She saw the uncertain glance he sent Nina before he levelled his gaze back on her, and also saw the hint of relief, as if he’d just taken some terribly important test and was now glad it was over.
‘Maddie, darling!’ It was Louise who came forward to envelop her in her warm embrace. ‘Oh, it’s so wonderful to have you home!’ She pushed her to arm’s length in much the same way her father had done earlier at the airport, her smile rather watery. ‘And looking so different, too!’ she exclaimed. ‘So frightfully sophisticated!’
‘Nice to be back, Louise,’ she answered earnestly, somehow unable to return the effusive greeting. It’ll come back, she told herself firmly, frowning inwardly at her own reticence. It was only now as she stood here with these people she had spent so many years of her life with that she noticed the restraint she had learnt to apply on herself. ‘And you haven’t changed in the slightest,’ she made an effort to sound natural. ‘I hope Nina won’t mind if I tell you I had to take a second look to tell which of you was which!’
‘You’ve earned yourself a kiss for that,’ Nina said promptly, coming to replace her mother in Madeline’s arms. ‘I can’t think of a better compliment than to know I look like Mummy. Hello, Maddie,’ she added huskily, looking up at her with gentle, loving eyes. ‘Have you missed us?’
‘Every single day,’ she assured, unwilling to tell the truth and admit that she had found it necessary to her own survival to dismiss all that was even vaguely English from her mind for those first few years. ‘And you look wonderful. Would that have anything to do with this rather dishy man I see standing guard behind you?’ she teased.
Nina blushed, and turned to draw Charles Waverley closer. ‘This is Charles, Madeline,’ she gravely introduced. ‘And you have to like each other on sight, or I shall be miserable.’
Madeline found herself looking once again into those serious brown eyes, and held out her hand. ‘Well,’ she said frankly, ‘I shall promise to like you on sight, Charles, so long as you can promise me you’ll take precious care of Nina.’
‘A promise I won’t find it difficult to keep.’ He smiled, and took her outstretched hand.
‘Let’s get inside, shall we?’ Edward Gilburn’s gruff voice broke in. ‘Come on, Charles,’ he took his future son-in-law’s arm. ‘Women are notoriously silly when it comes to hellos and goodbyes. Let’s you and I go and find a nice glass of something while they talk each other’s tails off.’
With a laugh, the three women followed them indoors, and proceeded to do exactly what Edward Gilburn had predicted by chatting madly—or, more correctly, Nina and Louise did the chattering. Madeline simply smiled a lot and put the odd word in now and then when required. They didn’t seem to notice her reserve, though she did.
It will come, she repeated to herself on a small frown. It was only natural that she should feel strange with them after a four-year separation. The old natural camaraderie would return soon enough once she’d settled back in…
CHAPTER TWO
BUT it didn’t. And it was a relief to escape.
Madeline turned Minty, her chestnut mare, towards the river and cantered off. The clouds which had welcomed her home to England had all but cleared away now, leaving a bright full April moon shining in the night sky above her. It wasn’t late, barely nine o’clock, but it was cold, cold enough to warrant the big sheepskin jacket she had pulled on over her jeans and sweater.
Her decision to take a ride alone had been met with consternation, but they’d let her go. It wasn’t as if they were concerned for her safety. Madeline had been riding over this part of the countryside since she was old enough to climb on to the back of a horse. It was just that they were hurt by her need to get away from them so soon after her arrival home.
But she could not have taken any more tonight.
Within an hour of arriving she’d begun to feel like an invalid home on convalescence because of the way they all seemed to tiptoe around her, around subjects they’d obviously decided between them were strictly taboo, watching her with guarded if loving eyes. By the time another hour had gone by, she had been straining at the leash to escape. Dinner had been an ordeal, her tension and their uncertainty of her acting against each other to make conversation strained and stilted.
She’d blamed her restlessness on jet-lag when she saw their expressions. And they’d smiled, bright, false, tension-packed smiles. ‘Of course!’ her father had exclaimed—too heartily. ‘A ride is just what you need to make you feel at home again!’ Louise had agreed, while Nina just looked at her with huge eyes.
Madeline’s soft mouth tightened. So, she’d hurt them all, but she couldn’t do a single thing about it just yet. Four years was a long time. They all had adjustments to make—her family more than herself, because she was what she was, and nothing like the girl who had left here four years ago.
They were all exactly the same, though, she told herself heavily. They hadn’t changed at all.
Minty’s hoofs pounded on the frozen ground, and Madeline crouched down low on her back, giving herself up to the sheer exhilaration of the ride as they galloped across the dark countryside. The further she got away from the house, the more relaxed she began to feel, as if the distance weakened the family strings that had been busily trying to wrap themselves around her aching heart.
She didn’t know why she felt this way, only that she did. From the moment she’d stepped out of the car, she’d felt stifled, haunted almost, by memories none of them could even begin to contemplate.
A sharp bend in the river was marked by a thick clump of trees standing big and dark against a navy blue sky. She skirted the wood until she found the old path which led down to the river itself, allowing Minty to pick her own way to what was one of their old haunts: a small clearing among the tr
ees, where the springy turf grew to the edge of the steep riverbank.
She loved this place, she thought with a sigh, sliding down from Minty’s back to stand, simply absorbing the peace and tranquillity of her surroundings. Especially at night, when the river ran dark and silent, and the trees stood like sentinels, big and brooding. Her father had used to call her a creature of the night. ‘An owl,’ he used to say, ‘while Nina is a lark.’
The full moon was blanching the colour out of everything, surrounding her in tones of black and grey, except for the river, where it formed slinky silver patterns on the silent mass as it moved with a ghostly kind of grace.
Letting the bridle fall so that Minty could put down her head to graze, Madeline shoved her hands into the pockets of her old sheepskin coat and sucked in a deep breath of sharp, crisp, clean air then let it out again slowly, feeling little by little the tension leave her body. It wasn’t fair—she knew she was being unfair. They were good, kind, loving people who only wanted the best for her and for her to be happy.
But how could she tell them that she’d forgotten what happiness was? Real happiness at any rate, the kind she had once embraced without really bothering to think about it.
Sighing, she moved towards the edge of the bank where she could hear the water softly lapping the pebbly ground several feet below her.
On the other side of the river, hidden behind another thick clump of trees, the old Courtney place stood dark and intimidating. She could just make out its crooked chimneystacks as the moon slid lazily over them. It was an old Elizabethan thing, let to go over the years until it had gained the reputation of being haunted. Its owner, Major Courtney, had done nothing to refute the claims. He was a recluse, an eccentric straight out of the Victorian era who had guarded his privacy so fiercely that in her mad youth Madeline had loved to torment him by creeping into his overgrown garden just so he would come running out with his shotgun at the ready.