Island of the Heart Read Free Page B

'I'd like to see Mr Sinclair,
    please,' she said with a trace of crispness.
    'He's in Galway, and won't be back till night. I'll take you to the
    madam.' The woman continued across the hall, to another pair of
    double doors, and shouldered her way through them, indicating that
    Sandie should follow.
    It was a big room, filled comfortably with sofas and chairs in faded
    chintz. A turf fire blazed on the hearth, and a woman was sitting
    beside it. She was dark-haired, with a vivid, striking face, lavishly
    made up, and was wearing a smart dress in hyacinth blue silk, with a
    wool tartan scarf wrapped incongruously round her neck. Sandie
    recognised her instantly and nervously.
    'Here's the young lady come to play the piano for Mr Crispin,' the
    woman who'd shown Sandie in announced, setting the tray down on
    an occasional table.
    Sandie found herself being scrutinised from several directions—by
    the woman beside the fire, by a tall, dark girl, bearing a strong
    resemblance to Crispin, and also by two children, a boy and girl
    barely in their teens, bent over a jigsaw puzzle at another table.
    'Oh, dear,' Magda Sinclair said at last. 'Oh, dear. This is too bad of
    Crispin. This really won't do at all.'
    Sandie knew an ignominious and overwhelming urge to burst into
    weary tears. She'd set out with such high hopes, and come all this
    way, and now Crispin wasn't here, and his mother disliked her on
    sight. She remembered Crispin had said she was temperamental.
    'Now, now, Mother.' The dark girl got up from the window seat
    where she'd been sprawling, and came forward. 'The poor kid will
    think she's landed in a lunatic asylum!' She held out her hand.
    'Hello, I'm Jessica Sinclair. Welcome to Killane. This, as you
    probably realise, is Magda Sinclair, and the brats are James and
    Steffie.' Sandie swallowed. 'How do you do. I'm Alexandra
    Beaumont.' She was beginning to feel like something in a zoo.
    Magda Sinclair seemed to shake herself, and got up. 'I'm sorry, my
    dear, if we seem a little odd, but we just didn't expect you to look
    so—so...'
    'Young,' her daughter supplied, with a hint of dryness, giving Sandie
    the impression this was not what Magda Sinclair had intended to say
    at all.
    'Yes, of course,' Mrs Sinclair said. She gave Sandie a brief smile. 'I
    expect you've had a terrible journey. Why don't you let Bridie show
    you .your room, then come down and have some tea with us.'
    Sandie had been expecting to be shown the door, rather than the
    place where she was to sleep.
    She said, 'Thank you. That would be marvellous.'
    Bridie led the way back into the hall. As Sandie followed, the strap
    of her bag caught on the ornately carved doorknob, and she paused
    to disentangle it.
    Through the half-open door, she heard Jessica Sinclair say in a low
    voice, 'Don't look so worried, Mother. Everything will be fine.' She
    paused, adding flatly, 'Just as long as Flynn stays a thousand miles
    away.'

CHAPTER TWO
    SANDIE-S room was at the back of the house. Vast and high-
    ceilinged, it contained a cavernous wardrobe in walnut with elegant
    brass handles, and a matching dressing-table, tallboy and old-
    fashioned bedstead of equally generous proportions. Sandie felt
    almost dwarfed as she unpacked and put her things away.
    Tea had been an awkward meal. Having behaved so strangely when
    she arrived, the Sinclairs now seemed embarrassingly over-eager to
    put her at her ease, Sandie found ruefully. In spite of that, she'd
    managed to drink two cups of the strong, fragrant tea, and sample
    some of Bridie's featherlight scones, and rich, treacly fruit loaf.
    Bridie, she'd learned, was the cook-housekeeper, and the mainstay
    of the household.
    'She came here as a kitchenmaid when I married Rory Killane,'
    Magda Sinclair explained, 'and she's been here ever since. She
    knows more about this family than we do ourselves, and she's
    incredibly loyal.'
    'She likes Flynn best,' said James, passing his cup to be refilled.
    'What nonsense,' his