Sara Craven - Dark Summer Dawn

THEY had been travelling for over an hour and a half when Lisa realised that Dane had signalled his intention of turning off the motorway.

‘Where are we going?’ she asked sharply.

‘To eat. There’s a pub I often use not far from here.’

‘Must we stop? I’m not particularly hungry.’

‘I intend to stop, yes,’ he said coolly. ‘If you don’t want to join me you can always wait in solitary splendour in the car.’

Lisa compressed her lips angrily. She had no intention of doing anything of the kind, as he was perfectly aware.

The village they eventually came to was charming, with well tended houses clustering round a green and a duck-pond. The inn, set back from the road, was a long low building, whitewashed and spruce, and there were already several cars parked at the rear.

Lisa fumbled with the catch on the passenger door, trying desperately to release it while Dane attended to the security on the driver’s side, but it resisted all her efforts, and to her annoyance Dane had to come round and open the door from the outside. For a moment she was afraid he was going to help her out. She didn’t want him to touch her, and she scrambled out with none of her usual grace, bitterly aware of the slight mocking smile which twisted his mouth.

As they walked towards the inn door, a large Alsatian came round the corner of the building. He paused when he saw them, his ears cocked inquisitively, the long plumy tail beginning to wave slightly.

‘What a beauty!’ Lisa exclaimed impulsively, and put out her hand. The dog came up and sniffed at her fingers, then allowed his head to be gently scratched.

‘You never learn, do you, Lisa?’ Dane said harshly. He took her hand and turned it palm upwards, pointing to a faint white mark. ‘Didn’t Jeff Barton’s collie teach you anything?’

Lisa flushed as she pulled her hand away. It had been her first summer at Stoniscliffe, she recalled unwillingly, and she had seen the dog in the lane outside the house and run eagerly out of the gate to pet it. When it had turned on her snarling and bitten her hand, drawing blood, she had screamed more in terror than in pain, and Dane who was home on a short holiday had been the first to reach her. She had flung herself at him, sobbing, arms clinging, but he had put her away from him and she had been bundled unceremoniously into his car and taken to the local Cottage Hospital for the wound to be dressed, and for an anti-tetanus shot which had been worse. She remembered sitting beside Dane in the car, weeping, while he had said with cool contempt, ‘Don’t you know better than to put your hand out to a strange dog, you little fool?’

She hadn’t told him that she knew very little about dogs at all. Aunt Enid had not had time for pets of any kind, and none of the neighbours in London had apparently been dog-lovers either. She had only wanted to stroke the dog, to play with him, because he had seemed friendly enough, she thought passionately. And she hated Dane more than she did already for not understanding, and for pushing her away. He was worse than the dog!

Now she smiled wryly at the memories. ‘If he was treacherous, they’d hardly let him roam round loose. Besides, I’ve learned to deal with dogs. It’s people I’m still not sure of.’ As she let the Alsatian go to greet some more newcomers with a final pat, she added casually, ‘Even the apparently civilised can behave like animals sometimes.’

As she stole a glance at him, she saw that her jibe had gone home. He was suddenly very pale under his tan, and his eyes were glacial, and she felt a bitter satisfaction as she walked ahead of him.

Inside the inn, she found that only the minimum concessions had been made to modernity. The ceiling still sported the original low beams and a log fire blazed brightly in an enormous stone fireplace. Solid high-backed oak settles flanked the hearth and Dane indicated they should sit there by a slight, silent gesture.

‘What would you like to drink?’ He fetched a menu from the bar counter and handed it to her. ‘They have real ale here.’

Lisa shook her head. ‘I never touch alcohol in the middle of the day. Just a tomato juice, please.’

The menu was quite short, and seemed to avoid the usual grills and basket meals, offering homely dishes like shepherd’s pie and hotpot. There was also home-made vegetable soup and a selection of sandwiches.

‘The soup’s almost a meal in itself,’ said Dane, seating himself beside her on the settle. She had hoped he would sit opposite and it was as much as she could do to stop herself edging away. ‘And no doubt Chas has ordered a celebration dinner this evening.’

‘For the return of the prodigal daughter,’ she made her tone deliberately flippant. ‘Very well, then, I’ll have the soup and a round of cheese sandwiches.’

‘I’ll have the same,’ Dane told the smiling girl who had come to take their order. Lisa noticed she had greeted him as if she knew him well, as had the landlord’s wife who was serving behind the bar.

She sipped her tomato juice, and tried to ignore the curious glances coming her way, as other people in the bar half-recognised and tried to place her. But not all the glances were for her. Most of the women were looking at Dane, some covertly, and some quite openly. There was little to wonder at in that, of course. Women had always looked and more than looked.

Lisa had to acknowledge that if she had been a stranger, seeing him for the first time, she would probably have looked herself. He was incredibly attractive, with an implicit sexuality, and the aura of unquestioned money and success to add an extra spice. And he had charm when he chose to exert it. The young waitress was clearly under his spell, but then, Lisa thought, she had never had the misfortune to cross him in any way. She would have no idea of the strength of that relentless cruelty and arrogant maleness which dwelt just below the surface glamour.