The Mistress - Jill Childs Page 0,79

in sudden blackness. The only light now spilled weakly from the other end of the barn, from the overhead lights left on in the kitchen.

I sat, rigid, waiting. For a moment, nothing. I started to breathe again. Then another crack. I jumped. The sharp retort of a dry stick breaking. A person. I was sure of it. Creeping down the side of the building.

I moved as quietly as I could, dropping low and clinging to the deeper shadows along the lines of the furniture. I reached up to switch off the lights in the kitchen, grabbed a kitchen knife from the block and ducked low again. I crawled under the dining-room table and crouched there, my knees drawn up to my body, my arms wrapped around them, trembling.

A footstep, quiet and careful, crunched across the loose stones near the front door. I held my breath. Silence. A sigh. A scuffle of soft shoes against the wooden door. I shrank back further into the darkness, thinking of Anna asleep upstairs, tightening my grip on the handle of the knife.

A key scraped in the lock and the door opened. A man stood there, silhouetted against the night sky.

‘Helen?’ A throaty whisper.

I sat up abruptly, cracking my head on the underside of the table.

‘Helen, it’s me.’ His tone was theatrical, savouring the drama.

I scrambled out and switched on a light. Ralph. He was standing there, just inside the front door, blinking in the flood of light. He looked different. His face was leaner. The floppy hair had been cut away, replaced by a military-style razor cut. He was wearing a waxed green jacket and black jeans, already dressing for his new part.

‘Ralph!’ For a moment, I just stared, then my mouth crumpled.

He opened his arms and I ran straight into them, pressed my face into his chest. His smell, sudden and familiar. The feel of his body, broad and muscular firm. His warm skin.

He lifted my hand and looked with amusement at the knife I was still clutching.

‘That’s not a very nice welcome.’ He laughed. ‘And after I came all the way back from the dead, too.’

‘Oh, please.’ I twisted to drop the knife on the counter, then wiped my eyes and hugged him again. ‘You scared the life out of me.’

He kissed the top of my head, then loosened my arms, unzipped his jacket and hung it on the back of a dining chair.

I watched him, still dazed. ‘I thought you weren’t coming for another week or two.’

He shrugged. ‘It’s boring, being dead. How’s Anna? Is she okay?’

I glanced at once towards the spiral staircase. ‘She mustn’t know, Ralph. Not yet. I need to prepare her.’

‘That’ll be interesting. What’re you going to say? That I’m an angel?’

‘Hardly.’ I smiled. ‘Anna will be fine. I never told her you were dead. I kept saying missing. But I need a bit longer, Ralph. She’s been through a lot.’

He gestured round the barn, at the furniture, the lights, the scenes he’d set as if he were dressing a stage for one of his grand school productions. ‘Like it?’

I nodded. ‘Very much. You’ve always had great taste.’

He looked satisfied. ‘Did Anna like her dog?’

‘Loves it. She’s called it Buddy.’

He lifted my top and ran cold hands over my skin. I shivered.

‘She didn’t ask who’d bought it. But it was a bit risky, Ralph.’

‘I love risks,’ he murmured into my ear, tightening his hold of me. ‘I thought you knew that by now.’

Fifty-One

I searched the fridge for food and started to cook him what I could find, sausages and eggs. Already, the kitchen was absorbing the smell of his body. He changed the air in a room, just by being there.

I set the sausages sizzling and spitting, feeling his eyes on me, watching my movements. I dropped a fork to the floor with a clatter, banged dishes, clumsy with nerves.

Once he’d eaten, we sat on the settee, side by side, Ralph’s arm tight around my shoulders, and looked out into the darkness that veiled the Yorkshire landscape.

Ralph, heavy now with food, said, ‘I don’t want to say I told you so. But I was right, wasn’t I? We did it.’

I didn’t answer. I thought about the life ahead, a life in hiding, pretending to be people we were not. It wouldn’t be easy, but he’d promised me it would all be worth it. This was our chance of a fresh start. There would only be one woman in his life from now on. Two, if you counted