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She couldn’t understand what had gone wrong with Sam. It hadn’t appeared as if the bull could possibly have done serious damage, but for some reason he was bleeding badly. And then she remembered the scar on his knee, the long, jagged mark which had intrigued her that day on the boat. An old wound. Sometimes old wounds needed only slight pressure on them to break open, with nasty results.

Vasco was a long time. Minella tapped her feet impatiently, wondering whether he was engrossed in the proceedings which were under way again, forgetting what he had gone back for. She was considering trying to find a telephone to ring for Greg when at last he came back, alone.

‘She is not there,’ he said, spreading his hands palm upwards in a gesture of resignation. ‘I spoke with Carlo, who said she also has concern for Sam.’

‘Oh, what a muddle!’ Minella exclaimed. ‘Then we’d better get to the hospital. Have you enough money for a taxi?’

He took some crumpled notes from his pocket. ‘It is all I have.’

‘Good,’ she said, taking them from him. ‘I’ll repay you this evening. Now can you get one for us?’

‘I am to come with you?’

‘Would you let me go alone?’

He was contrite. ‘Of course not. I will look after you—I always do.’

Now that something definite had happened she was no longer nervous. It occurred to her that she ought to have spoken to someone in charge in case Sam had left a message, but he had been rushed away so quickly he probably hadn’t even thought of it.

Luckily there were taxis in the vicinity waiting for the afternoon sport to finish, but even so it took longer to get to the hospital than she would have liked. She sat on the edge of the seat as the car bumped along, cross with everything that got in their way, and too preoccupied to talk.

It was busy at the hospital, people ambling in all directions with the visiting time look about them. Vasco asked about Sam at the reception desk. The woman chatted to him, obviously telling him which way to go, and he started to translate for Minella when something else she said made his eyebrows lift in surprise.

‘She says he is in a private room on the first floor waiting for the doctor to put stitches in his knee, and then he can go. She also says his wife is with him!’

For a moment Minella looked mystified and was about to protest that there had been a mistake when she realised what must have happened.

‘I expect Annette came with him after all,’ she said, with a relieved smile. ‘They would think she’s his wife because she’s English.’

The stairs echoed with their footsteps and they were afraid to speak because every sound seemed to carry and become magnified, so they merely looked at each other and stifled laughter as they crept along the first floor corridor looking at room numbers.

And then they heard voices from an open doorway. English voices belonging distinctly to Sam and Annette.

They were far enough away to be unobserved, partially hidden by a screen in the corridor. Minella saw Sam on his feet looking none the worse for the accident, and Annette with her back towards them, but something about the way they faced each other made Minella pause, instinct cautioning her to wait, and she restrained Vasco with a warning touch.

‘All right, Anne,’ she heard Sam say, ‘we’ll continue to play it your way, but I still think Greg should be told.’

‘No,’ said Annette. ‘I don’t ever want him to know. I begged you not to let anyone suspect, but you might as well have shouted it from the rooftops.’

‘How could I help it? That first evening I really thought I was dreaming!’

Annette reached up and put her arms round his neck. ‘Please, Sam, don’t be cross. I’m much too happy to risk spoiling anything.’

‘If that’s the way you want it,’ said Sam, and bent his head to kiss her.

Minella was rooted to the spot, staring at the oblong patch of light where the two were framed as if acting out a motion picture. But this was no film, no make-believe. Their treachery filled the air and she was afraid to draw breath in case she was contaminated. Her anger was equally potent. She would never have believed Annette could play such a devious game. Sam, yes— Sam could never be trusted. But Annette had sworn she wanted nothing to do with him, denounced him for what he was, and Minella had actually believed her.

She thought the hospital smells of ether and disinfectant would stay with her for ever. Her skin seemed to be soaking it into every pore as time stopped still. Harsh hospital noises vibrated her eardrums, piercing into the fragments of conversation going through her brain like static-induced repetition on a record, yet she couldn’t utter a sound.

Slowly she became aware that Vasco, too, was motionless, mesmerised by the scene as if it affected him personally. And when Annette moved her head so that her face was visible, he murmured an exclamation on exhaled breath.

‘He-ey! That girl!’ His eyes were bright with revelation. ‘She is the one in the portrait!’

‘Take
me back to the hotel,’ muttered Minella, in a hoarse whisper. ‘Please, Vasco, before they see us. I can’t stay here a minute longer!’

‘You do not wish to speak with them?’

She shook her head, and his disappointment showed in the woeful expression she would have found funny at any other time. He had made the most exciting discovery and was not to have the opportunity of following it through. One look at the pain in Minella’s eyes was sufficient to convince him that the shock she had suffered was genuine but still he hesitated.

‘Just for a moment more I want to look at her,’ he said.

But Minella had gone. The late afternoon sun on the pavement outside dazzled her after the gloom of the hospital and she leaned against a wall, fighting for breath as if she had been running. But there was no escape. The troubled thread she had thought would be broken as soon as they left the Azores had become a web of intrigue with Sam at the centre, and she was caught up in it, lured by the same attraction that had entangled Annette all those years ago. She didn’t know which was worse, the impression Sam and Annette had given of embarking on a holiday affair, or the truth which Vasco had innocently uncovered. Her head was spinning, and she couldn’t begin to think clearly until she reached the solitude of her room.

Vasco came round the corner a few minutes later and found her, and he was laughing as if they were children playing hide-and-seek.

‘Why you not wait for me?’ he asked. ‘I could not come away until I had seen her properly. I think perhaps she is not quite so beautiful as in the painting.’

Minella clutched at the slight ring of doubt. ‘Are you sure it’s the same girl, Vasco?’

‘Yes, I am sure,’ he said. ‘She is older, but I do not make a mistake.’

‘Could it have been painted about eight years ago?’ He debated the question, then nodded slowly. ‘I think yes.’ They started to walk and he put his arm round her waist. She didn’t object; it was good to have his support. ‘It is a beautiful painting, and once I thought I would never meet a girl like that. But now I think you are much nicer.’

His flattery was irresistible, and in spite of the load on her mind she was able to smile.

‘What f do not understand,’ Vasco went on, with a perplexed frown, ‘is how this girl comes here as your brother’s wife. You did not know she is the one Sam keeps hidden away in his hut?'

‘How could I even guess?’ said Minella. ‘Everything seems to have suddenly turned upside down. All I know is that Annette was once going to marry a man, but he was injured and lost his job, then disappeared, and she never saw him again. Sam must be that man. It all fits. His boat is even called
Samanne
, don’t you see?’

They turned into a street she recognised and the hotel was a little way up the hill.

‘What are you going to do now?’ he asked.

She sighed. ‘I don’t know. The only time Annette ever talked about Sam . .. about her love affair, I was so upset that someone could walk out on her like that I vowed I’d really give him a piece of my mind if I ever came across him. Well, now I have, and I’m in love with him, too ... or I thought I was. I’m so confused. And there’s still so much mystery about him.’

‘You are too good for him,’ Vasco said vehemently. ‘
I
am the one who is in love. Stay with me.’

He really was very sweet when he tried to play the Latin lover, and she wished she returned his feelings, but suddenly she felt twice his age. She looked at him with almost maternal affection as they stopped outside the hotel entrance, and the germ of an idea came to her.

‘You know I can’t stay,’ she said. ‘But I would like you to take me out on your motorbike before I fly back to England. Will you come round to Sam’s house for me?’

His dark eyes flashed with new hope. ‘I will be there at dawn,’ he cried, his chest expanding. ‘We will fly like a winged machine across Fayal and find a place to be alone!’

Minella laughed and squeezed his hand. It was so much more comfortable being with a boy she liked and with whom she could joke lightheartedly.

‘We don’t leave here until well after dawn tomorrow, and I’d rather you didn’t career across the countryside like a mad thing. I want to be able to get back to England all in one piece. Now,’ she became serious, ‘have you enough money to last until you get back to Horta?’

‘I have my plane ticket, and my friends will lend me any money I need.’ He looked at his watch. ‘I must hurry or I will miss the special plane that takes us home. And I will count the hours until I see you again.’

She ought to have looked in on Greg before going to her room, but after standing outside his door a moment she knew she was in no mood to talk about the bullfight, or what had followed afterwards, and she went on up the stairs to seek the privacy she so desperately needed.

Until she had seen Annette she couldn’t decide whether to admit to the discovery she had made. Annette had begged for secrecy. The reason for it became more complex as soon as she gave it thought and she flopped down on the bed face downwards, wishing that this whole adventure had never started.

She wished more than anything that she had never met Sam Stafford. Her life had been happy and uncomplicated before he came into it, but now nothing was predictable except heartbreak. She had never been really conscious of the age gap until now, but important things had been happening to him while she was still only a child, and he must be finding her youthful inexperience very amusing.

She still couldn’t associate Annette with his past. It seemed impossible that they had known and loved each other years ago, yet the facts fitted too well for it not to be true. Given a little time for it to sink in she would be able to accept it. What was completely unacceptable was the obvious sign that they were still in love. Annette had said Greg mustn’t be told, mustn’t be hurt, but Sam wanted to shout it aloud. How gullible she must be! After the shameful way he had treated her she ought to have shown him no mercy, let him know that when he walked out on her it had been for good. Weakness was no way to deal with a man like that.

Minella got up and groaned, afraid to examine her feelings any more closely. Her. head ached and she bathed her eyes with warm water, hoping to erase memories of her own yearning for Sam. It was too easy to condemn Annette. Sam was the one who was as black as she had painted him, but that fatal charm was hard to resist and if he chose to use it to gain what he wanted who could be blamed for succumbing. All Minella knew was that
she
was certainly not going to be fool enough to fall for it again.

There was time for a bath before dinner and she ran one calmly, determined not to give way to the pain attacking her temples. A few minutes’ relaxation in a hot bath would ease the tension away and put her in a better state of mind to face people later. She stepped out of her clothes and into the water, mentally blocking all thoughts of Sam, and the steam rising all around her created a soothing mist into which she seemed to float, discarding all immediate problems.

The minutes ticked by and she was dangerously sleepy, sinking further into the rosy haze made by a setting sun and pink bath salts. And she didn’t hear the knock on her bedroom door. The knock was repeated, and unheeded. Minella’s eyes and ears were closed to the outside world and she was oblivious to everything, so it was a shocked awakening when the plug was suddenly pulled out and water gurgled round her toes as it began to run away. She sat up with a start and blinked her eyes before letting out a horrified yell, because Sam was standing there in the mist, drops of moisture already sparkling on his hair and beard. His large frame, magnified by the steaminess and made slightly out of focus,. seemed to completely fill the bathroom. He held out a pink towel to her.

‘What do you think you’re doing!’ he demanded. ‘I’ve rescued you once from drowning. Do I have to keep on doing it?’

‘How dare you come in here!’ she shouted. ‘How
dare
you! Get out this minute!’

The water was draining away rapidly, leaving her unprotected, and he didn’t even have the manners to look away; Her body, already glowing from the warmth of the water, now burned as if she was in a furnace.

‘Your door was unlocked and there was steam coming through the keyhole,’ he said. ‘How was I to know there wasn’t a fire? You’ll be the death of me, if not yourself!’

His eyes travelled from the tip of her nose, down over her neck, lingering on her small but well-formed breasts, and she hurriedly drew up her knees and hugged them against her like a pixie, wishing she could slide down the plughole with the rest of the water.

‘Have you no sense of decency, Sam Stafford?’ she cried, making a grab at the towel.

‘None,’ said Sam.

But he turned and opened the window while she stood up and wrapped herself in the fluffy pink bath towel. The steam cleared quickly and she went to step out of the bath, but the porcelain was slippery and in her hurry to put a respectable distance between them she skidded over. With a gasp she landed in a pool left by the departing bath water, and when Sam saw what had happened he hooted with laughter. Before she had the chance to regain her balance he leaned into the bath and scooped her up in his arms, carrying her back to the bedroom squealing like a scalded cat.