Island of the Heart
Sara Craven

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Former journalist SARA CRAVEN published her first novel ‘Garden of Dreams’ for Mills & Boon in 1975. Apart from her writing (naturally!) her passions include reading, bridge, Italian cities, Greek islands, the French language and countryside, and her rescue Jack Russell/cross Button. She has appeared on several TV quiz shows and in 1997 became UK TV Mastermind champion. She lives near her family in Warwickshire – Shakespeare country.

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

About the Author

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

Endpage

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

THE LAST CHORDS sang their way triumphantly into the echoing silence, and Sandie Beaumont lifted her hands from the keyboard as the applause began.

The adrenalin which had carried her through the performance was already starting to subside as she rose and bowed to the clapping audience. She kept her hands hidden in the folds of her violet taffeta skirt to disguise the fact that they were shaking.

Listening intently, she tried to judge the audience reaction to her playing. It was enthusiastic, but was it the kind of acclaim accorded to a winner? Sandie wasn’t sure.

She deliberately avoided even a glance towards the row of judges seated behind their table at the front of the auditorium. She would know their verdict soon enough.

‘It’s not the end of the world.’ That was what one of her fellow contestants had said as he’d left the waiting-room backstage where they were all assembled an hour earlier.

And in a way it wasn’t. It was a piano contest in a newly established music festival, that was all. A first rung on the ladder to such glories as the Leeds Piano Competition.

But for me, Sandie thought, as she bowed again, and made her way with forced composure off the platform, for me, it could easily be the end of everything.

There was a long mirror at the end of the corridor leading back to the dressing-rooms. She’d been too nervous to use it on her way to the platform, but she paused now to glance at herself, swiftly and clinically. Too pale, she thought. She should have used more blusher. In the dim light of the passage, with her silvery blonde hair hanging straight and shining below her shoulders, she looked almost ghostly.

But the dress was wonderful. It had been an extravagance, but it was worth it, accentuating, as it did, the colour of her own violet eyes. It had made her feel good, given her the confidence to believe that everything was going to be all right. As if a career in music, as she’d always dreamed, was actually within reach.

Her hands balled into fists of tension, and she swallowed as she turned away. Well, she would soon know. She’d been the last competitor.

Back in the big room, where the others waited, no one was saying much. They were all on edge now, anticipating the call which would take them back on stage for the adjudication. Most of them seemed to know each other already—to be able to judge the standard they were up against. She, Sandie, was the outsider, the unknown quantity. The local girl taking her first step towards national fame—or instant obscurity.

Her parents had been quite adamant.

‘My dear, you don’t realise the kind of odds you’re up against,’ her father had said. ‘Yes, you’ve got talent, I don’t doubt, but that’s not enough to make you a star at international level. You may be Mrs Darnley’s prize pupil, but what does that really mean?’

‘I don’t know,’ Sandie had returned desperately. ‘But you’ve got to let me find out.’

Her parents exchanged uneasy glances. She knew what they were thinking. They were remembering Sandie’s grandmother, the Alexandra for whom she had been named, whose considerable musical talent had never taken her further than the orchestras of second-rate touring variety shows and seaside concert parties. For years she’d soldiered on, declaring her big break would come—only it never had, and the realisation that it never would had led to increasing bouts of depression until her death, still in early middle age.

They don’t want that to happen to me, Sandie thought. They don’t want me to break my heart, searching for some big time which may never come.

Aloud, she said, ‘You’ve got to let me have my chance.’

‘Then we will.’ Her father knocked out his pipe in the ashtray. ‘Mrs Darnley’s entered you for the festival. If you can win it, you shall have your chance—music college and the rest—whatever it takes. If you don’t win, then you give up all thoughts of a career as a pianist. Is it agreed?’

‘All or nothing—just like that?’ Sandie stared at them pleadingly. ‘Mum, I …’

‘Your father and I are in total agreement.’ Mrs Beaumont spoke more gently than her husband. ‘It’s for your own sake, darling. After all, Sandie, you’re nineteen now. Most professional musicians started training years before you did.’

‘That’s hardly my fault.’ Sandie remembered the uphill struggle to persuade her parents to allow her to have piano lessons at all.

‘No,’ her mother agreed. ‘But you can’t blame us for being cautious. It’s time you put all this nonsense behind you, and trained for something—settled down. If it has to be music, you could always teach. You don’t have to go on being a legal secretary, if you really hate it so much.’ She gave Sandie an anxious smile. ‘And you can always play the piano for your own amusement.’

Sandie had winced.

Mrs Darnley had been sympathetic, but had refused to take up the cudgels on Sandie’s behalf.

‘Your parents are doing what they feel is right,’ she said. ‘I can’t argue about their natural concern for you. And they could have a point.’

Sandie stared at her. ‘But I thought you believed in me,’ she said, biting her lip. ‘Don’t you think I can make it?’

Mrs Darnley sighed. ‘Sandie, you’re the best pupil I’ve ever had, but that’s all I can say. You’ve outgrown me, my dear. From now on, you need specialist coaching that I’m not qualified to give you—master classes. It all costs money, and if your parents aren’t prepared to make a contribution …’ She left it at that.

Now, weeks later, Sandie looked under her lashes at her fellow competitors and wondered. They all wanted to win—that went without saying. But did any of them have the compulsive, driving need to come first that she possessed?

She thought, My whole future depends on this.

It seemed an eternity before the recall to the platform came. They filed on and stood trying to look nonchalant and modest at the same time. Sandie’s legs were shaking, and her mouth felt dry. She wanted it over with. She wanted to know.

The judges moved on to the platform, and she studied them unobtrusively, trying to read their faces, to see if they looked longer in one direction than another.

The tall man standing at the end caught her eye and smiled, and she felt herself blush.

She knew who he was, of course. They were all musical celebrities, but he was the star. Crispin Sinclair, the youngest of the four, had been a young virtuoso pianist himself some years before, spoken of as a prodigy. He was one of Sandie’s heroes, and she had several of his recordings. But in recent years, he’d turned from the concert platform to composition. He’d written a modern opera based on Sean O’Casey’s Juno and the Paycock, which had been received with acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic, as well as a host of shorter works, many of them commissioned. One of them was to be performed at the end of the festival, and Crispin Sinclair himself was going to conduct.

It was also rumoured that, under different names, he’d written music for various well-known pop groups.

But he’d had a head start in the musical world, Sandie thought, staring embarrassedly at the floor. His mother was Magda Sinclair, the world-famous mezzosoprano and opera star, and his sister Jessica was already a noted cellist.

No one in his family would have ever jibbed at his choice of occupation. He would have been encouraged and nursed along since babyhood, and the first signs of precocious talent.

Whereas I didn’t even have a piano until I was thirteen, Sandie thought, with a sigh.

All the same, she couldn’t help wondering if the smile he’d sent her held any significance.

She tried to concentrate on what the chairman of the judging panel was saying. There were the usual platitudes about the excellent organisation, and thanks to the patrons and sponsors before he turned to ‘the wealth of talent here tonight,’ ‘the distinctive performances’, ‘the difficulty of reaching a decision, although the panel had been unanimous …’

Oh, get on with it, Sandie prayed silently, her insides knotting with tension.

‘The results will be in reverse order,’ he was saying, and paused in anticipation of the laugh. ‘Just like Miss World.’ He consulted the paper in his hand. ‘In third place—Jennifer Greenslade.’

Applause broke out. Sandie watched the other girl, no more than fourteen, go up to get her prize, her face flushed with pleasure.

‘And in second place—’ the chairman paused theatrically, making the most of it, ‘Alexandra Beaumont.’

More applause. Sandie heard it from a distance—from some limbo of pain and disappointment.

She had to force herself to move, terrified that her legs would betray her, and that she’d collapse there and then in front of them all. But of course she didn’t. She took her prize envelope, shook hands, and managed to smile and say something polite as she was congratulated.

She didn’t see or hear who came first. She went back to her place, alone, lost in a little nightmare world of despair and failure.

She couldn’t look at the audience, at the place where she knew her parents were sitting. They’d be disappointed for her, she knew, but relieved as well. She’d done well, and justified Mrs Darnley’s good opinion, but not quite well enough, so now the whole nonsensical idea could be abandoned, and life return to normal.

Normality, she thought bleakly. A teachers’ training college, or a solicitors’ office. That was the choice now.

She was thankful when the ceremony was over and she could escape to the privacy of the small dressingroom she’d been allocated. She pulled off that mockery of a taffeta dress, slinging it carelessly on to a chair in the corner before struggling back into the sweatshirt and jeans she’d worn earlier.

The tap on the door startled her. She tugged the sweatshirt down into place, scooping her long hair free of its collar. She supposed it would be her father and mother, knocking tactfully in case she was upset. But she was too aching, too stunned to cry. Tears would come later, she thought.

She called, ‘Yes?’ and the door opened, and Crispin Sinclair walked in.

‘So this is the right room.’ When he smiled, his teeth were very white. ‘I came to offer my condolences. It was a very near thing, actually.’

‘So near and yet so far,’ Sandie said. She tried to speak lightly, but her voice broke a little in the middle.

‘So I understand,’ he said. ‘I’ve been having an illuminating chat with your teacher, and she told me it was make or break for you. That’s really tough.’

He was one of the most attractive men Sandie had ever encountered, dark-haired and blue-eyed, and his smile was devastating. Suddenly the dressing room seemed tinier than ever.

She hastily picked up a comb and began to tug it through her hair. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘you win some, you lose some.’

His brows lifted. ‘Are you really that philosophical about it?’

‘No,’ she said baldly. ‘But I’ve no other choice.’

‘Maybe you have at that,’ Crispin Sinclair said slowly. ‘That old fool Gregory said we were unanimous, but that was public relations. Actually, I was in there fighting for you. And now that I know how important that win would have been, I have a proposition for you.’

‘For me?’ She stared at him. ‘I don’t understand …’

He laughed. ‘I haven’t explained it yet.’ He paused. ‘But first, a little criticism. You performed the set pieces well, but your own choice was unadventurous, to say the least. That could have lost your first place.’

‘It’s a difficult movement …’

‘Not when your basic technique’s as good as yours. You should have taken a stance—gone for broke, like the guy who won did with the Prokofiev. You’ve been well taught, but now you need more.’ He smiled at her equably. ‘I think it’s time I took you on myself.’

Sandie’s eyes widened in incredulity. ‘You—want to teach—me? But why?’

‘I think it could be rewarding. I also think you deserve another chance, rather than having to rely on this sudden death situation you’ve been in. No one at your level can do her best with that kind of threat hanging over her.’

He scooped the taffeta dress off the chair and on to a hanger in an undoubtedly practised movement. ‘Pity to spoil it, because it’s a good platform dress—catches the light well, but doesn’t take over.’ He pushed the chair towards her. ‘Sit down. You look as if you need to.’

Sandie subsided in limp obedience. She said in a little rush, ‘I’m a junior secretary with a law firm. I don’t know the kind of fees you charge, but I couldn’t afford even half of them.’

‘Well, there’s a way round that.’ Crispin Sinclair seated himself on the dressing stool. ‘My family have taken themselves off for their usual summer break in Connemara, to rest and prepare for the next concert season, but my mother’s regular practice accompanist has just got married, silly bitch, and to an oil man who’s whisked her off to Venezuela. This has left Mama in quite a spot. She’s inclined to be temperamental, but she liked Janet and she was used to her.’ He paused. ‘If you came to Killane, you could take Janet’s place, and—work your passage, as it were.’

‘But I don’t know the first thing about accompanying anyone,’ Sandie protested feverishly. ‘It’s a skilled profession.’

‘You’re talented and intelligent, and you wouldn’t be appearing in public, after all. Magda would soon teach you the ropes.’ He grinned. ‘Blood on the keyboard and all that. Does the thought put you off?’

‘No,’ she denied instantly. Summer, she thought, in a house filled with music. She paused. ‘Did you say—Connemara?’

‘Yes. Magda’s first husband was Irish, and he left her a life interest in the house. He was killed in a hunting accident while Flynn was still a baby. She’s two husbands further on now, but she still spends her summers at Killane, although the damp can’t be good for her throat. The house really belongs to Flynn, my half-brother, of course, but he’s rarely there.’

‘Flynn.’ Sandie tried the name. ‘Is he a musician too?’

‘God, no!’ Crispin’s laugh was faintly derisive. ‘Magda’s always said he’s some kind of changeling. He hasn’t a note of music in his body, even though he spent his formative years touring with her. She’d put her career into cold storage when she married, but took it up again in a hurry when she found herself a penniless young widow. And the rest, as they say, is history.’

‘So what does he do?’

‘My father’s family were merchant bankers, and they lured him into commerce.’ Again Sandie sensed a faint sneer. ‘Now he’s a high-powered financial consultant, dealing mainly with tax advice for the rich and famous. He even keeps my mother on the straight and narrow. God only knows where he gets it from. Neither she nor his father had any head for figures at all,’ he added with a shrug. ‘But that’s enough about Flynn. Are you prepared to give up your summer to a madhouse in the west of Ireland?’

Sandie said, with a catch in her voice, ‘It sounds wonderful. But what will your mother say—having a stranger foisted on her?’

‘You won’t be a stranger. I’ll explain the position, and you’ll arrive with the backing of my warmest recommendation. How’s that?’

‘It can’t be that simple.’

‘Where are the complications?’

‘Well, have you ever had a private pupil before? I mean—won’t your family think it’s odd, if I suddenly appear …?’ She looked away, reddening slightly.

‘I know what you mean, Miss Alexandra Beaumont.’ Crispin sounded amused, then his voice sobered. ‘I’m asking you to Killane because I think you have a worthwhile talent which you won’t otherwise have the opportunity to exploit.’ He paused, then said deliberately, ‘Let’s leave any other considerations in the lap of the gods, shall we? Now, do you accept my proposition?’

Sandie’s heart was thumping swiftly and painfully against her ribs. She could feel other objections crowding in. She was assailed by nervousness and exhilaration at the same time.

She said, ‘Yes, I do. But I don’t know what my parents will say.’

‘Leave them to me,’ he said. ‘I’ll handle them.’ He rose, and so did she. ‘Now, shall we seal our bargain in the time-honoured way?’

He held out his hand, and Sandie put her fingers into his, only to find herself drawn forward to receive Crispin’s light kiss on her mouth.

He said, ‘I’ll be in touch,’ then the dressing room door closed behind him.

Sandie stared after him, her hand lifting involuntarily to touch her lips.

She thought, A summer in Connemara. It sounds like magic—too good to be true. She hesitated. But after the summer—what then?

She shrugged. I’ll wait and see, she told herself, and let the remembrance of Crispin Sinclair’s smile dispel that faint chill of anxiety inside her.

A fortnight later, still dazed at the total upheaval in her life, Sandie found herself descending from the plane at Shannon.

Looking back, she realised she had never thought her parents would agree, and she hadn’t the slightest idea how Crispin had persuaded them. Neither, she thought, had they. But she was aware that he’d accentuated her dubious role as his mother’s accompanist rather than her status as his pupil, and although this wasn’t exactly a deception, it had caused her a slight flicker of uneasiness.

Inside the terminal building, she collected her luggage and made her way to the Aer Lingus desk as Crispin had instructed.

‘Excuse me,’ she addressed the green-clad girl, who looked up smiling at her approach. ‘My name is Beaumont. Someone is meeting me here.’

The girl nodded. ‘Your man was just enquiring for you,’ she said. She looked past Sandie, and beckoned.

Sandie turned to find herself confronted by a short, squat individual. His face was as brown and wrinkled as a walnut, and his greying hair still held a tinge of fierce red. He was staring at Sandie with an expression of incredulity that was too disconcerting to be amusing.

‘It’s you, is it, I’m to take to Killane?’ His tone held lively dismay.

Sandie tilted her chin a little. ‘I’m Mr Sinclair’s guest, yes,’ she returned coolly. ‘How do you do, Mr—er—?’ She held out her hand.

‘O’Flaherty will do—without the Mister.’ The man ignored her hand, and picked up her cases. ‘Guest,’ he added with a faint snort. ‘Well for Mr Crispin that himself’s not at home to see this.’ And on this obscure utterance, he turned and strode towards the main doors, heading for the car park. Sandie had to run in order to keep up with him.

She said breathlessly, and a little desperately, ‘I am expected, aren’t I?’

‘They’re expecting someone, surely.’ Sandie’s cases were fitted into the back of a large estate car. ‘In you get, now. We have a fair drive ahead of us.’

Sandie got into the passenger seat and fastened its belt. It was not the introduction she’d expected to Ireland of the Hundred Thousand Welcomes, she thought, trying to feel amused, and failing.

‘It’s a beautiful day,’ she tried tentatively, as they won free of the airport’s environs, and embarked on the road to Galway.

‘It won’t last,’ was the uncompromising reply, and Sandie sighed soundlessly, and transferred her attention to the scenery.

It took well over an hour to reach Galway. Beyond the city, the road narrowed dramatically, and the weather, as O’Flaherty had predicted, began to deteriorate. Ahead, Sandie could see mountains, their peaks hidden by cloud, and the whole landscape seemed to be changing, taking on a disturbing wildness now that the narrow grey towns had been left behind.

O’Flaherty had wasted no time with his driving so far, but now he slowed perceptibly, as the rattle of loose chippings stung at the underside of the car. Moorland rolled away on both sides of the road, interspersed with a scatter of small white houses, most of them with thatched roofs. Here and there, the earth had been deeply scarred by turf cutting, and piles of turfs stood stacked and awaiting collection near the verges. There were great stretches of water too, looking grey and desolate under the lowering sky. Some of the lakes had islands, and Sandie, fascinated, spotted the ruined stones of an ancient tower on one, half hidden by trees and undergrowth. She would have loved to have asked its history, but after sneaking a look at O’Flaherty’s forbidding countenance she decided to save her questions for Crispin.

She was frankly puzzled by the little man’s hostility, and it made her apprehensive about her reception generally when eventually they reached their journey’s end. If they ever did, she thought, stretching her cramped legs in front of her.

‘Too long a ride for you, is it?’

‘No, I’m enjoying it,’ Sandie said mendaciously. ‘The scenery’s fabulous, isn’t it? So romantic.’

Her innocent comment was greeted by another snort, and silence descended again.

There was little other traffic—some cyclists, a lorry piled high with bales of hay, a few cars and a couple of horseboxes. Occasionally they were brought to a halt by sheep and cattle wandering across the road in front of them.

Rain splattered across the windscreen, and O’Flaherty swore under his breath, and flicked on the wipers, before turning off on to a side road bordering yet another enormous lake. The clouds were down so low now that only the lower slopes of the mountains were visible.

‘What are they called?’ Sandie asked, pointing.

‘The Twelve Pins.’

The road unwound in front of them, like a narrow grey ribbon, edging the water. Sandie watched the rain dancing across the flat surface of the lake, and shivered a little, not from cold, but a sudden swift loneliness.

If she was at home now, she thought, she would probably be helping her mother in the garden, with its neat lawns and beds and well-pruned trees. And instead, here she was driving through a wilderness of water and peat bogs, to what?

She hadn’t expected Crispin to be at the airport to meet her, but she wished with all her heart that he had been. Perhaps she wouldn’t have been feeling quite so strange—and desolate, she thought swallowing a lump in her throat, as she realised just how far she was from home and everything familiar.

‘There’s Killane,’ said O’Flaherty abruptly, and gestured towards where a broad promontory jutted out into the lake. Peering forward, Sandie could see a thin trail of smoke rising above the clustering trees and, as they got closer, could make out the outline of a house. He turned a car across a cattle grid, through empty gateposts, and up a long drive flanked on each side by tall hedges of fuchsia, growing wild in a profusion of pink, crimson and purple.

And then the house was there in front of them, big and square, like a child might draw, with long multi-paned windows. Stone steps, guarded by urns filled with trailing plants, led up to the double doors of the main entrance. It looked grand, forbidding and slightly shabby, all at the same time, Sandie decided wonderingly.

O’Flaherty brought the car to a halt at the foot of the steps. ‘Away in with you,’ he directed. ‘I’ll see to your luggage.’

Sandie flew through the raindrops up the steps, and turned the handle on one of the doors. It gave more easily than she anticipated, and she nearly fell into a wide hall, with a flagged stone floor.

‘God bless us and save us!’ exclaimed a startled voice.

As Sandie recovered her equilibrium, she found she was being observed by a tall grey-haired woman in a flowered overall, carrying a tray laden down with tea-things.

She said, ‘I was told to come straight in. I am expected …’

It was beginning, she realised with exasperation, to sound a little forlorn. It was also irksome to find the woman gaping at her, rather as O’Flaherty had done at the airport.

Sandie straightened her shoulders. ‘I’d like to see Mr Sinclair, please,’ she said with a trace of crispness.

‘He’s in Galway, and won’t be back till night. I’ll take you to the madam.’ The woman continued across the hall, to another pair of double doors, and shouldered her way through them, indicating that Sandie should follow.

It was a big room, filled comfortably with sofas and chairs in faded chintz. A turf fire blazed on the hearth, and a woman was sitting beside it. She was dark-haired, with a vivid, striking face, lavishly made up, and was wearing a smart dress in hyacinth blue silk, with a wool tartan scarf wrapped incongruously round her neck. Sandie recognised her instantly and nervously.

‘Here’s the young lady come to play the piano for Mr Crispin,’ the woman who’d shown Sandie in announced, setting the tray down on an occasional table.

Sandie found herself being scrutinised from several directions—by the woman beside the fire, by a tall, dark girl, bearing a strong resemblance to Crispin, and also by two children, a boy and girl barely in their teens, bent over a jigsaw puzzle at another table.

‘Oh, dear,’ Magda Sinclair said at last. ‘Oh, dear. This is too bad of Crispin. This really won’t do at all.’

Sandie knew an ignominious and overwhelming urge to burst into weary tears. She’d set out with such high hopes, and come all this way, and now Crispin wasn’t here, and his mother disliked her on sight. She remembered Crispin had said she was temperamental.

‘Now, now, Mother.’ The dark girl got up from the window seat where she’d been sprawling, and came forward. ‘The poor kid will think she’s landed in a lunatic asylum!’ She held out her hand. ‘Hello, I’m Jessica Sinclair. Welcome to Killane. This, as you probably realise, is Magda Sinclair, and the brats are James and Steffie.’

Sandie swallowed. ‘How do you do. I’m Alexandra Beaumont.’ She was beginning to feel like something in a zoo.

Magda Sinclair seemed to shake herself, and got up. ‘I’m sorry, my dear, if we seem a little odd, but we just didn’t expect you to look so—so …’

‘Young,’ her daughter supplied, with a hint of dryness, giving Sandie the impression this was not what Magda Sinclair had intended to say at all.

‘Yes, of course,’ Mrs Sinclair said. She gave Sandie a brief smile. ‘I expect you’ve had a terrible journey. Why don’t you let Bridie show you your room, then come down and have some tea with us.’

Sandie had been expecting to be shown the door, rather than the place where she was to sleep.

She said, ‘Thank you. That would be marvellous.’

Bridie led the way back into the hall. As Sandie followed, the strap of her bag caught on the ornately carved doorknob, and she paused to disentangle it.

Through the half-open door, she heard Jessica Sinclair say in a low voice, ‘Don’t look so worried, Mother. Everything will be fine.’ She paused, adding flatly, ‘Just as long as Flynn stays a thousand miles away.’

CHAPTER TWO

SANDIE’S ROOM WAS at the back of the house. Vast and high-ceilinged, it contained a cavernous wardrobe in walnut with elegant brass handles, and a matching dressing-table, tallboy and old-fashioned bedstead of equally generous proportions. Sandie felt almost dwarfed as she unpacked and put her things away.

Tea had been an awkward meal. Having behaved so strangely when she arrived, the Sinclairs now seemed embarrassingly over-eager to put her at her ease, Sandie found ruefully. In spite of that, she’d managed to drink two cups of the strong, fragrant tea, and sample some of Bridie’s featherlight scones, and rich, treacly fruit loaf.

Bridie, she’d learned, was the cook-housekeeper, and the mainstay of the household.

‘She came here as a kitchenmaid when I married Rory Killane,’ Magda Sinclair explained, ‘and she’s been here ever since. She knows more about this family than we do ourselves, and she’s incredibly loyal.’

‘She likes Flynn best,’ said James, passing his cup to be refilled.

‘What nonsense,’ his mother said coldly. ‘She adores us all. Anyway, Flynn is never here.’

‘Bridie says he’ll be here soon. She saw it in the tealeaves,’ put in Steffie, heaping jam on to her fruit loaf.

Sandie saw Magda’s exquisitely reddened lips form something that might have been ‘Damnation’ and hastily looked elsewhere. She hadn’t intended to overhear that brief snatch of conversation before she went upstairs, but she couldn’t help being intrigued by its implications.

Flynn Killane, she thought. Crispin’s non-musical half-brother, who, for some mysterious reason, needed to be kept at a distance.

But what difference can it possibly make to him if I’m here or not? she asked herself in bewilderment.

As soon as she could, she’d excused herself from the tea-party round the drawing-room fire, on the grounds that she needed to unpack. But with that task accomplished, she needed to find something else to do until Crispin came back from Galway, and she was reluctant to return to the drawing-room with its spurious bonhomie, interspersed with silences.

She wandered over to the window and stood looking out. It was raining harder than ever, she noticed with a sigh, and the wind had risen, bending the trees and shrubs that fringed the lawn. Beyond the formal part of the garden was a white-painted fence, dividing it from a paddock where several horses grazed.

‘Have you got everything you need?’

She swung round to see Jessica standing in the doorway, her smile friendly.

‘Yes, thanks. This is a charming room.’

‘I think it’s totally bizarre, like all of them.’ Jessica cast a droll glance towards the embroidered runners that masked the polished surfaces of the chests and bedside table, and the pin tray and trinket jars in rose-painted china which ornamented the dressing-table. ‘It’s like being caught in a Thirties timewarp. Fortunately, the plumbing is bang up to date. Flynn saw to that, although all our water comes from the lake.’

‘It does?’ Sandie’s eyes widened, and Jessica grinned.

‘Sounds rather primitive, eh? But it’s the norm round here. It would cost a fortune to bring mains water to this scatter of population. We have a rain tank as well,’ she added, nodding towards the streaming window. ‘As you can see, it’s rarely empty.’ Her tone became brisker. ‘Mother wondered whether you’d like to see the music-room, where you’re going to be working.’

‘Yes, I would—very much.’ Sandie forced a smile. ‘I began to wonder if I’d be staying, or whether I’d be asked to leave. Everyone keeps—staring at me as if they’d seen a ghost.’

‘How rude of us,’ Jessica said lightly. ‘The fact is, you’re the image of someone we used to know. The resemblance is quite amazing.’

So that’s all, Sandie thought with relief. She said, ‘Well, they say everyone has a double.’

‘So they do.’ Jessica’s tone was faintly ironic. ‘Come on, and I’ll introduce you to the piano.’

The music-room was on the ground floor, at the side of the house.

‘It used to be the morning-room,’ Jessica explained as she led the way in, ‘but Flynn had it converted to make the most of the view.’

Sandie gasped with pleasure. The entire end of the room had been extended out over the lake, and the walls and ceiling glazed so that sky and water formed the backdrop for the magnificent Steinway grand that stood there.

‘It’s fantastic!’ she exclaimed.

‘I’m glad you approve. You’re going to be spending a lot of your time here.’ Jessica paused. ‘Crispin can be a hard taskmaster, but I suppose you know that.’

‘I don’t really know very much about him at all,’ Sandie returned. ‘But he thinks I have promise as a pianist, and I want to work hard for him.’ She swallowed. ‘I hope Mrs Sinclair will let me try and play her accompaniments. I need to justify my existence here.’

‘I should find your feet before you start looking for extra jobs,’ Jessica said quite kindly. ‘This room is completely soundproofed, by the way, so you can come and practise any time when no one else is using it. I tend to work in my room, so you’ll only have Mother and Crispin to compete with.’ She gestured towards the piano. ‘Go on, try it. I can see you’re dying to.’ She disappeared, closing the door behind her.

Sandie sat down and ran her fingers experimentally over the keys. She began mutedly with scales, and a few loosening exercises, then broke into the last movement of the concerto she’d played at the festival.

When she finished, there was a burst of applause from behind her, and she glanced round startled to see Crispin standing in the doorway, smiling at her.

‘Don’t get up,’ he directed, walking towards her. ‘You look just as I imagined you would. This room is the perfect background for you.’

Sandie flushed. ‘I didn’t come here to be ornamental,’ she protested, with an awkward laugh.

‘Of course not,’ he said soothingly. ‘But you can’t escape the fact, sweetheart, that you are—amazingly decorative. I’m surprised your parents allowed you out of their sight.’

Her blush deepened, and she searched frantically for some casual and sophisticated response. I’m not very good at flirting, she thought despairingly. I’ve been so immersed in my music that there hasn’t been time for men—or even boys. Of course, I know he isn’t seriously interested in me in that way—he’s just being—nice to me.

As he reached her, she wondered if he would kiss her again, and found herself both thrilled and a little nervous at the idea, but Crispin walked past to her to one of the long line of cupboards and extracted a pile of manuscript paper which he brought over to the piano.

‘Here’s something you might look at, when you have a moment,’ he said. ‘I call it Elegy.’

‘You wrote this?’ Sandie began to turn over the sheets.

‘A long time ago. It’s never had a public performance yet. I’m waiting for the right moment—and the right person to play it.’ He smiled at her. ‘Maybe that person will be you, Miss Alexandra Beaumont.’

‘I shouldn’t think so,’ she said honestly. ‘I haven’t got a very big span—look.’ She spread out her hands. ‘Some of these chords will be beyond me.’

‘Darling, you’ve only just got here, so don’t start being defeatist already.’ He spoke quite gently, but there was a faint undercurrent of irritation. ‘I said I’d like you to have a look at the piece—try it over, that’s all. I’m not planning to launch you on to the world stage with it next week.’

‘I’ll start on it tomorrow,’ she said. ‘I’m tired and a bit stupid this evening.’

‘Then I recommend an early night.’ He paused, then said rather carefully, ‘I hope Magda spread the welcome mat for you, after all my groundwork.’

‘She’s been very kind,’ Sandie said neutrally. ‘I only hope I can be of some use to her.’ She hesitated. ‘The man who met me at the airport was—rather strange. He didn’t seem to like me much.’

Crispin laughed. ‘Well, don’t lose any sleep over it, sweetheart. O’Flaherty likes very few people. He reckons he’s descended from kings, and considers himself a cut above the rest of us. In actual fact, he’s the gardener, handyman, groom and occasional chauffeur. So much for royalty!’ He paused. ‘But he’s lived at Killane since the beginning of time, and he’s Flynn’s man, so unfortunately we have to tolerate him.’

‘I see.’ Sandie looked down at the keys. ‘Someone said Flynn might be coming here. Are you sure he won’t mind—having a guest he hasn’t invited?’

There was a silence. Then, ‘Flynn and I pursue a policy of non-interference in each other’s lives, and preferably mutual avoidance,’ Crispin said with forced lightness. ‘So you really don’t have to worry. Anyway, Flynn rarely comes within miles of the place when we’re all in residence. He’ll be in New York, or Tokyo, or somewhere. And when he does come, he retreats to his island.’

‘His island?’ Sandie questioned, her eyes going instinctively to the huge window, and the mist-shrouded water beyond.

Crispin nodded. ‘It’s at the far end of the lough—about as far from here as it’s possible to get. He’s built himself some kind of shack there, for when he feels like leading the life of a recluse.’

‘Does that often happen?’

Crispin shrugged. ‘Not often enough to suit me.’ He gave her a rueful smile. ‘I’m afraid Cain and Abel weren’t the only brothers unable to get on with each other, although I don’t think either of us have got near to contemplating murder, quite,’ he added with a laugh.

‘I—I’m sorry,’ Sandie said with a slight awkwardness, not quite knowing how to respond to these family confidences. She decided to try a change of topic. ‘You—you didn’t tell me about the twins—they’re real charmers.’

Crispin looked faintly surprised. ‘I don’t really see a great deal of them. They were my mother’s “afterthought”. She married Henri Clémence, the French polo player, but they split when the twins were still babies. They used to spend some time with him, but he married again a few years ago, and his second wife isn’t so keen on having them around—so now they seem to be here more and more.’

‘I see.’ Sandie reflected that although Magda Sinclair had a large family, it seemed singularly disunited. It saddened her. As an only child, she’d always had a secret hankering for brothers and sisters.

‘Now, I think the best thing for you to do is relax this evening,’ Crispin was saying. ‘And we’ll get down to some serious work tomorrow, when you’re rested.’ He smiled at her, and his voice became husky. ‘I seem to have been waiting for a thousand years for you to get here, Sandie.’ He bent and kissed her on the mouth, his lips lingering on hers, persuading her to a sudden, heady response, as swiftly stemmed when she became aware of the gentle probing of his tongue, and, a little embarrassed, pulled away.

Crispin laughed softly, stroking a strand of pale hair back from her flushed face. ‘My God, but you’re so sweet,’ he said wryly. ‘It would be so easy to lose my head completely, but I’m not going to. I’ve made all sorts of good resolutions about you, darling, and I’m not going to break them this early in our relationship, so don’t look so stricken.’ He kissed her again, brushing his lips across her cheek. ‘After all,’ he murmured, ‘we have the whole summer ahead of us to—learn about each other.’

He straightened, sending Sandie a smile which combined teasing with tenderness. ‘Now, you’d better go and change for dinner. Magda’s a bit of a stickler about punctuality—in other people.’

Sandie’s legs were shaking under her, and her heart seemed to be performing strange tricks inside her ribcage, but she managed to make her way upstairs and find her room.

She closed the door and leaned against the stout panels, staring dreamily towards the window. Rain, homesickness and the ambiguity of her reception no longer mattered.

The whole summer, she thought—and Crispin. It was like some wonderful, incredible dream. And she hoped she would never waken.

Although she was so tired, Sandie found she was far too excited and strung up to sleep that night.

Crispin’s words, and the promise they seemed to imply, echoed and re-echoed in her mind, as she lay staring into the darkness. Was it possible to fall in love so swiftly and completely? she wondered confusedly. Could he have found her, at that first encounter at the festival, so attractive that he’d been prepared to pull out all the stops in order to see her again? It seemed almost too good to be true.

Sandie shivered a little, wishing yet again that she had altogether more experience with men—that she knew more about life in general. It might help to plumb the emotional morass inside her.

Would she, she asked herself, ever have agreed to come to Connemara if she hadn’t, in turn, been attracted to Crispin? Back in England, she’d rationalised it in her own mind as the kind of hero-worship usually reserved for film or pop stars—a kind of delayed adolescent crush, of which she’d been secretly ashamed. After all, she’d told herself, she was far too old for fairy-tales. Yet now, it seemed, incredibly, as if the fairy-tale might be coming true.

With a sigh, Sandie pushed back the blankets and eiderdown, and swung her feet to the floor. She had to do something positive to relax herself—switch her mind to a more tranquil path, or she wouldn’t close her eyes all night, and would be fit for nothing in the morning—certainly not to undergo her first trial as Magda Sinclair’s accompanist, which had been mentioned over dinner, or to make any attempt to play Crispin’s Elegy.

She was still dubious about her technical ability to interpret the composition, but it was obviously important to Crispin that she tried at least, and she wanted to please him, so what choice did she have?

She put on her dressing gown and let herself quietly out of her room. The wall-lights were still burning as she made her way to the main gallery and looked over the banister rail down into the hall. The house was totally quiet, and clearly everyone was in bed, although there were lamps on downstairs as well. A deterrent to burglars, perhaps, Sandie thought, as she trod silently down the stairs, wondering if there could really be such a menace in this remote and peaceful spot.

The music room was in complete darkness as she let herself in, closing the door quietly behind her. Jessica had said the room was soundproof, and she hoped it was true. Music was the only way to relax herself, but the last thing she wanted was the rest of the household roused because of her own sleeplessness.

She would play safe by playing softly, she resolved. She walked to the huge window and stood looking out over the lake. The rain seemed to have eased at last, and a strong golden moon was in evidence between ragged, racing clouds, its light spilling across the restless waters.

Sandie caught her breath in delight. No need to think too hard about a choice of tranquilliser, she thought, as the first clear, gentle notes of Debussy’s Clair de Lune sounded in her mind.

As she turned away to switch on the overhead light above the piano, her attention was caught fleetingly by another flicker of illumination moving fast on the other side of the lake. Car headlights, she realised, and at this late hour the driver was probably counting on having the road to himself.

She sat down at the keyboard, flexed her fingers, and began to play, feeling the tensions and doubts of the past twenty-four hours dissolving away as the slow, rippling phrases took shape and clarity under her hands. As she played, she became oblivious to everything but the mood of peace being engendered within her.

The last notes sounded delicately, perfectly, and were overtaken by silence. Sandie lifted her hands from the keys with a little sigh, and looked at the window for a last glimpse of the moonlight on the water. And saw with heart-stopping suddenness that she was no longer alone.

Reflected plainly in the glass was the tall figure of a man, standing motionless in the doorway behind her.

For a moment Sandie stared with fascinated horror, a hand creeping to her throat. Someone had broken in, she thought. All those lights left burning had been no deterrent at all—just a waste of electricity.

And even if she could summon up a scream, which was doubtful, as the muscles of her throat felt paralysed, who would hear it—from this of all the rooms at Killane?

‘My God, I don’t believe it!’ His voice, low, resonant with a faint stir of anger just below the surface, reached her. ‘I thought you’d have more bloody sense …’

A small choked cry escaped her at last, and she twisted round on the piano stool to face him, her last, absurd hope that it might after all, by some miracle, be Crispin seeking her out killed stone dead.

He took a swift stride forward, his face darkening with furious incredulity as they took their first full look at each other.

‘Who the hell are you?’ he demanded harshly. ‘And what the devil are you doing here?’

‘I could ask you the same.’ Sandie got to her feet, stumbling over the hem of her cotton housecoat in her haste. ‘Who do you think you are, breaking in here—frightening me like this?’

He was only a few yards away from her now, and far from a reassuring sight. He was taller than Crispin, she realised, and more powerfully built too, with broad shoulders tapering down to narrow hips, and long legs encased in faded denims. A thick mane of brown hair waved back from a lean, tough face, dominated by the aggressive thrust of a nose which had clearly been broken at some time, and a strong, uncompromising jaw. His mouth was straight and unsmiling, and his eyes were as coldly blue as the Atlantic Ocean in winter.

‘Tell me who you are,’ he said too quietly. ‘Or do I have to shake it out of you?’

Sandie flung up an alarmed hand. ‘Don’t come any closer,’ she said jerkily. ‘I’m a guest in this house—a friend of the family.’

The wintry gaze went over her comprehensively. She saw his mouth curl with something like distaste.

‘A friend of one member of it, I’ve no doubt,’ he said cuttingly. ‘As for being a guest, my good girl, I have no recollection of inviting you under my roof at any time.’

‘Your roof?’ Sandie echoed faintly. Oh, God, she thought. Not in Tokyo, or a thousand miles away, but right here, and blazingly angry for some reason she couldn’t fathom. She swallowed. ‘I—I think you must be Crispin’s brother.’

‘I have that dubious distinction,’ he agreed curtly. ‘And I’m still waiting for you to identify yourself, my half-dressed beauty.’

Sandie was quaking inwardly, but she managed to lift her chin and return his challenging stare. ‘My name is Alexandra Beaumont,’ she said quietly. ‘And I’m spending the summer here having private piano coaching from Cris—Mr Sinclair.’

‘So that’s the way of it.’ His tone held open derision. ‘As an excuse, it has the virtue of novelty, I suppose.’

‘It happens to be the truth.’

‘And being down here, next door to naked, in the middle of the night, is part of the course, I presume.’ He shook his head. ‘I’m afraid, darling, that your—tuition is hereby cancelled. At any rate, it will have to continue elsewhere.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Don’t worry now. I’ll make the situation clearer than crystal for you at a more civilised hour,’ Flynn Killane told her with dangerous affability. ‘It’s altogether too late to be bandying words right now, so I suggest you take yourself off to whatever room you’ve been given.’ He paused. ‘I suppose you do have a room of your own?’

‘Of course I do.’ Now that she was over her initial fright, anger was starting to build slowly inside Sandie at this cavalier treatment. ‘Look, Mr Killane, I don’t know exactly what you’re getting at, but …’

‘Ah, well,’ he drawled unpleasantly. ‘Brains in addition to those blonde good looks would have been too much to hope for.’ He went to the door and held it open for her. ‘Now, on your way, Miss Beaumont, and try not to get lost in all those confusing passages.’

Sandie took a deep breath and tried to summon what dignity she had left to her rescue. But it was difficult when she was being sent to bed—just like a naughty child—and for nothing. Nothing.

As she walked past him, head high, Flynn Killane put out a hand and ran a finger down the broderie anglaise-trimmed neckline of her housecoat. Incredulously, Sandie felt his hand brush her breast, and recoiled, the breath catching in her throat.

‘You look—very fetching.’ The smile that did not reach his eyes was exactly the insult he intended it to be. ‘You were no doubt hoping for company. What a pity your only visitor turned out to be myself!’

She said chokingly, ‘Please don’t expect a polite contradiction, Mr Killane. What I can’t comprehend is how someone as kind and—and charming as Crispin can possibly be related to someone like you. Perhaps you really are some kind of changeling.’

She saw the lean face darken, and was aware of him taking one threatening step towards her. His hand closed on her arm, anchoring her, making retreat impossible.

He said softly, through his teeth, ‘Now if you really want to make comparisons …’

He pulled her against the hard length of his body and kissed her on the mouth.

After Crispin’s beguiling gentleness, Flynn Killane’s cold-blooded, deliberately sensual exploration of her lips had the shock of an assault. For a moment Sandie was frozen, unable to credit what was happening, then she began to struggle wildly, her body twisting against his as she tried to free herself, and heard him laugh, deep in his throat. His hands slid down her body, moulding her slender contours through the thin fabric of housecoat and nightgown, and her whole being seemed to burn with shame at his touch.

For a long moment he held her, then, totally unhurriedly, he lifted his head and released her, stepping back.

‘Take that to bed with you, darling,’ he said silkily. ‘And while you’re lying there, remember they’re my sheets you’re wrapped in.’ He paused. ‘Sweet dreams!’

She lifted her hand and slapped him as hard as she could across his tanned cheek, then she ducked her head, picked up the trailing skirts of her housecoat, and ran like a hare for the stairs and safety.

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