Island of the Heart (4 page)

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

Clemence, the French polo player, but they split when the twins

were still babies. They used to spend some time with him, but he

married again a few years ago, and his second wife isn't so keen on

having them around—so now they seem to be here more and more.'

'I see.' Sandie reflected that although Magda Sinclair had a large

family, it seemed singularly disunited. It saddened her. As an only

child, she'd always had a secret hankering for brothers and sisters.

'Now, I think the best thing for you to do is relax this evening,'

Crispin was saying. 'And we'll get down to some serious work

tomorrow, when you're rested.' He smiled at her, and his voice

became husky. 'I seem to have been waiting for a thousand years for

you to get here, Sandie.' He bent and kissed her on the mouth, his

lips lingering on hers, persuading her to a sudden, heady response,

as swiftly stemmed when she became aware of the gentle probing of

his tongue, and, a little embarrassed, pulled away.

Crispin laughed softly, stroking a strand of pale hair back from her

flushed face. 'My God, but you're so sweet,' he said wryly. 'It would

be so easy to lose my head completely, but I'm not going to. I've

made all sorts of good resolutions about you, darling, and I'm not

going to break them this early in our relationship, so don't look so

stricken.' He kissed her again, brushing his lips across her cheek.

'After all,' he murmured, 'we have the whole summer ahead of us

to— learn about each other.'

He straightened, sending Sandie a smile which combined teasing

with tenderness. 'Now, you'd better go and change for dinner.

Magda's a bit of a stickler about punctuality—in other people.'

Sandie's legs were shaking under her, and her heart seemed to be

performing strange tricks inside her ribcage, but she managed to

make her way upstairs and find her room.

She closed the door and leaned against the stout panels, staring

dreamily towards the window. Rain, homesickness and the

ambiguity of her reception no longer mattered.

The whole summer, she thought—and Crispin. It was like some

wonderful, incredible dream. And she hoped she would never

waken.

* * »

Although she was so tired, Sandie found she was far too excited and

strung up to sleep that night.

Crispin's words, and the promise they seemed to imply, echoed and

re-echoed in her mind, as she lay staring into the darkness. Was it

possible to fall in love so swiftly and completely? she wondered

confusedly. Could he have found her, at that first encounter at the

festival, so attractive that he'd been prepared to pull out all the stops

in order to see her again? It seemed almost too good to be true.

Sandie shivered a little, wishing yet again that she had altogether

more experience with men—that she knew more about life in

general. It might help to plumb the emotional morass inside her.

Would she, she asked herself, ever have agreed to come to

Connemara if she hadn't, in turn, been attracted to Crispin? Back in

England, she'd rationalised it in her own mind as the kind of hero-

worship usually reserved for film or pop stars—a kind of delayed

adolescent crush, of which she'd been secretly ashamed. After all,

she'd told herself, she was far too old for fairy-tales. Yet now, it

seemed, incredibly, as if the fairy-tale might be coming true.

With a sigh, Sandie pushed back the blankets and eiderdown, and

swung her feet to the floor. She had to do something positive to

relax herself—switch her mind to a more tranquil path, or she

wouldn't close her eyes all night, and would be fit for nothing in the

morning—certainly not to undergo her first trial as Magda Sinclair's

accompanist, which had been mentioned over dinner, or to make

any attempt to play Crispin's
Elegy.

She was still dubious about her technical ability to interpret the

composition, but it was obviously important to Crispin that she tried

at least, and she wanted to please him, so what choice did she have?

She put on her dressing gown and let herself quietly out of her

room. The wall-lights were still burning as she made her way to the

main gallery and looked over the banister rail down into the hall.

The house was totally quiet, and clearly everyone was in bed,

although there were lamps on downstairs as well. A deterrent to

burglars, perhaps, Sandie thought, as she trod silently down the

stairs, wondering if there could really be such a menace in this

remote and peaceful spot.

The music room was in complete darkness as she let herself in,

closing the door quietly behind her. Jessica had said the room was

soundproof, and she hoped it was true. Music was the only way to

relax herself, but the last thing she wanted was the rest of the

household roused because of her own sleeplessness.

She would play safe by playing softly, she resolved. She walked to

the huge window and stood looking out over the lake. The rain

seemed to have eased at last, and a strong golden moon was in

evidence between ragged, racing clouds, its light spilling across the,

restless waters.

'Sandie caught her breath in delight. No need to think too hard about

a choice of tranquilliser, she thought, as the first clear, gentle notes

of Debussy's
Clair de Lune
sounded in her mind.

As she turned away to switch on the overhead light above the piano,

her attention was caught fleetingly by another flicker of illumination

moving fast on the other side of the lake. Car headlights, she

realised, and at this late hour the driver was probably counting on

having the road to himself.

She sat down at the keyboard, flexed her fingers, and began to play,

feeling the tensions and doubts of the past twenty-four hours

dissolving away as the slow, rippling phrases took shape and clarity

under her hands. As she played, she became oblivious to everything

but the mood of peace being engendered within her.

The last notes sounded delicately, perfectly, and were overtaken by

silence. Sandie lifted her hands from the keys with a little sigh, and

looked at the window for a last glimpse of the moonlight on the

water. And saw with heart-stopping suddenness that she was no

longer alone.

Reflected plainly in the glass was the tall figure of a man, standing

motionless in the doorway behind her.

For a moment Sandie stared with fascinated horror, a hand creeping

to her throat. Someone had broken in, she thought. All those lights

left burning had been no deterrent at all—just a waste of electricity.

And even if she could summon up a scream, which was doubtful, as

the muscles of her throat felt paralysed, who would hear it—from

this of all the rooms at Killane?

'My God, I don't believe it!' His voice, low, resonant with a faint stir

of anger just below the surface, reached her. 'I thought you'd have

more bloody sense...' A small choked cry escaped her at last, and

she twisted round on the piano stool to face him, her last, absurd

hope that it might after all, by some miracle, be Crispin seeking her

out killed stone dead.

He took a swift stride forward, his face darkening with furious

incredulity as they took their first full look at each other.

'Who the hell are you?' he demanded harshly. 'And what the devil

are you doing here?'

'I could ask you the same.' Sandie got to her feet, stumbling over the

hem of her cotton housecoat in her haste. 'Who do you think you

are, breaking in here—frightening me like this?'

He was only a few yards away from her now, and far from a

reassuring sight. He was taller than Crispin, she realised, and more

powerfully built too, with broad shoulders tapering down to narrow

hips, and long legs encased in faded denims. A thick mane of brown

hair waved back from a lean, tough face, dominated by the

aggressive thrust of a nose which had clearly been broken at some

time, and a strong, uncompromising jaw. His mouth was straight

and unsmiling, and his eyes were as coldly blue as the Atlantic

Ocean in winter.

'Tell me who you are,' he said too quietly. 'Or do I have to shake it

out of you?'

Sandie flung up an alarmed hand. 'Don't come any closer,' she said

jerkily. 'I'm a guest in this house— a friend of the family.'

The wintry gaze went over her comprehensively. She saw his mouth

curl with something like distaste.

'A friend of one member of it, I've no doubt,' he said cuttingly. 'As

for being a guest, my good girl, I have no recollection of inviting

you under my roof at any time.'

'Your roof?' Sandie echoed faintly. Oh, God, she thought. Not in

Tokyo, or a thousand miles away, but right here, and blazingly

angry for some reason she couldn't fathom. She swallowed. 'I—I

think you must be Crispin's brother.'

'I have that dubious distinction,' he agreed curtly. 'And I'm still

waiting for you to identify yourself, my half-dressed beauty.'

Sandie was quaking inwardly, but she managed to lift her chin and

return his challenging stare. 'My name is Alexandra Beaumont,' she

said quietly. 'And I'm spending the summer here having private

piano coaching from Cris—Mr Sinclair.'

'So that's the way of it.' His tone held open derision. 'As an excuse, it

has the virtue of novelty, I suppose.'

'It happens to be the truth.'

'And being down here, next door to naked, in the middle of the

night, is part of the course, I presume.' He shook his head. 'I'm

afraid, darling, that your— tuition is hereby cancelled. At any rate, it

will have to continue elsewhere.'

'I don't understand.'

'Don't worry now. I'll make the situation clearer than crystal for you

at a more civilised hour,' Flynn Killane told her with dangerous

affability. 'It's altogether too late to be bandying words right now, so

I suggest you take yourself off to whatever room you've been given.'

He paused. 'I suppose you do have a room of your own?'

'Of course I do.' Now that she was over her initial fright, anger was

starting to build slowly inside Sandie at this cavalier treatment.

'Look, Mr Killane, I don't know exactly what you're getting at, but...'