the handle of the door tentatively, the door never locked as there was nothing here to steal. It was only a one-room cabin, containing a bed, some rush matting, and primitive cooking arrangements. Rafe had occasionally let her stay in the cabin for a couple of days and during that time she had fended for herself.
She opened her eyes to what she felt sure must be destruction and found the cabin exactly as she remembered it. Nothing had changed, and nothing had been destroyed. She walked around the room, picking up tiny mementoes of her childhood, amazed at the good condition of everything. Perhaps the cabin had been protected, situated among the trees as it was. She could think of no other explanation.
The picture of Rafe and herself stood on the rickety table beside the bed, a picture of happier times together. She sat down on the mattress, the photograph in her hand. She had just beaten Rafe at a game of tennis, her first victory over him, and they had persuaded a friend to take a photograph of her elation.
She looked at the photograph now, dog-eared from much perusal. Rafe had his arm thrown casually about her shoulders and she was laughing up happily into his smiling features. She had been fourteen at the time and the harmony between them hadn’t lasted for much longer after that.
Sighing, she replaced the photograph on the table, anxious to escape now. She hadn’t reacted quite as violently to this place as she had imagined, but nevertheless she had had enough of the past and its memories for her. No doubt the cabin would eventually become her refuge once again, but for the moment she just wanted to get out of here.
School should just about be finished and Trisha, the girl who taught half the sixty pupils registered there from the village and the surrounding area, had been quite a good friend of Hazel’s before leaving for college two years before Hazel herself had left the district.
Having lived here all her life, Trisha had returned a few months ago when the vacancy had come up, preferring to teach the children of her friends and so be able to move back in with her own family. The day should be over now as far as school was concerned and Trisha would probably be preparing the schoolroom for tomorrow’s classes.
The school was a low rambling building situated about a mile away from Savage House; the children’s ages ranged from five to nine. After this they would be sent to the bigger school in the town ten miles away, but more often than not they would be sent away to boarding-school, a lot of them never returning to the isolation to be found here.
The area just didn’t provide enough work for all of them, or the entertainment for that matter. There was a small country club, with all the usual sporting facilities, and a dance held every Saturday, but certainly nothing like the sophisticated forms of entertainment to be found in the towns. And so the population in this part of Cornwall remained about the same, varying between three and four hundred, and that was the way Rafe liked it.
Rafe! No matter what Hazel started out thinking about it always came back to her arrogant guardian. And he was still that—just. The conditions of her father’s will had left her to Rafe’s guardianship until she was twenty-one, even though the age of consent was eighteen. But in a week’s time she would be twenty-one, and able to be her own boss and not ordered about as if she was still a child.
As she had expected, Trisha was sitting at her desk at the head of the room, marking the exercise books of the day. Hazel crept quietly into the room, hoping to surprise her friend. She hadn’t written telling Trisha of her return; the whole thing had been arranged in such a hurry there hadn’t been the time to do so even if she had wanted to.
‘Hi!’ she cried happily.
Trisha looked up, startled. Her face lit up as she recognised Hazel, throwing down her pen to rush over and hug her. ‘Oh, Hazel!’ She held her at arm’s length, her blue eyes mirroring her excitement. ‘When did you get back?’
‘Just now.’ Hazel’s smile was warm with happiness. ‘Literally. I only took time out to shower and change before coming over to see you.’ And visit the cabin, but she didn’t want to talk about that!
‘I’m flattered,’ her friend grinned. ‘Goodness, I’ve missed you!’
‘And I you. Your letters have been very welcome, though. I was so pleased for you when you passed all your exams. How does it feel to be teaching in the school you yourself went to?’
‘A bit strange at first. But I’m enjoying it,’ Trisha enthused. ‘You know I told you the authorities are trying to close the school down? Well, Rafe’s been really fantastic about it He’s persuaded them to keep it open for at least another year or so.’
‘That is a breakthrough.’
Hazel knew that the authorities were trying to close some of the smaller schools, believing them to be a waste of money. But she also knew that Rafe believed that the children should be kept in the area for as long as possible, and obviously he had managed to persuade the people concerned to his way of thinking, even if it was temporarily. She knew Rafe well enough to know that it would become a permanent thing.
‘Mm,’ Trisha gathered up the marked books, ‘Rafe’s been very helpful.’
‘And Celia?’
Trisha’s face darkened. ‘Celia is—Celia.’ She said the last with a shrug.
‘Sorry,’ Hazel grimaced. ‘That was a bit unfair. You’ll have to excuse me, but I’ve just left her.’
‘I see. It was terrible about Rafe, though, wasn’t it?’ Trisha effectively changed the subject. Celia’s resentment towards her brother’s young ward was public knowledge among the local people, and it was something that Hazel and Trisha had often discussed together, usually when Hazel had run from Savage House in tears after one of her slanging matches with Celia. ‘It’s quite a shock when you first look at him.’
‘Yes,’ Hazel agreed huskily. She wasn’t going to admit that she hadn’t even seen him yet.
Trisha shuddered. ‘I can still remember the first time I saw him when I came back. God, he was a mess, Hazel. His face! At first I thought it had ruined his good looks, but I don’t know, now that the scarring has faded slightly I think it may have added to them. He was always a handsome devil, but now—wow!’
Hazel didn’t see how a scarred face and limp could add to a man’s attraction, but she didn’t argue with Trisha. To do that she would have to admit that she didn’t even know the full extent of Rafe’s injuries, that she hadn’t even known he had been injured until this morning.
She still didn’t know how Celia could have kept such a thing from her. Rafe could have died and she wouldn’t have known until it was too late. She shuddered at the thought. And Rafe had been burnt. She didn’t need to be told how horrific burns could be—or how painful. Rafe’s smooth brown skin, scarred and disfigured … She couldn’t bear it.
‘I would have come home myself if I’d been asked,’ she said coolly. ‘I—I didn’t realise just how seriously ill he was.’
‘Perhaps it’s as well that you didn’t. Mummy says Celia was acting like Lady Bountiful while he was ill in bed, ordering the estate workers about as well as the household staff. Half the people were threatening to down tools by the time Rafe was back at the reins.’
‘Someone should have told him what was going on.’
Trisha began to wipe the blackboard clean. ‘Impossible. To see Rafe you had to
