Unknown (24 page)

"Isn't that—rather drastic?" Elizabeth asked.

"Drastic, when she nearly killed you out of sheer viciousness? Oh, no!" Charles exclaimed, "Kilchoan will be a happier place without Natalie and her scheming. Even when Claire was alive," he added quietly, "she wanted things all her own way. It was only because we felt we had a responsibility towards Jenny after the accident that we agreed to the riding school idea. If Will Beatty wants to marry her and take her elsewhere 'to better himself', as he puts it, nobody will shed any tears. It's almost incomprehensible that she could have been Claire's sister."

He could speak about Claire openly now, and Elizabeth was glad. She would have admired him less if he had pretended that his first love was no longer even a memory in his heart.

"Jenny worshipped Claire," he said slowly, "and she didn't want me ever to forget her. It was a young girl's romantic reaction to love that death has sealed, and she was desperately hurt about Jason into the bargain. I felt badly because I'd sent Jason to Sydney to manage Abercrombie's Australian connection, and the thought had crossed my mind that it would do him good to get away for a while. Perhaps it did," he mused, "since he's made up his mind to join Grand'mere and Jenny in Maui at the end of next month."

The mist had lifted from the hills behind them and an errant shaft of sunlight slanted across the moor, burnishing the gorse and the grey rooftops of Kilchoan. Charles edged the stallion nearer until the horses' flanks were only a few inches apart.

"We're going to live down there for the rest of our lives," he said. "Do you think you'll like that, Elizabeth?"

She reached across and took his hand, her eyes shining as they looked up into his.

"How could I fail to like it," she asked huskily, "when I fell in love with it at first sight?"

Jenny came running on to the terrace, looking up towards their high vantage-point and waving frantically.

"We've been discovered," Charles laughed. "We'll have to go."