disorder, she exclaimed lightly:
‘What man was that, Emma?’
Emma grimaced. ‘Only one, Miss Tamar. But he never came back from El Alamein.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry, Emma.’ Tamar was roused out of her black depression, and for a moment she was trying to imagine how Emma must have felt when the man she loved never returned. Was that why her devotion to her parents had never wavered? Had her emotional life died with this man?
‘Nothing to be sorry about,’ Emma was saying now. ‘Too many years ago now for me to feel anything but a sense of nostalgia.’ Then her penetrating eyes met Tamar’s dark blue ones. ‘We all have our little sorrows, don’t we, Miss Tamar?’
Tamar felt a surge of colour invade her cheeks. As always Emma was too perceptive.
‘Gosh!’ Tamar glanced pointedly at her watch. ‘Is that the time? I must go and get my bath. If Mr. Hastings arrives before I’m ready, ask him to wait, will you?’
She walked swiftly across to the bathroom, trying to shed her newly-aroused sensitivity. What was happening to her today? Why did it seem as though she had reached a crossroads? She was becoming fanciful. She was tired. She had told Ben she was tired, but he didn’t believe her. But she was. And she did need that break. A holiday!
In a deep bath of scented water she lay back wearily and closed her eyes. Of course, Emma had no idea of her past, and yet, unwittingly, she had put her finger on the one thing that could disturb Tamar.
Impatiently, she sat up and began to soap her arms thoroughly. She was being stupid and ineffective. Here she was, sitting in gloom, because she was remembering seven years ago when all this had first started. She ought to be remembering the past with agreeable pleasure at the knowledge that it was past. As it was she was behaving like some moonstruck teenager, allowing her emotions to rule her brain. She should be sitting here considering Ben’s proposal in a serious light, not contemplating the lonely splendour of Falcon’s Head, and the cold arrogance of its master.
And yet, the more she thought about it, the more she became convinced that only in complete acceptance of the past could there be acceptance of the present. In spite of the bitterness she felt towards the past, it would always be there to torment her so long as she allowed it to do so.
But what solution was there? How could she escape the bitterness? Unless …
She shook her head violently. No, that was impossible!
And yet the more she thought about it, the more it became imperative that she should satisfy herself once and for all that she had changed, completely. And the only way to do that was by going back, back to Falcon’s Wherry, back to the village in Southern Ireland where she had spent the first eighteen years of her life.
She had been brought up by her grandparents. Her mother had died when she was born, and her father, a lazy, no-good Englishman, according to her grandfather, had not appeared again until much later. That he had returned for her at all had been a source of much amusement in the village. But then her grandparents were dead and there was nothing left for her in Falcon’s Wherry. Nothing at all, Tamar recalled bleakly, climbing out of the bath.
As she dried herself she panicked a little. How could she go back? In what capacity? Falcon’s Wherry got few summer visitors. It was picturesque, but that was all. There was little there – apart from Falcon’s Head, of course.
And as she thought of Falcon’s Head she knew what she must do. She must return as the artist she was, and paint Falcon’s Head again. Then she could destroy the old painting, and all the pain and heartache that went with it. That would be her holiday – a couple of months in Ireland.
But how would Ben take to that? And what was she going to tell him when he asked for his answer? How could she expect him to understand why she was going to Ireland in the first place? Particularly, as she definitely wanted to go alone to disperse the ghosts that still threatened to haunt her.
As she creamed her face later in her bedroom she wondered why she had any doubts about Ben, why she hesitated to take that initial step. If she was to go to Falcon’s Wherry how much easier it would be to go with Ben’s ring on her finger.
But she couldn’t do that. She couldn’t use him in that way. She would have to tell him that she needed this break, this trip into the past, and then she would give him her answer.
As she had expected, Ben was violently opposed to her leaving England at all.
‘If you insist on taking a holiday, at least stay near enough for me to come visit you if you won’t let me come with you,’ he begged.
‘You don’t understand, Ben,’ she said awkwardly. ‘This place was my home.’
‘But you told me yourself that your parents are dead.’
‘So they are. You know my father died only six months after I arrived here.’
‘That’s true.’ Ben had known Trevor Sheridan. Wasn’t that how he had come to know his daughter?
‘Well then!’ Tamar sighed. ‘Ben, when I left Ireland I never expected – or wanted – to go back. But somehow it intrudes—’ She sought for words to explain. ‘It’s like – well, like something larger than life. I – I’ve got to go back – to restore it in my mind to its normal proportions. Try and understand me, Ben. I must go.’
Ben looked brooding. ‘Was there a man?’ he asked huskily.
Tamar’s face suffused with colour. She pushed back the heavy swathe of golden-coloured hair from her cheeks and said:
‘Not in the way you think.’
‘What other way is there?’
Tamar swallowed hard. ‘I can’t tell you that. Let me go, then when I come back I’ll tell you the whole truth.’
Ben grunted. ‘Do I have any choice?’
‘You could finish with me here and now. I wouldn’t blame you.’
He shook his head. ‘No. Not me, Tamar.’
‘Well then?’
‘All right, go to Ireland, to this horrible little village. But remember, if you don’t come back in six weeks, I’ll come for you.’
Tamar nodded. ‘I can ring you, Ben. They do have phones.’
Ben half-smiled. ‘You amaze me! All right, ring me when you know where you’re staying. Are there hotels in Falcon’s Wherry?’
Tamar shook her head. ‘Not hotels. There’s one inn, I think it was called the Falcon’s Arms. I shall probably stay there to begin with. I may be able to hire a cottage later.’
Ben grimaced. ‘The name Falcon figures pretty strongly in this place, doesn’t it?’ he remarked dryly.
Tamar bent her head. ‘Yes. The Falcon family are the local – well, squires, I suppose you would call them.’
‘Hmn.’ Ben looked at her strangely. Her reactions to the name Falcon had not gone unnoticed. ‘Anyway, as you’re determined
