Page 52 of The Christmas Retreat
‘I can vouch for that,’ said Evie, appearing at my side. ‘I booked her in without telling her and she had no time to check out the website because she was busy packing up her cottage.’
She smiled at me. ‘Are you ready to go back to the house? This wassail is very pleasant, but I need my tot of whisky before I go to bed. Noel’s gone home, so you can help your poor old mother back – come along.’
You couldn’t have found anyone who fitted that description less, and it was she who took my arm in a firm grip and steered me away.
‘Most of the others have gone ahead,’ she told me, pausing to toss our paper cups and plates into a paper sack held by a teenage boy I recognized as the drummer. ‘Nerys took Cariad home almost as soon as we got down. She was a bit tired and overexcited.’
‘I feel much the same way,’ I admitted. ‘Tired but a bit … edgy. And the wassail seems to have made everything go fuzzy at the edges.’
‘It was quite strong,’ Evie agreed and when, as soon as we entered the hall of Triskelion, with its now familiar smell of pine, spices and old, well-loved house, she suggested I go straight up to bed and she would make my excuses to the others, who we could hear talking in the sitting room, I thankfully accepted her offer.
She has her uses, and her thoughtful moments.
My mind was so full of the strange events of the evening – of the things Rhys had told me, and those I had shared with him – that as I climbed into bed I was certain that, despite my exhaustion, I wouldn’t be able to sleep.
There was the persistent heartbeat of the drumming still in my head, too … but that was the last thing I heard before instantly falling fathoms deep into dreamless sleep.
*
I woke up as early as usual next morning and could hear, through the sliver of opened window, a bird singing sweetly in the dark.
I’d have liked to lie there for a little while, thinking about what Rhys had said last night, and about Verity’s innuendoes about him, but there was no time now. I needed to get up and ready.
When I crept downstairs through the silent house, Rhys was waiting for me in the garden hall with Snookums and the black cat, Pompey, in attendance.
I felt rather shy. It had been one thing exchanging confidences with Rhys in the darkness on the hill last night, but a different one to be face to face with him in the cold light of dawn – or the cold light of the wall lamp in the garden hall, anyway, because it was still dark outside.
He, however, seemed quite unaffected, merely gesturing to the animals and saying, ‘I had to let them out of the kitchen, or Snookums would have barked the house down. But he’s too old and lazy to come with us. He’ll just potter around the garden and then come back in through the cat flap when he’s had enough.’
Rhys slung a rucksack over one shoulder and opened the outer door on to a crisp, frost-sparkling world.
Snookums shot past us and vanished into the bushes, but Pompey slid silently out after him like a wisp of dark smoke, then twined himself twice around my ankles, before disappearing into the shrubbery after Snookums.
‘You’re honoured!’ said Rhys, sounding astonished. ‘He doesn’t usually take any notice of anyone except Nerys.’
‘He’s a very handsome cat,’ I said, as Rhys led me down a gravelled path through the bushes that bordered the sloping lawn, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the darkness.
‘I miss my old cat, Mrs Snowboots, terribly.’
‘I like cats and dogs equally and we’ve always had both, ever since I was a little boy.’
‘Have you always lived here?’ I said, finding it easier to talk to his broad back as he led the way down the narrow path.
‘Ever since my parents were killed in an accident, when I was five,’ he said. ‘Nerys and Timon gave me a puppy from a dog rescue centre. That’s where all our dogs come from. Our old labrador cross died last year and we haven’t got round to getting another one yet.’
‘Unless it’s a puppy, I suppose it would be hard to find one that would get on with Snookums and Pompey.’
‘Yes, and Bronwen says she’s beyond house-training a puppy at her time of life.’
‘Mrs Snowboots came from a rescue place, too, but she was elderly when I got her. I’d intended getting a kitten, but when I got there, we just sort of clicked.’
He turned his dark head and I could sense, rather than see, that quirky smile. ‘Just likewedid at that publisher’s party! Some things are meant to be and I’m glad fate has thrown us together again, Ginny.’
This was going way too fast for me and I said nothing as heopened a wicket gate and we emerged on to the rough hillocky grass and gorse bushes of the headland, where our path joined the wider one that followed the edge of the cliffs. It was easier now to see where you were going, for the moon and stars were still out, while dawn was just beginning to lift the edge of the dark sky on the horizon.
As we turned to the right and began to ascend towards Mab’s Grave, silhouetted against the sky, I said, ‘Isn’t this the long way round to the oak wood?’
‘It is, but I thought you’d like to see the place where you can get down to a little cove – which is here,’ he added, showing me where the cliff sloped a little and a path was visible down a gentler slope than the surrounding cliffs.
