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Rachel steadied him and helped him from the room, along to his study where he sank into a chair.

She poured him a stiff whisky, but he refused it. ‘I think it’s best not to mix alcohol with all the things the doctors have been pumping into me,’ he said with a ghost of a smile, ‘much though I should like one.’

Rachel sat down. ‘What’s happened, Richard?’ she asked.

‘I’ve lost my boat,’ he said flatly.

‘Thursday’s Child?’

‘No.
Celia,
the fishing boat.’ He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. ‘I suppose I should never have gone out today; it was overcast and I knew it could turn up foggy, but then there’s always that possibility, and this party was coming over from Glasgow, and today was the only day they could come.’ He sighed. ‘So we went. It was all right until midday, then the fog closed in. It was as thick as a hedge. I was making for home, working by the charts and compass, and we’d got as far as Rubha Sgeir, which is a nasty, rocky little area as its name suggests, when this joker loomed on the port side and ran us down. It happened as quickly as I’m telling you, we didn’t stand a chance. It was over almost in seconds.’ He looked down at his bandaged hand. ‘We were lucky—there were six of us in the boat and we all got away with nothing more than cuts and bruises. The boat that had rammed us picked us all up, but the
Celia
was pushed on to the rocks at Rubha Sgeir and broke her back and sank.’ He passed his good hand over his face. ‘So that’s the end of another Celia.’ His expression was desolate.

Rachel’s heart went out to him. ‘Was it insured?’ she asked tentatively.

‘Oh, yes. Everything was insured; boat, equipment, everything. But it was a stupid thing to happen,’ he spoke impatiently. ‘And it wasn’t my fault. Well, it wasn’t anybody’s fault really, I suppose. Just one of those things.’ He got up. ‘I think I’ll go to bed. I can break the news to my father in the morning, that’ll be time enough to tell him. I can’t do much with this damn thing.’ He held up his hand. ‘My right hand, too.’

Rachel left him, feeling helpless and inadequate. But she had barely reached her room when there was a knock at the door. Richard stood there. ‘I’m sorry,' he said, ‘could you ...?’ He held out his good arm for her to undo the cuff button on his shirt. ‘I always keep a change of clothing at the office,’ he explained, ‘so I was able to get into dry things as soon as we came ashore. The doctor who stitched my hand buttoned me up then.’

Rachel unbuttoned his cuff and he shook it loose and fumbled with the buttons on his shirt front. ‘Oh, hell, I feel so bloody useless! I can’t do a thing with my left hand—I never could.’

Deftly, Rachel unbuttoned the rest of his shirt, carefully keeping her eyes averted from his face. He must never know how she longed to put her arms round him and comfort him. ‘There,’ she said with a slight catch in her breath. ‘Can you manage now?’

He swayed towards her, then recovered himself. ‘Yes, thank you, I can manage now.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘I may need buttoning up in the morning, though.’

Over breakfast next morning Richard told Alistair about the disaster, whilst Melanie looked on, wide-eyed and silent. Rachel noticed that he had pulled on a roll-neck sweater so he had no need to come to her to be ‘buttoned-up’.

Alistair listened gravely to the story, then asked, as Rachel had done, whether, the boat had been adequately insured.

‘Yes. But it’ll take some time to come through. You know what these things are.’

‘So what are you going to do in the meantime?’

‘Can’t do anything until this heals.’ Richard indicated his bandaged hand, ineptly chasing a piece of sausage round his plate with his left hand as he spoke.

‘And then?’

Richard shrugged. ‘Start again, I suppose.’

‘That won’t be for three or four months, though, will it?’ Alistair’s gaze was intent.

‘Probably not until the spring. By the time everything’s sorted out it’ll be Christmas—not much point in starting then till the weather improves and the holidaymakers come. I don’t know. I’ll see. Right now, I’m fed up with the whole business.’

‘Hm
.'
Alistair wiped his mouth with his napkin. ‘Rose will be coming home soon,’ he said, changing the subject.

‘That’ll make two semi-invalids around the place,’ commented Richard, with a trace of bitterness.

Alistair ignored that remark. ‘I’ve been turning over in my mind the possibility of Rose going away somewhere to convalesce.’ He reached for toast and marmalade as he spoke.

‘I’m sure that would do her a world of good,’ Rachel said warmly. ‘And I know my family would be delighted to have her to stay. They haven’t seen each other for years.’

‘I was thinking of something a little more ... well, exciting is perhaps the word, than that.’ Alistair’s voice was almost diffident.

‘Like what?’ Richard asked with a somewhat cynical smile. ‘A world cruise?’

‘Well, yes, something like that. A Mediterranean cruise, anyway.’

Richard and Rachel both regarded him with amazement. Melanie had slipped unnoticed out of the room some time back.

‘Don’t you think she’d like that?’ Alistair asked.

‘I’m sure she would,’ Rachel replied. ‘But....'

‘But what?’

‘I expect she’d like it more if someone went with her,’ Richard said, voicing Rachel’s thoughts.

‘But I’d no intention of letting her go alone,’ Alistair said mildly.

‘Rachel can’t go,’ said Richard, quickly. ‘There’s Melanie....’

No, Rachel thought wretchedly, Melanie’s governess can’t be spared. But only because she is Melanie’s governess.

‘I hadn’t thought of Rachel.’ Alistair hesitated. ‘In fact, if you would be prepared to manage the Estate for me, Richard, I rather thought I might go myself.’

Nobody spoke at this bombshell.

‘I’ve never been to Greece or Crete or any of those places,’ Alistair went on, ‘and I’d very much like to before I get too old. Of course, I’ve been to North Africa. I was there during the war and have a souvenir to prove it.’ He patted his lame leg. ‘I’ve thought about this a lot, but couldn’t see how I could leave the Estate; Ben obviously couldn’t manage it alone.... But now this has happened.’ He spread his hands. ‘It could all work out very well, Richard.’

Richard snorted and rested his arm gingerly on the table. ‘At the moment I don’t feel capable of managing anything, I’ll tell you that,’ he said. ‘This thing’s damned painful. I didn’t sleep a wink last night.’

Alistair got up from the table. ‘Well, you’ve got time to think it over, Richard,’ he said. ‘I won’t say anything to Rose until you’ve made your decision.’

‘Crafty old so-and-so!’ Richard muttered as Alistair closed the door behind him. ‘He knows perfectly well he’ll get his own way. He nearly always does.’ But he was smiling.

Richard
took the loss of his boat more philosophically than Rachel had expected. He fumed at the pain and inconvenience of his injured hand, and particularly at his inability to drive his car, but Alistair kept him too busy to brood, occupying his time either in the office or roaming the Estate with Ben. It seemed to Rachel that Alistair was going to make sure that Richard could run things competently in his absence.

As for Rose, excitement at the prospect of a cruise drove everything else from her mind and brought colour to her cheeks. Rachel was kept on her toes shopping and packing for her, and she lost count of the number of phone calls she had from her aunt. ‘Did I put sun-tan oil on my list? And I’d better take some seasickness pills, just in case.’ Another time, ‘Do you really think you should buy me trousers, my girl? I’ve never worn them before. Perhaps I’m too old.’

Rachel couldn’t help laughing. ‘Of course you’re not too old, Auntie. Everyone wears trousers these days. By the way, I can’t find the blue blouse you wanted. I can find a pink one .....’

‘Oh, never mind, get me a new one when you come to Dunglevin next time. After all, a trip like this only happens once in a lifetime.’ And so it went on.

But at last everything was ready, trunks packed and piled in the hall at Kilfinan House, and Alistair fetched Rose from hospital ready for leaving the following day.

Rachel took her aunt a bedtime drink. Rose had insisted on spending the night in her own cottage, so Rachel was there, too, keeping her company.

‘I feel as if I’ve been away for years.’ Rose accepted her drink gratefully. ‘So much seems to have happened —poor Richard losing his boat like that. He’d had such hopes for that boat, you know. And Melanie .....’ Her face softened at the recollection of Melanie’s greeting, the delighted shriek of ‘Rose!’ and the bear-hug which Rose had, for once, found no difficulty in returning. It was a new, mellow Rose who had come home.

She looked at Rachel over the rim of her mug. ‘You’ve done wonders with that child, my girl. What’s your secret?’

‘Love and patience.’ Rachel sat on the side of the bed, a frown creasing her brow. ‘Melanie has certainly made great strides. She talks much more now in that funny, slow way she has, but she’s becoming quite articulate. There’s still something, some barrier, though ..... I don’t know what it is. I just feel, somehow, that something still bothers her.’ She shrugged. ‘Maybe it’s just my imagination. Tell me, Auntie, how much do you think Melanie misses her mother?’

Rose finished her drink and set the mug down on the table beside her bed. ‘I never liked Richard’s wife,’ she said carefully. ‘I know people thought I was simply jealous, that whoever Richard married I would have resented because I was his nanny and he was my boy, I’d brought him up.’ She shook her head. ‘That wasn’t true. I would have—still would—like nothing better than to see him happily married. But to see the way that woman carried on with other men behind his back .....’ She sighed. ‘Oh, Celia was very discreet. Not many people were aware of what was going on; I don’t think Alistair suspects even to this day. But I knew.’

She gave a wry smile. ‘When Melanie was born I think Celia realised she’d been a bit hasty in moving me to this cottage. I would have been so much more useful on the spot. But I refused to go back, even though she asked me. A child was an encumbrance to her. She’d never wanted children at all, you see.’

‘Richard did?’

Rose smiled. ‘Oh, yes. Richard wanted a son. Even so, I remember him coming to me the day Melanie was born. “She’s beautiful, Rose,” he said. “A real Duncan.” “And what about the son you were so set on having?” I teased him. “Plenty of time for that. We’ll have a son next time,” he said. Only there wasn’t a next time, was there?’ Rose shook her head sadly.

She still hadn’t answered Rachel’s question. ‘Do you think Melanie misses Celia?’ she repeated.

Rose bit her lip. ‘If the accident had happened three months earlier I would have said no,’ she replied. ‘The child spent more time with me than anybody up until then. But in the last three months it was different.’ She paused. ‘That was when Celia started going out in the daytime as well as at night. I suppose she took the child with her as a cover, so that people wouldn’t suspect what was going on. Sometimes she went on foot, sometimes by car, but she was always going to the same place. She couldn’t leave the man alone.’

‘What man?’ But Rachel knew what her aunt would say.

‘Why, Ben Carson, of course.’

Lying in her bed under the eaves at Rose’s cottage Rachel went over the conversation she had had with her aunt. It all sounded so plausible—not at all the rantings of an old woman deranged by jealousy as Ben had suggested. And Melanie knew Ben very well, was clearly fond of him and at ease in his company, a relationship compatible with her having spent a good deal of time in his presence. But Ben had been the one person who had never encouraged Melanie to talk—in fact, had almost discouraged her. Almost as if he was afraid that if she spoke she might say too much He made no secret of his admiration for Richard’s wife, either. Strangely, it was this last fact that made Rachel uneasy. A man having an affair with another man’s wife would hardly boast of his attraction towards her.

It was very late before Rachel slept.

The next day was Saturday and the whole household assembled to see Rose and Alistair off on the first leg of their journey. Richard’s hand was not sufficiently recovered to drive long distances, so Ben was going to take them as far as Glasgow. Rose looked very smart in a practical navy trouser suit and Alistair hovered round her, helping her into the car and tucking a rug round her.

‘You’d think they were off on their honeymoon!’ Richard whispered to Rachel, with a grin, as they waved them down the drive, Melanie beside them, hopping ecstatically from one foot to the other. Mrs Munroe wiped her eye on the corner of her apron and hurried back to the kitchen.

‘Would you like some more coffee?’ Richard asked Rachel. He seemed reluctant to let her go, for some reason.

‘It’s probably cold by now.’ As it was Saturday she had no special plans, Melanie had gone off to find Mrs Munroe’s Jeannie. She followed him back to the dining room, where Mrs Munroe had begun to clear the table, and put her hand on the coffee pot.

‘Och, I’ll mak’ some fresh, it’ll no tak’ a sec,’ Mrs Munroe volunteered, whisking it away.

Rachel sat down at the table and Richard sat opposite, flexing his hand. The bandages were off now but the fingers were still swollen and marked and there was an ugly scar running across the palm. ‘I’m getting more mobility into it,’ he said, looking down at his sausage-like fingers, ‘but it’s very slow progress.' He was wearing denim jeans, a thin sweater and an unzipped leather lumber jacket. It struck Rachel, not for the first time, that Richard Duncan would look distinguished whatever he wore.

‘The doctors said you were lucky not to lose some fingers,’ she reminded him. ‘But you didn’t. They’re all there and eventually they’ll all work again. You must just be patient.'

He sighed. ‘Yes, I suppose you’re right. I’m getting quite adept at writing with my left hand, though.’

Mrs Munroe brought in the coffee on a tray and put it in front of Rachel.