Free Don't Hurt Me by Elizabeth Moss Page A

against her face and hands, too intent on
her own thoughts to realise what they were. She did not want to believe that
Owen Marshall could behave so cruelly towards his own daughter. Yet what other
explanation could there be for that telephone conversation?
       It had been her immediate intention
to head upstairs to find Victoria and reassure the girl before she did anything
stupid, but she did not get the chance. Almost as soon as she had closed the
hidden door in the wood panelling, she heard the sound of his determined tread
and turned to see Marshall bearing down on her.
       Even though she had no logical
reason to feel embarrassed, her face was ridiculously hot as she spun to face
him.
       Had he seen her emerging from the
secret passageway? If he had, she was not prepared to lie about it just to
avoid embarrassment. But neither did she relish the thought of provoking his
anger by admitting that she had been eavesdropping on Owen Marshall’s private
conversations.
       ‘Ah, there you are,’ he said,
raising his eyebrows when he saw her flushed cheeks. ‘Something wrong?’
       She shook her head, thrusting her
hands into the back pockets of her jeans to hide the dirty knuckles.
       ‘Good,’ Marshall nodded briskly,
gesturing to the leather portfolio beneath his arm. ‘Then I’d like to discuss
these preliminary sketches of yours. Shall we go into the library?’
       He guided her into a sombre book-lined
room, closing the door behind them and snapping on the overhead lights. The
floor-length red velvet curtains had been drawn back, letting in a pallid
afternoon light, but it would be dusk soon and the chandelier which dominated
the room immediately dispelled its gloominess. The elaborately carved
mantelpiece writhed with strange figures: the leering smile of a centaur, a
beautiful woman’s face, her hair becoming an oak tree in full summer as it
curled along the dark wood.
       ‘Impressive, isn’t it?’
       ‘I’ve never seen anything like it,’
she agreed, and there was genuine astonishment in her voice as she gazed
admiringly at the mantelpiece, tracing a finger down the carved wood.
       ‘This house is full of surprising
little touches. That’s one reason I wanted to buy the place when it came up for
auction. I’d seen it through the trees when I was out walking, and the locals
were always gossiping about it. Tales of ghostly hauntings and all the usual
rubbish.’ He smiled drily. ‘Personally, I was just fascinated by its wonderful
eccentricity. It’s not often a house like this comes onto the open market.’
       The centrepiece of the library was
an antique oval table in smooth mahogany. Marshall unzipped the portfolio and
carefully spread out her sketches across the polished surface.
       Standing on opposite sides of the
table, they studied the drawings at length. ‘I think this one has potential,’
he commented after a long moment of silence, tapping a pen and ink sketch she
had made of a barren moorland scene. ‘But it lacks focus. You need a figure
from the story here. Perhaps coming out of the mist?’
       ‘The tiger himself?’
       Marshall glanced across at her. ‘Or
his rescuer.’
       She felt an odd sense of confusion
as their eyes met and looked down at once, reaching out to finger a different
sketch.
       ‘You didn’t like this one?’
       He shrugged, dismissing it with a
brief sideways glance. ‘It’s okay but nothing special. I prefer your work when
it coincides more closely with my own obsessions.’
       ‘Which are?’
       ‘The moor, the wilderness ... ’
       Marshall turned his head slightly
as he spoke, gazing out of the window towards the dark tracts of moorland
beyond the trees as though he were looking for something. Julia followed the
direction of his eyes, drawn by his rapt attention. She could understand why he
loved the Cornish landscape so much. In this eerie zone between day and night,
it did seem beautiful and