Wildfire at Midnight by Mary Stewart Read Free Book Online

Roberta?"
    She stalked out of the room. Roberta gave me an uncomfortable little smile, and got up to follow her. For an instant I felt like advising her to stay, then decided that, whatever the crosscurrents of emotion that were wrecking the comfort of the party, I had better not add to them. I merely smiled at her, and she went out after her friend.
    There was the inevitable awkward pause, in which everyone madly wanted to discuss Marion Bradford, but, naturally, couldn't. Then Marcia, who, as I was rapidly discovering, had no inhibitions at all, said:
    "Well, really! I must say—"
    Colonel Cowdray-Simpson cleared his throat rather hastily, and said, across her, to Ronald Beagle: "And where do you propose to go tomorrow, Beagle?"
    "Weather permitting, sir, I'm going up Sgurr nan Gillean. But I'm afraid . . ."
    I got to my feet. I had had enough of this, and I felt cramped and stale after my journey. And if Murdo and Beagle were right, and it was going to rain in the morning, I might as well go out now for an hour. As I turned to put my coffee cup on the tray, I saw, to my dismay, that Nicholas had risen too, and was coming across the room in my direction. It looked very much as if he was going to speak to me, or follow me out, and I felt, just then, that a tete-a-tete with Nicholas would be the final straw. I turned quickly towards the nearest woman, who happened to be Alma Corrigan.
    "I'm going out for a short walk," I said, "and I don't know my way about yet at all. I wonder if you'd care to join me?"
    She looked surprised, and, I thought, a little pleased. Then the old resentful look shut down on her face again, and she shook her head.
    "I'd have liked to very much." She was politely final. "But, if you'll forgive me, I'm a bit tired. We've been out all day, you know."
    Since she had already told me, before dinner, that she had spent the day sitting on a boulder while the men fished the Strath na Creitheach, this was a very efficient rebuff.
    "Of course," I said, feeling a fool. "Some other time, perhaps." I turned away to find Roderick Grant at my elbow.
    "If I might—?" He was looking diffidently down at me. "There's a very pleasant walk up to the loch, if you'll let me be your guide. But perhaps you prefer to go alone?"
    "By no means," I assured him. Nicholas had stopped when Roderick Grant spoke, and I knew that he was frowning. I smiled back at Mr. Grant. "'Thanks very much. I'll be glad of your company."

    Nicholas had not moved. I had to pass him on my way to the door. For a second our glances met. His eyes, hard and expressionless, held mine for a full three seconds, then he gave a twisted little smile and deliberately turned back to Marcia Maling.
    I went to get my coat.

Chapter 5
    AT HALF PAST NINE on a summer's evening in the Hebrides, the twilight has scarcely begun. There is, perhaps, with the slackening of the day's brilliance, a somber note overlying the clear colors of sand and grass and rock, but this is no more than the drawing of the first thin blue veil. Indeed, night itself is nothing but a faint dusting-over of the day, a wash of silver through the still-warm gold of the afternoon.
    The evening was very still, and, though the rain-threatening clouds were slowly packing higher behind us in the southwest, the rest of the sky was clear and luminous. Above the ridge of Sgurr na Stri, above and beyond the jagged peaks of the Cuillin, the sun's warmth still lingered in the flushed air. Across this swimming lake of brightness one long bar of cloud lay sullenly, one thin line of purple shadow, struck from below to molten brilliance by the rays of a now invisible sun.
    We turned northwards up the valley, and our steps on the short sheep turf made no sound in the stillness.
    The flat pasture of the estuary stretched up the glen for perhaps half a mile, then the ground rose, steep and broken, to make the lower spurs and hillocks that were Blaven's foothills. One of these, the biggest, lay straight ahead of