Hotel Stardust Read online

  Hotel

  Stardust

  This

  Limited Vintage Edition

  copy of Hotel Stardust

  BY SUSAN BARRIE

  was published as part of the Thirtieth Anniversary celebration of Harlequin

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  and belongs in the personal library of

  'Suppose he doesn't want to marry me?"

  'He does. ” Roger Merlin was about to add, “Any man would! ” but stopped himself. “Look at you, ” he said. “ The chatelaine of Treloan! Do you intend to marry him?”

  “Marry him? ” True, Martin Pope was a hotel guest not to be ignored. He was attractive-and a millionaire. He did want to help her out, but he hadn't proposed marriage. “I haven't given the matter serious thought, ” she said.

  'But you will, won't you?” He moved abruptly over to her and bending forward drew Eve to her feet.

  'Since you most certainly will, and since I'd like you to remember me, here is a souvenir.” Before she could prevent him, Roger had drawn her into his arms, bent his dark head and claimed her soft mouth with his lips.

  OTHER

  Harlequin Romances

  by SUSAN BARRIE

  580-NURSE NOLAN 587-HEART SPECIALIST 628-THE HOUSE OF THE LAIRD 687-FOUR ROADS TO WINDRUSH 730-THE STARS OF SAN CECILIO 765-A

  CASE OF HEART TROUBLE 779-MISTRESS OF BROWN FURROWS 792-GATES AT DAWN 904-MOON AT THE FULL 926-MOUNTAIN MAGIC 967-THE WINGS OF THE MORNING 997-CASTLE THUNDERBIRD 1020-NO JUST CAUSE 1043-MARRY A STRANGER 1078-ROYAL PURPLE 1099-CARPET OF DREAMS 1128-THE QUIET HEART 1168-ROSE IN THE BUD 1189-ACCIDENTAL BRIDE 1221-MASTER OF MELINCOURT 1259-WILD SONATA 1311-THE MARRIAGE WHEEL 1359-RETURN TO TREMARTH 1428-NIGHT OF THE SINGING BIRDS 1526-BRIDE IN WAITING 2240-VICTORIA AND THE NIGHTINGALE

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  Hole! Stardust

  by

  SUSAN BARRIE

  Harlequin Books

  TORONTO LONDON NEW YORK AMSTERDAM

  SYDNEY • HAMBURG • PARIS • STOCKHOLM Original hardcover edition published in 1955 by Mills & Boon Limited

  ISBN 0-373-00831-7

  Harlequin edition published June 1964 under the title Hotel at Treloan Second printing July 1964 Third printing August 1964 Fourth printing March

  1980

  Copyright 1955 by Susan Barrie.

  Philippine copyright 1980. Australian copyright 1980.

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the permission of the publisher. All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all the incidents are pure invention.

  The Harlequin trademark, consisting of the word HARLEQUIN and the portrayal of a Harlequin, is registered in the United States Patent Office and in the Canada Trade Marks Office.

  Printed in Canada

  CHAPTER ONE

  M R . GRIMSHAW, of Messrs. Grimshaw, Gilchrist & Grimshaw, long established in Lincoln's Inn, folded his hands on his desk and looked across the top of it a little unbelievingly at his client.

  ''So you entirely refuse even to consider Mr. Merlin’s offer? If I may say so, an extraordinarily generous offer!”

  Eve Petherick crushed out in an ash-tray at her elbow the end of the cigarette he had offered her when she entered his office barely ten minutes ago, and nodded her head quite decidedly.

  “Yes; I’m afraid I do.”

  “Although you realize that it may not be repeated? And even if it is — I doubt whether he will offer more.”

  “I don’t wish him to offer more. I don’t wish to sell to him.”

  “I see.” He studied her as if he could not quite make her out, although she was admittedly a most attractive subject for prolonged and thoughtful scrutiny. She had the kind of hair which the painter Titian had made famous in his day and which was inclined to curl naturally, and the perfect, smooth, pale complexion which usually went with it. Her eyes were grey as wood smoke and unusually serene behind their long eyelashes, and she had a little chin which he would have described as obstinate, particularly as her mouth was slightly obstinate, too. But it was a really lovely mouth, and he even thought of it as faintly flowerlike, as it was not very heavily made-up. She was neat and trim in a tailored outfit, and she managed to convey an impression of being quietly capable. “I see,” he repeated more slowly.

  But the trouble was he did not see at all, as Eve realized, and it made her feel vaguely irritated as he pushed the box of cigarettes he had offered her before across the desk in her direction, and she shook her head. She was anxious to bring the interview to a close.

  “I don’t wish to sell to anyone,’’ she told him firmly. “I haven’t yet seen Treloan, but when I have — and certainly not before! — I shall make up my mind what I will do with it.”

  “But by that time it may be too late,” he pointed out. “Mr. Roger Merlin may have withdrawn his offer.”

  She shrugged slightly. Her shoulders were very slim, and her whole figure as slight and graceful as a willow-wand.

  “In that case it won't matter in the least, but if he wants it as badly as you say and his offer indicates, he will be willing to wait a few weeks. Presumably he has already waited quite a long time for my uncle to die. And if my uncle refused to sell to him, there is no

  reason that I can think of why I should do so.”

  “Can't you?” He looked at her with a faintly humorous gleam in his eyes. “Well, I can think of one very good one! Your uncle was a rich man — a very, very rich man! He was in a position to defy anybody and anything. But apart from leaving you five hundred a year and the house, he did little to make your position so secure — unless you dispose of the house! Have you any conception, I wonder, of the size of the place? It is not just a house, it is a manor-house, and a very stately manor-house at that. I have stayed there, and its gardens extend right to the very edge of the cliffs. It is quite famous in the district, and that is one reason why Mr. Merlin wishes to acquire it. He is quite a well-known hotelier, and the Stark Point Hotel, on the other arm of the bay, is his property, run very successfully, I believe.”

  Eve did not seem impressed.

  “In that case, he can leave me Treloan,” she said, a demure dimple appearing suddenly at one corner of her mouth.

  Mr. Grimshaw looked at her for a moment in silence, and then shook his head disapprovingly; but decided to yield the point, for the time being at least.

  “Well, what, exactly, do you propose to do?” he asked. “Are you going down to Cornwall to look at the house? And if so, how are you off for funds? I can advance you anything you require at the moment, you know.”

  But she shook her head, smiling now.

  “Thank you, but I have a little money of my own saved up. I’ve got quite a good job, you know” — he did know that, although she only looked about twenty-one but might possibly have been between twenty-four or five, she had managed to acquire a degree at London University, and was History Mistress at a girls’ school in the South of

  England----“and I’m not exactly destitute. But Uncle Hilary’s five

  hundred a year is go
ing to come in very handy.”

  “It won’t go far,” he warned her, “if you start spending it on Treloan.”

  “I wouldn’t be so foolish,” she assured him, displaying so many more attractive dimples — which made her smile a thing to watch for — that he was inclined to overlook her obstinacy. Until she added: “I’d be much more inclined to make Treloan do something for me.”

  “Eh?” he exclaimed. “If you’re beginning to get ideas in your head, believe me they won’t work.”

  “But Mr. Merlin has ideas in his head,” she reminded him softly.

  “Mr. Merlin has capital, any amount of it.”

  “And I have Treloan! And I believe there are such things as mortgages?”

  “There are,” he agreed, “but you’d be very unwise if you tried to raise one on Treloan. I know what I’m talking about, and I assure you the sensible course is to sell.” “Very well,” she soothed him gently, “we’ll see. Later on! But in the meantime, may I please have the key of my — property . . . ?”

  Later in the day she sent a telegram to her Aunt Kate. Aunt Kate, living in a cottage on the rim of the Devil’s Punch Bowl in Surrey, was at first greatly surprised by the telegram, and then hastened to pack a suitcase and lock up the cottage for an absence of she knew not how long. She pinned a note to the door for the milkman, and another for the boy who delivered the papers, and then, putting on Sarah's harness (Sarah was a dachshund, growing very fat and inclined to sniff at ankles she did not like the look of), took a taxi to the station, from whence she journeyed by train and another taxi to Paddington. And at Paddington she caught sight of her niece examining the magazines on the bookstall, and looking very trim and spring-like in a new clear-green suit and hat to match.

  Aunt Kate, who had not bothered very much about the spring, wore the kind of hat she loved best; it sat well down on her head, and was adorned with a feather of doubtful origin. Her thick tweed costume had already served her for several winters, and was growing a little tight round her middle and unfashionably short in the skirt, but her face, with its healthy out-of-doors complexion, was beaming. Her eyes lighted up when her niece came towards her, and she handed over Sarah automatically.

  “She's such a weight,” she exclaimed, “but I had to bring her. What’s all this about going to Cornwall? I went there once when I nearly got engaged to a person, but his sister and I couldn’t agree, so I went home again.”

  In the train, in their corner of a first-class compartment —Eve had felt she might justifiably be extravagant for once —Eve explained the whole situation to her-aunt, and the latter listened without betraying much astonishment. She uttered a few terse comments on the subject of Hilary Petherick when the story had come to an end, however.

  “How exactly like that unpleasant old man,” she declared, “to leave you a house and practically no money to support it! And him simply rolling in ill-gotten wealth! Who gets the rest of his fortune, anyway?”

  “I think most of it was left to charities,” Eve explained. Aunt Kate sniffed, quite unimpressed.

  “With the least charitable of motives, or I never knew Hilary Petherick. Why, when your father, his only brother, married your mother, he lent them Treloan for a fortnight for their honeymoon it's true, but the only wedding- present he gave them was a Crown Derby tea-service which was later proved to be a clever imitation. And after that I don’t think they ever had a word from him, although there were times when it was almost more than they could do to scrape together your school fees.”

  “But at least he has left me Treloan,” Eve said, with a queer little smile of satisfaction in her eyes.

  “But you’d have been much better off if he’d left you a decent lump sum of money! However, I expect you’ll sell it? You couldn’t possibly hang on to it in these days of no servants and fantastic charges for practically everything, even running a three-bed roomed cottage! And, in any case, nobody lives in a big house nowadays. They're no longer even fashionable. It’s much more fashionable to occupy a mews flat.”

  “Is it?” Eve murmured, and gazed out of the window at the pageant of spring through which the train was carrying them at impressive speed. Apple orchards fell away from them on both sides, drifts of roaming pink and white blossom which made the blue sky look like a sheet of blue gauze stretched above, and the purple of lilac and the gold of laburnum formed a colorful chain across the width of England. And the trees were already thick with leaf, and the fields were green after the winter rains, and the cottages and farms all looked like toys set against a backcloth of infinite charm and allure.

  It was the best of England they were seeing and from the comfort of a first-class compartment on an express train, and Eve thought that her uncle had chosen precisely the right season in which to depart this life and leave her to inherit his house, which she had never seen but where her parents had spent their honeymoon. For in the West Country, to which they were headed, spring would be even farther advanced, and who knew what surprises might lie in store for her? And Aunt Kate, now thoroughly prepared to enjoy an unexpected holiday! And as she chattered on about the advisability of doing this, that, and the other, and Sarah slumbered noisily beneath the seat, and the attendant came and brought them coffee and biscuits which Aunt Kate dispatched with gusto, for she had not stopped for any breakfast, Eve lay back against the seat and thought and thought again of the dream she had had a little over a week ago, before news of her sudden good fortune had reached her.

  She had been walking along a cliff path in country entirely new to her, and from somewhere far below had come the sound of the sea. The atmosphere had been far from clear — in fact, a kind of dream haze had hung over everything — and a sensation of acute unreality had had her in its grip. And then all at once she had caught sight of the chimneys and the roof-line of a house, and then the vague shape of the house itself had risen up before her. It was surrounded by gardens which sloped to the cliff edge, and it had so much charm and beauty about it that it had made her feel strangely excited. She had groped her way along the paths to reach it, but the swirling mist had come down and shut it out from her sight, and only the mournful surge of the sea — still so very far below — had sounded in her ears. And she had awakened feeling bitterly disappointed because the house had vanished and she would never find it again.

  But the letter, a few days later, from Mr. Grimshaw, of Messrs. Grimshaw, Gilchrist & Grimshaw, set her wondering. . . .

  Aunt Kate approved of the lunch served in the dining- car, and by the time they reached Truro she was in high holiday fettle. She had ceased to wonder whether the milkman would discover the note pinned to the back door of her cottage, and whether by any unfortunate chance the newspaper boy would miss his and go on delivering newspapers. If he did they would look rather funny all jammed into the letter-box and decorating the front-door step, and they would surely prove an inducement to burglars to burgle the house. But by the time she stepped out of the train, and they discovered a hire-car to convey them the rest of their journey still farther west, her mood of complacency was so great that even the news of a burglary would scarcely have upset her at that moment.

  Aunt Kate was one of those people who believed in enjoying life even in adversity, and she had an almost childish love of excitement and the unusual, whenever it presented itself. At the same time she never complained about monotony. She was kind-hearted to a degree, had a sense of humor which clung to her always, and was at all times solidly dependable. And those were the reasons why her niece, Eve, had been devoted to her from her earliest days, and why, just as soon as she thought of journeying into Cornwall, the thought of Aunt Kate as the most satisfactory companion for the journey had leaped quite naturally into her mind.

  And Aunt Kate, of course, had been only too willing to oblige!

  Their luggage was piled on the back of the car and they drove off into the mellow light of early evening. In a short while now,

  Eve thought, she would see Treloan.


  CHAPTER TWO

  BUT the light was dying out of the sky and the stars were appearing over the sea when they arrived at the inn where Eve had booked accommodation for one night, and there seemed little chance of seeing Treloan that night. As for the village of Treloan — or as much as could be seen of it while their suitcases were being carried inside by the proprietor himself who, finding business slack as yet, regarded them with particular favor — it was merely a huddle of cottages, with the inn in the centre, running round the sides of a sheltered cove where the tide lapped softly.

  During dinner Eve questioned the innkeeper, who came to find out whether the dinner was entirely satisfactory, on the subject of Treloan Manor, and he told her that the best way to approach it was over the cliffs, although there was a road inland which was inclined to by-pass it a little but was easier walking. The distance in either case was about a mile and a half. If she wanted a car he could drive her there himself.

  He looked at her rather curiously as she sat finishing her ice, her hair like autumn beech-leaves shining in the subdued rays of the ship’s lantern that was suspended from the great central beam which crossed the ceiling and had probably once formed part of a ship’s timbers itself. There was something about her which reminded him of old Mr. Petherick who had died up at Treloan — particularly the cool glance from level-eyes. Although old Mr. Petherick had been notably bad-tempered and many people would have said worse things than that of him during his latter years, at least he was never afraid of anyone and there had been just that faint air of challenge in his look. Only this girl’s look was also soft, like grey velvet, and she had a charming smile. But there was the similarity of the name.

  He went away back to his bar, which was beginning to fill with evening customers, turning the matter over in his mind, and he wished he had had the temerity to ask her outright. For it was quite possible she was the old man's niece, and in that case it would be interesting to know what she was going to do with Treloan.