Murder on the Moor - C. S. Challinor [6]
“Mousy,” Alistair ventured. “You’d better watch out for her husband.”
“Oh? Why?”
“Hamish can’t keep his hands off attractive women.”
Helen laughed. “Rex will protect my honour.”
At that moment, the slamming of car doors reached Rex’s ears. The last of the guests had arrived. He rose from his comfortable armchair with a resigned sigh. “Looks like rain,” he forecast, pausing before the library window. The slate-gray loch across the grass mirrored a glowering sky.
“The weatherman on the car radio announced heavy rain, perhaps even hail,” Alistair informed him.
“That’s a shame,” Helen stood up and rearranged her skirt. “We were hoping to entertain our guests in the garden.”
“No hope of that,” Rex said, making for the door. “We just got our first drops.”
He desperately hoped there would not be a rainstorm. He did not want his newest guests outstaying their welcome.
Rex crossed the hall and went outside to greet the newcomers. Shona Allerdice, under the shelter of an umbrella held by her husband, scurried toward the stone porch with a huge casserole in her arms.
“Just in time,” she cried as the deluge began.
Rex ushered them inside and, borrowing the umbrella, ran over to the van to get Flora. The young woman scrambled out the back door carrying two bottles of red wine, her patent leather shoes totally inappropriate for the weather, Rex noted. A bearded and bespectacled man in his thirties exited on the other side with a knapsack.
“Don’t worry about me,” he said, indicating the umbrella in Rex’s hand. “I’m used to being out in all weather. I’m Rob Roy, by the way. Staying at the hotel.”
The three of them made a dash for the front door.
“We best all take off our shoes,” Mrs. Allerdice suggested, removing her medium-heeled pumps.
She was, as Alistair had described her, a mousy woman, with a pinched face. Flora would resemble her mother in twenty years, Rex mused, but for now she had youth on her side. She wore her dull brown hair in a headband. Both women were narrow in the shoulder and wide at the hip, and dowdily dressed.
Rex appreciated Shona’s consideration regarding the footwear. He had already had to clean up after the two workmen, and Beardsley’s walking shoes were covered in mud.
“Hope you like Burgundy,” Hamish Allerdice said in a gruff Scottish accent, taking the wine bottles off his daughter. “It’ll go superbly with the venison stew we brought. It’s our chef’s special.”
“Most kind,” Rex murmured. He detested venison. It was too gamey for his taste, and he could never eat it without thinking of the noble beast twitching its nose in the air, alert to danger but blind to its source.
“Your son went off with one of my guests to stalk a hummel,” he told Allerdice. “I hope they find shelter from the rain.”
“Donnie will know what to do,” Flora reassured him. “He’s right at home in the ootdoors. Is the pony with them?”
“No, she’s in the meadow. I should put her in the stable now that it’s raining down hard.”
“I’ll do it,” Beardsley offered. “I’m already wet, and Honey knows me.”
Rex walked back out with him onto the covered stone porch. The stable could accommodate four horses. He had cleaned it out and whitewashed it, and was using it for storage. The gardener had stacked hay in one of the stalls when he cut the grass.
“You’ll find a bucket in there,” Rex told Beardsley. “A hose is attached to the wall if you need to give her water.” He had no clue about horses.
“Terrific. There’s some oats in the van I can feed her.”
“Hurry back.” Rex patted the man on the shoulder. “There’s plenty of drink and food for us too.”
Helen had set up a buffet in the living room overlooking the loch, the view transformed into a blur of rain. Rex decided to light the fire to provide a more hospitable atmosphere on this drab evening.
“Here, let me do that, lass,” he said to Helen who was opening bottles at the drinks cabinet. “You’ve done more than enough already.”
“All right. I’ll go circulate.”
He poured malt whisky for Alistair and Mr. Allerdice. “It’s raining on my parade,” he commented with a rueful