Page 69 of Ruby Red (The Ruby Red Trilogy 1)

Most impressive of all was the dragon, which seemed to be flying across the ceiling above us. He must have been at least seven yards long from the tip of his wedge-shaped tail to his large, scaly head, and I couldn’t take my eyes off him. What a wonderful dragon! I was so spellbound that I almost forgot why we were there … or that we weren’t alone. Everyone seemed completely surprised to see us.

“It looks as if there are some complications,” said Mr. George.

Lady Arista, standing stiff as a board by one of the windows, said, “Grace! Oughtn’t you to be at work? And Gwyneth should be at school!”

“There’s nowhere we’d sooner be, Mother,” said Mum.

Charlotte was sitting on a sofa right under a beautiful mermaid. Each scale in the mermaid’s tail was finely carved and painted in every imaginable shade of blue and turquoise. A man in an elegant black suit, wearing black-framed glasses, was leaning against a broad mantelpiece. Even his tie was black. He was examining us with a distinctly gloomy expression, and there was a little boy of about seven clinging to his jacket.

“Grace!” A tall man rose from the desk. He had gray, wavy hair that fell to his broad shoulders like a lion’s mane. His eyes were a strikingly light brown, almost the color of amber. His face was much younger than you might have expected from the gray hair that framed it. There was something fascinating about him—once seen, never forgotten, I felt sure. When the man smiled, you could see his regular white teeth. “Grace. It’s been a long time.” He came around the desk and offered Mum his hand. “You haven’t changed at all.”

To my astonishment, Mum blushed. “Thanks. I could say the same of you, Falk.”

“I’ve gone gray.” The man made a dismissive gesture.

“I’d say it suits you,” said Mum.

Hello? Was she by any chance flirting with this guy?

His smile broadened a little and then his amber gaze moved from Mum to me. Once again, I felt I was being inspected uncomfortably closely.

Those eyes were really strange. They could have been the eyes of a wolf, or one of the big cats. He held out his hand. “I’m Falk de Villiers. And you must be Grace’s daughter Gwyneth.” His handshake was firm and warm. “The first Montrose girl I’ve ever known not to have red hair.”

“I get my hair from my father,” I said shyly.

“Could we perhaps come to the point?” asked the man in black by the mantelpiece.

Mr. de Villiers let go of my hand and looked at me with a twinkle in his eyes. “Go ahead.”

“My sister’s come up with an absolutely monstrous story,” said Aunt Glenda. You could tell what an effort it cost her not to shout. “And Mr. George wouldn’t listen to me! She claims that Gwyneth—Gwyneth!—has already traveled back in time. And not just once, three times already. Of course, as she knows perfectly well, she can’t prove it, so she’s thought up another fairy tale to explain the fact that the girl’s date of birth is wrong. I’d like to remind you what happened seventeen years ago. Grace did not play a very admirable part in those events. Now that we’re so close to success, I’m not surprised to see her turning up here to sabotage our plans.”

Leaving her place by the window, Lady Arista had come closer. “Is this true, Grace?” Her expression, as always, was stern and unyielding. Sometimes I wondered whether her hair, combed back so severely from her face, was the reason her features were so rigid. Maybe the muscles were simply held in one place and stuck there. At the very most, a slight widening of her eyes showed when she was upset. Like now.

“Mrs. Shepherd says she and her husband paid the midwife to enter the wrong date on the birth certificate,” Mr. George interjected. “So that no one would find out that Gwyneth was a potential gene carrier.”

“But why would she have done such a thing?” asked Lady Arista.

“She says she wanted to protect the child, and anyway she hoped that Charlotte had inherited the gene.”

“Hoped! You must be joking!” cried Aunt Glenda.

“I think it sounds perfectly logical,” said Mr. George.

I glanced at Charlotte, who was sitting on the sofa looking pale, her eyes moving from one to another of us. When they met mine, she quickly turned her head away.

“I simply can’t see any logic in it,” said Lady Arista.

“We’re having the story checked,” said Mr. George. “Mrs. Jenkins will track down the midwife.”

“Just out of interest, Grace, how much did you pay her?” asked Falk de Villiers. His eyes had narrowed more and more over the last minute, and now, as he turned to Mum, there was something very wolflike about him.

“I … I can’t remember,” said Mum.

Mr. de Villiers raised his eyebrows. “Well, it can’t have been a large sum. As far as I recall, your husband’s income was rather … modest.”

“How true!” said Aunt Glenda venomously.

“If you all say so, then it can’t have been much,” replied Mum. The uncertainty that had suddenly come over her disappeared just as suddenly. So had the tinge of pink in her face.

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