Valley of Nightmares Read online

  Chapter Three

  He had been coming to the Felicia for about a week. After the first night or two, he started inviting me to join him for a few glasses of champagne between my stage appearances. I didn’t know anything about him, but his clothes had that effortless simplicity that cries out “money”. And you needed deep pockets to even get into the club—let alone bag a table to yourself—so I guessed he was pretty well-to-do. Oh, and had I mentioned that he was the most distant, utterly ravishing man I had ever seen?

  “Good evening.” His voice sent a honey-warm ripple of something utterly decadent through to my nerve endings. I always had the oddest feeling that, behind his unreadable expression, he was laughing at me. I wore a clinging, black satin dress that plunged back and front. Elbow-length white gloves and a rope of Fanny’s pearls completed the look. I rather hoped I came across as scintillating and sophisticated. But I knew I was on a losing streak. When any of the guests asked for me, I was always “Dimples” or, even worse, “the one with the freckles”.

  “I look about sixteen,” I had grumbled crossly earlier that evening, as I did a lightning-fast change into my femme-fatale getup.

  “That’s why they all like you so much, sweetie pie,” Amethyst Blaize, heading for the stage, informed me in her best husky drawl.

  Gethin Taran lifted a finger and one of the waiters appeared like magic. I’d had no dinner, and the champagne cocktail hit my brain with a sudden fizz. Or perhaps it was that look—the one that made my insides turn to liquid—in his ebony eyes.

  “You shouldn’t be allowed to have eyes like those,” I told him recklessly, regarding him steadfastly over the rim of my glass.

  A corner of his mouth lifted briefly. “I apologise. Shall I close them?”

  “No need to do that,” I said generously. “I quite like them.”

  He inclined his head in thanks. Really, he was the most perturbing man! Although he didn’t respond verbally to my attempts to flirt, he did give off some smoulderingly intense signals. His eyes darkened, and his full expressive mouth—which was utterly scrumptious—curved slightly.

  “I thoroughly enjoyed your performance.” He said it in such a way that I couldn’t be sure if he was serious. I suspected he wasn’t.

  Our routine—mine and Ricky’s—was silent. I sat on a park bench, innocently sniffing flowers, when Ricky strolled past swinging a cane. He stopped and did a comedy ogle, then waggled his eyebrows and twirled his fake moustache suggestively at the audience. He came to sit next to me on the bench, and I’d shyly move away as he got more familiar, eventually putting his hand on my knee. As I was getting up from the bench in outrage, my flimsy cotton dress got caught and was ripped off, leaving me in just my pink, frilly panties with my back to the audience. I’d do lots of coy bottom wiggling, bending over and glancing over my shoulder. The act ended with me side-stepping across the stage with Ricky in step behind me, his hands strategically placed to protect my modesty. We did a carefully choreographed arrangement where I’d cover my eyes while he covered my tits, and then we’d swap. We exited the stage that way and, right at the last minute, got it wrong so that we were both covering my eyes. It wasn’t exactly Shakespeare, but it always went down well with the audience.

  Before I could reply, Gethin became suddenly and quite incongruously businesslike. “Maxie tells me you used to be a governess. And that you want to go back to it?”

  I regarded him in some surprise. I had expressed a desire to return to teaching, of course, but it was not exactly an easy step from the burlesque stage to the schoolroom. I wondered what my duplicitous boss was playing at. Love him or loathe him, there were never any coincidences where Maxie Bauer was concerned.

  “I suppose I should explain why I’m asking,” Gethin continued. “I am seeking a governess for my niece—my brother’s child—who was recently orphaned following a car crash.” I felt the sharp knife thrust of my own remembered loss. “She has lived on the continent for most of her life, but as part of my brother’s estate, she inherits a large property in Wales. It is there that I propose she will make her home.”

  And with those few, clipped, innocuous sentences, Gethin Taran changed the course of my life. I could not describe the feeling that seized me. It took my breath away. With a ferocity I had never before experienced, I wanted that job. I wanted to take care of that hurt, lonely child. I’ve examined my motives in detail since, and my conscience is clear. The intensity of my feelings had absolutely nothing to do with the devastating effect Gethin Taran had on me. Truly, it didn’t.

  “Poor little girl.” I heard the throb of sympathy in my own voice and was aware that it made him regard me thoughtfully.

  “So I suppose this is in the nature of an interview.” He indicated the incongruity of our surroundings, the loud champagne-and-cigar-guzzling audience and Fanny Sparkles gyrating on the stage clad only in a string of pearls and a few strategically placed seashells. “If you are interested?” I nodded, determined not to betray just how interested I was. “What is your real name, by the way? I can’t keep calling you by your stage name.”

  I bit my lip. No one ever believed me. “Lilly Divine is my real name,” I replied, adding brightly, “so it was inevitable really that I should end up in a burlesque show, wasn’t it?”

  He chose not to respond to my attempted witticism. Instead, he continued to watch me with the curious, measuring look that was unique to him. With an exhalation of breath that stopped just short of a sigh, he said, “Very well, Miss Lilly Divine. I may regret this, but I am prepared to give you a two-month trial.”

  “Really?” I squeaked in amazement. “Gosh, that’s awfully kind of you! I will do my very best. I assure you, you won’t regret this decision, Mr. Taran.” Stop babbling, Lilly. The little voice in my head was stern.

  “Don’t get too overexcited,” he warned. “I haven’t exactly been inundated with applicants. The remoteness of the Taran Valley seems to put most people off.” My expression seemed to amuse him. “Stop looking at me like a puppy dog I’ve just kicked! Do you want the job or not?”

  I scuffed the carpet a bit with the toe of my shoe. “Yes.” I tried to keep the hurt note out of my voice.

  “Oh, and, Miss Divine?” Ricky was beckoning me frantically to come and get ready for the big finale, but I turned back to Gethin with a look of enquiry. There was a brief flash of his rare, fascinating smile. “You do know that you will be obliged to keep your clothes on in this job, don’t you?”

  With a little groan of embarrassment, I fled.

  * * *

  I don’t know what it was that disturbed the dark drapery of my slumber some time later, but as I came fully awake, I heard the sound of a heavy door creaking as it closed. I slid out of bed and tiptoed to the open window. In the sickly moonlight that illuminated the valley, there was no one in sight and nothing moved.

  Leaning out, I drank in the crisp, pure air. The summit of Mount Taran, austere against the midnight sky, was so close I felt I might almost reach out and touch it. The craggy lips that formed the giant’s chair sneered unsympathetically down on me, and the darkness around the house was unutterably dreary. Clouds tormented me by throwing a veil of silver-grey gauze over the stars. A soft, unearthly glow hovered over the mountain’s rugged curve. It was so faint that, at first, I thought the scowling moon was playing impish tricks on my vision.

  As I stared at this strange phenomenon, a thin vapour—illuminated from within by weak blue-white flames—drifted down from the slumbering summit. Gradually, as it reached the chair, the light intensified, swirling and throbbing with its own primordial, pulsating rhythm. Every colour in the spectrum gyrated outward from the centre. Its brilliance turned the surrounding earthly landscape the deep blue-black of Satan’s soul. Enraptured, I fancied I could see abstract shapes dancing within the fluorescing glow. My mind gave them form. Pale knights, ghostly steeds and a hunting pack of hell�
��s own hounds became dim, whirling shades within the milky light. In the centre of this wild display, a ruddy flame sprang in a wide, splendid arc pouring forth its bloody crimson torrent onto the crags below.

  Even though I had heard of this phenomenon, I had never witnessed it myself, or imagined it would be so spectacular. The scientific explanation—that the bright dancing lights of the aurora were merely collisions between particles thrown out by the sun—was nowhere near as interesting as the folk stories surrounding them. I preferred to believe that this whirling palette of luminous green, pale pink and deep violet represented the breastplates of Valkyrie maidens or the rejoicing souls of the recently departed. Funny, though, I had never heard of the aurora being seen so far south. Or, come to that, being seen at all at this time of year. The climatic conditions must have been just right, or perhaps the solar activity was particularly intense tonight. Whatever the mundane, logical explanation might be, I was heartily grateful to the unexplained noise that had disturbed my sleep.

  The pyrotechnics began to subside, and the solemn voice of the mountain breezes sighed sweet nothings to the trees. All at once, a near-deafening crescendo arose. It was an agonised, relentless baying—the sound of a phantom hound in peril of its life—echoing out across the death-still valley. Instinctively, I reached to close the window and stifle the heart-rending howl. As I did, another answering bellow rent the night sky. From the volume and direction, I judged the second cry to come from the vicinity of the stable block at the rear of the house. My mind insisted that this haunting, wistful duet endured for hours. A glance at my wristwatch on the dresser told me a different story: one of mere minutes.

  However long I actually spent listening to that unearthly cacophony didn’t matter a jot. The only thing I knew for sure was that I would need to woo sleep back to me again. With a sigh, I made my way onto the galleried landing, intent on invading Mrs. Price’s kitchen so that I could warm some milk for a soothing drink.

  I paused in the shadows as, below me, the huge front door opened slowly and a man slipped furtively into the darkened hall. The darkness made the figure indistinct, but from the height and general demeanour, I surmised it must be Gethin. He removed his shoes and carried them. With a swift glance around, he made his way toward the foot of the staircase. I slid quietly back into my own room, taking care that the door did not click as I closed it. I heard his step on the stairs, then the whisper of his unshod feet along the landing. The floorboards outside my room creaked, and I sensed him pause for the scantest of seconds outside my door. He moved on again, and I heard the same dull whine of old hinges protesting. But, of course, it was much easier now for me to hear every tiny movement. The canine lament had ceased barely a minute before my new employer returned to the house.

  Since I seemed destined not to sleep, I turned to my suitcase and began to unpack my carefully folded clothes. These were an odd mixture of my new practical—frumpy, my disdainful eyes insisted—outfits and a few glitzier items that I had not been able to part with. My hand encountered a flat, rectangular package at the bottom of the case, and I withdrew it, studying it thoughtfully. I had almost forgotten it was there. Either that or I had firmly turned my mind away from it.

  “I’ll miss you,” Ricky said simply on that last night—the night he died—as we went through the familiar motions of getting ready for our act.

  “I know.” I leaned my head against his shoulder, and we studied our side-by-side reflections in the mirror. I made a little moue of distaste with my scarlet lips. No matter what I did, my efforts couldn’t manage to convince my face that I wanted to look sophisticated. Despite mascara and kohl, I retained a wide-eyed innocence that infuriated me. My nose was an upturned button, and my curls—just the right side of fair to be called “blonde” rather than “mousy”—rebelled against the iron-straight bob I tried to force them into. Add a mouth that was a touch too generous, dimples and a gap between my teeth you could, as my dear papa used to say, park your bike in and…well, you get the picture. I tried narrowing my grey eyes in an attempt to look sultry. I just looked sneaky.

  “Stop preening, Lilly darling.” Ricky dropped a careless kiss onto my bare shoulder. “You look gorgeous. As always. Angel, seriously,” he continued, his eyes slanting to avoid his own cloud of smoke, “I really don’t see what’s wrong with making your living from bumping and grinding. Maxie pays the going rate and, well, you are frightfully good at it, sweetie. You actually have talent, unlike those of us who got the job because we happen to worship at the same synagogue as the boss.”

  I sighed. We’d had this conversation many times. “It’s simply not for me anymore,” I said, my brow furrowing as I tried to explain. “I’m not sure it ever really was.”

  “But a governess! I mean really, Lilly…you?” Ricky’s incredulous tone clashed with my solemnity. “You’re not allowed to flash your derrière at the little darlings to get their attention. You do know that, don’t you? That sort of thing is definitely frowned on in governessing circles. And Wales?” He said it as if it were Timbuktu, adding, with a pained expression, “Do you actually know anything about sheep, dear heart?” I gave him a friendly shove that made him stagger.

  “I’ve got something for you,” he said, when he’d recovered his balance.

  “I’ve heard that one a few times,” I said naughtily, and he laughed. He handed me a parcel—the one I turned thoughtfully over in my hands now—wrapped in brown paper and tied with string.

  “Don’t open it yet.” Ricky’s voice was gruff. I hoped he wasn’t going to cry. If he did, I knew I would cry, as well. “Open it when you get there, to the back of beyond. And, darling?” His eyes twinkled with familiar mischief. “Mum’s the word, but I may just have found my own ticket out of this place.” He tapped the side of his nose teasingly and shook his head when I asked what he meant. It was the last thing he ever said to me.

  In that oddly matched, unfriendly room in a house I didn’t know, I tugged at the string and removed the paper. It was a framed watercolour of a girl sitting on the bank of the Thames, gazing across the wide river. She was shielding her eyes with one hand, but I recognised myself. Ricky, a talented artist, had captured a faraway, wistful expression on my face. Lying down on the bed with the picture clutched to my chest, I cried until I thought my damaged heart would never heal. Dawn was just touching the sky with her tender fingers when I fell at last into a deep and mercifully dreamless sleep.

  * * *

  I woke after only an hour and, for a while, lay with my eyes closed, trying to recapture sleep and listening to the sounds of morning. No trace here of the bustling London noises to which I was immune. No carts rattling over cobbles, shopkeepers calling to each other as they opened up, wagons and lorries trundling past and Mrs. Comber’s cats squabbling to establish their territory. But Taran Valley had its own music. The birds provided a raucous, ringing chorus inviting the indolent to rise and join them in their joyful dawn. A gentle breeze shook the trees into wakefulness, and they groaned in sleepy protest. At the distant edge of my hearing, a stream babbled a nonsense poem as it trickled along a well-tried path. The old house creaked and stretched like an elderly relative easing arthritic joints. The unfamiliar scent of my new home was a combination of vinegar, candle wax, old newspapers and dried lavender. Not unpleasant, just not mine.

  With a sigh, I slid from the bed, my bare toes curling into the rug. Yawning, I pulled aside the curtains. A memory of the previous night surfaced, and I found it hard to reconcile this view with the strangeness of the lights I had seen—for I knew I had not imagined that awe-inspiring phenomenon—during the darkest hours. It was just a mountain, just a valley and just a run-down, unloved old house. A light rain had fallen and spangled droplets onto my windowpane. Diamond rainbows dripped from the gutters and glittered on the mossy gables. I opened the window, and the sharp, bitter tang of early morning caught on my breath and kissed my cheek.

  R
icky’s picture lay beside the bed, where I had placed it when the storm of my grief finally subsided. I considered it thoughtfully. Was I ready to see it and be reminded of happier times constantly? I knew I could not bear to hide it—hide him—away. And anyway, the pain—sometimes a dull ache, sometimes a fiend of agony chewing on my insides—was always with me. I took down a small, miserable landscape over the dresser and hung the sketch in its place. It was the prettiest thing in the room.

  The bathroom was a museum piece, but there was hot water and I found clean towels in a cupboard. I felt decidedly less jaded after I had bathed, and dressed in another of my drab outfits—courtesy of the Felicia girls—I made my way down the stairs. Ceri was seated at the kitchen table. A cup of warm milk and a slab of bread and butter the size of a doorstep had been placed in front of her, and she was eying this unappetising repast with a distinct lack of enthusiasm. I didn’t blame her.

  “Now don’t you be troublesome, Miss Ceri.” Mrs. Price had her back to the door and did not notice my presence. “That’s all we have and it’ll do you no harm. After all, we don’t want that fancy new teacher-lady thinking you are a fussy-osity, do we?”

  “Oh, I won’t think that, Mrs. Price, don’t worry.” I smiled brightly in Ceri’s direction. “Can I make some tea?”

  Ceri eyed me thoughtfully. “I don’t want this.” She threw a defiant look toward Mrs. Price.

  “What do you want?” I ignored the faint blustering noises from the housekeeper.

  She shrugged. “Something else.” I weighed up the situation. There was a distinctly bratty edge to her voice, but the breakfast in front of her was deeply unappealing. I’d never been particularly proficient in a kitchen; years of fending for myself, however, meant I did have a few basics I could turn my hand to.

  “Do you have any eggs, Mrs. Price?” I steeled myself for her reaction.