Twisted Winter Read Online Free Page B

up to her face, and her eyes glinted at him through it.
    â€œYou know my feelings about Hunter’s Wood,” she said. “They go back a very long way. Those great trees are ancient, beyond counting. The wood is a powerful place, not to be touched. Time keeps it.”
    â€œBut times change,” Julian said genially. “And people change. We have to think of the future, Mrs Wallace.”
    â€œYes, I’ve done that,” Mrs Wallace said. “I spoke to my lawyers. I intend to give Hunter’s Wood to the National Trust, to be preserved for the people and the ages.”
    Below the bulging green eyes of his frog mask, Julian Hogg’s thin-lipped mouth tightened. Then he smiled.
    â€œCome now,” he said, “we can’t have National Trust tourists parking up and down the borders of The Close.”
    â€œI’m sure that won’t happen,” said Mrs Wallace. “The Trust is very discreet and careful. And they will take very good care that nobody cuts down the trees of Hunter’s Wood.” She lowered the stem of her mask for a moment, looking at him over its glittering edge.“Not even you, Julian Hogg.”
    Julian said, “You’re forgetting that I own the Manor House.”
    â€œIn which I have the legal right to live for the rest of my days,” Mrs Wallace said peaceably.
    â€œIndeed,” said Julian. “But the agreement doesn’t specify how much of it you occupy. If I can’t buy Hunter’s Wood, I shall be forced to convert the manor into an apartment building. And you’ll find yourself living the rest of your days – legally – not in a splendid spacious house but in a one-bedroom flat.”
    He gave her another smile, and this time it was unpleasant and triumphant.
    The Harlequins’ music jingled on, and the children hopped to and fro.
    â€œYou are not a gentleman,” Mrs Wallace said.
    â€œPerhaps not,” said Julian. “But I’m an excellent businessman.”
    Mrs Wallace gazed into the slits in the bulbous green froggy eyes of his mask, for a long moment.
    She said, “You are. And luckily, so is a friend of mine.”
    She raised her brilliant fantastical mask to cover her face again, and turned, and in the same instant theroom fell silent, because once more the Harlequins stopped playing.
    â€œAaaaaaw,” said the children, who had been enjoying their cavorting. But the two Harlequins each gave them a little bow and followed Mrs Wallace, who was sweeping towards the front door.
    Mr Macaulay, stationed near the coat-rack, helped to drape her heavy silk cloak round her shoulders, and she smiled at him. Then she left, as the Harlequins opened the front door, and they all went away past the marble columns, down the marble steps.
    Out of the crowd of dancers came the man in the appalling mask, following them. “Thank you!” he called to the witch-face of Ruth Ransom, as he seized his hooded cloak from the rack. “Lovely party! Happy Hallowe’en!”
    Julian Hogg had tried unsuccessfully to follow Mrs Wallace; he was standing beside the front door, in his green velvet jacket and his half-frog face. He put out a hand towards the man in the mask as he went by.
    â€œI don’t believe we were ever introduced,” Julian Hogg said.
    â€œJust a friend of Mrs Wallace’s,” the man in themask said. “A very old friend. A business friend, you might say.”
    He loped down the white marble steps into the darkness, and paused. Then he turned his head back toward Julian and the house, so that the light caught the appalling, immobile, vicious mask with the two bleeding stubs on its forehead. Julian found himself suddenly giddy, and he felt his fingers curl in against their palms, rubbing softly, as if they could still feel the greasy olives that might, or might not, really have been eyeballs. Somewhere in the night, or perhaps in his mind, he heard a thin high