Sailing to Capri (5 page)

I wasn’t surprised by his profession, just puzzled. Bob had used private investigators when he’d needed to dig up information on his business rivals, but from what Montana had said that did not appear to be the case this time.

“Did you ever wonder about the way Bob died?” he asked.

“Of course I did. I still do … endlessly. He was driving alone at night on a mountain road he didn’t know well and went over the edge. I should have been there, with him, I should have been the one driving …”

“And if you had, you would have been dead too.”

I felt my face go slack with shock. I stared blankly at the stranger. “No, you don’t understand,” I said quickly. “Bob al
ways drove too fast. He expected other cars to get out of his way. I wouldn’t have let him drive that mountain road, but I had the flu. I was in bed at the apartment in Manhattan. I should have been with him.
I should have been there …
”

“And now you’re drowning under a sea of guilt.”

The place in my heart that had been numb came suddenly to life and the power of grief swept over me. My shoulders sank and my head drooped as wave after wave of sobs swept through me. The stranger did not move. He sat watching me until it was over; then he said quietly, “Guilt won’t bring him back, Daisy Keane, and you know it. And know this too. We are all ultimately responsible for our own actions. Bob Hardwick did not die because you were not there; he died simply because
he was.
It was the wrong moment, the wrong place, the wrong time.”

I heard the clock ticking. A log shifted in the grate and fresh flames flickered and were reflected, pink, in the silver coffeepot. Adrift in my misery, I was peripherally aware of the old landscape paintings, the faded coral and greens of the rugs, the brass and leather fender encircling the fireplace, of Rats’s sleepy snort as he turned in front of the fire … all the familiar things and sounds. But it was just me and the stranger now in the sudden deadly silence.

I jumped at the tap on the door. Mrs. Wainwright came in. Shifting her gaze hastily from my tear-ravaged face, she said, “You’ll not get out of here tonight, Miss Keane. Mr. Stanley tells me all the roads are blocked and the plows won’t be out till tomorrow, providing this blizzard stops, of course.”

The Hall was set back from the village street in tree-studded
grounds. Down the long straight driveway and through the driving snow I could just make out the hazy yellow glow of the lamps by the gate. In the parking circle in front of the portico, both cars were already under a lavish white blanket.

I got up and closed the heavy silk curtains. My heart sank at the thought as I said, “Looks like you’re here for the night, Mr. Montana.”

He was already on his feet, looking at his watch. “I hate to put you to the trouble …”

“You have no choice. I’m afraid you’re stuck with me.”

“It’s no trouble, sir,” Mrs. Wainwright said, taking charge. “I’ll put Mr. Montana in the Red Room, Miss, if that’s all right with you?”

I nodded of course, then said to Montana, “We’d better get our cars into the garage before they’re completely buried.”

He thanked Mrs. Wainwright, thanked me again, looked at his watch. I got the feeling he was anxious to leave but knew he had no choice.

I led the way to the boot room at the rear of the house, where I found a pair of wellies that fit him, and gave him Bob’s old green quilted Barbour jacket. I put on the same outfit, tucked my pants into my wellies and dragged a black woolen ski cap all the way down to my eyebrows. I handed Montana a flat checked cap.

We were quite a sight. “You look like the English country gent,” I said.

“And you look like a refugee from Siberia.” Despite myself, I grinned.

The falling snow was hard, tipped with ice, driven sideways
at us by the wind. Telling Montana to follow me I stepped bravely into the blizzard. Mr. Stanley had salted the front steps but the snow was already drifting into the portico, and I slipped.

Montana grabbed my arm. “Take it easy,” he said, holding me firmly under the elbow.

I liked him close to me, protecting me; it made me feel small, feminine again. It had been a long time since a man had held me and I had to remind myself that this one was only making sure I didn’t break my neck.

Montana swept the Mini’s windshield clean. The snow came halfway up its tires, and he looked doubtfully at me. “Why don’t you let me drive it?” he said.

“I’ll be fine. Besides, I have to lead the way; the garages are around the back of the house in the old stable block.”

I waited while he cleaned off his windshield and heard his car start up. Another hour in this cold and neither of these cars would have started. It seemed like some kind of miracle they did now.

I put my foot on the gas. The tires whirred but nothing happened. I put my foot down harder and the car jolted forward. It was like driving through a sand dune. I saw Montana’s low lights behind me and signaled right, taking the corner carefully. Even so, my back end swung out. I took my foot off the gas and righted the car quickly. I didn’t want to end up in the shrubbery. Down the side of the house, then a right into the big cobbled courtyard, pristine under its snowy cover. I pressed the garage-door opener, breathing a sigh of relief as the door
swung up. I’d been afraid they wouldn’t work in the icy conditions.

The garage somehow still smelled like the stables it used to be, though now it held Bob’s collection of cars, including a 1929 Bugatti, a 1964 E-Type Jaguar, an early sixties Corvette, a fifties turquoise blue Chevy convertible with fins, and a ’64 Ford Mustang convertible, plus a new Mercedes and the latest beautiful bright red Ferrari. Bob loved cars. It was ironic that he’d had to die in one.

I drove the Mini in then signaled to Montana to bring in the Jag. He parked next to me. As he got out I handed him a soft broom.

“Better brush off the snow if you don’t want your beautiful convertible spoiled.” I watched as he wielded the broom, first on his Jag, then on my Mini.

“Didn’t think you’d be a red car girl,” he said over his shoulder, still busy sweeping snow.

“I don’t think I am really. Bob bought it for me, said it was time I brightened up my life a bit.”

Montana turned to look at me. “And was he right?”

“Bob was always right.”

Montana propped the broom back up against the wall and we walked outside. The electronic doors closed behind us and we were alone in the dark. The big black sycamores laden with snow groaned in the wind and the cobbled courtyard was a cold white rectangle, untouched even by bird tracks.

The snow had temporarily stopped and we stood silently, breathing in the clean icy air. I glanced sideways at Montana.
Steam blew from his nostrils the way it does with horses after a long ride, and snowflakes settled on his dark head.

“This reminds me of my childhood on my dad’s ranch in Texas,” he said quietly. “Snowy nights like this I’d go out to the bunkhouse and sit with the cowboys around their stove, listening to them talk horse talk and cattle. Afterward, I’d walk back to the ranch house alone. Sometimes the snow came up to my knees and I’d be frozen by the time I got home. I envied those guys in their warm bunkhouse, the jolly smoky camaraderie, their shared interests, their easy chat. Home for me was just my dad and me and the housekeeper—some old guy recruited from the cowboys because he was too old to ride out anymore.”

It had begun to snow again and I shivered. “You must miss it,” I said.

“Not a bit. I’m a city dude now. Want to make snow angels?” he asked with a grin.

“Absolutely not, I’m already frozen.” With him holding my arm we set off across the courtyard. The deep snow forced us to lift each foot then place it carefully down again, making for slow progress. When we finally reached the back door my face was layered with snow and I was panting with the effort and the cold.

Warm yellow light spilled from the windows and we stumbled thankfully inside, casting off our soggy jackets, both of us hopping on one foot as we pulled off each of our wellies, laughing at how silly we looked. Mrs. Wainwright met us as we emerged into the hall, telling us that dinner would be ready in an hour.

“Just time for a hot bath and some dry clothes,” I said.
Then, remembering my guest had no luggage, I told him Bob’s things would certainly be too big for him so he was stuck with what he had on.

Montana picked up the laptop case, and we walked together up the wide shallow stairs to the galleried hallway. Rooms led off on either side. Bob’s was the main one, over the portico with the view across the village to the Yorkshire dales, rolling gently into infinity and still, in summer, dotted with sheep. I turned left and showed Montana to the Red Room and he said it lived up to its name, all red brocade with a big carved Jacobean four-poster swathed in red silk. Bob had chosen the furnishings himself and I’d told him in my opinion it looked like an Indian restaurant. He said no it didn’t, it looked like a Bombay whorehouse, which was exactly what he’d wanted. I said I hoped Montana wouldn’t feel too out of place sleeping in the red whorehouse and he laughed.

Then I showed him the attached dark-paneled bathroom with the white cast-iron claw-foot tub, left him to it and went to my own sanctuary at the opposite corner of the house.

Montana stood under the hard hot shower for a long time until he felt his bones begin to thaw out. He hadn’t been this cold since he was a kid. He dried himself, wrapped the towel around his haunches, and stood in front of the mirror, running his hand over his stubbled chin. He wasn’t thinking about the way he looked; he was thinking about the woman he’d just met and her relationship with Sir Robert Hardwick.

Daisy Keane was attractive, chic with that severe modern look many women adopted as the easy way out when they were not too sure of their own personal style. It didn’t marry too well with her appealing country-girl freckles and mane of glossy red hair and her full, sweet mouth. Nor with her husky, low, sweet voice. He’d expected a hard-faced money hunter out to take Bob for all she could get; instead there was a hesitancy about her, an uncertainness, an air of vulnerability. Either she was a good actress or she really cared about Hardwick. He
shrugged. Who knew? With Hardwick’s kind of money at stake, anything could happen. He’d liked the way she behaved with the dog, though. There was hope for her yet. And he’d bet she hadn’t expected to meet anyone like himself at the funeral either. They were poles apart, together tonight only because of Bob Hardwick and a snowstorm, and because he had a letter for her. He’d intended to drop it off at the Hall after the funeral but she had invited him anyway.

He put on his clothes, checking the bracelet that never left his wrist, zipping up his jeans, buckling the silver-studded belt, sliding his feet into the black boots. Still chilled, he would have killed for a bourbon. Listening to the snow on the windows, he remembered his stormy youth.

Montana had been just twelve years old when his father had died penniless and he’d been evicted from the ranch. The authorities had quickly dumped him on a foster family living on the fringes of an urban ghetto. It was light-years away from the silent plains of the ranch where he’d roamed on his horse, and the worn-out broken scenery of despairing urban life indelibly seared his young soul. Because he’d had no choice, he stuck it out for a couple of years; then he took off with nothing more than a few bucks in the pocket of his Levi’s and a black denim jacket that had belonged to at least three other kids before it was handed down to him. He was fourteen looking sixteen when he began his solitary yearlong journey on the back roads of Texas that made him wiser and tougher than your average teen. When he ran out of money, which was often, he always managed to get a job, but he never stayed anywhere very long. He’d be back on the road, on his endless way to nowhere, no
future shining hopefully before him. That is, until he met the man who changed his life. The man who took him in and opened him up to a world of books and learning, and a spirituality he’d never before experienced.

His name was Phineas Cloudwalker and he was a full-blooded Native American of the Comanche tribe, though he always described himself as “Indian.” Phineas Cloudwalker made sure Montana got a good education, and eventually he’d graduated summa cum laude from Duke University.

After that Montana abruptly changed course and joined the Marines where his loner, nonconformist attitude soon landed him in trouble, but then, in recognition of his intelligence and his leadership qualities, he was co-opted as a lieutenant into the special division called Delta Force. And it was there, amongst the other nonconformists, the fearless young men who were up for any challenge, ready to take any risk, ready to die for each other and their country, that Montana excelled.

Ten years and several grueling campaigns later, he left the Corps to take care of the dying old Comanche who had saved his life, and his soul. It was this man’s bracelet he wore, this man’s values that were now his standards, this man’s strength from which he had learned. This Native American was the man he considered his true father.