Island Of The Heart

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.