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 …’
‘Ah, well,’ he drawled unpleasantly. ‘Brains in addition to those blonde good looks would have been too much to hope for.’ He went to the door and held it open for her. ‘Now, on your way, Miss Beaumont, and try not to get lost in all those confusing passages.’
Sandie took a deep breath and tried to summon what dignity she had left to her rescue. But it was difficult when she was being sent to bed—just like a naughty child—and for nothing. Nothing.
As she walked past him, head high, Flynn Killane put out
