Witching Hour

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Book: Read Witching Hour for Free Online
Authors: Sara Craven
neck. 'Oh, Elsa, he's vile!
    And he's fair,' she added.
    'The cards don't lie, my lover. A fair man, they said, and pain and
    woe.'
    'He's that all right,' Morgana said petulantly. 'Oh, what are we
    going to do?'
    'As we're told, I daresay.' Elsa held out a tea-towel with an
    inexorable air. 'No point in fretting without reason, neither.'
    Morgana accepted the cloth with a little sigh and began to wipe the
    dishes. 'You can hardly say we have no reason,' she objected.
    'What I say is it's best we wait and hear what the genn'lman says
    before we start calling 'um names,' Elsa returned.
    'I don't want to hear anything from him,' Morgana said
    passionately. 'But at least he's not staying the night here—that's
    something to be thankful for. I can't bear the thought of having to
    share a roof with him, even for one night.'
    From the doorway Lyall said drily, 'Do you think you could bear to
    share it for long enough to show me a little of the house? Your
    mother is otherwise occupied, or I wouldn't trouble you.'
    The cup she was drying slipped from her hands and smashed into a
    hundred fragments on the flagged floor.
    'Now see what you've done!' Elsa scolded. 'Of all the clumsy
    maids! Don't go treading through it, making things worse neither.
    Tek no notice of her, sir,' she added to Lyall who stood watching,
    his face expressionless. 'She'm mazed with worry, that's all. She
    don't mean half of what she says.'
    'Even the half is more than sufficient.' He walked into the kitchen,
    ignoring Morgana, who had fetched a dustpan and brush from the
    broom cupboard and was sweeping the fragments into it with more
    scarlet-cheeked vigour than accuracy. 'You must be Elsa, the
    mainstay of this establishment.' He smiled. 'Mrs Pentreath's own
    words, not gratuitous flattery from me, I promise you.'
    'Mrs Pentreath's a nice lady.' Elsa wiped a damp hand on her
    overall and shook hands with him. 'And the late master was a well-
    meaning genn'lman. More than that I can't say.'
    Lyall was looking around him. Watching him under her lashes, as
    she dumped the broken crockery into the kitchen bin, Morgana
    was resentfully aware that she was seeing the kitchen through his
    eyes—the big old-fashioned sink with its vast scrubbed draining
    board, the range, the enormous dresser which filled one wall, in all
    its homely inconvenience.
    He said almost idly, 'It must be hell having to cope without a
    dishwasher in the height of the season.'
    'Tesn't wonderful, that's true.' Elsa allowed graciously. 'But we
    manage. And hard work never hurt no one.'
    'How right you are.' He glanced at Morgana. 'I suggest as we're
    here, you may as well begin by showing me the rest of the kitchen
    quarters. I take it that this isn't the only room.'
    'No.' She would rather have cut her throat with one of Elsa's
    brightly honed knives than have shown him a shed in someone
    else's garden, but she gritted her teeth. 'There is a scullery—
    through here. I suppose these days, you'd call it a utility room. The
    washing machine's in here, and another sink, and the deep-freeze.'
    'At least there are those,' he observed, glancing round, his brows
    raised. 'What about a tumble-dryer? How do you manage the
    laundry in wet weather?'
    'There's a drying—rack that works on a pulley in the kitchen.
    We've always found it perfectly efficient,' she said coldly.
    'But then,' he said smoothly, 'the hotel has never precisely operated
    at full stretch, has it?'
    'As you say,' she agreed woodenly. 'That door leads to a courtyard,
    and the former stables. Do you want to look at them now? They're
    rather dilapidated.'
    'I can imagine. Is there electricity laid on?'
    'Well—no.'
    'Then I'll save that particular delight for another occasion. What
    kind of garden is there at the rear?'
    She said reluctantly, 'Beyond the stables there's a walled area
    which is quite sheltered. We grow vegetables there, and soft fruit,
    but not to any great extent.'
    'And use the home-grown produce in the hotel

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