Sally Wentworth - Liberated Lady Page 5

  She bent to look at the list, but his hand came out to cup her chin as he turned her round to face him. 'Sara.' His voice was soft as silk, but there was also a. distinct hint of steel behind it. 'Just watch it, will you?’

  It took them nearly two hours to cover all the places on the list, several of them being outside the sprawling village, and in all of them they had drawn a blank.

  'But they must be somewhere,’ Sara said, worriedly. 'They can't have just disappeared.'

  'They must be staying at a private house with someone we don't know about. It's the only explanation,' Alex said irritably. 'And short of knocking on every door in the place there's no way we're going to find them. We'll have to go back to the village centre now anyway, so that I can fill up with petrol again before the garage shuts.'

  He reversed and turned, the wheels sending, up showers of mud from the verge. The inside of the car felt cold and dank now. Alex's jacket was soaked on the shoulders and his dark hair dung wetly to his forehead. As they drove-back, Sara said slowly, "That transport cafe at Buxton—it was called Pete's Pull-in, wasn't it?'

  'Possibly. I didn't particularly notice. Why do you ask?'

  'Well, if they phoned for a taxi from there, the proprietor could give us the number too, and we could…'

  'Phone the taxi service and find out what address the driver took them to,' Alex finished for her. 'Sara, that was almost worth bringing you along for.'

  Before long they were back at the hotel where Sara had a much-needed drink in the bar while Alex used the phone.

  'No wonder we couldn't find them,' he remarked as he joined her. The taxi took them to an empty cottage. They got the key from the next door neighbour, evidently. I wonder how the dickens they knew about it, though.' He pushed the damp hair back from his forehead. 'Is the drink for me?'

  'Yes, I ordered you a Glenfiddich. You looked the malt whisky type.'

  He looked at her and grinned wryly. 'I suppose you get used to summing up people when you're in your line of business?'

  'Of course. And the drink's already paid for,' she added as he took out his wallet.

  'Of course.' He put it back in his pocket and looked at her over the glass. 'Cheers. I've never had a woman buy me a drink before.'

  Sara gave a mirthless smile. 'Unfortunately it won't choke you.'

  And then he laughed, a full masculine laugh that completely transformed his features, giving him a younger, carefree look.

  Staring at him in alarm, Sara said in mock concern, 'You know, Mr Brandon, you really should be careful. If you laugh too often people might begin to think you were almost human. Arid now I think we'd better go and find our lost sheep, don't you?'

  ‘I suppose you're right,’ He put down his glass with something like reluctance, and Sara didn't blame him —she wasn't looking forward to the next hour herself.

  They found the cottage easily enough. 'We must have passed it about three times,' Alex remarked ruefully as they pulled up outside.

  It's all in darkness,' Sara said as she peered through the rain-splashed window, 'You don't think they've gone to..?' she stepped hurriedly.

  'Lord, I hope not,' Alex said fervently. 'But they might be in the back. I'll go and rouse them.'

  'I'm coming with you.' Sara hopped out of the car and ran to stand beside him under the shelter of the porch, the rain beating noisily down. Alex picked up the knocker and banged it hard. At first there was no response, so he knocked harder and longer. A sash windown above them was pushed up squeakily and a man leant out.

  'Who the hell's that?'

  'Richard, is that you?'

  'No, it damn well isn't.'

  The man went to slam down the window, but Alex stepped out to look at him. 'Wait. Is Richard French staying with you?'

  No, he isn't, and if you don't clear off I'll throw a bucket of water at you!'

  'It wouldn't make me any wetter than I am already, and I'm not leaving until I'm sure the person I'm looking for isn't here.'

  There was a string of swearwords from above them and after a few minutes the door was swung open with a thud. The youth who stood before them with only a cheap dressing-gown covering him was tall and thin with long brown hair and Elton John spectacles, but one glance at Alex's tight face .told her that it wasn't Richard.

  'All right,' the youth exploded. 'If you don't believe me then come and look for yourself. What are you, the police or something?'

  Alex stepped hastily past him and glanced into the ground floor rooms of the tiny place before harrying up the stairs.

  'Can't even go on holiday without you police pigs spoiling everything for us,' the youth said bitterly. He looked at Sara who was still standing transfixed on the doorstep. 'Is he a pig?'

  'Oh, yes, definitely, but not the kind you mean.'

  There came a girlish scream from above them and Alex reappeared and ran hastily down the stairs. 'I'm terribly sorry. I'm afraid we were given the wrong information. Here, please take this to make up for the trouble and buy yourself a bottle of champagne or something.' He caught hold of Sara's arm and bundled her into the car, the youth still shouting names at them.

  He started up the car and it shot forward with a screech of tyres. 'My God, did you hear what he called me, the little…?' he said through gritted teeth. 'Not that he didn't have a perfect right after we'd barged in on him like that. He had a girl up there too,' he added savagely. 'She looked a bit like Nicky, I suppose, but anyone with half an eye could have seen that they were just hippies. Lord, I've never been so embarrassed in my life as when I pushed open the door of that bedroom. She hadn't even bothered to…' he hastily bit off what he was about to say. For a moment he was silent, then said suspiciously, 'Sara?'

  With great difficulty she answered, 'Yes, Alex?'

  'Sara, are you…?’

  But she couldn't contain herself any longer and gave a stifled gurgle of laughter. She tried to stop but couldn't and leaned back against the seat shaking with uncontrollable mirth, helpless with it.

  Alex braked to a stop and turned to glare at her angrily. 'Stop that I can't see any thing at all funny in what happened back there.'

  'Sara tried to point towards him but was still shaking so much that she could hardly raise her hand. 'Yon should have seen your face! You were furious.'

  'And I still am. Sara, will you please stop?' He took hold of her shoulders and shook her none too gently. 'Now will you stop it? You have an extremely warped sense of humour.' he said nastily, and added, 'Do you realise we still haven't found them? If you hadn't been so quick to pick up the lead that woman in Stoke gave you we wouldn't have wasted all these hours oh this wild goose chase.'

  'Me?' Sara straightened up, her laughter sunk beneath indignation. 'Who was it who went into the transport cafe at Buxton and every guest house in Edale? Why didn't you check that it was the right couple if you're so clever? '

  , 'Because after that first wrong piece of information I only had to ask if they'd seen a young couple, not give a detailed description,' he retorted bitingly. 'It was you who was so darn eager to catch them that you didn't check properly in the first place. By now they're probably sitting in front of a blazing fire at this Miss Quinlan's house in the Lake District. While we, thanks to you, are sitting in a cold car in the middle of a rainstorm, miles away from anywhere,'

  Sara opened her mouth to argue angrily with him, but then saw a drop of water .trickle from his hair and run down the side of his lean cheek and across the firm line of his jaw to land on the wet collar of his jacket. Instead she said mildly, 'So why are we sitting here arguing? The sooner we get going, the sooner we can get warm in-front of that fire, too.'

  There was a surprised look in Alex's eyes for a moment, then he nodded. 'All right, let's do that. I think if we keep along this road we should be able to eventually cut back on the M6 further up. You can navigate.'

  He started off again, and with some difficulty in the swaying car, Sara picked out the quickest route. There's a turn at the
left in about half a mile,' she told him. 'If we take that it should bring us out on the main road leading directly to the motorway.'

  Alex grunted acknowledgement and concentrated on steering the high-powered car along the steeply climbing narrow roads, the windscreen wipers at maximum speed as they worked to dear a field of vision through the driving rain. He put his foot hard on the brake to take a sharp turn and Sara was thrown against the side of the car, the map light she was holding falling off her lap. Bending down, she groped to retrieve it, bat had to unfasten her safety strap in order to reach down to where it had rolled right to the front of the car near her feet.

  Alex glanced across at her. 'All right?'

  ‘Yes, thanks.'

  Finding it, she sat up again and opened the map book to find her place. Staring ahead through the darkness, she began to feel a growing unease as the car sped on through the night without the harsh beams of the headlights illuminating the turning they wanted. It had to be along here shortly, it must be.

  As if reading her thoughts, Alex said, 'How far did you say that turning was?’

  'About half a mite. We should have come to it before this.'

  'Perhaps you misread the map?' he suggested.

  Sara shot him a dark look but nevertheless bent to check, 'No,' she said positively. 'We must have passed it. We'd better turn back.'

  'We'll go on for another mile or so just in case.’

  Her voice rising, Sara said, 'What's the point of doing that if we've missed the turning? You're only wasting more time. Stop and turn round, I tell you.’

  Alex glared at her. 'Are yon Sure you're looking at the right page of the map?' he asked, his voice heavy with sarcasm.

  Stung, Sara retorted, 'Yes, I am. We must have passed the turning when I dropped the torch. And if you hadn't been driving so fast that the car swayed I wouldn't have dropped it in the first place.'

  Trust you to blame your inefficiency on someone else,' Alex said sneeringly. He braked and started to turn the long ear in the narrow road, the back wheels going on to the grass verge as he did so. 'I bet if anything goes wrong in your job you make darn sure that some other poor devil gets the blame for it so that you don't have to carry the can.' He changed gear and began to reverse again, putting his arm along the back of the seat and turning his body towards her so that he could look out of the rear window where the reversing lights lit up the terrain.

  'Of all the nerve!’ Enraged beyond endurance by his acid and quite untrue remark, Sara lifted her hand and slapped him across the face.

  Startled more than hurt, Alex turned his head to stare at her in shocked surprise. His face hardened and he began to say something, but then the back of the ear started to fall sickeningly away beneath them and Sara found herself pitching forward against him as the side of the car rolled over to where the floor used to be.

  She gave a cry of horror and fear but then the car rocked a little and was still. The engine had stalled and Tor long seconds they were both silent with shock. Her heart pounding with fear, Sara was too stunned to move. Then Alex's voice, almost in her ear, said sharply, 'Sara, are you all right?'

  'Yes. Yes, I think so.' She tried to move and found that she was held fast in his arms, lying on top of him. As she turned her head, his face touched hers. 'Are you?'

  'Yes. Look, we'll have to try and get out of your door. Do you think you can pull yourself up and open it?'

  'I'll try.' She began to turn away from him and his hands came round her waist, helping heir. By putting one hand on the steering wheel and the other on the back of the seat, she managed to pull herself towards the door which was now where the roof should have been. Moving to get a better purchase on the handle, she heard a grunt below her. 'What's the matter?'

  'You merely trod on me,' Alex said patiently. He lowered his hands a few inches down her hips and supported her while she opened the door and stood up. Then she hoisted herself up and swung her legs out, pushing away from the car to jump down on the ground.

  Immediately the rain began to soak into the jacket of the trouser suit she was wearing and she was already very wet by the time Alex scrambled down beside her.

  Quickly he went to examine the damage, then came back to her. 'God, what a mess! It's well and truly stuck in, a ditch. Still, I suppose we were lucky; for one awful minute, I thought we were going right down the side of the hill.' He went to the boot and pulled it open. 'There should be an umbrella in here somewhere. Here, Sara, take this and shelter under it while I fish for the map and the torch and find out where we are.' He opened the big black businessman's umbrella and thrust it towards her. 'Here, take it,! he said again.

  She just stood there, making no attempt to move. Suddenly Alex was beside her, his voice urgent. It's all right, Sara, it's over. You're quite safe now.’

  Alex went on talking to her, reassuring her, and slowly her trembling stilled and she was able to say shakily, 'I'm sorry. I've—I've never been in an accident before. It shook me—falling like that.' She found that she was clinging to the lapels of his jacket and that Alex again had his arm round her as they stood beneath the" shelter of the umbrella. Hastily she disengaged herself.

  'Serves you right,' he said unsympathetically. 'You should have put your safety strap back on. Now hold this while I get our things out of the car.'

  He left her standing under the umbrella, the rain pattering noisily down on to it, her legs getting steadily wetter. Hopefully she looked around her, but the night was pitch dark; there was no sign of life anywhere, no lights, nothing. When Alex came back he was carrying their cases and a winter coat she had put in the boot. 'Here, you'd better put this on,' he ordered, taking the umbrella from her.

  As he switched on the torch and studied the map, Sara noticed that he, too, had put on a heavy, belted trench coat. 'No point in going back to Edale,' he said after a moment. 'It will be quicker to go on in the direction we were heading and hope that we can knock up a garage in the next village to come and pull the car out.'

  'Perhaps we'll come across a farm and be able to phone a garage,’ Sara suggested hopefully.

  'Perhaps. But with the kind of tack I've been having since I met you, I very much doubt it, he replied, his mouth twisting wryly as he looked at the car.

  Still subdued by the shock of the accident, Sara said with difficulty, 'It was my fault. I distracted you. I'm sorry.'

  He turned to look down at her again, his eyes glinting in the darkness. 'You do choose the darnedest times to pick a fight,' he agreed sardonically. Then briskly, 'Well, there's no point in standing here.' He bent to pick up the cases. 'You can carry the torch.'

  They set off down the road, Sara holding the umbrella high after she had lifted it to a comfortable height for herself and Alex, had complained that she was trying to poke his eyes out. For what seemed like miles they plodded on through the rain. Sara's arms ached from holding up the umbrella, the shoes that had seemed so comfortable when she had bought them a week ago now rubbed her feet in a dozen places and her wet trousers dung damply to her legs.

  Alex, stopped beside her and put the cases down. Gratefully Sara changed hands, holding the umbrella in the crook of her right arm while she rubbed her left to restore the circulation. She hardly heard Alex, as he said, 'Look, isn't that a light?'

  'Where?'

  'Over to the right.'

  She saw it then, the square of a lighted window several hundred yards away. 'I see it. But how do we get there?'

  ‘There must be a track leading to it further along. Keep flashing the torch along that side of the road.'

  Sara opened her mouth to inform him that she wasn't a complete moron, then shut it again, the incident with the car keeping her silent.

  Soon they came to a break in the stone wall with a rough track leading from it. Fastened to a post was a crudely painted signboard with the words 'Hayscroft Farm’. The farm track was furrowed with deep tractor ruts full of muddy water. Carefully they picked their way along the higher parts, but tw
ice Sara slipped and the water came over her shoes. Miserably she gritted her teeth and plodded on. The light came from a small, stone-built farmhouse surrounded by barns and outhouses. A gate barred the way to a yard that was a sea of mud. There was also a strong smell of pigs. Sara gave a groan when the torch lit up the filthy state of the yard.

  'Stay here, said Alex. 'I'll take the cases first and then come back and carry you across.'

  For a moment Sara was deliriously tempted to play the frail female and do as he said, but better the mud than Alex Brandon. 'I can manage, thanks,' she replied firmly.

  He shrugged. 'Suit yourself.' Pushing open the gate he led the way across the yard. They were almost at the door when he said, 'Did you shut the gate?'

  Sara was concentrating on trying to hold her trousers out of the mud as well as carry the torch and umbrella. 'What? No, I didn't.’

  'Then go back and shut it!’.

  'What on earth for? No one's going anywhere on a night like this.'

  He turned exasperatedly. 'Don't you know the first rule on a farm b to always shut the gates? We wont endear ourselves to the fanner if his livestock get out and go wandering over the hills.'

  'The way those pigs smell we'd be doing him a favour she retorted, but after a moment turned irritably back to shut the gate.

  Alex didn't wait for her but went straight to the farmhouse door and banged on it loudly. The man who opened it peered out into the night at him.

  'Good evening. I'm sorry to disturb you,’ Alex began, 'but we've had to leave my car back down the road. I wonder if we might use your phone to call for help?'

  The farmer, a scraggy, weather beaten man, looked at him for a moment longer, then saw Sara behind him. 'You've a lass with you? You'd best come in.'

  Gratefully they went through the doorway which entered straight into a large kitchen-cum-living-room with an old-fashioned solid fuel range against one wall, its iron doors open to reveal a hot fire.

  'Some people in trouble, Mary,' the farmer said to the woman who had risen to her feet from a fireside chair as they entered.

  Sara took one look at the glowing coals and headed for them. The woman clucked with dismay at the sight of her clothes. 'You never walked along the track in yon? Ee, lass, you'll catch your death! Wait now while I make you a cup of hot, strong tea.'