Past All Forgetting
Sara Craven

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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

ENDPAGE

COPYRIGHT

CHAPTER ONE

JANNA PRENTISS stole a swift glance at her watch, and stifled her amusement as she realised the gesture was being surreptitiously copied all around the classroom. Not that she could really blame the children, she thought tolerantly. The autumn term was the longest, and this half-term break was more than welcome—to the teachers as well as the pupils. When they came back after their week’s holiday, everything would slide with ever-increasing momentum towards the hectic excitement of Christmas, and its attendant Nativity plays, carol concerts and frantic present-making.

A lot of her fellow staff members groaned both inwardly and aloud at the prospect, but Janna always found herself rather looking forward to Christmas, in spite of all the extra work. She enjoyed the yards of paper chains and the parties, and helping to cut out robins and holly which actually bore some resemblance to the real thing for the home-made calendars and cards.

It was this part of the year that she found so disturbing. She glanced out through the big window to the tree which dominated the centre of the tarmac playground. The summer had been long and lingering, but now, in late October, a wind with all the chill of winter in its breath was shaking loose the last remaining leaves and sending them drifting in little eddies to the ground.

The lunch bell was due to go at any moment. Quietly, she told the child at the top of each table to collect up the books and hand them in. There wouldn’t be any work that afternoon. Mrs Parsons, the headmistress, had hired some films, and the children were seething with excitement, vehemently arguing the merits of Tom and Jerry over Bugs Bunny. She chivvied them into a certain amount of quiet and order, and along the corridor to the school hall for lunch. It was mince, she noted wryly, with the soya bean which seemed an inevitable addition these days, and it was a taste she hadn’t been able to acquire to far, although the children seemed to like it well enough. She wandered back towards the staffroom. She wasn’t particularly hungry. She had an apple in her briefcase, and she would make do with that.

As she walked past the school office, Vivien Lennard, the school secretary, peered round the door at her. ‘Oh, there you are, Janna. I was just going to send a kid with a note to find you. Colin rang to say he would pick you up in five minutes.’

‘Oh.’ Janna paused for a moment, taken aback. She did occasionally have lunch with Colin, but he usually gave her a fair amount of warning. She knew that if she’d spoken to Colin herself, she would have made an excuse. She didn’t feel like indulging in a large and probably stodgy meal at the White Hart, whose dining room was Carrisford’s only restaurant.

‘Cheer up!’ Vivien sounded amused. ‘Anyone would think you’d just had the death sentence pronounced! Well, that comes later, dear—at the wedding. For now, you’re just engaged to the lad, so why not enjoy it?’

Janna smiled in spite of herself, knowing quite well that Vivien herself was as happily married as it was almost possible to be.

‘Sorry if I’m ruining your image of love’s young dream,’ she returned. ‘I’m just feeling a little jaded, that’s all. It’s been damned hard work this term so far. This class hasn’t been as easy to get to know as some that I’ve had.’

‘Never mind.’ Vivien gave her a pat on the arm. ‘When you and Colin get married, all this will just seem like some horrible dream. He does still want you to give up work straight away, doesn’t he?’

‘Yes,’ Janna agreed with something of an effort, ‘he does.’

Vivien stared at her. ‘Don’t tell me you’re having second thoughts!’

Janna smiled faintly. ‘Oh, not about Colin. Just about giving up work. It seems so—so odd, somehow. I just can’t visualise myself as a lady of leisure.’

‘A lady of leisure—with Colin’s home to run, and all that entertaining you’ll be called on to do, not to mention having a family of your own some day? You’re kidding!’

‘I suppose it does sound ridiculous. But when I started my training I thought I’d be teaching for years to come.’

‘The dedicated spinster, I suppose, with Prime Ministers coming to wring your gnarled hand and swear they got their inspiration from you.’ Vivien’s laugh was infectious. She gave Janna a shrewd all-encompassing glance from the sleek cap of smooth dark hair which curved forward on to her cheeks, and the slightly tilting green eyes, down over her slender but rounded figure to her slim legs and small feet in fashionably high-heeled shoes. ‘I’m sorry, my dear, but you don’t fit the image at all.’

In all but one thing, it suddenly occurred to her after she had gone back into her office and resumed her task of filling in the endless forms that were part of her daily routine. Janna was a lovely thing and had never lacked for masculine admirers, long before Colin Travers had arrived on the scene. Yet there had always been something cool, even remote about her, although Vivien had always considered her husband Bill was exaggerating when he described Janna as ‘an icicle’. Nevertheless, there was a promise of generosity in the curves of Janna’s mouth that Vivien could swear had never been fulfilled, and allied to this was the constant suggestion that Janna was holding herself back in some way—constantly reserved.

‘One thing’s certain,’ Vivien told herself as she thrust an envelope into her typewriter and began to type the address. ‘If she ever does let herself go, someone will be counting his blessings for the rest of his life.’

Meanwhile, the unconscious object of all this speculation had retrieved her full-length suede coat from the cloakroom, and was standing near the main entrance watching out for Colin’s car.

A group of older children, who would be attending the second dinner sitting, came racing over to her. ‘Miss—Miss—have you seen that car?’

Alison Wade, who had been in her class the previous year, caught her hand. ‘Come and see it, Miss. It’s—it’s fantastic!’

‘It must be,’ Janna said amusedly, knowing that Alison was not easily impressed.

Half-resignedly, she allowed herself to be shepherded round to the side of the building where the staff and visitors parked their cars, and her jaw dropped a little. Alison had not been exaggerating. She knew very little about cars and she could place neither the model nor its country of origin. What she could recognise was the understated suggestion of power and performance in the streamlined, low-slung shape, and an unmistakable aura of luxury.

The children were staring at it and murmuring, resisting the temptation to touch it and leave fingermarks on the immaculate pale grey body.

Kevin Daniel nudged her. ‘Eh, Miss,’ he said in awe, ‘it’s like something out of a James Bond film.’ He pointed at the headlamps. ‘D’you think there’s concealed machine-guns there?’

‘I doubt it,’ Janna told him apologetically, but even she was taken aback by the instrument panel on the dashboard. Maybe there were no machine-guns, but she was sure every gadget in the history of the world was included somewhere in that terrifying array of dials and switches.

A car horn blared sharply, and involuntarily she stepped back, wondering just for a second if the car owner was somehow able to warn people away by some form of remote control … Then she saw Colin’s car parked outside the school gates, and chided herself for her own fancifulness. She paused long enough to shoo the children safely back to the playground and out of temptation’s way, then went out of the gates where Colin was waiting impatiently, holding the passenger door open for her.

‘We haven’t got much time,’ he remarked as he swung himself into the driving seat, leaning across and brushing his lips against her cheek.

Janna glanced at her watch. ‘We’ve over an hour. The service at the White Hart isn’t that slow and …’

He shook his head. ‘We aren’t going there. There’s something I want to show you first. We might manage a drink and a sandwich at the Crown afterwards.’

‘The Crown?’ Janna stared at him, puzzled. ‘But that’s out of town.’

He sent her a brief, triumphant smile. ‘I know. Sit back, my sweet, and prepare for a surprise.’

Janna complied, faintly bewildered by the air of barely suppressed excitement that hung about Colin. He was generally so imperturbable, so much in control of his emotions. It was one of the things that she admired about him, and certainly an aspect of his character which explained his success in business. It was an open secret locally that Colin was the driving force now at Travers Engineering, and that his father, who had founded the firm, was content to be a figurehead, and leave the running of the company in Colin’s hands.

Travers was the only large works in the locality, and it had expanded dramatically in recent years in spite of the generally depressed economic climate. With the expansion had come a change of role for Carrisford, with a brand new housing estate springing up on its outskirts, and a hurried building programme to add to the capacity of its primary and comprehensive schools. Yet in many ways it still remained a rather sleepy little market town, Janna thought with affection as Colin’s car threaded its way through the crowded square bordered by tall grey stone buildings. The tradition was there in the market cross, and the square Georgian town hall set firmly at one end of the market place.

It had always looked the same for as long as she could remember. She had gone away to do her training, and in many ways had been glad to go, and she still wasn’t sure what had brought her back as a newly fledged teacher in her probationary year. Her parents were undemonstratively glad to see her. They regarded it as part of the scheme of things that the daughter of their marriage should live at home until she set out on a married life of her own. There was a reassuring sense of permanence, of stability about things, and Colin’s advent into her life seemed, as far as her mother was concerned certainly, merely an inevitable piece in the pattern.

Janna and Colin had met two years earlier, when Colin had first come to the Carrisford works. Up to that time, he had merely been a name to many of the local people, having followed school and university with a prolonged training period, both abroad and at the other works in the north-west of England.

They had met at the cricket club one warm Saturday afternoon when Janna was helping some of the players’ wives with the teas. When the match was ended prematurely by a drenching thunderstorm he had asked her to go out to dinner with him. Before many weeks had passed Janna knew she was being courted. At first, she could only feel dismay, but she soon discovered Colin had no intention of rushing her either physically or mentally into a relationship she was not prepared for. His pursuit of her, though determined, was leisurely. As she had come to know him better, she realised that this was not solely out of consideration for her, but because there was an instinctive element of caution in his nature. He too wanted to be absolutely sure before committing himself.

They had been officially engaged for just over three months now, and Janna had begun to sense a slight change in his attitude of late. They had not planned an exact date for their marriage, but she knew he was thinking in terms of the following spring. But though this had led to a new sense of urgency in their relationship, Janna had not discovered any determination in Colin to take it to a more intimate level which she might have expected. After all, he was going to be her husband. She wore his very expensive ring and was a frequent guest at his father’s rather ostentatious house in the neighbouring dale. In many ways, there was not the slightest reason why they should hold back any longer. And yet … Janna gripped her hands together in her lap until the brilliant solitaire she wore on her left hand bit into her flesh. At the back of her mind there was always that memory, no matter how deeply buried she thought it was. Savagely, she dammed it back into the recesses of her brain. It was over—had been over for years. Anyway, she’d been hardly more than a child. She couldn’t still go on blaming herself for that …

She dragged herself back into the present with a start, aware suddenly that the car had turned left at the last fork and was climbing steadily.

‘The Crown’s the other way.’ She twisted around in her seat and looked at the grey town lying in the sheltered valley behind them. ‘Darling, I know I said I had an hour, but it doesn’t last for ever.’

‘I know. But I do have a surprise for you, my love. Be patient.’

‘All right.’ She looked ahead of them uncertainly. ‘But there’s nothing up here, you know. Only Carrisbeck House.’

She was glad that Colin had no idea what an effort it cost her to say that.

‘Correct. Clever girl! Go to the top of the class.’

To her dismay, the car was slowing, and Colin was indicating his intention to turn left.

‘But we can’t go in there,’ she protested, fighting her panic. ‘It—it’s empty. It has been for years.’

‘I know,’ Colin said casually as they drove through the gates and up the long curve of the drive. ‘Tragedy, isn’t it?’

Towering rhododendrons crowded on each side of the gravel. The last time she had driven up this drive they had been covered in blossom, she thought confusedly, and she had sat in the back of a much less opulent car than Colin’s, almost sick with excitement because she was going to a party at Carrisbeck House and because he would be there. And because tonight—that night—she was going to make him notice her.

She shivered suddenly, closing her eyes.

‘Grey goose flying over your grave?’ Colin’s voice was almost jocular. The car had stopped and when she opened her eyes, it wasn’t a nightmare. It was really happening. They were really parked in front of Carrisbeck House. It looked just the same, with the short flight of shallow steps leading up to the front door. The only difference was that the two great stone urns which flanked the steps looked empty and neglected. Mrs Tempest had always kept them filled with flowers, she thought. Summer or winter, it seemed there had always been something in bloom to welcome you at the door. Now there was nothing, and the curtainless windows seemed to stare down at her inimically as if they were remembering that other Janna Prentiss, not quite seventeen and much more sure of herself than she had ever been since.

‘We can’t go in.’ Her voice sounded strained and breathless even in her own ears. ‘I know it’s empty, but it still belongs to Colonel Tempest even so …’

Colin reached into his pocket and produced a bunch of keys tied to a label.

‘No longer, I’m afraid. I’m surprised you haven’t heard, but it will be in the Advertiser at the weekend. Colonel Tempest died last week, so the house is on the market. Barry Windrush’s father is handling the sale and Barry gave me a tip-off.’ He gave a swift, excited laugh and drew her unresponsive body against his. ‘Don’t you understand, darling? That’s going to be our house!’

The silence was endless and then she said stupidly, ‘But—we can’t buy that.’

‘What’s to prevent us? Don’t be an idiot, my sweet.’ The affection in his voice had an added note of exasperation. ‘I’ve spoken to Dad, and he’s given us the go-ahead. In fact, he’s all for it. It’s ideal—close to the works, big enough to do all the entertaining, but not so massive that you’d need an immense staff to help you run it. I believe the Tempests had a housekeeper. She’s been keeping an eye on the place, I understand, so its condition should be quite reasonable. And her husband has been keeping the garden in order. I know they’re neither of them young any more, but Barry reckons they might be quite willing to stay on, if they were asked, and that would solve all sorts of problems. Janna, what is it? Are you all right?’

‘Yes, I’m fine,’ she lied, trying desperately to catch at the rags of her self-control. She gave him a meaningless smile. ‘But you can’t be serious, Colin. How can we live here? It’s the old Tempest house. Everyone knows that.’

He shrugged irritably. ‘No doubt, but what happens now that there are no more “old Tempests” to occupy it? Do you really think a lovely place like this should be left to moulder away and fall down? Not if I know it. Come on, darling,’ he added with an impatient look at his watch. ‘It’s you that has to get back. Come and have a look round.’

She had no option but to obey. If she refused to go in at all, he would have every reason to accuse her of being illogical, and she couldn’t explain.

As they reached the top of the steps, she said carefully. ‘But there are more Tempests, aren’t there? What about the—the nephew?’

Colin shrugged, intent on fitting the key into the lock. ‘I wouldn’t know, darling. I didn’t even know there was a nephew. Whatever has happened to him, he hasn’t inherited the estate.’

The big panelled hall was just as she remembered it, with the sweep of the stairs leading up to the galleried landing above.

‘Barry says they used to hold dances in here.’ Colin looked around. ‘I must say there’s room enough. I’m quite sorry I never came to any of them. I suppose you never did, darling? You were probably too young.’

‘I came—once,’ she said, then walked over to the drawing room door and turned the handle. It was a beautiful room. She had always loved it with the great French windows looking out over the sloping gardens, and the gleam of the river in the distance. It looked forlorn without the deep sofas and chairs with their charming chintz covers. She could see the marks on the walls where pictures had once hung. The fire-irons still stood in the hearth to the left of the empty grate where sweet-smelling pine cones and logs had once burned. There had been a low-seated Victorian chair by that hearth once, she remembered, and Janna the schoolgirl had once sat nervously on its edge, clutching a bone china plate while Mrs Tempest poured tea and asked what she intended to do when she left school. And she had said quickly, ‘I’d like to travel,’ and tried to stop herself glancing too eagerly towards the door, waiting for the moment when it would open and he would come in. Rian. Rian Tempest, Colonel Tempest’s nephew and sole relative, who worked as a foreign correspondent on a newspaper and travelled all over the world.

But he did not come, and Janna’s excuse for her visit—she had volunteered to deliver the parish magazine for Mrs Hardwick who had a sprained ankle—was a complete waste. And she still had dozens of the beastly things to hike around in the sun. It was less a sense of duty and more a fear of retribution, divine or all too human, which had stopped her giving them decent burial behind some convenient hedge. But perhaps, she’d thought, giving her imagination full rein, Mrs Tempest might mention that evening over dinner that she’d been there. ‘That lovely Prentiss child’—which wasn’t really conceit because she’d heard it said so many times, and Rian might take a new look at her and see that she wasn’t really a child any more but a woman—a woman …

As she stood in the middle of the empty drawing room, Janna’s cheeks burned at the memory of her own naïveté. It had all seemed so simple then. You stretched out your hand and said ‘Give me’ and a kindly Providence dispensed whatever was required, because you were lovely and so nearly seventeen and spoiled by everyone.

Someone had left a key on the inside of the french windows leading to the terrace. The key was stiff in the lock, but eventually it yielded and Janna walked outside into the fresh air. Somewhere at the back of her mind a warning voice was shouting at her, ‘Don’t look back.’ All these years it had worked so well. Glimpsing the house as she drove past on her way somewhere else, hearing the Tempests mentioned, she had managed to avert her gaze and closed her ears.

It had been difficult, though, when she had heard that Mrs Tempest had died. She had never been a robust woman, Janna thought, remembering the finely boned face under its coronet of silvering hair. Colonel Tempest had always been openly protective towards his wife, and Rian’s attitude to his aunt had echoed this.

But there had been no sign of weakness about Mrs Tempest that night. She had driven Janna home, her back straight as a ramrod, her gaze fixed unerringly on the road ahead. At her gate, she had said, ‘You are quite well, Janna? Then I will bid you goodnight.’ She had driven away and Janna had never seen or heard from her again. It had only been a few weeks later that the house had been shut up, and the Colonel and his wife had moved away. There was speculation, naturally, but it did not take the form that Janna had feared. It was taken for granted that Mrs Tempest’s health would not stand up to another northern winter. Someone in the post office had even remarked that she’d ‘been showing her age lately, poor lady’.

No one, luckily, had linked Rian’s abrupt departure several weeks before with the Colonel’s decision to close the house and move. Rian was a law unto himself. He came and went when and where his job took him. Everyone knew the Colonel had been disappointed because his nephew hadn’t followed him into the Army, but it was accepted that Rian had a mind of his own, and no one could say the Colonel wasn’t proud of the way the boy had turned out. More like a son than a nephew, people said, and that was the way it should be as Rian had no parents of his own any more.

A much younger Janna had always been among the crowd of worshippers when Rian, who played cricket for his university, turned out for the local club during the summer vacation. She had begged his autograph once on the corner of a score card and treasured it until it literally fell to pieces.

There had been a quality about him even then which had set him apart from the rest, although she had been too young to analyse it. His movements were unstudiedly elegant and economical, and although he certainly wasn’t good-looking in the film or television star mould, there was a latent attraction in his dark, saturnine features. When he smiled, his charm was magical, almost wicked. It hinted that its owner was not disposed to take anything really seriously, especially you, no matter how delightful he might find you, and it was irresistible. Or Janna had found it so.

She stepped forward to the edge of the terrace, wrapping her arms tightly across her body. The wind was blowing straight off the Pennines, and its force had an added bite.

‘Darling, what on earth are you doing out here? It’s freezing.’ Colin’s voice sounded rather plaintive as he made his way out through the french windows to join her.

‘Blowing the cobwebs away,’ she said, and heaven knew it was the truth. But would it work?

Colin, to her relief, took the remark at its face value.

‘The place could do with an airing,’ he remarked. ‘But I can’t smell any damp, can you? It all seems in pretty good nick. Shall we have a look upstairs?’

‘You go ahead,’ she said. ‘I’ll join you in a minute. I want to enjoy this view for a while. It’s a long time since I’ve seen it.’

A long time—seven years, to be exact. Seven years since she had come out of that antique auction further up the dale with her father and found herself face to face with Rian, come to collect his aunt who had been bidding for some china figures. For a moment she had barely recognised him. He had always been thin, but now his face was harder and older, the dark eyes under their lazily drooping lids suddenly wary. He had answered her father’s jovial greeting with a smile and a handshake, and then had turned to her, his smile widening.

‘Of course I remember Janna,’ he responded to her father’s query. ‘I’m waiting impatiently for her to grow up.’

It was the teasing, slightly flirtatious remark that he might have made to the schoolgirl daughter of any old acquaintance. She could see it now. Why couldn’t she have seen it then?

Because I didn’t want to, she thought, gripping the terrace balustrade with suddenly shaking hands. Because in that brief instant, on the heels of his joking remark, she had found a focus for all those barely understood adolescent yearnings. Still half a child, every demand of her awakening womanhood had become crystallised in Rian. And her egotism, burnished by the knowledge of her legion of admirers in the local Sixth Form and the Young Farmers’ club, had done the rest.

She wanted Rian, so it must follow as the night did the day that he wanted her.

Janna winced, recalling how simple it had all seemed then. It had not taken her long to find out why Rian was in Carrisford. He was on an extended sick leave recovering after a fever contracted in a jungle war, but the fact that he was officially convalescent did not prevent him throwing himself into the social life of the district.

Just how fully Janna only realised at breakfast one morning, when her father casually remarked to her mother, ‘I see young Tempest has taken up with Barbara Kenton. Bit of a lass, isn’t she?’

‘You could say that,’ her mother had replied with a repressive glance in Janna’s direction.

Janna had pushed away her cereal bowl with a sudden sick feeling. She knew all about Barbara Kenton. Within the limitations of the area, Barbara was fairly notorious. In her last years at school, there had always been jokes about her, and comments scribbled on walls. Then, she had been a tall, sleepy-eyed blonde whose clothes always seemed just too skimpy for her voluptuous body. Now she was working as a receptionist in the White Hart, and making little attempt to conceal her overt sexuality.

Her father was speaking again. ‘Well, you can’t blame the lad. Plenty of time before he needs to think of settling down. But I bet he hasn’t told his uncle. Bit of a Puritan, the old Colonel, if you ask me.’

Janna got up from the table, feeling her cheeks beginning to burn angrily. Collecting her school bag from the hall, she told herself vehemently that Rian couldn’t like Barbara Kenton. He just couldn’t! She was so vile and obvious. But that evening at the Midsummer barbecue she was given plenty of evidence to the contrary. Rian was there, and Barbara was with him, clinging to his arm at every opportunity. They left the barbecue early, and Janna overheard a few of the ribald remarks when their departure was observed. It was her first real experience of jealousy, and it was cruel and hurtful. The evening was ruined for her, and as she lay in bed that night, tossing restlessly in a vain attempt to capture some sleep, images of Rian with Barbara kept superimposing themselves on her mind.

It wasn’t a great consolation to find that Barbara could not consider him her exclusive property either. She was just one of a long list of girls that Rian escorted to dances and parties, and drove to dinner in his sports car as June lengthened into July. But Janna, to her chagrin, was not.

They met everywhere, of course, and he always spoke pleasantly to her, but at the same time he made no attempt to further their acquaintance. To her dismay, she realised that he was treating her as he would any other of the youngsters. She did everything she could to get him to notice her, abandoning her own crowd of friends and hanging about on the fringes of his, flirting outrageously with anyone who gave her any encouragement, and dancing without a trace of inhibition with any partners who offered themselves. Rian did not offer. Occasionally she caught him watching her, an expression of faint amusement in his dark eyes, but he always held maddeningly aloof.

But at last her chance came. There was a Young Farmers’ buffet dance, and Janna managed to wangle herself an invitation from Philip Avery, who was only a couple of years Rian’s junior. Her parents did not approve, she knew, but they could not forbid her to go without offending the Averys. Besides, Philip was eminently respectable, and his eight years’ seniority to Janna was the only real complaint they could make against him.

Extreme behaviour had got her nowhere, she decided, so she would see what the utmost circumspection would achieve. At first it did not seem to be achieving very much at all. Rian’s eyebrows had risen when Philip had arrived at his table with his partner, and his greeting to Janna was cool. Everyone else in the party was at least five years older than she was, and Janna soon began to feel very out of things. Much of the general conversation was lost on her as she did not know the people or the incidents being referred to. Philip was good-natured enough, but it was obvious from his attitude that he now rather regretted bringing her, and Janna guessed that he had been teased by some of his contemporaries for cradle-snatching. Suppressed tears of mortification made her eyes sparkle even more brilliantly than usual, and she held her head high as she sipped her fruit juice, and tried to pretend that it didn’t matter that she was the only person at the table not old enough to order something alcoholic.

It was just after the interval that the miracle happened. She came back from the cloakroom to find everyone else dancing and Rian sitting alone at the table. He rose courteously as she approached and held the chair as she sat down, but she knew that he was hiding his annoyance at the situation. Inwardly she was jubilant.

She smiled at him, using her lowered eyelashes quite shamelessly.

‘Aren’t you going to ask me to dance?’

‘I wasn’t,’ he said dampeningly. ‘However, if you insist.’ He rose and held out his hand.

She swallowed down a swift feeling of humiliation, and accompanied him on to the dance floor. It was a fast-moving beat number, and there was no opportunity for conversation. She could have cried with disappointment. She knew she could make him interested in her, if only—only she was given the chance. Like an answer to her prayer, the lights dimmed and the band’s tempo changed to a slow smoochy number. Amid wolf whistles and catcalls, couples went willingly into each other’s arms. Janna glanced shyly at Rian and saw that amusement was battling with exasperation on his face. For one appalled moment, she thought he was going to take her back to the table in front of everyone. Then, with a slight shrug, he held out his arms.

For a few seconds she was too unnerved with happiness to be aware of anything other than she was at last in his arms where she had wanted to be. Then her senses began to report other messages, the sheer hard muscularity of his body against hers, the sharp, expensive smell of the cologne he used, and almost involuntarily she moved closer to him, pressing herself invitingly against him and sliding her arms round his waist under his jacket.

For a moment he tensed, and she heard him give a soft, unamused laugh.

‘You, my sweet Janna, have all the makings of a first-class witch—but of course you know that,’ he murmured.

‘I don’t know anything except that this is the first time I’ve ever danced with you.’ She tipped her head back and looked up at him, deliberately provocative.

He tapped the end of her nose with a careless finger. ‘Don’t try your tricks on me, little one. I’ve seen them all before and performed by experts. Go and cut your milk teeth on someone your own age, and I don’t mean Philip Avery.’

When she spoke, her voice shook with anger. ‘Don’t be so—so bloody patronising! You’re only ten years older than me, Rian Tempest, so what gives you the right to criticise my conduct?’

He grinned down into her furious face. ‘That’s more like it, Janna. The sophisticated siren bit doesn’t suit you, you know. You’ve got years ahead of you for that. I preferred the kid with ice-cream round her mouth who used to tail after me at cricket matches.’

‘How very sad,’ she said, struggling to regain her poise. ‘I’m afraid I buried her some time ago, along with my ankle socks and the braces on my teeth.’

‘It’s sadder than you know,’ he answered briefly. There was a long pause, then he said quite gently, ‘Look, Janna, I know—or rather I suspect—what you’re up to. I won’t pretend I’m not flattered. I wouldn’t be human if I wasn’t. You’re young, very lovely, and very desirable. It’s a combination that adds up to dynamite and I—I don’t want to be around when the explosion happens. I have enough excitement in my work. When I’m on leave, I’m looking for some rest and relaxation.’

‘Is that what you get from Barbara Kenton?’ some inner demon made her ask.

His eyes narrowed dangerously. ‘I hardly think that’s any of your business,’ he drawled. ‘But let me advise you against trying to emulate her example. You—er—lack the basic equipment at the moment.’ He let his eyes rest insolently on the modest cleavage revealed by the dipping neckline of her pale yellow dress.

Her cheeks were flaming. ‘You—you swine!’ she breathed.

He bowed his head in ironic acknowledgment. ‘That’s a safer thing to be in your eyes than the answer to the maiden’s prayer, Janna,’ he said drily. ‘Now shall we sit the rest of this out?’

She had wept bitterly that night, but had risen the following morning with all the mercurial optimism of youth. He had said she was lovely and desirable, as well as being young. She would build on that.

She came back to the present with a start as Colin said irritably, ‘Are you going to spend all day gazing at this damned view?’

She turned. He was standing in the open french windows, staring at her reproachfully. ‘It’s nearly time for you to get back, and you haven’t even looked at the bedrooms or the kitchens.’

She looked down at the stone flags. ‘I don’t think I can live here, Colin,’ she said at last.

‘What?’ His voice rose incredulously.

‘We—we don’t have to buy this house, do we?’ She moistened her lips and stared desperately around her. ‘It’s too big, for one thing. There must be seven or eight bedrooms at least. You said yourself that we’d need staff. I’d rather looked forward to coping by myself—when we were first married, at least.’

Colin’s frown deepened. ‘I don’t know what’s got into you, Janna. I thought you knew that you weren’t going to be Little Mrs Average in her three-bedroomed semi. That isn’t our sort of life, darling. You must be realistic about it.’

She bit her lip. ‘I’m sorry, Colin. I—I just don’t care for this house. I can’t visualise myself ever living here.’

His expression became slightly more indulgent. ‘I’ve rushed you a bit, haven’t I, darling? I’m sorry, it was stupid of me. I just thought you’d be as thrilled as I am about it all.’ He walked over to her and slid his arms round her waist, pressing his lips to the side of her neck. ‘Forgive me?’ he whispered.

‘Of course.’ The smile was difficult, but she made the effort.

He was silent for a minute or two. Then, ‘It is a glorious view,’ he beguiled her. ‘Are you quite sure you want to let it go?’ He waited, but she made no reply. ‘Think about it, Janna,’ he said persuasively. ‘Properties like this don’t come on the market any old day, you know.’ He kissed her again. ‘And you’re so lovely,’ he muttered thickly. ‘It’s just the setting you need. You were born to be the mistress of this house, darling.’

Suddenly she wanted to be free of his seeking hands. Nervously, she pulled away, trying to laugh. ‘Colin, I’ve got to get back to school. I’m sorry I’ve disappointed you, and I will think it over, I promise.’

‘I can’t ask more than that.’ He linked his fingers companionably through hers and led her back into the drawing room, locking the french windows behind them. ‘I know you’ll change your mind, my sweet. I’ll arrange for a survey to be done, and we’ll come again next week when we have more time and go all over the place.’

‘Yes,’ she said quietly, ‘we’ll do that, if you wish.’

Conversation was desultory as they drove back through Carrisford, and parked outside the school gates. Colin took her hand. ‘Dinner tonight?’

She hesitated. ‘I don’t think so. I ought to wash my hair.’

‘It looks fine to me,’ he said. ‘But you know best. I’ll ring you tomorrow.’ He lifted her hand to his lips.

She stood on the pavement and watched the car drive away, feeling as if her entire world had been turned upside down. The safe walls of security and convention that she had built so painstakingly up around herself over the past few years showed every sign of tumbling around her, and it was an uncomfortable feeling at the least.

Colin was right, of course, she thought miserably. The house had everything to recommend it. If it had been any other house anywhere in the locality she would have shared his enthusiasm. She had always known that it would be part of her duties as his wife to entertain his guests and have foreign buyers to stay, and she had looked forward to it.

But the house—that house—did not belong to them and never could, no matter how much money Colin’s father might put up. It was the Tempest house, and it belonged by rights to Rian Tempest, and it was her fault and hers alone that Rian had not inherited it. Her fault that it had stood empty for all these years. No one had ever accused her, but she knew it just the same, knew that Rian had left his uncle’s house seven years before in bitterness and disgrace because of her, and that the Colonel had died without forgiving him.

And the fact that the knowledge of her guilt was confined to her and only one other person in the world now did not ease her conscience in the slightest.

Faintly in the distance, she could hear the bell for afternoon school begin to ring, and she turned and began to walk up the drive. Over in the playground, the children were being lined up by the teacher on duty, and Janna turned slightly to watch, not noticing where she was going.

She did not hear the sound of the car’s engine. The first warning of its presence was the blare of the horn, and she stepped hurriedly out of its way, flattening herself against an adjacent wall with a word of apology on her lips. She glanced at the driver’s seat, wondering incuriously who the owner of such an exotic vehicle might be and what business brought him to a small country school in the middle of the day. She couldn’t think of any of the parents whose finances would run to a supercharged machine like that. The half-smile died on her lips. For one incredulous moment, she thought she must be dreaming, that it must be an image created by her overcharged emotional state.

The car braked softly beside her, and the driver’s window rolled noiselessly downwards, at the press of a button, she thought hysterically, digging her nails into the palms of her hands. A pair of dark eyes met hers expressionlessly, then moved slowly and consideringly downwards, lingering on her white face, and the trembling limbs she could neither control nor dissemble.

‘Hello, Janna,’ said Rian Tempest.

Then the car accelerated forward, with a low, fierce growl like some huge menacing beast, and he was gone.

CHAPTER TWO

JANNA shut her bedroom door and sank down on the bed with a heartfelt sigh of relief. Her head was throbbing painfully, and her confused state of emotion, coupled with apprehension, had made her feel physically sick.

She did not know how she had managed to get through the afternoon with a semblance of normality. She had sat in the darkened hall with her class, watching the film show with unseeing eyes, laughing obediently when everyone else did at the technicoloured cavortings without the slightest realisation of what was going on. Luckily the Walt Disney adventure and the cartoons which preceded it had occupied everyone else’s attention, so Janna’s wan appearance and tightly gripped hands passed unnoticed.

Her mother, however, was not so easily to be put off. She had watched with puckered brows while Janna pushed her evening meal, uneaten, round her plate, but had accepted her halting explanation that she thought she might be starting a migraine. Mrs Prentiss had been a migraine sufferer all her life and was always eagle-eyed to detect incipient signs of it in anyone close to her. She had tutted distressedly over Janna, pressed some painkillers on her, and recommended that she lie down in her darkened room. Janna was thankful to accept the medicine and the advice.

Now that she was alone, at least she did not have to pretend any more. She turned and lay full-length on her stomach across the bed, pillowing her chin on her folded arms.

Rian Tempest was back in Carrisford. After all these years without a sign, a word even, he had returned, and now her peace of mind had gone for ever.

She closed her eyes, trying to erase from her mind the memory of that long look he had given her before he had driven off. It had emphasised more clearly than words could do that he had not forgotten anything which had passed between them seven years before. Not forgotten—and not forgiven either. But what else did she expect? What she had done to Rian was unforgivable. She had always known that.

She shivered, pressing her body further into the yielding softness of the eiderdown as if she was seeking some kind of sanctuary. When she had been a child, and there had been some small disaster to be faced, it had always been a comfort to drag the bedclothes round her—even over her head—and tell herself that no one would ever find her now.

Yet Rian had found her, she thought, as she had always feared that he would even with the false sense of security the passing years had given her.

But why had he come back? she asked herself almost despairingly. Now that his aunt and uncle were both dead and he must know for certain that the house and estate were not his, what was there to draw him back to Carrisford? The possibilities that suggested themselves were too disturbing to contemplate.

She turned restlessly on to her side, wishing for the first time in her life that she had a sleeping tablet. Something that would blot out thinking and reasoning—and above all remembering for a few hours. The adult equivalent of drawing the bedclothes over one’s head, she told herself wryly.

What did he intend? she asked herself, but no immediate answer was forthcoming. Rian had always been totally unpredictable, she thought. That was why she had continued to pursue him, confident that he was not as impervious to her as he had tried to maintain. She had the memory of his reaction to her while she had been in his arms to buoy up her hopes as well. He might have spoken of his own indifference, but his body had betrayed him with its instinctive response to her proximity. And there was an element of challenge in the affair now. She would make him admit that he wanted her, in deed as well as word. She would make him grovel.

Janna gave a groan and buried her face in her hands. Why, oh, why had she been so sure she could do so, when all the evidence suggested the contrary? God knew she had received fair warning, so she could blame no one for what had happened subsequently but herself.

She had seen little of Rian in the week following the dance, do what she might. It had been during this time that she had paid her abortive visit to Carrisbeck House with the parish magazines, she recalled with a pang. But he seemed to be avoiding his usual haunts, or at least avoiding her while she was there, and she had to be content with a couple of unsatisfactory glimpses of him driving his car, once with Barbara Kenton’s blonde head conspicuously close to his dark one.

Her obsession was beginning to be noticed by her friends, and a few sly hints were dropped, which she ignored in spite of the feelings raging inside her. Geoff Christie, whom she had been dating in a desultory manner before Rian’s return, soon became peeved at her indifference and began taking out one of her friends. From being the centre of attention, Janna began to find that she was now becoming an outsider among her contemporaries, but she told herself defiantly that she did not care. If she was lonely, then she had chosen to be so, and anyway nothing mattered except Rian.

Her schoolwork began to suffer, and she found herself the target for tart remarks from her teachers, who could not understand why such a previously bright and interested girl had suddenly become such an introspective dreamer. She could not sleep either. Many nights she lay awake for hours, tormented by feelings that she could only dimly comprehend. It was a warm summer, so she was able to blame the heat for her sleeplessness and shadowed eyes. There were even nights when she let herself quietly out of the sleeping house and walked through the silent streets, through the town and up into the hills, encountering nothing more than a few startled sheep. Except once.

Janna rolled on to her back and stared up at the ceiling as she remembered that particular night. As it happened, she had not been for one of her solitary walks. She had been visiting a girl friend whose parents owned a farm a few miles up the dale from Carrisford, and she was cycling back rather later than she had intended. She was not worried about it. Her parents would probably think she was spending the night at Marion’s as she had done in the past, she reassured herself.

She came across the Carrisbeck bridge and slowed for the bend, when she noticed a car pulled off the road and into the shelter of the trees which crowded to the edge of the highway. She recognised it instantly, even though its lights were off, and checked.

Her first thought was that Rian might be in the wood with Barbara, and she had to suppress a pang of jealous anger, but reason prevailed, pointing out that this particular clump of trees was hardly an appropriate place for a lovers’ tryst. It was far too near the river for one thing, and invariably damp. So what was he up to? she wondered. She got off her bike and wheeled it to the side of the road, depositing it near Rian’s car, then set off down the narrow muddy track which was all that constituted a path. There was no sound of voices, however hushed, just the distant murmur of the river and closer at hand the heart-thudding cry of an owl just above her head.

Janna expelled her breath in a slow sigh of sheer fright, then went cautiously on.

She paused as she emerged from the trees where the ground fell away sharply to the river bank below, and a mischievous smile curved her lips. The river at this point was wide, and the current deep and sluggish. It was one of the places recognised locally as being safe for bathing, and Rian, she saw, was taking full advantage of the fact. Against the silvery sheen of the water, his hair looked black and gleaming, and she could see the long lithe turn of his body as he moved easily through the water.

She slithered down on to the bank, found what she was looking for—his clothes in a neat pile—and sat on them demurely, waiting for him to notice her. But somewhat to her pique, he was obviously too absorbed in his own pleasure to notice he had company, and eventually she was obliged to draw his attention to the fact by clearing her throat noisily.

He dived under the water and came up a few feet from the bank, treading water, and shaking the drops from his face and hair.

‘Janna,’ he said resignedly. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’

‘You’re not the only person who gets the urge to go moonlight bathing,’ she said sweetly. ‘Wouldn’t you like some company?’

‘No, I wouldn’t,’ he said with an air of restraint. ‘Be a good girl and push off—please.’

She pouted, triumphantly aware that she had the whip hand for once. ‘It’s a free country,’ she pointed out. ‘And this is one of my favourite spots. Nor is it part of your uncle’s estate. You can’t make me go.’

‘No, I can’t,’ he acknowledged. ‘I hoped I wouldn’t have to, and that asking you nicely might be enough.’

‘Oh, but it isn’t,’ she said, and smiled. ‘Now if you asked me nicely to stay—that might be different.’

‘Indeed it might,’ he said drily. ‘And what’s my next line? Come on in—the water’s fine?’

‘Thank you for the kind invitation,’ she said, studiedly polite. ‘But it may have escaped your attention that I haven’t brought my swimsuit with me.’

‘No.’ He swam in a wide circle. ‘Just as I’m sure it hasn’t escaped your attention that I haven’t brought mine either.’

Not for the world would she have admitted that it had not occurred to her.

‘Oh, but that doesn’t matter,’ she said with assumed nonchalance, thankful that the darkness hid her warm cheeks. ‘And—and I do know what a naked man looks like, you know.’

‘In practice, or merely in theory?’ The gleam of his smile mocked her. ‘Janna Joins the Permissive Society, and other titles. I suppose it makes a change from the Pony Club.’

‘Very amusing,’ she said calmly. ‘Have you heard the one about having the last laugh? It can’t be getting any warmer in that water, and I happen to be sitting on your clothes. All of them.’

‘Right on all counts,’ he agreed reflectively. ‘The situation is a little one-sided, I must admit.’ He swam round again, this time coming right up to the bank. ‘All right, Janna, I resign. Why not join me? It’s a very warm night, and I promise to turn my back like a gentleman if that’s what you’re waiting for.’

She wasn’t altogether certain what she was waiting for. She moistened her lips rather nervously. Dreams and imaginings were one thing; having them translated into quite such realistic terms as a moonlight bathing party for two in the nude, quite another.

‘What’s the matter, Janna?’ She couldn’t see the expression on Rian’s face, but the taunt in his tone was unmistakable. ‘Chicken?’

‘Certainly not,’ she said untruthfully. ‘It—it just looks a bit cold, that’s all.’

He laughed softly. ‘I’ll think of a way of keeping you warm, sweet witch.’

There had to be an answer to that, but Janna couldn’t think of it for the life of her. Her mouth was suddenly dry, and she was trembling violently inside. One part of her wanted, childishly, to run, but another, more insidious voice was persuading her to remain.

When she spoke, her voice was higher than usual and oddly breathless.

‘All right,’ she said. She got up slowly, shivering a little although there was barely a hint of a breeze. The water rippled glossily as Rian swam one long, lazy stroke nearer. Her fingers, made suddenly clumsy, hesitated on the buttons of her shirt.

‘You said you’d turn your back,’ she reminded him lamely.

‘If that’s what you want.’ There was a warm persuasive note in his voice, which made her gasp as if he had caressed her. ‘Is it, lovely Janna?’

She had taken two unwary steps towards him before she realised the trap that had been set for her. Steely fingers, cold and wet, clamped round her ankle. Off balance already, she stumbled, and within a second she was flying through the air, or so it seemed, to land in the water in an undignified and painful belly-flop. She came back to the surface, winded and choking, having swallowed half the river in her astonishment.

On the bank, Rian was fastening the belt of his jeans and observing her flounderings with sardonic amusement.

‘I don’t think you’ll ever make the Olympic squad,’ he observed, judicially, pulling his dark sweater over his head. ‘But the local life-saving team might be glad of a volunteer. I’ve heard they prefer them fully dressed.’

‘You bastard!’ she screamed at him.

‘Such language from one so young,’ he said reprovingly. ‘If it’s any consolation to you, I was tempted for a while, and I’m warning you, Janna, stay in your own league from now on.’ He half turned to go. ‘And I meant what I said about keeping you warm. I don’t know how you got here, and I don’t care much. I presume you cycled, or walked, so you can get home the same way—only faster. It’s a balmy enough night. You shouldn’t even catch cold.’ He was gone.

Janna hauled herself out of the water and heard his car engine start up in the distance. Tears of rage and humiliation mingled with the drops of water on her face, as she stood dripping and bedraggled on the bank. She would never forgive him, she swore savagely to herself. And she would make him pay for this if it was the last thing she did.

She was walking round the market a few days later and had stopped to examine some remnants of material on a stall, when a hand descended on her arm and Rian’s voice close to her ear said, ‘None the worse for your ducking, I see.’

She wrenched herself forcibly free, and gave him a wrathful look.

‘No thanks to you,’ she said distinctly. ‘I might have drowned—or gone down with pneumonia.’

‘Hardly,’ he said drily. ‘I was sure somehow you’d manage to survive, Janna.’

‘Thank you.’ Her tone held bitterness. ‘I know better than to regard that as a compliment.’

He sighed. ‘Is that what you want—compliments?’

She stared down at her feet. ‘You know what I want,’ she muttered at last. ‘I want you to treat me as if I was a woman.’

‘Then stop behaving like a child,’ he said, but his voice was gentler and held a trace of laughter. ‘How old are you, Janna?’

‘I shall be seventeen in just over two weeks’ time.’ She sent him a hostile look. ‘I suppose to you I’m sixteen.’

‘Stop supposing,’ he said patiently. ‘Come and have coffee with me instead.’

‘Are you serious?’ she asked incredulously.

‘I think so.’ There was an edge to his voice. ‘It’s only a hot drink I’m offering, not an invitation to bed.’

She flushed indignantly and he gave a slight groan. ‘God help me, this was meant to be a peace move, not a resumption of hostilities. Come and have coffee, Janna.’ His thumb moved caressingly on the soft flesh of her arm, sending a pleasant tingle through her senses. He grinned at her and she thought furiously that he probably knew quite well the effect that his casual touch was having on her.

He pulled her arm through his and led her off through the market-day crowds. The town’s most popular café was situated in rooms at the rear of the baker’s shop, and they lingered to make a selection of cream cakes at the counter before continuing to the rear and finding an unoccupied corner table.

‘Well, this is pleasant.’ Rian pushed the sugar bowl towards her.

She helped herself to a spoonful, her lips compressed.

‘Please don’t patronise me,’ she said eventually.

‘Nothing was further from my thoughts,’ he returned mildly. ‘Don’t be so prickly, Janna.’

She stirred the spoon round the cup, watching the swirl of the liquid. ‘Can you blame me?’

‘Not altogether, perhaps, otherwise I shouldn’t be here.’ He reached his hand across the table and clasped hers lightly. ‘Pax, sweet witch. I can’t be your lover, but I could be your friend, if you’d let me.’

‘On the grounds that half a loaf is better than no bread at all?’ She gave him a defiant look. ‘Is it really so impossible? Funnily enough, I got the distinct impression that you fancied me.’

‘I plead guilty as charged,’ he said slowly. He released her hand and sat back in his chair. ‘Janna, you may well be counting the hours to your seventeenth birthday, but I was going through the same process ten years ago. There’s no way around that.’

‘Ten years isn’t such a tremendous gap.’

‘At this precise moment, it seems a lifetime.’ He drank some of the coffee, grimaced slightly and pushed it aside. ‘Apart from anything else, did no one ever tell you that sometimes the man prefers to make the running?’

She blushed vividly. ‘I just wanted you to notice me,’ she claimed in a low voice.

‘As if anyone with normal faculties could possibly overlook you!’ He gave her a wry look. ‘You’re a spectacular lass, Janna. If you were a few years older, you’d have to fight me off.’

‘That’s a great comfort,’ she said past the lump in her throat. ‘I think I’d better go. Thanks for the coffee.’

‘Oh, hell.’ He pushed a hand through his dark hair. ‘This is not turning out at all as I expected.’

‘Does anything ever?’ She picked up her leather shoulder bag and rose. She walked to the doorway through the clustering tables and disappeared, oblivious of the curious stares being cast in her direction from all over the room.

Janna climbed wearily off the bed and padded across the room to the window. She dragged the curtains shut with jerky movements, closing out the darkness.

She glanced restlessly around her. Her briefcase stood beside the desk in the corner. It contained her record book, among other things. She could check on her syllabus, plan her work for next half-term. Anything would be better than this constant retrospection, yet she doubted her ability to concentrate on anything more than her personal problems. Wherever she looked, Rian’s face seemed to be imprinted on her vision, dark and vengeful.

She started as the sound of the doorbell pealed through the house, and for one crazy moment, panic filled her. Then common sense came to her rescue and she told herself that it might well be visitors for her parents. But a minute or two later there was a light tap on the door and Mrs Prentiss peeped in at her.

Her brows rose a little as she saw that Janna was neither undressed nor in bed.

‘Vivien’s downstairs, dear. I told her you might be asleep …’ Her voice tailed away questioningly, and Janna forced a smile.

‘I feel much better, actually. I’ll come down.’

Vivien was waiting in the sitting room. ‘Poor old thing,’ she exclaimed sympathetically as Janna entered. ‘I didn’t know you were a migraine sufferer. How rotten! Yet I thought you looked rather peaky when you dashed off after school.’ She delved in her handbag and produced an envelope. ‘That’s why I’m here, really. What with you being out at lunch time, and then the films, Mrs Parsons didn’t get a chance to have a word with you, so she’s written you this note instead.’

‘Note?’ Janna took it, wrinkling her brow. ‘This is all very official. What is it? The sack?’

‘Hardly.’ Vivien grinned at her. ‘Of course, I was forgetting that you’d missed all the excitement at lunchtime. We’re going to have a new pupil—a little girl—and Mrs P. is putting her in your class.’

‘That’s hardly my idea of excitement,’ Janna said dryly. ‘What is she? A second Einstein?’

Vivien shrugged. ‘Who knows? Apparently she’s part Vietnamese—on her mother’s side. She has this enormously long name which means Flower of Morning—rather pretty, don’t you think?—but her father calls her Fleur.’

Janna paused in the act of tearing open the envelope. Her eyes flew to Vivien’s face with sudden, painful intensity. ‘Her father—do you mean he is European?’

‘And how,’ Vivien said cheerfully. ‘In fact you probably know him. Beth and Lorna do, anyway, and they were very impressed. Apparently his uncle used to live hereabouts some years ago. And even Bill’s heard of the nephew—Rian Tempest. Says he’s some kind of high-pressure journalist. Whenever trouble flares up anywhere in the world, he’s the first correspondent to be parachuted in and all that. Rather him than me, that’s all I can say.’

Janna lowered her gaze to her note, but Mrs Parsons’ neat handwriting danced madly in front of her eyes.

‘Do you remember him, Janna?’ Vivien persisted.

‘Possibly.’ Janna was amazed to hear how calm she sounded. ‘But I—I don’t remember him being married. How old is the little girl?’

‘Seven-ish, I suppose. She’d have to be, for your class. And bright for her age—but then all proud dads think that.’

‘I suppose they do,’ Janna said automatically, her brain whirling.

‘As for him being married,’ Vivien’s voice lowered confidentially, ‘Mrs Parson got the impression that the least said about that the better. I think it was one of these wartime things where no one worried about an actual ceremony.’

‘I see,’ Janna said bleakly.

Vivien’s eyebrows rose slightly. ‘Don’t look now, but your disapproval’s showing,’ she said.

Janna shook her head. ‘It isn’t entirely that,’ she tried to justify herself. ‘I was just thinking about Colonel and Mrs Tempest. About how they would have felt—if they’d known.’

Vivien looked at her shrewdly. ‘Perhaps they would have reacted more tolerantly than you suppose,’ she said. ‘Older people are often less extreme in their attitudes than they’re given credit for.’

Janna sat down on the edge of the sofa, the unread note still clutched in her hand. ‘From what I remember of them, I hardly think so.’ She tried to sound casual. ‘I think they were both concerned about the apparent decline in moral standards. Neither of them had any sympathy for promiscuity …’

‘Hold hard!’ Vivien sounded a little startled. ‘Neither of us knows the true facts. We could be condemning as promiscuous one stable relationship. The fact that there’s a child for whom he has assumed the responsibility must surely prove that the affair was deeper than a one-night stand.’ She laughed a little uncertainly. ‘I don’t know why I’ve been picked for the role of Devil’s advocate. I believe in marriage, and I’m sure it’s the only successful environment for bringing up children. It’s just that I’m surprised to hear someone as young as you sounding so—so …’

‘Intolerant?’ Janna supplied rather dryly. ‘Well, perhaps I am. I—I just feel so sorry for this little girl, that’s all.’ She read her note quickly. ‘Mrs Parsons thinks she may need extra tuition. She says here there may be a language problem. That Fleur is more fluent in French than in English.’ She gave a little groan of dismay. ‘That’s all I need—a multi-lingual tot!’

Vivien grinned. ‘Let her teach the others French,’ she suggested, fastening the belt of her coat. ‘No, love, no coffee, thanks. Bill will be sitting at home right now with his tongue hanging out, waiting to be fed. I dare not keep him waiting any longer, or he’ll start eating the table mats.’

After Vivien had departed, calling a cheerful goodbye to Mrs Prentiss, Janna walked over to the window and stood staring out into the darkness. It seemed that all her worst forebodings were being realised. Rian had returned, and was back to stay, or so it seemed. Why else would he have sought a place for his child in the local primary school if he did not intend putting down roots of some kind?

Yet what was there for him? she asked herself restlessly. He no longer even had a home here. She shook her head wretchedly, trying to imagine his reaction when he discovered who was planning to live in his former home. There was a terrible irony in the situation. She had caused an irreparable breach between Rian and the only family he had in the world, and by doing so had robbed him of his inheritance. Now she herself was to benefit.

A line from a play—Shakespeare? she wondered tiredly—began to beat in her brain. ‘No good can come of this.’

If Rian had simply contemplated a flying visit back to old haunts, she might have been able to bear it. In many ways, she had been half-expecting it. But the thought of him as a permanent resident in Carrisford, observing her comings and goings, watching her living in his family’s house, was not to be borne.

But she would have to bear it unless … for a brief moment she weighed up the chances of persuading Colin to move elsewhere, then dismissed it as madness. If she even suggested such a thing, he would demand, and be entitled to, a full explanation of her motives, and that she did not feel capable of giving. Besides, she knew he would never agree, no matter how convincing her arguments.

Colin, she thought wryly, knew when he was well off. It was unlikely that he would have got so far so fast with any other firm. She paused abruptly, her hand going to her throat in a little frightened gesture as she realised that this was the first time she had ever admitted this to herself. It was one of the uncomfortable thoughts she had always resolutely pushed away to the back of her mind. Now it had surfaced at last, along with all the others, and could never be relegated again. The diamond on her left hand seemed to glint coldly at her and she shivered. The sensation that all her safe, secure world was falling to pieces around her was stronger than ever. So many things she had never allowed herself to think about, and now they were all jostling for utterance. Her dislike for Colin’s father, for instance, with his self-importance and smug satisfaction at his own success, and coupled with this her vague dissatisfaction that Colin had never wanted to cut free and see what he could achieve on his own, without his father’s all-pervading influence.

She turned away from the window, crumpling Mrs Parsons’ note and sending it spinning on to the fire.

I should never have come back here, she thought despairingly. I’m blaming Colin for what I didn’t do myself. I should have struck out on my own. Travelled—I said I always wanted to—taken a job abroad. And unbidden, the traitorous thought came to her mind that she still could.

She groaned aloud. To run away—was that the answer? Once before, she had been a coward, and that was why she was confronted by her present predicament. There was nothing to be gained by running away. She would have to stay and face whatever there was to face. That would be her punishment.

But as she went slowly back upstairs to her room, it chillingly occurred to her that—for Rian—that might not be enough.

It was not a pleasant weekend. On Saturday morning, Janna shopped for her mother, all the time keeping a wary eye open for Rian’s car, but she saw no sign of the vehicle or its occupant.

During the afternoon Colin picked her up, and they went for a drive before returning to his father’s house to have dinner. Sir Robert was in one of his most expansive and self-congratulatory moods, and Janna found she was having to work hard to conceal her irritation. He had pulled off some deal concerning shares, and although she did not fully comprehend the ins and outs of the situation, she did gather that this coup had been at the expense of a business rival, and could not join in Colin’s obvious enthusiasm for his father’s acumen.

When the exquisitely cooked and served meal was over, Sir Robert turned to more personal topics.

‘Now that you’ve found somewhere to live, I suppose you’ll be fixing a date?’

‘Somewhere to live?’ Janna began uncertainly, and Sir Robert, who was lighting a cigar, gave her a sharp look.

‘Why, yes. Colin told me he had first refusal on the old Tempest place. A fine house that. Just what you need. And you’re to have carte blanche in furnishing it. Just choose what you want and send the bills to my secretary. I can’t say fairer than that.’ He sat back with a pleased air, expelling a cloud of smoke, and waiting to be thanked.

Janna swallowed, avoiding Colin’s glance. ‘The thing is—I’m not sure …’ she began again.

‘Not sure about what?’

Janna was uneasily aware that she had Sir Robert’s undivided attention, and that the pleased air had dissipated to some extent. His voice, in fact, held the slight bark which indicated his suspicion that he was about to be told something he did not particularly want to hear. Janna had never personally experienced this before. She had always been treated with a rather fulsome kindness in the past.

Colin came to her rescue as she searched for words.

‘Janna isn’t totally sold on Carrisbeck House,’ he said, sounding deliberately casual.

‘And why not, may I ask?’ Sir Robert glared at the pair of them, his pleasure in the meal and his cigar destroyed by this strange obduracy. ‘It’s a fine property, and the fishing rights go with it. What’s the matter with it, I’d like to know?’

‘Nothing,’ Janna answered desperately. She moistened her lips. ‘You see, I knew the Tempests, and the thought of living in their old home—and the size of the place—rather overwhelms me, that’s all.’

‘Oh.’ Sir Robert digested this for a moment. ‘Well, you’re going to be a Travers, my girl, so you’ll have to learn not to be overwhelmed.’

‘Janna knows that, Dad,’ Colin broke in soothingly. ‘But I don’t want to rush her into anything she’s not happy about, so I’ve given her a few days to come round in her own way.’

‘Fair enough, I suppose.’ Sir Robert sounded slightly mollified. ‘But don’t take weeks over it, lass, or some fly character will be in ahead of you.’

For one moment Janna was tempted to ask Sir Robert if he had known Rian, or if he was aware he was back in the locality, but she remained silent. Any such reference on her part could lead to precisely the sort of cross-examination she most wanted to avoid, she thought.

She spent the evening watching television in a desultory manner while Colin allowed his father to beat him at chess.

Later, as Colin drove her home, she sat quietly beside him, hoping against hope that he would not raise the subject of the house again. But she was disappointed. As the car slid to a halt before her gate, Colin said almost too casually, ‘I shall have to let Barry know about the Tempest place by Monday, Janna. You’d better let me have your decision one way or another tomorrow.’

‘Your father seems to think there’s only one decision to be made,’ she said, trying to smile.

‘Oh, you know Dad.’ He was silent for a minute. ‘Besides, he has rather a vested interest in the place, I’m afraid.’

‘I don’t really see why.’

‘No.’ Colin paused again and then said ruefully, ‘I’ll have to tell you, darling. He’s already had an architect to look at the place and draw up some plans to convert the old stables and garage block into a luxury flat for himself. Says his house is too big now that he’s on his own. Wants to be near us—and his grandchildren.’

Janna’s mouth was suddenly dry. ‘I see.’

‘Do you, darling?’ He drew her into his arms and kissed her, but for the first time in their relationship, she was incapable of more than a token response. ‘I was hoping you would. He’s not getting any younger, after all, and he wouldn’t actually be living with us. Mrs Masham would come with him, to cook for him and look after him generally.’

Janna shook her head. ‘I can see he has it all worked out,’ she said more calmly than she felt.

Inwardly, she was seething with anger. This—this was moral blackmail, she told herself. If she turned Carrisbeck House down now, it would seem as if she was doing it because she did not want her future father-in-law living on the premises. She bit her lip. She had been surprised by the uncharacteristic generosity of his offer to furnish the house. Sir Robert had never believed in throwing what he termed ‘good brass’ about on anything which did not directly concern himself or his own comfort. Now she understood the motive behind the offer, she would rather live with bare boards and orange boxes than accept, she thought, her temper mounting.

‘Janna?’ Colin’s voice was questioning, his mouth persuasive against her ear. ‘You wouldn’t really mind, would you, darling? An old man’s whim? He may not even go through with it. And he’s very fond of you, you know.’

She gave an edged smile, disengaging herself from his arms. ‘I’ll take your word for it,’ she answered quietly. ‘I won’t pretend that this hasn’t been a shock, Colin. I had no idea your father was thinking along these lines … However, you’d better go along with the purchase, as it’s what you both want.’

‘But you have to want it too.’ He turned her face to his, his eyes searching hers worriedly.

‘I’ve agreed, haven’t I?’ she said steadily. ‘I won’t go back on it.’

‘I know you won’t.’ He took her hand and carried it to his lips. ‘That’s one of the wonderful things about you, Janna. You’re so dependable.’

‘Or so predictable?’ she questioned dryly. ‘I didn’t used to be like that Colin. Beware, I might revert to type.’

He laughed, relieved at the apparent lightening of the atmosphere between them. ‘I don’t think there’s much chance of that,’ he said carelessly. He kissed her again. ‘Goodnight, my love, and dream of me.’

Mrs Prentiss was alone in the sitting room watching a horror film on television as Janna let herself in.

‘Hallo, dear, had a nice evening?’ she queried automatically as her daughter entered the room, and without a pause, ‘I can’t understand these people at all, Janna. The villagers have warned them to stay away from the castle, and yet they’re all going to spend the night there. It beats me why they’re so daft.’

‘Why do you watch it then, if that’s what you feel?’ Janna sat down beside her mother and cast a tolerant eye at the cobwebbed horrors being depicted on the screen.

‘I love Christopher Lee,’ Mrs Prentiss confessed, reaching for another peppermint cream.

Janna had to smile in spite of herself. She forced herself to sit and watch as the heroine’s friend succumbed to the vampire’s lure, then, trying to sound casual, she said, ‘Mum, when you were engaged, did you have—doubts?’

Mrs Prentiss wrenched her attention away from the bloodstained goings-on in front of her with an obvious effort. ‘About your dad?’ she exclaimed. ‘I don’t think so. Why do you ask?’

‘No reason,’ Janna said uncomfortably. ‘I’m just—interested, that’s all.’

Her mother surveyed her. ‘Are you having second thoughts about marrying Colin?’ she demanded. ‘Because, if so, you want your head seeing to. The trouble with young people today is that you want everything perfect all the time. You’re not prepared to work at a relationship. Have you quarrelled?’

‘Oh, no!’ Janna was aghast. ‘Please, Mum, let’s drop the subject.’

‘Well, you raised it in the first place,’ Mrs Prentiss pointed out reasonably. She leaned forward and switched off the television set. ‘Now, let’s have this out. Are you having second thoughts about Colin, and if you are, why?’

Janna bit her lip. ‘It’s nothing as definite as that,’ she said miserably. Swiftly she told her mother about Colin’s wish to buy Carrisbeck House, and Sir Robert’s plan to live in the stable block.

Her mother seemed unimpressed, however. ‘It’s a modern thing, this wanting to live away from your family,’ she remarked. ‘When I was a girl, people had their parents to live with them and thought nothing about it. And he won’t actually be in the house. I don’t see what you’re making all the fuss about. Colin is all he’s got, after all, and for all his money, he’s a lonely man, I daresay.’

‘You think I’m being selfish,’ Janna said forlornly.

‘Not altogether, but I think you’re crossing your bridges before you come to them,’ Mrs Prentiss said bracingly. ‘As Colin said, he may change his mind. And it’s a lovely house. There was a time when we couldn’t keep you away from there. Not many young people have a chance to start their married life in those circumstances, you know. Look at it from Colin’s point of view. And what have you got against the place, anyway?’

It would have been an immense consolation to put her head down on her mother’s lap and sob out the whole wretched truth, but Janna could not permit herself that indulgence. Her mother did not deserve to be upset like that after all this time, she thought wearily. The time for confession was long past.

She forced a smile and rose to her feet. ‘Nothing, of course. You’re right, Mum, I’m sure you are. It’s just bridal nerves, I suppose.’ She bent and kissed her swiftly. ‘Now watch the rest of your film. I’m going to bed before I get nightmares!’

She had not arranged to see Colin on Sunday, and spent a quiet day, lazing round the house, acting her normal self for all she was worth, conscious of the occasional worried glance from her mother. She slept badly that night and rose late on Monday morning, feeling as if she had not rested at all. She was helping her mother strip the beds ready for the weekly wash, when the phone rang.

‘Colin?’ she said in surprised response to the terse tones at the other end of the line. ‘What a strange time to ring. Is anything wrong?’

‘Oh, no.’ Colin’s voice was heavy with sarcasm. ‘Everything is for the best in this best of all possible worlds. I just thought you’d like to know that the supreme sacrifice will not be demanded from you after all.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘You won’t have to live in Carrisbeck House, my sweet. It’s been snapped up by someone else while you were dithering about last Friday.’ His voice sharpened. ‘Hello—Janna—are you still there?’

‘Yes, I’m still here,’ she managed. ‘Colin, I don’t know what to say. I’m so sorry. I know how you’d set your heart on it. Do you know—have you any idea who it is?’

‘Of course I know.’ He gave a short, savage laugh. ‘It’s in safe hands, darling. Back safely in the bosom of the Tempest family, just as you secretly wished. The Colonel’s nephew—Rian or whatever his damned name is—has come back, and he’s bought it.’

CHAPTER THREE

JANNA replaced the telephone receiver and stood for a moment, her knuckles pressed childishly against her teeth. She felt totally shaken, not merely by Colin’s news, but by the anger and petulance he had displayed in the telling of it.

She had tried to console him, in spite of her own inner turmoil, by telling him that there would be another house for them, but her efforts had been useless. Colin had wanted Carrisbeck House and had been thwarted, and the frustration revealed a totally new side of his character.

She went into the sitting room and sank down on to the sofa, feeling limp. In some ways she could understand his reaction. To many people in Carrisford and the neighbouring villages, Colin and his father were still mere newcomers to be tolerated rather than dales people. Colin, she was sure, had felt that his acquisition of Carrisbeck House would have altered this—that he would in time fill the position in the community that Colonel Tempest once had done. But Janna was not so sure about this. She wondered even if Colin’s motives might not have been fully comprehended and resented by the local people. At any rate, such speculation was now a waste of time. Colin would have to find a new way of establishing himself as the new ‘squire’.

And if Colin himself was so peevish in his disappointment, she shuddered to think what Sir Robert would say. The only glimmer of brightness in the dark cloud that seemed to be descending on her was that she did not have to face having her future father-in-law living in such close proximity.

Now there was her mother to tell. This was another prospect that Janna did not relish. Mrs Prentiss would undoubtedly want to know why Janna had not informed her that Rian was back and with a small child in tow, who was actually going to be Janna’s pupil. Janna sighed. That was how her mother would see it—a piece of interesting and slightly scandalous news to be imparted over the coffee cups. She would certainly not understand why Janna had kept it to herself.

Janna could not fully understand it herself. It would have been so much simpler that way—to mention it casually in passing. ‘Oh, by the way, guess who’s back?’ Now it was too late, and by her silence she had invested Rian’s return with an importance that her mother’s shrewdness was unlikely to overlook.

But these were minor worries compared with the actuality of Rian’s presence as a permanent resident in Carrisford. Of all the places in the world that he had visited, what had drawn him back here to this quiet market town in the shadow of the Pennines? How could he bear to come back to all the memories that Carrisford must evoke, and live in the house from which he had been dismissed in disgrace? When it became generally known that he had been forced to buy his uncle’s house and not inherit it as in the normal course of events, she knew that speculation would be rife. And all eyes would be on him anyway because of the child Fleur. He had not always regarded public opinion with such arrogance, she told herself unhappily.

She got up with sudden resolution. No matter what the cost, she would have to see Rian—try and persuade him to change his mind. Could she make him see that no purpose could be served by him living here? If he wanted his revenge on her, then he had already achieved that, by effectively destroying her peace of mind.

She found her suede coat and tugged on matching knee-length boots, then called to her mother that she was going to the library, snatching up a couple of books from the sideboard.

As she walked hurriedly down the long sloping street that led to the market place, she wondered what she would do if Rian was not staying at the White Hart after all, but a swift glance at the hotel car park before she passed under the archway leading to the hotel entrance reassured her. That exotic-looking foreign car he had been driving was there, so he could not be too far away.

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