Paradise Park (33 page)

‘Right then, supper's oh the way but we want some roast potatoes done,' Mrs Jones said. ‘I've boiled the stiffness out of them so, Vi, you just pop them in the oven for me, there's a good girl.'

Rhiannon stirred herself. ‘And I've got to get the table set for our guests. Sal, will you come and help me?'

At the top of the kitchen steps Rhiannon put her arm around Sal. ‘Thank you, Sal, I know you were the leader. The other girls wouldn't have thought of cleaning up at the market.'

‘Aye, it takes us street girls to know how to feed ourselves, how to make a meal out of nothing, and how to keep clothes on our back.' She smiled slyly. ‘And how to make a man happy.'

‘Well, we've got guests to keep happy now, Sal,' Rhiannon said shortly, ‘and we'd better get on with it or they will be having their supper at breakfast time.'

JAYNE WAS LYING
on the bed, staring up at the ceiling and wondering how much longer she could stand being a prisoner. She had cried many tears, longed for Guy then cursed him for not coming to save her. But why would he, when he thought she no longer cared for him? She heard the rattle of the doorknob and sat up, swinging her feet to the floor.

Her husband entered the room and looked at her strangely. Then he held the door wide. ‘Go on, you're free to go. I've had enough of you.'

Jayne wondered if this was some cruel trick. ‘Do you mean it, Dafydd, or are you just playing with me?'

‘I mean it. Go home to your precious father.'

Jayne slid off the bed. ‘This wouldn't have anything to do with Llinos's visits, would it?' she asked.

‘Just be glad I'm letting you go. If you want to ruin your life, that's up to you.' He followed her as she stepped out on to the landing and Jayne glanced at him over her shoulder. Perhaps even now when freedom seemed to be hers it would be snatched away from her.

‘I've called a hansom cab and given the driver your father's address.' He put his hand on her shoulder and Jayne flinched.

‘Don't worry,' his tone was bitter, ‘I've no intention of ravishing you. I'll forgo that dubious pleasure. There are many women who would love me, so why should I hold on to one who cares nothing for me? And, yes, you're right, it was Llinos who helped me see the futility of keeping you here.' He smiled, but without humour. ‘She always meant more to me than you. She's a real woman, a loving, passionate woman, while you are just a child.'

Jayne resisted the urge to give him the tongue-lashing he deserved: all she wanted now was to get out of this hateful place and away from her husband for good.

She waited in the gloomy hall while a silent serving girl brought her cloak. When Dafydd opened the door it was all she could do to stop herself rushing outside.

The sun warmed her and she realized how much she had missed the simple pleasure of being outdoors: the whole world looked bright and shining, the trees were swaying, dappling the forecourt with light and shade, and Jayne breathed in the sweet air, unable to believe her imprisonment was over.

The cab was waiting, the driver holding the reins loosely between his fingers. Dafydd helped her into the seat and Jayne leaned away from him, putting as much distance between him and herself as she could.

‘Jayne,' Dafydd said, ‘I won't apologize for my behaviour. You had your revenge by sleeping with my best friend. Since I found out about Guy I've been like a man possessed, wanting to punish you, but I've come to understand that I don't want you any more and perhaps I never did.' The words seemed hard for him to say, and somehow they didn't ring true. She looked into his eyes for the first time since she left the bedroom and what she saw there shocked her: Dafydd was in love with her.

The driver clicked his tongue at the horse and the cab jerked into motion. Jayne stared back at her husband as he stood on the steps of the gaunt, grey building where he'd made her a prisoner and all her anger evaporated: Dafydd was a man alone without love and at last he'd recognized that it was all his own doing.

She turned away from him and settled back in the seat, closing her eyes against the wave of joy that swept over her. She was going home to her father and perhaps, just perhaps, she might be able to find Guy and make all her dreams come true.

Rhiannon stood in the foyer of the hotel, her hands clasped together as she prepared to meet the flurry of new guests. They were not businessmen but holidaymakers, men with their wives and children who had come to Swansea to taste the delights of the five-mile stretch of golden sand and the mild air drifting in from the Bristol Channel.

Mrs Paisley, still pale and coughing, joined her in the foyer. She was wearing her hat as she always did and held herself erect as the guests came into the hotel.

Mr and Mrs Powers from Yorkshire arrived first and suddenly the hotel seemed filled with light and laughter as their children chattered excitedly about the sand and the sea, and the bathing huts on the golden beach.

Rhiannon welcomed the guests and Mrs Paisley stood like royalty, accepting the tribute the visitors were paying her hotel and her town. They said Swansea was beautiful, its atmosphere so bracing.

‘I hope you'll enjoy your stay here, Mr Powers,' Rhiannon said, then turned to his wife. ‘Mrs Powers, if you need any help from my staff please don't hesitate to ask.'

She led the family of two adults and four children, with their nurse, up the stairs to a suite of the larger rooms. ‘Once you're settled I'll send up a tray of tea and some cordial for the children.'

‘Tea would be welcome,' Mrs Powers said, in a soft voice. Rhiannon recognized that her hotel was being patronized by real gentry and felt proud. She took leave of the family with a polite reminder that they should ask if they needed anything.

Mrs Paisley was waiting in the foyer and looked up expectantly as Rhiannon came towards her. ‘Are they happy with their rooms?'

‘Delighted.' Rhiannon sat alongside Mrs Paisley, noting how breathless the old lady was. ‘But you should be resting. I'm quite capable of welcoming the guests on my own.'

Mrs Paisley put her thin hand over Rhiannon's. ‘Let me enjoy a little bit of pleasure, my dear.' She sighed. ‘I know I'm not much use in any practical way, which is why I put you in charge of everything with the bank, but I'm not too old to welcome people into our hotel.'

Rhiannon smiled. ‘It's kind of you to call it “our hotel” but, really, it's yours. You put in the money and all I've done is run it for you.'

Mrs Paisley looked at her steadily. ‘You've done a great deal more than I can ever thank you for. If it wasn't for you, and the love the servants have for you, we would have had to close for lack of money almost as soon as we opened our doors.'

Rhiannon knew the old woman was right, but she patted her hand and got to her feet. ‘Well, I'd better talk to Mrs Jones or we won't be having any dinner tonight.' She looked down at Mrs Paisley. ‘Shall I help you to your room?'

Mrs Paisley shook her head. ‘No, I'll just sit here for a while, enjoy the busy atmosphere of the Paradise Park.'

Rhiannon crossed the elegant foyer and made her way to the back of the hotel and the stairs leading down to the kitchens. By now Mrs Jones would have planned dinner, leaving Rhiannon to write out the menus.

It wasn't long before Rhiannon was obliged to call again on Dr Frost's services: one of the Powers children had fallen sick and though Rhiannon thought the child had enjoyed too many of Mrs Jones's sweets, and perhaps a little too much sun, she nevertheless felt the doctor should see him.

Richard Frost came at once and Rhiannon watched as he bent over the little boy and examined him carefully, pulling down his lower eyelids, taking his pulse and listening to his heart. At last he straightened, a smile on his face. ‘It's nothing that a little bed rest and abstinence from the sun won't cure.' He clicked his bag shut and smiled at the anxious Mrs Powers. ‘May I suggest that he eats only plain food for a few days? No sweet stuff, nothing too rich.'

‘Thank you, Doctor. Please send my husband your bill – and thank you once again for putting my mind at rest.'

Rhiannon led the way out of the room and Richard Frost followed her. On the landing she turned and held out her hand. ‘Thank you for coming so promptly, Doctor, I'm very grateful. You handled that little boy so well, I was very impressed.'

He held her hand for a moment. He was quite a small-built man, standing only a few inches taller than her, but he had a presence that was difficult to ignore.

‘You are very kind, Miss Rhiannon.' He hesitated. ‘I hope you don't mind me calling you by your Christian name but it's the only one I know.'

‘I'd be delighted for you to drop the Miss, and simply call me Rhiannon. As you've gathered, everyone calls me by my first name and I'm happy with that. And we know each other well enough now to be informal, don't we?'

He beamed down at her. ‘I would like to know you a great deal better, if I might be so forward as to say so.'

‘You're very kind, but I'm always so busy with hotel business. However, I imagine we'll see each other again before too long. I anticipate a flurry of families arriving for the summer holidays and little ones are always falling sick, aren't they?'

Richard Frost looked disappointed. ‘Well, then, I hope to see you before too long.'

He left the hotel, and as Rhiannon watched him walk away, she wished with all her heart that she could respond to his undoubted attraction to her. She sensed he would not be able to overlook her previous way of life. It would take an unusual man to do that, a man like Bull Beynon.

Llinos stood outside Rose Mount House and hesitated, wondering if she should go inside. It was a pretty place with good thatch on the roof, and the roses round the door provided a riot of colour that did the heart good. Hearing footsteps, she glanced over her shoulder and a smile of relief appeared on her face. ‘Mr Fairchild, I've been looking for you,' she said quickly, worried that her courage might fail her. He was well dressed, in clean fresh linen and well-cut narrow trousers.

Now he smiled, and he was so charming that Llinos could see why Jayne had fallen in love with him. ‘Mrs Morton-Edwards, what a coincidence meeting you here.' He took her hand and bowed over it politely.

‘It's not really a coincidence,' she admitted. ‘I came here with the sole intention of finding you.'

‘Oh?' A wary expression crossed his face. ‘And what could you want with me?'

She glanced round and gestured to a seat half hidden behind an overhang of trees. ‘Can we sit down?'

‘Very well.' He seemed reluctant to talk to her.

Llinos could understand his feelings of suspicion. He must have heard the gossip that she had once been Dafydd's mistress. Perhaps he believed she'd come here to warn him to keep away from Swansea. ‘I've come on behalf of Jayne, my stepdaughter,' she said quickly, as she sat down and arranged her skirts. ‘Please, Mr Fairchild, listen to what I have to say and then it's up to you which course of action you take.'

‘I'm listening.' He spoke grimly, but he took a seat beside her and swivelled sideways to face her.

‘It's about Jayne,' she began, and wondered how to go on.

‘I gathered that much.' Guy Fairchild's voice held a touch of sarcasm.

Llinos decided to speak plainly. ‘When Jayne told you she was going to give her marriage another chance, she lied. Dafydd had a pistol concealed in his pocket and he had threatened to shoot you if Jayne didn't succeed in sending you away.'

Guy Fairchild frowned. ‘She sounded convincing enough to me. In any case, the idea of the man threatening to kill me sounds a bit farfetched, doesn't it?'

‘I suppose it does, if you don't know Dafydd well, but I'm telling you the truth. Since you went away Jayne's been kept locked in her room, unable to go out even into the garden.'

He digested this piece of information for a moment. ‘I don't know what to think. Is Dafydd capable of such cruelty? I admit I find it hard to believe.'

Llinos looked at him in silence for a moment, wondering how to convince him. ‘Have you never seen Dafydd in a fit of rage, then?' She'd heard the story, as had everyone in Swansea, about Dafydd horse-whipping Guy to within an inch of his life.

‘Yes, of course I have, but what a man does in anger is very different from what he does in cold blood.'

‘Well, I assure you that since the day of my marriage to her father, Jayne has been kept prisoner in a house Dafydd bought especially for that purpose. Her father has been to see him more than once to urge him to be reasonable, but the law seems to be on Dafydd's side in this. Jayne is his wife and she should be obedient to him.'

Guy kicked at a stone lying on the pathway. ‘Is this really the truth, Mrs Morton-Edwards?'

‘It is.' She laid her hand on his arm. ‘I even went to see Dafydd myself, to ask him to release Jayne, but I don't think my words carried any weight.'

‘And are you here alone, or is your husband with you?' Guy looked up at her, his eyes steady as they met hers.

‘I'm with my husband, but Eynon thinks this is a little break away from our worries. He doesn't know that I promised Jayne I would try to find you.'

At last Guy nodded. ‘I believe you, Mrs Morton-Edwards, but what am I to do? If she's imprisoned as you say, how can I rescue her?'

‘I should have thought that a man with your intelligence could work that out for himself.' Llinos knew her tone was impatient but she felt like shaking him into action. ‘Wat until Dafydd is about his business – he travels the country sometimes, doesn't he? Then you can seize the opportunity to get Jayne out of that terrible place and take her anywhere in the world you choose to go.'