Dance with the Devil

amount of conversation and fresh viewpoint repays you for that horrendous drive or the one you have to make to go back down.”

“The drive is second nature,” he said. “And without me, you'd merely have spent a week in town before coming up here. Maybe that would have been better than — maybe that wouldn't have been so bad.”

The man standing in the doorway came out to them. He was Katherine's height, five feet four, very broad across the shoulders, a beefy man packed with muscles like a weightlifter. His face was swarthy, his eyes dark and deep set. His mouth was wide, his lips thick and his voice European yet accentless when he spoke. “My name is Yuri, Miss Sellers. I am the general caretaker of Owlsden, and I hope you haven't had any serious trouble getting here in this abominable weather.”

“Thanks to Mr. Harrison, very little,” she said.

Yuri turned to the younger man now and smiled. From the coarse look of him, one expected the teeth to be broken and rotted. Instead, they were fine, white, pointed and even. “Mrs. Boland would like to invite you to remain for dinner.”

“I wouldn't want to impose,” Harrison said uneasily.

“No imposition,” Yuri assured him. “We set an extra place and cooked for another, in the expectation that only your Land Rover would be able to ferry Miss Sellers up here.” The gentle, cultured voice seemed odd coming from the brutal figure of Yuri.

“No thank you again,” Harrison said. “Please give Lydia my thanks and regrets. But I must get back down the mountain before the snow gets too much worse.” That was a lie, since everyone seemed aware that no degree of terrible weather could phase him as long as he had the Rover.

He went around to the driver's seat, closed his door after him and put the vehicle in gear. He drove jerkily away from them, kicking up clouds of snow behind.

“Come along,” Yuri said, lifting two of her bags. “I'll get your last two cases in a minute.”

He lead the way across the lawn toward the open house, oblivious to the bitter cold, the wind and the snow, though he was only wearing a light suit without benefit of even an overcoat, hat or scarf.

Katherine turned and looked back toward the edge of the mountain, not certain what she hoped to see. But, not seeing it, she suddenly knew: the Land Rover. It was completely out of sight now, even the glow of its powerful headlights swallowed in the white mouth of the storm. She felt terribly alone.

CHAPTER 3

The rooms of Owlsden matched the grandeur of the outside, with none of the brooding darkness that had bothered her about its mammoth walls. The entrance foyer was wallpapered in gold and white, carpeted in gold, with a bright, crystal chandelier filling half the ceiling with dancing strips of colored light. The corridor that lead from it to the main perpendicular hall that ran the great length of the mansion was also carpeted in gold, the walls paneled in rich, dark woods. Inset in the ceiling were flat plates of light, a strikingly modem touch in comparison with the antiquity of the house. The furniture that she saw — a writing desk, an umbrella stand, a few occasional chairs, a pedestal or two with busts and statues on them — was all heavy, dark and pleasantly modern, not chintzy Danish but modern furniture with a style, a feeling of artistic merit and value.

Yuri lead her down the south wing to the main drawing room through a wide, paneled arch into a bright room with a wine-colored carpet, cream walls, bold modern paintings and furniture of vinyls and plastics and polished, stainless steel.

“Miss Sellers,” he announced.

There were two people in the room, an old woman and a man about as old as Mike Harrison, twenty-four or twenty-five. For the first time, seeing mother and son together, it occurred to Katherine that Alex Boland had been what is often called an “autumn baby” or “late blessing” having been born when his mother was forty.

Lydia Boland was a tall — a good five inches taller than Katherine — regal-looking woman. She wore her hair off her forehead and then suddenly swept down at each temple, covering her ears. Her complexion was milky and flawless, her eyes dark and bright, quickly taking in everything about her new employee whom she had only met on the telephone and by letter prior to this. She was wearing a lounging pajama set of dark blue with a conservative white trim on the cuffs and collar. She stood up from her plush black vinyl lounge chair and crossed to Katherine, unexpectedly embraced her and — holding her shoulders and standing at arm's length — looked at her in unashamed evaluation.

“You're even lovelier in person than in the photograph,” she said.

Katherine blushed, felt her face redden, probably to a scarlet. She hoped they didn't notice. She said, “Thank you.”

“I think we'll get along famously. I know it.”

“I hope so, Mrs. Boland.”

“Lydia,” the woman corrected her.

When Katherine felt that the woman was waiting for her to repeat it, like a child learning a hard lesson, she said, “Lydia.”

“That's better!” Lydia said. “I hate being addressed formally, because it makes me feel old.”

“You aren't old, mother,” the young man said, crossing to them. “Just — gracious.”

Lydia laughed and put her arm around his shoulder. “He has his father's way with words. He's a liar, but I don't mind those kind of lies.”

“Do you prefer being called Katherine or Kathy?” he asked.

He was as handsome as Michael Harrison had been, but in an altogether different manner. He was as tall as Harrison, with the same erect carriage and a sense of power — though he was somewhat slimmer. He was not fair-complexioned like Michael, but dark, perpetually tanned as if he might contain a drop of gypsy blood or less romantically and probably more accurately, some Latin ancestry. His eyes were dark, darker than his mother's eyes, almost black. When he looked at Katherine, she had the feeling that he was staring directly through her at some alien landscape beyond. His lips were thin, almost ascetic, his chin firm but not so much like carved granite as Michael Harrison's chin was. His voice was smooth, like oil, the words rolling forth seemingly without effort. He could have been, Katherine decided, a matinee idol anytime from 1920 to the present, with but a few minor changes in dress and hairstyle to conform with the dictates of each decade.

“I prefer Katherine,” she said, “though everyone thinks I must be a snob or something when I say that.”

“Not at all,” Alex said. “I think Katherine is a lovely name.”

“I do too,” Lydia said. “And I can see at a glance that you're certainly not a 'snob,' my dear.”

“Thank you,” she said.

Lydia clapped her hands together now and said, “But you must be starved by now!”

“The drive in used up a lot of energy,” Katherine admitted. “I was on the edge of my car seat the whole way — not to mention the tension in the Land Rover with Mr. Harrison.”

“He didn't show-off too badly, did he?” Alex asked.

She detected a distinct note of disdain in Alex's voice when he spoke of Harrison, though he presented the same outward appearance of mild curiosity and friendly interest.

“The waitress at the cafe in town rounded him up for me,” she said. “She warned him to be on his best behavior.”

“Sometimes,” Alex said, “he drives that thing like a child on a toy of some sort. He can be downright dangerous.”

“Don't exaggerate, Alex,” Lydia said. “I think Mike is a fine young man.”

“You think everyone's fine,” Alex said without rancor.

“Well,” Lydia said, “the nearest bath is straight down the corridor the way you came, under the grand staircase, if you'd like to wash up for dinner. We can show you your room afterwards, if that's all right.”

“Fine,” Katherine said.

“The dining room is at the far end of the corridor, beyond the stairs. We'll wait for you there.”

The bathroom under the staircase surprised Katherine, for she had thought of it in terms of a simple powder room. More than anything else so far, it gave her a sense of being among the very wealthy, for it was terribly lavish,