They had been engaged to be married and the wedding date was only weeks away. Candy already had her bridesmaid’s dress, a frothy pink creation in tulle and taffeta. The dress was suddenly there before her, clear in detail to the last tiny rosebud on the hem. Her twelve-year-old heart had been thrilled with such finery, but then there had been a terrible scene that night and Cameron had gone away. And later, a few weeks later, Michelle’s shape had begun to change too drastically to disguise any more, and six months later Jamie was born. The whole affair had broken Michelle’s heart and made her parents old before their time... and this man was responsible for all the misery!
‘What’s the matter?’ The perpetrator of all the heartbreak, which had dulled over the passage of time, but was awakened as new as if it had all happened yesterday, took a step towards her, alarmed at the pallor of her face and the wide, staring eyes.
‘Get away from me!’ It was a snarl of hate and he recognised it as such, stopping in his tracks with an expression of almost comical amazement stretching his chiselled features. ‘You aren’t fit to be called your father’s son.’
As the words registered his expression froze, but she was gone before he could form a reply, running down the hillside on legs that flew over the rough, coarse grass, her long hair streaming behind her like dancing red ribbons, and Jasper bounding by her side, enthralled by the new game.
She didn’t stop till she reached home, bursting into the drawing-room, where her parents were sitting in front of a roaring log fire, enjoying a Sunday afternoon snooze with just the cat for company.
‘Candy!’ Her mother had almost leapt from the chair in her fright. ‘What on earth is the matter? You’ve frightened me half to death!’
‘Sorry.’ She stood panting in the middle of the room with such a hunted expression on her face that her parents both rose as one and reached her side in the same instant.
‘What’s the matter?’ It was her father speaking now, his voice worried. ‘Has there been an accident? Are you all right?’
‘I saw him.’ She wouldn’t have believed she could feel like this about something that had happened so long ago. It must be ten years since that terrible time, and Michelle was happily married now, with two more children to keep Jamie company and a husband who was crazy about her, but every so often she caught a glimpse of that old haunted expression in her sister’s eyes and knew she was thinking about Cameron Strythe, the man who had taken her innocence and then let her down so badly. She didn’t know if Michelle still hated him, but she knew she did, more than ever!
‘Him?’ Her father shook her slightly in his concern. ‘Who, for crying out loud?’
‘Cameron Strythe.’ Her voice was flat now and she felt the rage seep out of her as the urge to cry became paramount. ‘And he was so awful about Uncle Charles, Dad; he spoke as though he didn’t care.’
‘Perhaps he doesn’t.’ Her mother sighed deeply and shook her grey head slowly. ‘Ten years is a long time to be away, Candy; people change. But it’s no concern of ours one way or the other, is it?’
‘How can you say that?’ She stared into her mother’s gentle blue eyes in horrified denial. ‘After what he did to Michelle?’
‘What happened between your sister and Cameron Strythe was a long time ago and only they know the real facts,’ her father said stiffly as he left her side and returned to his chair by the fire. ‘It hurt us all, especially Charles, but the past is the past and I don’t want old wounds reopened now. Michelle is happy—you know that for yourself—and if Cameron chooses to come back here to live that is his prerogative. He has inherited a vast estate, you know—Uncle Charles was very wealthy.’
‘I’m surprised he left it all to him,’ Candy said bitterly as she flung her heavy duffel coat, scarf and mittens on a nearby chair, emerging as a slender, tall young woman with a cascade of wavy, silky hair almost to her waist.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ her father said sharply. ‘Charles loved his son; he was all he had. Don’t let old memories sour you, puss; you’re too sweet for that.’
‘Huh!’ She eyed her father balefully as she bent down to remove some tiny sticky balls that had got embedded in Jasper’s coat from the dense undergrowth on the hillside. ‘That was said tongue in cheek.’
‘Maybe.’ Her father allowed himself a small smile as he surveyed his volatile younger daughter. ‘But Cameron may well be here to stay, and, in a small village like this, open war will make life very difficult for a number of people. You must let the past stay in the past, Candy. I mean it.’
‘Dad, I’m a matronly schoolteacher of twenty-two,’ she answered drily. ‘I think I can decide for myself how I treat Cameron Strythe if I happen to see him again.’
‘Oh, you’ll see him again.’ Her mother’s voice was resigned. ‘We all will. You might as well get used to the idea. He now owns most of the village, remember, and, like it or not, both your father’s job and this house are under his control.’
‘Oh, Dad.’ She stared, stricken-faced, at her father. As manager of Charles’s huge farm, her father had always enjoyed a close friendship with his employer, the two having grown up together, and it had never occurred to her before that their very livelihood was tied up with their relationship with the Strythes. Even her job, as village schoolteacher, could be said to rely on ‘the big house’, as the farm was called in the village. She knew Uncle Charles had kept the school going for years after the council had wanted to close it and transfer the thirty or so pupils to a bigger school a bus ride away.
Her stomach turned over. This was something she had never foreseen, never imagined in her wildest dreams. How could she have been so naive? Cameron’s name had never been mentioned for years, by unspoken consent on the part of all concerned, but she should have realised he would inherit, being the only child of his father. It was an impossible situation to be reliant on him for their very existence, unimaginable!
‘I’m going to get changed. Don’t forget David is picking us up at six,’ she said miserably as she walked slowly from the warm, cheerful room into the colder hall. That was another thing that was grating on her nerves these days. She had known David since she could toddle—all the village children enjoyed close friendships, being such a small community—but lately his feelings for her seemed to have undergone a subtle change which was becoming more obvious each time they met. She liked him—of course she did; everyone liked David—but anything romantic... She grimaced as she sat down at her dressing-table in her small bedroom, her eyes moving unconsciously to the window and the panoramic view over the Devon countryside outside that never ceased to thrill her. When Michelle had left to get married her parents had offered her the bigger room, but she had preferred to stay in her own, where every morning the first sight that met her eyes was rolling meadows dotted with grazing cattle, and the faint outline of gently undulating hills beyond.
Unlike her sister, who had revelled in the bright lights and longed to escape from what she considered ‘a dead world’, Candy had ached for the sound of ancient church bells pealing out on a warm summer evening when she was in London at university, pining for the atmosphere of serenity and the timelessness that the sixteenth-century village offered. Most of the buildings were buff-washed, nestling beneath the traditional covering of heavy thatch, from which quaint little semi-dormer leaded windows emerged. Now, when she visited Michelle in her smart town house with all mod cons and the best that money could buy, the only emotion she felt was one of faint depression and a sense of confirmation that she had made the right decision in her own life. She had been offered a couple of prime career moves on leaving university with a first-class
