To Tame A Tempest

By Sue Peters

"The latest nine–day wonder."

It was hardly surprising that hotel–tycoon–turned–lord–of–the–manor Rex Hilliard should qualify for that description. His arrival in the sleepy English village of Mill Cross certainly caused a stir.

Rich, good–looking, charismatic and successful, Rex could have had everyone in the place at his feet. But Kay Tempest had no intention of falling for his charms .

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Australia
• Release date: Jul 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9781460878989

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

‘YOU can’t sell your stables, Marion.’ Kay stared at her friend aghast. ‘You’ve spent years building up the riding school. It would be criminal to let all that work go to waste now.’

‘I won’t have any option but to sell out to the highest bidder, unless I can get planning permission to extend.’ Marion’s expression was bleak as she turned the ancient Land Rover out of the station yard, and negotiated the tight bend into the lane, before she went on tautly, ‘Huw and I planned to get married, and run the school together. We’d included a bungalow with a surgery for Huw in the plans, and the all-weather, covered riding area would have brought in more than enough to keep us both. I’ve got a waiting list of pupils as long as your arm. But now the council has thrown out our planning application, we might as well forget the idea,’ she ended bitterly.

‘Can’t you appeal?’

‘Appeals can drag on for years. We haven’t got that sort of time to waste. We want to get married and enjoy working up the business together now, not when we’re both too old to care.’

Kay hid a slight smile. Five years older than herself, Marion could hardly be considered old at twenty-eight and Huw, her fiancé, was in his early thirties, but sympathy kept her silent as Marion picked her way through the clutter of parked vehicles which littered the village high street.

‘Mill Cross hasn’t changed much,’ Kay commented as they gained the comparative freedom of the lanes again. ‘It’s still a one-village traffic jam.’

‘It must be all of two years since you were here last.’ The reminder jogged Marion’s memory and she gave a guilty look. ‘Kay, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be talking wedding plans to you, especially after you lost Tim and your father so suddenly. And now, this burglary at your flat on top of everything else... You’ve got more than enough troubles of your own, without me whingeing about mine.’

‘I’m over the worst of it now.’

Kay’s voice was studiously even, and Marion shot a searching glance at the tight face under the short auburn curls. Kay might have accepted the freak accident which had deprived her of the two men she loved most in the world, but she hadn’t come to terms with it yet. It was still festering inside her.

‘Did you manage to salvage anything at all from your flat?’

‘Only these, and what I’m wearing.’ Kay indicated two plastic carrier bags dropped at her feet. ‘What the thieves didn’t steal they either smashed beyond repair or covered in red paint. Fortunately I’d left some washing to be done at the launderette, so I’ve still got a change of clothes. And thanks to you I’ve got a roof over my head as well.’ Her lips stretched in a valiant attempt at a smile.

‘You’re doing me a favour by coming to stay. I could use somebody on the premises round the clock just at the moment—we’ve been having vandal problems in the village recently.’

‘In peaceful Mill Cross? It doesn’t seem possible.’

‘It’s happening, unfortunately. People drive in for a drink at the village pub, and a small minority get tight and create mayhem. Someone tried to set fire to a barn only last week. Anyway, a room over the stables isn’t exactly five-star accommodation,’ Marion said ruefully. ‘And if I have to sell up, even that may not be for very long.’

A quick frown replaced Kay’s smile. ‘Is the man who wants your stables opposing your planning application?’ she asked shrewdly. ‘He may be hoping to get it on the cheap, if you’re forced to sell out. Who is he, anyway? You didn’t say.’

‘The local lord of the manor.’

‘What?’ Clear hazel eyes registered disbelief. ‘What on earth can Lord Tame want with your stables? He’s got enough at the manor to house a whole herd of horses. And he must be ninety, if he’s a day. I’d have thought his riding days were long gone.’

Marion shook her head. ‘You’ve been so busy trekking round the world feeding the television people with documentary films, you haven’t caught up with the latest nine days’ wonder in Mill Cross.’

‘Who is he?’ The smile was easier this time, lightening the tension on the small heart-shaped face.

Marion laughed. ‘You’re certain it’s a he?’

‘Nine days’ wonders usually are,’ Kay responded drily, and encouraged, ‘Tell me.’

Bringing herself up to date with the latest traumas in Mill Cross helped her to forget her own and, sensing her need, Marion obliged.

‘This is Lord Tame’s heir. The old man died a few months ago.’

‘I thought he was a bachelor. The old man, I mean.’

‘He was. His death ended that particular branch of the Hilliard family. His heir comes from some far-flung twig.’

‘So he isn’t well-known locally,’ Kay deduced.

‘He isn’t well-known at all. Apparently he’s spent a lot of his life abroad. All that the local grape-vine has been able to come up with so far is that he’s unattached, although certainly not short of female attention, and is some sort of tycoon in the hotel trade.’

‘Surely not package holidays? That will cause a few shock-waves among the local gentry.’ Kay did not feel much interested in the new incumbent of the manor, attached or otherwise, but it was easier to think about him than to brood on the wanton destruction of the few, but irreplaceable, possessions which were all she had left to remind her of her father and fiancé. ‘His ancestors must be revolving in their graves.’

‘Quite probably. Although I understand his line is much more up-market than package holidays. He’s into these super luxury hotels that offer multi-star accommodation, with all the frills and classy conference facilities. There’s a rumour going round the village that he has plans to turn the manor into a top-of-the-range leisure and conference centre.’

‘Not that lovely old place?’ Today was a day of unpleasant surprises, and it seemed it was not over yet. ‘What a criminal shame.’

Kay’s interest was genuine now. The TV documentaries which had made the name of the Tempest duo a household word had included a series on ancient buildings, which had left her with a deep and lasting interest in their preservation. ‘The man’s a vandal,’ she condemned the unknown heir.

‘There’s no law to stop that kind of vandalism, unfortunately.’

‘He’ll need to obtain planning permission himself for a project like that. Change of use, for one thing.’ Kay’s quick mind latched on to a possible loophole. ‘It will serve him right if it’s refused,’ she added with unaccustomed malice. ‘And, even if he gets permission, it will cost him a bomb to have the conversions done. Maybe that will put him off.’

Marion shrugged. ‘Shortage of money doesn’t seem to be the new Lord Tame’s problem. It will take time, of course.’

‘The more the better. You might come up with a solution in the meantime.’

They were back to square one. Marion shrugged. ‘There is no solution, unless I can get my plans passed. Time isn’t on my side, either. He wants his answer within a month.’

The two fell silent, each busy with her own thoughts until the Land Rover decanted them on to a square stable yard, surrounded by low buildings whose stone walls glowed a rich honey colour in the early autumn sunshine. Kay gazed round her appreciatively.

‘I don’t know why I tear round the globe making documentary films, when there’s all this loveliness on the doorstep. I—oh, look, Marion, there’s a balloon coming towards us.’ She squinted upwards. ‘There’s a basket underneath it, so there must be a pilot. He’s advertising something.’

‘The Hilliard Hotel Group,’ Marion supplied obligingly.

Kay looked startled. ‘You’ve got keen eyesight. I can’t make out the lettering from here. He’s too high.’

‘I don’t need to see the lettering. I know the balloon. And the pilot. It’s him. Our new lord of the manor.’

The balloon drifted on, directly above them now, a blood-red spot high in the sky, and unconsciously Kay shivered. There was something eerie, almost supernatural, in its soundless flight. At least aeroplanes gave out a noise that suggested human presence. Impatiently she thrust the fancy aside.

‘If he’s prospecting the ground with that in mind, let’s give him a run for his money,’ she told her friend sturdily. ‘At least don’t give up without a fight. Between us, we ought to be able to come up with some ideas.’

Kay had no idea what these might be, and there was no time to go into the matter further.

Marion showed her over the newly cleaned out room above the stables, and told her, ‘We’ll talk more about it tomorrow, after you’ve settled in. I’ll have to go now; the riders are starting to come in for evening stables.’

‘Don’t worry, we’ll think of something between us,’ Kay comforted, and wondered what as, later, she removed the price tag from a nightdress hastily purchased on her way to the station, and slipped the dainty garment over her head. Considering she had had such short notice, her friend had worked wonders with the room.

‘It’s a bit bare,’ Marion had apologised, but to Kay it was the height of luxury compared to some of the accommodation she had slept in when she and her father were off on an assignment in one of the remote places of the world. She glanced appreciatively round her.

There was a bed with a bright coverlet, a patio set of plastic chairs and a table; a rag rug added a homely touch to the scrubbed board floor, and a small cupboard in the corner revealed enough groceries to keep her in meals for a week.

Thank goodness for a friend like Marion. What would she have done without her? Kay gave a sigh of relief as she breathed deeply of the musty perfume of hay coming from below. It smelled a good deal sweeter than traffic fumes. She carried the scent with her like a gentle balm when her weary mind finally left behind the traumas of the day and succumbed to sleep.

A fit of coughing roused Kay some hours later. It was pitch-dark. She glanced at the luminous hands of her travel clock. Two o’clock. Her nose tingled, and she raised her hand to rub it. She’d never suffered from hay fever in her life. Marion’s brand of hay must be a stronger variety than any she had ever encountered before, she thought with a wide yawn, which ended abruptly in a violent sneeze.

Thoroughly wide awake now, Kay leaned out of bed, feeling for the box of tissues which she had left on the floor beside it for the night.

Her nose twitched with the threat of another sneeze, but she paused in mid-grope as the smell assailed it again, much stronger this time, and more intense. Not sweet and musty, but acrid, and choking. Her throat closed against it, even as her mind registered the fact that it was not hay she was smelling, but...

‘Smoke!’

Kay catapulted out of bed in a single bound.

A crescendo of stamping and whinnying from the stables below told her that the horses had smelled it too, and were reacting with the panic of all animals to the threat of fire.

It was no good panicking. She must act, and fast. Willing herself to remain cool, Kay thrust her feet through trouser legs and into shoes, while her hands tugged a jersey over her head, and reached for the doorknob in one simultaneous movement.

The din from the stables grew louder, and her brain clicked into action as her feet took her down the stairs at a run. Priority number one was to release the horses. Her mind, hyper-keen from fear, alerted her to the alarm bell fixed on the outside of the tack-room door. That would bring the fire brigade. Almost without thinking, Kay reached out and punched it as she ran past.

The wail of the siren split the night air, adding to the din. Marion would hear it and come running, but she dared not wait for her. It would take at least five minutes for her to get here and there was no time to waste.

Kay stumbled and slipped on the cobblestones of the yard, and only prevented herself from falling down with a muscle-wrenching effort. Smoke poured from the hay shed. The light night wind blew it in a sinister cloud towards the stables. Sparks could soon follow... If only she could put on some light, but there was no time to search for a switch.

She reached the first loose box, and fumbled for the bolt on the top of the door. The upper half of the split barrier swung open, and she pushed it back out of her way, and reached inside for the second bolt so that she could release the frantically stamping horse inside.

Desperate to get out, the animal surged against the door, getting in the way, and Kay pushed it away with one hand while she worked at the bolt with the other.

‘Stand back, will you, old chap?’ she begged. ‘I’m working as fast as I can.’

She sobbed with frustration as she tugged at the stubborn metal rod. It gave, suddenly, and the lower half of the door slammed against her as the horse broke through to freedom, sending her sprawling on to the cobbles, the wild hooves missing her by inches as they fled for the paddock.

Kay picked herself up and ran on to the next loose box, now scarcely able to see through eyes that were streaming in the rapidly thickening smoke.

‘If only I’d got a light,’ she panted.

As if in mocking answer, her wish was suddenly granted. Flames exploded with a roar through the roof of the hay shed, sending a shower of sparks hurtling into the air, and illuminating the yard in a lurid glow. Somewhere a horse screamed its terror.

The sound lent wings to Kay’s heels, strength to her small hands which she did not know they possessed. Her fingers wrenched at heavy bolts, tugged open sticking doors, pushed, pulled and cajoled frenzied animals outside and across the stable yard, into the safety of the paddock on the other side.

After what seemed to be an eternity, other figures ran to work beside her, recognisable through the dense smoke only by the sounds of their voices.

Marion. And then another voice Kay did not recognise. A man’s voice.

One horse balked, refusing to leave its stable, terrified by the sight of the flames on the other side of the stable yard. If they spread, it would be too late to help the poor animal escape...

‘Come on,’ Kay moaned, tugging at the head-collar with all her strength.

‘You’ll do no good that way. Hold him still for a minute.’

The stranger sprinted to join her, shouting as he ran.

‘He won’t come,’ Kay said desperately.

‘Hold him still, I said. Tighter, or he’ll lift you off your feet.’

Kay stiffened. She was not accustomed to obeying orders, and the curt command rasped her independent spirit, but this was no time for personal hang-ups.

The horse reared, and although she held on with all her might