Dead Man Riding by Gillian Linscott

moment. ‘Yes. Yes, I will.’
    Kit said, ‘In that case I’ll stay too.’
    â€˜Please yourselves. All of you are welcome to stay or go as you like. Anyway, you’ll eat now. We eat late these evenings, because of keeping watch.’
    He got up suddenly, dislodging the dogs’ heads from his knees, went to the outside door and yelled into the darkness, ‘Robin.’
    Imogen, looking shaken, mouthed, ‘Who’s Robin?’
    Alan shook his head. Soon afterwards there was a stamping of boots in the lobby and one of the best-looking men I’d seen in a long time came into the room. He was probably in his mid-twenties, quite tall with dark curly hair and eyes that looked black in the lamplight. He wore moleskin trousers, a coarse white shirt open at the neck, a red neck-cloth with white spots and an old black waistcoat. He’d walked into the room as confidently as a horse into its meadow but when he saw us all sitting there he looked on the point of bolting. The Old Man took him by the arm.
    â€˜Alan, Robin. Robin, this is my great nephew and these are his friends.’
    That seemed to be all the introduction anybody was going to get because the Old Man then walked across the room, drew back a curtain that had been hiding a flight of stairs and yelled up, ‘Dulcie, suppertime.’ There was the sound of feet hitting bare boards overhead. He dropped the curtain back and explained, ‘Dulcie’s been catching up on her sleep.’ Then he went to pick up his shotgun, stopped, shook his head, unhitched a heavy driving whip from the back of the door instead and went out.
    *   *   *
    If any of us had made a sudden move or said anything I think Robin would have run out after him. He stood with his weight forward on his feet ready for a quick move, like an animal that had strolled accidentally into a circle of predators. I couldn’t blame him. Although the kitchen was a big room the seven of us filled it and we were oddities there. The men had got to their feet out of politeness on being introduced, but with the four of them standing together and him on his own it must have looked more like a threat. We all stood there frozen until the silence was broken by the pad of feet downstairs and a rattle of rings as the stair curtain was drawn back.
    â€˜Well I’m gloppened. What o’clock is it? Why didnae somebody wake me?’
    The men spun round and four jaws dropped in unison. If Robin looked like an animal among predators, this woman – Dulcie presumably – was as thoroughly at home and self-possessed as a lioness lolling on a tree branch. She wore a lilac-coloured velour wrap patterned with bunches of purple grapes, with a shawl collar that fell open to show a pink chemise pushed out by a swell of uncorseted bosom like a wave just before it breaks. Her hair was chestnut brown with a few strands of grey in it and reached down to her waist. She’d made a token move towards controlling it by taking the two front hanks and knotting the ends loosely at the back of her head. Her face was too plump and round for beauty but when she smiled – and she was smiling at all of us – she looked so pleased with herself and everything else that it was like being given a present. She was quite a lot older than we were, but her little white teeth and plump brown feet seemed almost childlike.
    â€˜I’m Dulcie,’ she told us, ‘Dulcie Berryman.’
    The voice was pure Cumberland, with the ‘I’ coming out as ‘Ahm’. The accent had an extra warmth and laziness about it in her case, as if it came from the depths of a goosefeather bed. We introduced ourselves in a confused way that couldn’t have left her with much impression of who was who but it didn’t seem to bother her. She picked Alan out.
    â€˜Your uncle will be reet glad you’re here. You’ve seen him?’
    Alan managed to stammer out the