‘But how are you going to learn if I do the playing?’ he asks lightly.
I can’t tell him that I want to watch his hands moving over the keys, his body swaying and his eyes closing as the music transports him to a place of pleasure. I don’t even know how to put it into words, but it’s what I want.
When I look at him he seems confused, but there’s more. I catch the slight tremble of his lower lip as he traps it between his teeth. A kind of energy flows between us like music, gentle chords and scales that only we can feel or hear. I think he’s reading my mind, I can sense the thoughts going to him reaching him like a song.
He knows why I’ve asked for this private tuition. We both do.
His eyes drop to my mouth and I think he’s going to kiss me.
‘Are you sure you want to do this?’ he asks quietly.
I know he could mean the lessons, but he doesn’t.
My voice catches like a quaver on a whisper as I say, ‘Yes.’
CHAPTER FIVE
Exmoor was proving every bit as bleak and dramatic as Joely had expected, flowing and stretching its uncompromising landscape to each horizon with the sea crashing onto the cliffs to one side and stark acres of bracken and gorse giving way to cultivated fields and feeding livestock the other. The road they were travelling was a long, winding ribbon of grey threading through mile after mile of steep inclines, twisting bends, dense forests and seeming for a while to have no end.
Andee slowed as they passed a handful of red deer grazing a nearby bank, every one of them appearing oblivious to the moving vehicle only feet away. Joely relished being this close to wildlife, taking in the stags’ antlers curling imperiously from slender handsome heads, and the females’ sleek bodies, smooth and lush and lithe.
Minutes later they stopped for an Exmoor pony to amble across the road to join the rest of the herd, and around the next bend there were sheep with horns curling out of their heads like fancy hairdos.
They passed signs to places with quaintly intriguing names such as Dunkery Beacon, and Lorna Doone Farm Shop. They glimpsed old villages, drove through fast-gushing fords and all the time Joely drank in the austerity of the wintry landscape as chill as the empty sky, as forlorn as the abandoned picnic tables and lookout spots.
‘It’s eerie,’ she decided, ‘but beautiful and compelling and kind of otherworldly.’ She considered this a moment and added, ‘I don’t have to ask if it’s haunted, I can already feel it.’
Andee smiled.
Joely turned to her. ‘What am I going to do if Freda Donahoe’s place is full of friends from the other side? Who might not actually be friends?’
Andee had to laugh.
‘You might think it’s funny,’ Joely retorted, ‘but me and ghosts, we’re in the same place as me and Martha the man-stealer. I don’t want them anywhere near me, and any attempt to speak to me … Well, it won’t end well, I can tell you that.’
Andee laughed again. ‘Given your occupation, I’d have thought you’d have an affinity with them.’
Joely threw her a look. ‘Ha, ha,’ she responded, smiling in spite of herself.
‘Well, if Dimmett House does turn out to be haunted,’ Andee said, steering around a sweeping bend that ended with a breathtaking view of the Bristol channel, ‘and I’m sure it won’t, you can always say you want to stay in a hotel. There are several places in both Lynton and Lynmouth.’
‘Which might be haunted too,’ Joely mumbled, absorbing the magnificent vista ahead where bold cascades of sunlight were streaming through dark, dense cloud into the sea. ‘It must be wonderful here in summer,’ she stated, although this was pretty spectacular too.
‘It is,’ Andee assured her, ‘and if you’re still around by then, who knows, it might be because you’ve met your very own John Ridd.’
Joely wrinkled her nose. ‘Who? Oh, you mean from Lorna Doone. I’m not sure I can remember the story, and I missed the TV series. Does it have a happy end?’
‘Eventually.’
Joely’s heart tightened as the flippant talk of romance pulled her back to the very place she was trying to escape. Cal had texted this morning to have another go at being friendly in much the way Martha had last night, Don’t forget to let us know about your assignment, and wherever you are, take care of yourself. She