looked very nice, she thought, poking her head round the door for a critical peep, but Mrs Osborne hadn’t put any flowers in there. It was too early in the year for the gardens to yield very much, but Lacey knew there were some early daffodils in a sheltered corner and she decided to pick some as a welcoming gesture of her own.

But just as she was going into the garden she was stopped by Mrs Osborne with a request to help clean some silver, and it was late in the afternoon by the time she could decently escape and find her flowers. It was pleasant in the garden. The day’s cold wind had dropped at the onset of dusk, and, wrapped warmly in an ancient duffel coat, Lacey enjoyed quite a leisurely stroll before she headed back to the house with her armful of flowers.

She collected a suitable container from the china cupboard, and went upstairs to the bathroom adjoining the guest room where she filled the vase and arranged her blooms. She had overfilled the vase a little and she picked it up with great care, holding it steadily as she opened the door that communicated with the bedroom and stepped forward.

But the room was no longer in its pristinely unoccupied state. There was an expensive leather suitcase open on the bed, clothes spilling out of it carelessly, and beside it a man was standing, stripped to the waist, as Lacey’s stunned eyes immediately registered. She started violently and some of the water in the vase splashed down her faded denim skirt and on to the bedroom carpet.