Lord of the Far Island, Victoria Holt [world of reading TXT] 📗

was why the Carringtons wanted it. Philip must marry young because it seemed as though Rollo would never have children. Odd to think of Philip and myself as parents.

Then I felt my heart leap in terror. In the silence of the house I heard something. I stood very still listening. All was quiet. Had I imagined it? It is strange really how sometimes without sound one can be conscious of a presence. I had the uncanny feeling that someone was in the house. Then as I stood very still in the center of the room, I heard a sound. I had not been mistaken. Someone was in the house.

My heart began to hammer painfully. Who? It couldn't be Philip. I knew where he was. He had told me he had to go to his father's London office that day.

I listened. There it was again. A muffled sound; the creak of an opening door.

Then I heard footsteps on the stairs.

I found it difficult to move. I was as though petrified. It was absurd. The house was for sale; we had not definitely bought it, so why should not some prospective buyer come to look at it?

The footsteps came nearer. I stared in fascination at the door. Someone was immediately outside.

As the door was slowly pushed open I gasped; Rollo Carrington stood there.

"Why," he said, "I thought there was no one here."

"So... did I."

"I'm afraid I startled you."

"I. . .I heard someone below and . . ."

He looked so tall and I remembered what Philip had said a long time ago about his being a Viking; he even had the appropriate name.

I had had a glimpse of him before but I felt I was seeing him for the first time. He exuded power and a sort of magnetism. I felt that if Rollo Carrington entered a room everyone must be aware of him.

I went on: "You are Mr. Carrington, Philip's brother. I am Ellen Kellaway, his fiancee."

"Yes, I know. Congratulations."

"Thank you. I didn't know you were in London."

"I arrived home last night. I had heard the news of your engagement, of course."

I wondered whether he had come home because of it.

"Philip has told me about the house. I said I'd look it over, so he gave me the key."

"I wanted to look over it on my own," I explained.

He nodded. "Naturally you are eager to see that it is suitable."

"Shall you advise your father to buy it?"

"I think it's very likely a sound proposition. I'm not sure yet of course."

He kept his eyes on me and I felt uncomfortable because it seemed as though he was trying to assess me, to probe my innermost thoughts; and I was not at all sure what he was thinking of me. As for myself, I could not stop thinking of him with that poor wife of his—a shadowy figure in my imagination—in those top rooms at Trentham Towers, and the decision which must have come to him that she must have a companion to watch over her.

It was impossible to imagine this man caught up in a passionate love affair, which there must have been to make him marry so hastily. I thought I detected a certain bitterness about his mouth. He was no doubt reviling fate for making his beautiful wife unsuitable and allowing him to discover this after he had married her. So cool, he looked, so much in command of himself—and I imagined of everyone around him—that I could not reconcile the story of his romantic tragic marriage with this man at all.

"Have you been round again?" he asked.

"Not properly."

"Shall we look at it together?"

"Yes, please."

"Come then, we'll start from the top."

He talked about the snares to look for. I was hardly paying attention. I just wanted to hear his voice, which was deep and authoritative; I wanted to know so much about him—everything; he seemed so mature compared with Philip and me; he talked of Philip as though he were a mere boy and it was clear that he considered me very young too.

"I've had some experience of buying property," he said. "One has to be careful. Caveat emptor, you know."

We went through the house, then out into the garden. We stood beneath one of the trees.

I looked back at the house. It seemed more menacing than ever and I felt a great desire to run away from it even though Philip's brother was beside me to protect me from any evil that might befall me.

He started to walk back into the house and I followed. It seemed to close in on me like a prison, and I found it so hard to shake off this feeling of foreboding that I was afraid I would show it. Rollo looked at me rather intently as though he were about to say something, then he changed his mind, or appeared to. He opened the front door and as we stepped out of the house a great relief swept over me.

"I'll call a cab," he said, "and take you home."

I don't know how to describe Rollo. There was something enigmatic and completely baffling about him. He was not nearly as good-looking as Philip. His features were more rugged, but he emanated power and a kind of magnetism. He was the sort of man who could slip quietly into a room and yet everyone would be aware of him and he gave the impression that whatever he did would be successful.

I could not get him out of my mind. Perhaps the venue of our encounter had something to do with it. I had been so terrified—ridiculously so—when I had heard his footsteps, which was simply because I had worked myself up about a presence in the house. And then he had appeared.

Ever since I had heard the story of his marriage, I had been thinking about him, and seeing those top rooms at Trentham Towers had set my imagination working. I pictured the hasty courtship, and Rollo's being swept off his feet. That was certainly