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‘What do you mean—my background?’ Tamsyn was stung by his tone.
‘Why, nothing,’ he responded expressionlessly. He stood down her cases again and put his hand inside the jacket of his casual sports suit and brought out a wallet. He extracted a photograph and handed it to her silently and Tamsyn tried to concentrate on the images imprinted upon it with some degree of composure. She recognised her father at once, and the small dark woman who she guessed was Joanna, although it wasn’t a very good likeness. And standing slightly behind them two other people; a woman, and the definite likeness of the man at her side.
‘Thank you,’ she said stiffly, handing him back the photograph and feeling rather foolish. ‘Yes, this is all my luggage. Do we go?’
‘We go,’ he agreed, and strode away across the hall without waiting to see whether she was following him.
Outside it was a perfect summer evening, only a faint breeze to cool the warm atmosphere. Hywel Benedict slung her cases into the back of a rather shabby-looking station wagon and then opening the passenger side door indicated that Tamsyn should get in.
Tamsyn did so not without some reluctance. This was not the welcome she had expected to get and she was feeling decidedly tearful. Why hadn’t her father come to meet her, or even Joanna if he wasn’t able? Instead of this abrupt stranger who seemed prepared to think the worst of her without even waiting until he knew her.
The man climbed in beside her, his thigh brushing hers as he did so. He was such a big man, he succeeded in making Tamsyn, who had always found herself on eye-level terms with the young men of her acquaintance, feel quite small. He smelt of tweeds and tobacco, shaving soap and a clean male smell that made Tamsyn’s nostrils twitch a little. She wondered who he was, and what he did, and where he lived, and then chided herself for being curious about a man who was so obviously far out of her sphere of experience. He was her father’s contemporary, after all, not hers.
The station wagon responded smoothly beneath his strong-fingered hands, and he negotiated the airport traffic with only slight impatience. For a moment, Tamsyn was diverted by driving on the left-hand side of the road, and then she ventured another look at her companion.
Where his wrists left the white cuffs of his shirt she could see a thick covering of dark hair, while a gold watch glinted against his dark skin. He wore only one ring and that was on the third finger of his left hand, a gold signet ring engraved with his initials.
As though becoming aware of her scrutiny he glanced her way at that moment and encountered her startled green eyes. ‘Did you have a good trip?’
Tamsyn took an uneven breath. ‘It was all right, I suppose. I’ve not travelled a lot, so I wouldn’t really know.’ She sighed. ‘Where is my father? Why couldn’t he meet me?’
‘He’s at home—in the valley.’
‘At home?’ Tamsyn sounded indignant.
‘That’s right. Your father’s a doctor, Tamsyn Stanford. Doctors here cannot simply leave their work without good reason.’
‘And meeting me wasn’t a good reason,’ observed Tamsyn shortly.
‘It wasn’t absolutely necessary in the circumstances,’ conceded Hywel Benedict. ‘I had to come to London anyway, so I offered to meet you.’
‘I see.’ Tamsyn swallowed the retort that sprang to her lips. ‘How is he?’
‘Lance? Oh, he’s all right.’ He spoke with a faint accent which she couldn’t identify but reluctantly found attractive. His whole speaking voice was attractive and she had to force herself to think of other things. But he was the most disturbing man she had ever met.
‘Are you a doctor, too, Mr. Benedict?’
Hywel Benedict shook his head. ‘No. Healing men’s bodies is not for me.’
Tamsyn frowned. It was a strange reply to make and she was curious to know exactly what he did do, but she didn’t like to ask. Looking out on to countryside that was amazingly like the New England countryside back home, she asked: ‘Where are we?’
‘Approaching Maidenhead. Our destination, as you know, is Trefallath, but we have some distance to travel before we cross the border.’
‘The border.’ Tamsyn was intrigued. ‘The border between England and Wales, of course.’
‘Of course. Though it’s no border as you know it. Merely a continuation of the road.’ His tone was dry, and she detected it.
‘Are you a nationalist, Mr. Benedict?’
‘A nationalist?’ A slight smile lightened his dark features. ‘And what would you know of such things, Tamsyn Stanford?’
‘I read books,’ retorted Tamsyn shortly. ‘I’ve read about the Welsh people. I know of their language, and the way they’re trying to retain their individuality.’
‘Do you now?’ His mocking voice disturbed her. ‘And why would an American girl like yourself be interested in us poor barbarians?’
Tamsyn flushed. ‘You forget, Mr. Benedict. I’m half Welsh myself.’
‘Ah, yes, I had forgotten. But perhaps I can be for-given for so doing. A hybrid like yourself, reared in the artificial atmosphere of the hothouse, is hardly likely to display the characteristics of its less cultivated ancestry, is she?’
‘I think you’re being offensive, Mr. Benedict,’ said Tamsyn, unreasonably hurt by his words.
‘Offensive, is it?’ His low attractive voice mocked her. ‘And why would you think that?’
‘I get the feeling that you consider me lacking in some way,’ replied Tamsyn evenly. ‘Is it because this is the first time I’ve come to stay with my father?’
Hywel Benedict stood on his brakes as a vehicle overtook them and then cut in dangerously closely in front of them. ‘Well, you haven’t exactly taken a deal of interest in his affairs before now, have you?’
‘There were reasons.’
‘I know it. Your mother.’
‘Is that so unreasonable?’
‘Possessive woman, your mother,’ he commented dryly. ‘Until it became necessary to shift the responsibility for a period.’
Tamsyn gave him an angry stare. ‘I don’t require anyone to take responsibility for me. I’m quite capable of taking care of myself. If my father hadn’t wanted me here, he could always have refused—–’
‘Now hold it, Tamsyn Stanford. I never said that your father didn’t want you here, did I? On the contrary, I should imagine he is waiting in anticipation for you to arrive. My comments are my own.’
‘Then perhaps you should keep your comments to yourself,’ retorted Tamsyn, staring with concentration at the passing landscape in an effort to rid herself of the feeling that this man had aroused within her. A feeling of unease, and inadequacy, that did not make her feel good.
They drove on for some distance in silence, while Tamsyn endeavoured to take an interest in her surroundings. The countryside around them was gently undulating, green fields stretching away on either side, interspersed with woodland and winding streams. They passed through places with unfamiliar names like Nettlebed and Shillingford and Abingdon, and Tamsyn caught tantalising glimpses of old churches that in other circumstances she would have liked to have had identified. Had her father met her, as she had expected him to do, it would have been different, and she tried to quell a feeling of indignation which was likely to colour her judgement when she did meet him again.
Hywel Benedict seemed perfectly content to drive in silence, occasionally taking out a pipe and putting it in the corner of his mouth and lighting it absently, only to put it out again after a few inhalations. Tamsyn was tempted to say she objected to the strong aroma it emitted, but as it wouldn’t have been entirely true, she said nothing.
At last, she broke the silence by saying: ‘Do you live at Trefallath, Mr. Benedict?’
‘I live in the valley,’ he conceded slowly. ‘Trefallath you will find is little more than a cluster of houses. The real population of the valley is spread out among the farms in the area. But no doubt you’ll discover all this for yourself.’
Tamsyn sighed. ‘It sounds remote. My mother said it was once.’
‘Did she now?’ Hywel Benedict inclined his head. ‘She’s right, of course. It is remote. But we like it that way.’
Tamsyn shook her head. ‘But what do you do for entertainment?’ She coloured. ‘I mean, don’t you have any desire to be nearer London—or Cardiff, if that is the right place? Don’t you feel—well, out of touch?’
Hywel Benedict looked at her out of the corners of his eyes. ‘Out of touch with what? What do your cities have to offer us?’
Tamsyn gave an impatient exclamation. ‘Surely it’s obvious! The cultural assets one finds there! The exhibitions; theatres; concerts! Don’t you care for books, or films, or music?’
He shook his head slowly. ‘Of course we care for these things. But do you honestly suppose that they’re confined to your cities? There’s more life in the valley than ever you will find in Cardiff, or London, or Boston either, for that matter.’
Tamsyn was irritated by the way he spoke, as though he was explaining the facts of life to a recalcitrant child. What could he know about it if he had lived in Trefallath all his life? He was merely using his age and experience against her youth and immaturity. But academically speaking she should be able to annihilate him.
‘I don’t think we’re talking about the same things,’ she remarked, in a voice that was intended to sound cool and patronising.
‘I think we are,’ he contradicted her insistently. ‘You think because you’ve lived in a city all your life that you’ve become worldly, that you are necessarily more cultured’—the way he said the word was a mockery—‘that you are better educated, infinitely more intelligent; not so!’ He shook his head again. ‘You’re just a little girl copying the mannerisms of her elders!’ He gave a slight smile. ‘I guarantee you’ll learn more about life and incidentally about yourself in these few weeks in the valley than ever you learned in that cultivated cabbage patch you call home.’
Tamsyn took a deep breath. ‘You don’t like me at all, do you, Mr. Benedict?’
Hywel Benedict moved his broad shoulders lazily. ‘Now don’t be silly, Tamsyn Stanford. I don’t know you well enough yet to decide whether or not I like you. But young people today tend to imagine that they understand things a whole lot better than my generation did twenty years ago, and I find it all rather monotonous. I don’t know what that mother of yours has taught you, but I think you’d do well to remember that you aren’t old enough to act the sophisticated woman of the world even with an uncultured savage like myself.’
Tamsyn was taken aback. ‘At least in my country we treat young people as individuals with original ideas of their own!’ she replied heatedly.
‘So it’s your country now, is it?’ He smiled mockingly. ‘We’re not concerned with our Welsh ancestry any more, is that it, bach?’
Tamsyn pressed her lips together irritably. He was the most infuriating man she had ever met and completely outside her range of experience. But where had she gone wrong? What had she said to create this friction between them? She sighed. It was simply that he rubbed her up the wrong way and his calm indifference was somehow hard to take.
‘You’re deliberately trying to make me say things I’ll regret later,’ she accused. ‘Why? What have you got against me?’
Hywel Benedict’s expression hardened for a moment, and she wondered what he was thinking behind those enigmatic black eyes. It was impossible to tell, and when he said: ‘Why, nothing, bach,’ she was almost disappointed.
CHAPTER TWO
CLOUDS were rolling up from the hills ahead of them and Tamsyn shivered, although it was a warm evening. How much farther had they to travel? Would it be dark before they got there? There was something faintly menacing about the prospect of driving in the dark with Hywel Benedict.
Presently, he slowed and she saw ahead of them a small wayside public house. Its timbered facade was rather attractive, and when he turned into the parking area she glanced at him questioningly.
‘We’ll stop here for something to eat,’ he said. ‘Are you hungry?’
Tamsyn was tempted to retort that she couldn’t eat a thing, but she found she was hungry after all, and there was no point in depriving herself to irritate him, for she felt quite sure he was completely indifferent to her reply.
Nodding her acquiescence, she waited until he stopped the car and then opened her door and climbed out. A faint breeze cooled the air and she watched her companion as he slammed the car door and came round to her side. She eyed her cases on the back seat rather doubtfully, particularly as he had not locked the car, and as though sensing her indecision, he said: ‘Would you rather I put them in the boot?’
Tamsyn studied his dark features. ‘Will they be safe?’
‘Have faith,’ he remarked dryly, and walked away towards the lighted entrance.
Grimacing, Tamsyn followed him, and caught him up at the door. She was too interested in her surroundings to argue with him and she wondered in anticipation what they would have to eat. Steaks, perhaps. Or salmon salad. Her mouth watered. It would be her first taste of English cooking for ten years.
A smoky passageway led through to a bar at the back of the building. There were several people in the bar which was discreetly lit and exuded an atmosphere of tobacco and spirits. But where was the food? Tamsyn’s stomach gave a hollow little rumble and she glanced up defensively as Hywel Benedict looked down at her in amusement.
‘What do you want to drink?’ he asked. ‘I know you’re not eighteen, but no one here does, so how about a shandy?’
‘A shandy?’ Tamsyn frowned. ‘All right.’ She wasn’t quite sure what he meant. ‘But where do we eat?’
‘Here.’ He indicated the bar stools which lined the attractive little bar, and she slid on to one with some misgivings.
‘What do you mean—here?’ she whispered as he took the adjoining stool.
‘Wait and see,’ he advised, summoning the bartender without any apparent effort. ‘A shandy and a beer, please.’ He looked along the counter and Tamsyn, following his gaze, saw an assortment of bar snacks under perspex covers at the other end. There were meat pies and sandwiches, fruit tarts and cakes, and her heart sank.
‘Is this what you mean by something to eat?’ she demanded impatiently.
‘Yes, why? Did you expect a chic eating house?’
‘I thought we’d have a proper meal, yes,’ she answered shortly.
‘Why, this is a proper meal, bach! You wait until you taste those pies. Mouthwatering, they are.’
Tamsyn reserved judgement, but later, after Hywel Benedict had had the barman provide them with a selection of food from which they could take their choice, she had to admit he was right. The meat pies were thick and juicy, and washed down with the mixture of beer and lemonade which her companion had ordered for her they were satisfyingly delicious. There were hard-boiled eggs, too, and a crisp salad that the barman’s wife provided, and lots of pickled onions that Tamsyn firmly avoided.
Hywel Benedict ate heartily, talking most of the time to the barman about the state of the weather and the crops and the possibilities of a drought. He swallowed the huge glasses of beer without turning a hair, and Tamsyn, used to seeing her mother’s acquaintances tackling small glasses of bourbon or gin, was staggered at his capacity.
Once he caught her eyes on him and held her gaze for a long moment, causing the hot colour to run up her cheeks, and she was reminded once again of that moment in the airport lounge when she had encountered him scrutinising her. She bent her head in embarrassment, conscious of a prickling along her nerves and a quickening beat in her heart. It was crazy, but when he looked at her like that, something tangible semed to leap between them, and she knew that she could never be indifferent to this man, despite the disparity of their ages. She tried to think of Gerry, of his fair-skinned face and gentle brown eyes, and failed abysmally. All she could see were deep-set eyes and darkly engraved features bearing all the unconquered arrogance of his Celtic forebears.
At last, after she had refused a second slice of apple cake, he suggested they should go, and she willingly agreed. She was allowing this man too much space in her thoughts at a time when she should have been thinking of her forthcoming encounter with her father or speculating on what kind of a honeymoon her mother was having.
It was growing dark and a glance at her watch which she had changed to British time when they landed told her that it was nearing ten o’clock. She climbed into the car and when he got in beside her and reached for his pipe, she said:
‘How much longer will it be before we reach Trefallath?’
Hywel Benedict lit his pipe before answering, and then exhaling smoke, he answered: ‘Oh, perhaps another hour and a half—something like that. Why? Getting nervous?’
Tamsyn did not deign to answer that and with a shrug of the heavy shoulders he leaned forward and started the car.
Darkness brought its own uneasiness to a landscape which was fast becoming wilder and less closely populated. The lights of villages were fewer and farther between and Tamsyn gripped her seat tightly, her nerves playing tricks with her. It was all very well contemplating this visit from the calm and civilised environs of her mother’s world, and quite another encountering the stark facts of reality. Here she was, miles from anything or anyone she knew or cared about, in the company of a man who had identified himself only by means of a photograph and had since made no attempt to tell her anything about her father or even about himself.
‘Relax.’
The calm word startled her into awareness and she stole a look at his shadowy profile. ‘Do you know my father very well?’ she asked.
Hywel Benedict inclined his head slowly. ‘You might say that. We’ve known each other since we were children together, so I suppose I know him as well as any man could.’
Tamsyn nodded. ‘So you’ll know—Joanna, too.’
‘Joanna is my cousin.’
‘Oh!’ Tamsyn swallowed this information with difficulty. ‘I see.’
‘What do you see, I wonder,’ he commented wryly. ‘Very little beyond that small nose, I shouldn’t be surprised.’
Tamsyn unbuttoned and then buttoned the jacket of her suit. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘No? I would have thought a bright little mind like yours would have fastened on to the fact that if Joanna is my cousin she must have known your father a long time, too.’
‘Oh, that.’
‘Yes, that. It may interest you to know that Joanna was going to marry Lance long before he met Laura Stewart.’
Tamsyn gasped, ‘I didn’t know that.’
‘I don’t suppose you did. It’s not the sort of thing your mother would have told you, is it? I mean—well, it puts her in a different position, doesn’t it?’
‘My mother is no femme fatale, if that’s what you’re implying,’ stated Tamsyn hotly.
‘No. She was never a handsome woman, I’ll give you that,’ he remarked annoyingly. ‘But she had charm, when she chose to exert it, and I think Lance was flattered.’
‘How do you know what she was like?’ demanded Tamsyn.
‘Because I knew her, too. We were all in London at the same time. I even went to their wedding.’
Tamsyn was stunned. ‘I see,’ she said, rather uncertainly.
‘I didn’t approve of Lance marrying your mother,’ he continued complacently. ‘She wanted Lance to be something he could never be—an intellectual. He didn’t belong in London. He pined for the valley. For the simple, uncomplicated life. And eventually he gave up the struggle and went back there.’
‘And I suppose you encouraged him,’ accused Tamsyn scornfully.
Hywel shook his head slowly. ‘Oh, no, bach. It was nothing to do with me. I was in South Africa at the time, and I knew nothing about it until I came home and found Joanna and Lance together again.’
Tamsyn compressed her lips. ‘And I suppose you approved of that.’
‘Naturally. Joanna has made your father happy. Would you rather he had been miserable all his life?’
‘How dare you imply that my mother would have been responsible for his own lack of confidence?’ Tamsyn was furious.
‘Call it familiarity, Tamsyn Stanford. And don’t get so angry. You didn’t expect to hear good things of your mother in Trefallath, did you?’
‘It seems to me that my mother was justified in refusing to allow me to visit with my father before now.’
‘Why?’ Hywel shook his head. ‘There are always two sides to every question, aren’t there? Perhaps if the two had been more evenly balanced, it wouldn’t have come as such a shock to hear the other side now.’
‘You don’t imagine I believe everything you’ve said, do you?’ exclaimed Tamsyn disdainfully.
Hywel made an indifferent gesture. ‘No matter. You’ll learn, bach.’
It was nearly half past eleven when they began the descent into the valley. Tamsyn, who had not expected to feel tired yet, was beginning to sense a certain weariness in her limbs, and her head dropped several times. But she would not allow herself to fall asleep and risk waking to find herself with her head on his shoulder. Somehow she needed to avoid physical contact with Hywel Benedict.
Trefallath was, as Hywel had told her, merely a cluster of cottages, a public house, a school and a chapel. They ran through the dimly lit main street and then turned on to the rough moorland again, following a narrow road which badly needed re-surfacing. At last the station wagon slowed and turned between stone gateposts, and came to a shuddering halt before a low, stone-built house with lights shining from the lower windows.
‘Welcome to Glyn Crochan, Tamsyn Stanford,’ he remarked, almost kindly, and then slid out of the car.
As Tamsyn got out, light suddenly spilled on to her, and she realised the door of the building had opened and a man had emerged followed closely by the small figure of a woman.
The man greeted Hywel warmly, and then came round the car to Tamsyn with swift determined strides. ‘Tamsyn!’ he exclaimed, and there was a break in his voice. ‘Oh, Tamsyn, it’s good to see you!’
Tamsyn allowed her father to enfold her in his arms, but she felt nothing except a faint warming to his spontaneous affection. ‘Hello, Daddy,’ she responded, as he drew back to look into her face. ‘It’s good to see you, too.’
‘My, how you’ve grown,’ went on Lance Stanford in amazement. ‘I—I expected a child. It was foolish of me, I know, but I could only think of you that way.’ He released her shoulders but took possession of her hand. ‘Come! Come and meet Joanna again.’
He drew her firmly after him round the car to where Tamsyn’s stepmother waited. Tamsyn had been so intent on appraising her father, noticing how young and lean he looked, how his hair still sprang thickly from his well-shaped head, that she had paid little attention to anything else. But now, as she followed her father round the car, she looked towards the opened door where, in the shaft of light, Joanna Stanford was standing.
And then an almost audible gasp rose to her throat to be checked instantly. Joanna was small and dark and attractive, in a yellow silk dress that moulded her figure in the slight breeze that blew off the moors. She was also most obviously pregnant.
Tamsyn’s eyes darted swiftly to Hywel Benedict’s and she encountered his sardonic gaze resentfully. He could have told her. He could have warned her of what to expect.
And yet that was exactly what he would not do. He would make nothing easier for the daughter of Laura Stewart.
‘Joanna darling,’ her father was saying now. ‘Here she is, at last. Here’s Tamsyn! Don’t you think she’s grown into quite a young lady?’
Joanna smiled and kissed Tamsyn’s cheek, welcoming her to Trefallath. In a more receptive mood Tamsyn would have glimpsed the appeal in Joanna’s dark eyes, but right now she was too absorbed with her own emotions to make anything more than a desultory response, and avoid making any obvious remarks.