The Runaway Bride

by Lucy Gillen

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  IT was a still, beautiful night and the quiet was almost unbelievable. Samantha's room overlooked the yard at the back of the hotel, and beyond that the seemingly endless panorama of moorland and hills, which was tonight bathed in the bright, revealing light of a full moon, with the dark, shirting waters dully silver and moving like a living thing under the warm, light wind. It was not often that she found it difficult to sleep, but somewhere at the back of her mind was the vague idea that some sound of movement outside her door had disturbed her initially. She could not have sworn that she actually heard anything, but something had disturbed her and now she was finding it difficult to return to sleep. For one thing there was rather a lot on her mind at the present moment. Her argument with Barney had ended in the inevitable capitulation on her part, and she had been obliged to watch Patsy Gordon flaunt her new dress. A bright blue creation which was, in Samantha's opinion, just as outrageous as her own had been, but apparently Edward had less strength of argument than Barney. Also there was the growing desire to return home, to return to normal, although she would never have admitted as much to Barney, and it was doubtful if things would ever be normal again in the old sense "45 of the word. She had thought about it a lot since yesterday. How she could go home without going through with the wedding plans, as- they would expect her to. It had crossed her mind that she could perhaps talk to Uncle Nicholas on the telephone before she said anything at all to Barney. Explain to him that she was ready and willing to come home, but only if it was clearly understood that there would be no wedding and no pressure brought to bear on her for changing her mind. He would be disappointed, of course, and so would Uncle Robert, but it was her life and she was entitled to live it her way. She might, perhaps, marry in time, but at the moment she was definitely averse to the idea, and it would very definitely not be Barney, when she did decide. That surely sounded reasonable enough to anybody, and surely Uncle Nicholas at least would see it her way, and understand. Having what she considered solved the problem, she again sought sleep, but it still proved elusive and she lay staring around the moonlit room with wide-open eyes, and an uneasy, niggling doubt still at the back of her mind. At last, with an almighty sigh of resignation, she got out of bed and crossed to the window, a small-paned square below chunky eaves and admitting the full brilliance of the moon. There were stars too, she noticed, many more that she had ever seen before, in town. Just across the'yard was the tiny, low-rooted cottage where Barney slept, and for a second she smiled 146 reminiscently when she remembered his indignation at being 'stabled' as he called it. There were so many things she could remember about Barney that made her smile, and for a moment she stood there at the small, square window her mind returning to the years she had known Barney. The good times they had had together when she had been a very small girl with something of a case of hero-worship for his older confidence. It was some swift and sudden movement that caught her eye first. Something light against the darker yawn of the stone-paved yard, then, as she leaned forward nearer the window, she caught her breath. Someone, she realised, not something was out there, down in the yard. It was not difficult, with the moon as bright as it was, to recognise the truant either. That long blonde hair and voluptuous shape could only belong to Patsy Gordon, wrapped in the very flimsy protection of a light-coloured robe, that fluttered ghostlike in the light wind. For a moment she watched, her heart racing wildly and her brain whirling with speculation, as she watched. The blonde girl came across the yard, her every move suggestive of stealth, until she disappeared into the rear door of the hotel, almost immediately below Samantha's window, then Samantha let out a long, slow breath. Her hands were tight clenched on the narrow windowsill, and she could feel the heavy pounding of blood in her head as she stood, unable to move, stunned into immobility. There could be only one 47 ... place that Patsy Gordon had been, and that was the cottage. Barney's cottage. There were no more buildings in the yard, except a bam used for storage, and that could hardly have attracted a girl like her out of her room at this hour of the night. Samantha glanced at her watch two minutes past one in the morning. She turned then and walked heavy-footed across to the bed and slumped down on it. For all she charged Barney with having affairs with other women, this was the nearest she had ever come to being proved right, and somehow it had a bitter taste, and was not at all the victory she would have expected it to be. She thought she heard some faint sound on the landing outside, and realised that several minutes must have passed since she had seen Patsy Gordon from her window. The thought of the blonde girl returning, undetected and probably smugly pleased with herself, to her own room, was sufficient to spur her into action, and she moved swiftly and soundlessly across the room. Her mouth was set firm and tight, but she had no real idea of what she wanted to do. All she really knew was that she could not let Patsy Gordon think that she had got away with her nocturnal jaunt undetected, and she opened her bedroom door with the intention of facing her. Letting her know that she had been seen leaving Barney's cottage, The soft sound of her own door opening was superimposed on the click of another door closing and, for a moment, she stood quite still. Her heart was thudding wildly away at her ribs and her hands 148 were tightly clenched together. Her own room was number five and the other couple had been given numbers three and two, almost opposite. Hesitating for a second, she tossed the two numbers back and forth in her mind, trying to decide which of them was Patsy Gordon's, then a thin glimmer of light beneath the door of number three decided her, and she walked silently across the width of the landing and put a hand on the door handle. It was like a physical shock when she pushed the door wide and went in. Just two steps before she halted sharply, her huge eyes wide and disbelieving. The lamp over the bed-head was on and the occupant was half turned, in the act of switching it off, the garish yellow light revealing the startled features of Edward Warren. For a second neither of them moved, then he turned fully round to face her, his expression still one of bewildered disbelief. 'Samantha ' he said, his voice husky with sleep. 'Samantha ' Samantha shook her head, the red-gold mane of her hair dishevelled and falling about her face. 'I I didn't realise,' she whispered, clasping a shaking hand to the neck of her robe. 'I I thought it 'Is something wrong? Are you all right? I thought I heard some sound out there.' She nodded, swallowing hard and feeling as if she would choke. 'Yes, yes, I'm all right. I'm I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.' He looked at her steadily for a second, then slid i49 out of bed and hastily donned a dressing-gown. 'You look as if you've had a shock or something,' he said, keeping his voice discreetly low. 'Do you sleepwalk?''No, oh no!' She backed away when he came towards her, and he frowned at her curiously. 'I I thought it was I have the wrong room. I'm sorry.' The wrong room?' He stood at the foot of the bed, hands in the pockets of the thin cotton robe, his eyes watching her as if he could not quite believe what he saw. 'I_I was looking for ' She suddenly realised what a shock it would be to him too, to realise that his fiancee had been visiting another man in the early hours of the morning, and she shook her head hastily. 'I it doesn't matter,' she said. 'I'm sorry.' He was fully awake now, however, and obviously unwilling to leave the matter in the air, and he came and stood in front of her, reaching out to take her arms in a gesture that was possibly meant to be reassuring.T don't like to see you so upset, Samantha,' he said. 'And you are upset about something. Are you sure I can't help?' Samantha nodded, her head swimming. 'No, no, thank you. I'm all right.' She turned and would have left him to go back to her own room, forgetting the matter of Patsy Gordon for the moment, but he still held her arms, a slight frown between his brows. It was at that moment that someone else appeared in the still open doorway. 150 Patsy Gordon looked at them, a glitter that could ' only have been satisfaction in her light blue eyes, her blonde head to one side and a tight, malicious smile on her face. 'How cosy,' she mocked- 'Am I interrupting anything?' It was difficult to say who was most dismayed to see her, for certainly Samantha had not pictured their confrontation taking place in
these circumstances, and she shook herself free of Edward's hold hastily. 'There's been a mistake,' she said, and Patsy smirked, I'll bet there has ' 'I I didn't know this was Ed Mr. Warren's room. I didn't realise.' A full lower lip curled derisively and Samantha thought the growing anger in her eyes was genuine. It was to be expected that Patsy Gordon would expect to have her cake and eat it too. 'That's an old one,' she jeered. 'Can't you do better than that?' 'Patsy!' Edward looked more dismayed than annoyed, and he glanced at Samantha rather helplessly, as if he looked to her to make the explanations. 'It's true,' Samantha insisted, wishing fervently that she had never thought of facing Patsy and charging her with being somewhere she had no right to be. That bird had certainly come home to roost, and who would believe her own charges about Patsy now? The blonde girl eyed her scornfully. 'Oh, and whose room did you think it was?' Samantha hesitated only fractionally. 'Yours,' she said. 151 A sudden, chill kind of stillness held Patsy Gordon for a moment, and Samantha was aware too that Edward was looking at her curiously. 'But why on earth would you want to visit Patsy at this hour of the night?' he asked, and Patsy frowned, evidently prepared to brazen it out if she was tackled. 'That's what I'd like to know,' she said. It had not been Samantha's intention to cause a serious rift between the other couple and she hesitated now to speak of what she had seen from her window earlier, no matter how great the temptation was. Possibly too. Patsy had sensed as much, for she did not appear unduly concerned about her own position. Not that she had much need to be, Samantha realised ruefully. Unlike herself she had taken care not to be caught in flagrante delicto and any accusation on Samantha's part would now be put down as merely an endeavour to cover her own indiscretion. I I just wanted to see to see you,' she said, and was appalled to hear how lame it sounded, even to herself'For a heart-to-heart?' The jeer roused Samantha's anger again. She was getting it all too much her own way, she decided. 'I think you know why,' she told her, and Patsy had the sense at last to see the warning light. She shrugged her shoulders under the light robe Samantha had spotted crossing the yard, and looked briefly wary. 'It's too late to stand here discussing anything now,' she decreed. 'I'm going back to bed. If you take my advice, you'll do the same, before 152 we wake up the rest of the hotel.' For a moment Samantha stared at her, wanting so much to let her know she had seen her, but unable to find the right words, then she turned suddenly and walked across the few feet of landing to her own room, closing the door carefully behind her, but avoiding looking at the pair who watched her go. She would like to have apologised again to Edward Warren, but she could not bear to face either of them any longer, and she felt horribly like bursting into tears. She leaned against the closed door for a moment, sleep completely vanished, and she actually felt the warm prickle of tears in her eyes as she stood in the quiet, moonlit room. It was not only the humiliation of being caught by Patsy Gordon that made her cry, but the memory of that stealthy figure sneaking back across the yard from Barney's cottage. She felt as if she had been betrayed in some way, and she flung herself down on the bed at last, and cried as she had not done since she was a child. After crying herself to sleep in the early hours, Samantha had woken feeling heavy-eyed and headachy, deciding that breakfast was not the lure it usually was for getting her out of bed. Once she was bathed and dressed, however, she felt better and she faced the prospect of a meal with a little more enthusiasm. She looked not only startled but obviously displeased when she .saw that their table for two had been drawn up to another and now made seating for four, and that Patsy and Edward were already seated. i53 So, she thought, as she crossed the room. Barney had done as Patsy Gordon wanted after all. She did her best to look as if it mattered little to her, but the blonde girl's smile of satisfaction was hard to take, especially after last night. Edward half rose from his chair when she joined them and she felt that he, at least, was having doubts about the wisdom of the change. Patsy, however, obviously had no doubts at all and she even looked up and smiled, although there was more malice than greeting about it. 'A change for the better,' she said, without preliminary greeting, and Edward frowned. 'I hope you don't mind, Samantha,' he said. Samantha barely shrugged. She guessed it would make little difference whether she minded or not, in fact Patsy would probably take her objection as jealousy and be quite pleased about it. There was no sign of Barney, and she wondered if he was late deliberately, so that he need not have to explain the reason for his asking to have the tables changed. 'It makes no difference to me,' she said, and glanced at her watch. 'Barney's late this morning.' Patsy giggled, her blue eyes fixed with malicious meaning on Samantha. 'Maybe he had a disturbed night too,' she suggested. 'And he's sleeping it off.' Her meaning was plain only to Samantha, and she flushed angrily, further annoyed by the girl's lack of worry that Samantha would betray her. It was going to be an awful day, Samantha decided, and shook her head when she was offered breakfast. 'Just coffee, please,' she said. 'I'm not hungry.' i54 Aren't you well?' Edward asked solicitously. 'Yes. Yes, I'm all right, thanks.' 'Just suffering from the after-effects?' Patsy suggested sweetly. 'It must be quite nerve-racking, being caught er sleepwalking.' 'I have a headache,' Samantha told her, wondering how on earth she was managing to keep her temper under control. 'A breath of fresh air will soon get rid of it.' 'Walking?' Patsy jeered. 'Perhaps.' She drank two cups of almost black coffee and made up her mind, as she sat there, that something had to be done about Patsy Gordon. It would do no good to quarrel with her openly, much as she was tempted, but there were more ways of killing a cat than choking it to death with butter, and if she could just drive the thin end of the wedge in between her and Barney it would be revenge enough. He would not take kindly to her leaving him again and if he knew that Patsy was more or less responsible for her going he would be less inclined to show her quite so much favour perhaps. She left the table before Barney arrived for his breakfast, and went back up to her room. Unless she was very much mistaken Patsy would stay until he came, and to the bitter end, regardless of Edward's feelings in the matter. There was a faint chance that things would work out her way, though, and she sat in her room waiting for the tell-tale sound of the door opposite, opening and closing. Sure enough, after about ten minutes, she heard i55 footsteps on the landing and the sound of the door of number three opening. She was outside in a couple of seconds and smiling at a rather startled Edward, in the act of closing his door. 'Can I speak to you for a few minutes, Edward?' she asked, using her eyes as shamelessly as Patsy had ever done. He looked at her a trifle uncertainly for a moment, then nodded and came out on to the landing again. 'Yes, of course,' he said. 'Is something the matter, Samantha? Can I help?''You can if you will,' she told him, sweeping long lashes upwards to gaze at him appealingly. 'Of course.' He came and stood immediately in front of her, hesitating only briefly before taking her hands in his and holding them tightly. 'I knew there was something wrong last night,' he declared with certainty. 'And you've been crying, I know. I want to help you, Samantha, please tell me what I can do.'It was almost too easy, Samantha thought a little guiltily, and smiled again. 'I want you to help me get away without being seen,' she said, and Edward stared at her wonderingly. 'Get away?' he echoed. 'I I don't quite understand, Samantha.''Oh.' She lowered her eyes, looking down at their clasped hands and wondering if she was being quite fan- when he was so obviously ready to help and yet so innocent of the facts, but Patsy would be furious if she discovered he had helped her. 'I I just want to get away from here,' she told him. 'That's all.' 156 I 'But Barney.' 'It's Barney I want to elude,' she explained. T don't want him to know I'm going, Edward, that's why I'm asking you to help me. Will you?' He looked much less sure now, and possibly even a little fearful and she thought how ridiculous it was, the way Barney could frighten him. He had begged her most urgently not to let Barney know about that very harmless kiss out there on the hillside, afraid, so he had claimed, that Barney would beat the living daylights out of him. She supposed in the circumstances, she was asking rather a lot of him, but Barney and Patsy h
ad been having it all their own way rather too much lately, and that joining of the tables at her request had somehow been the last straw. She swept her lashes upwards again. 'Please, Edward,' she begged, and looked at him with her heart in her deep blue eyes irresistible as it proved. 'All right,' he agreed, swallowing hard. 'I_I don't understand quite why you want to go without Barney knowing, but I'll help if I can.' 'Oh, you can ' she cried, relief making her a little breathless as she gazed at him with shining eyes. 'Thank you, Edward.' She tiptoed and kissed his cheek lightly. 'Thank you.' He looked a little dazed, touching the cheek with one finger. 'Tell me what I can do to help,' he said, 'and I'll do anything I can.' 'Oh, it's very easy really,' she assured him. 'I suppose Barney's having his breakfast now, isn't he?' He nodded, the memory of the scene he had left i57 making him frown. 'Patsy insisted on staying and keeping him company, so I left them to it.' He looked at her for a second, almost as if he felt he should apologise for Patsy. 'I suppose it's because of the way they're they're going on that you want to leave,' he suggested, and Samantha lowered her eyes.'Partly,' she admitted. He sighed. 'I'm terribly sorry, Samantha. I know how you feel, but well, please don't do anything rash because of it. It won't last I know Patsy.' 'And I thought I knew Barney,' she replied. But ' She thought how sure she had been that Barney would do nothing about having the table arrangements changed, and how it had jolted her to see Patsy Gordon leaving his cottage at one o'clock in the morning. 'I want to leave,' she insisted. Please, Edward.' He looked, it anything, even less happy about it now, but he nodded. 'You'll need a taxi,' he said. 'Shall I ring for one for you?' 'Please, and ' She hesitated. 'Will you ask him to be as quiet as possible, so that Barney doesn't see him?' I will,' he promised, 'but I don't know how obliging he'll be.' Well, try anyway.' She smiled at him again, and looked quite irresistibly soulful. 'Will you come to the station with me, Edward? I'd be very grateful if you would.' Yes yes, of course I will.* 'Thank you.' His absence, she thought, would at 158 least give Patsy some food for thought for a little while. He went downstairs to use the telephone, while she finished packing her suitcase, and she could do nothing about the rapid and anxious thud of her heart as she handed him her luggage a few minutes later, and followed him along the landing and down the stairs. If Barney was really still intent on getting her to change her mind about marrying him, he would follow her. If he stayed she would know that Patsy Gordon had established a stronger claim on him and, as she climbed into the taxi with Edward, she felt an almost sickening sensation of fear in case he didn't follow. 'Are you sure you'll be all right?' Edward asked, when he saw her into the station. 'I_I don't really like you going off on your own like this, Samantha.' 'I'll be fine,' she assured him with a smile. 'Honestly.' She wondered why he had dismissed the taxi and decided to walk back to the hotel unless the same thought had occurred to him that it would do no harm for Patsy to wonder where he had gone. When Barney discovered she was missing, and then found Edward gone too, no doubt speculation would be rife until they discovered Edward's luggage was still in his room. But that would take time, and the landlord would soon enlighten them to the fact that they had left together in a taxi he had ordered for them. Maybe Patsy's relief at seeing Edward again after all would give her enough of a jolt to realise what could happen if she did not watch her step. Barney, no doubt, would be furious at being deserted again and would no doubt make his displeasure known in no uncertain way. For a moment she felt rather guilty about getting Edward involved in such a 'way, but he should make Patsy behave and then it wouldn't have happened. Not like this anyway. She took a ticket to Carlisle, where she had to change anyway, and thought what a marathon journey her runaway instincts had led her into. Perhaps, when she reached Carlisle, she would take a short ride as far as the Lake District again, and stay there for a while. She had a good start on Barney this time and he would probably not find it so easy to discover her destination from the dour, elderly man at Benfar station. A passenger was just that, to him, she felt sure. He would not have registered her passing with the appreciation that the younger staff had at other railway stations, and she had not told Edward where she was going. The journey was rather slow, but the scenery was quite beautiful at first and she began to relax a little, leaning back her head and looking out at the changing panorama framed in the windows. There were only two other people in the carriage, and one was reading and the other, a middle-aged woman, engrossed in some complicated knitting pattern. So that there was no fear that she would be drawn into a conversation. She felt like being quiet. Like being by herself with the opportunity to think what she should do next. Perhaps she would ring Uncle Nicholas from Carlisle and let him know that she was on her way 160 south again. Perhaps she would tell him that she longed to come home again but not to wedding preparations, and the certainty of being Barney's wife. She ..must impress upon him that she would not be marrying Barney under any circumstances. To her surprise and dismay she felt a large fat tear rolling down her cheek, followed by another, and then several in succession, and she found there was little she could do to stop them. She had never come easily to tears and here she was making an absolute and abject fool of herself twice within twenty-tour hours. She used a surreptitious handkerchief to mop up the rolling tears, and prayed that neither of her travelling companions had noticed. The woman with the knitting was surely far too engrossed in her fair-isle pattern to see anything else, but she could not be certain that the book opposite had not been lowered briefly and a pair of wary male eyes regarded her. She mopped hastily again and searched in, her handbag for her compact mirror to reassure herself that the evidence was not too obvious. Her eyes were certainly rather pink-rimmed, but that was probably the after-effects of last night's weeping bout, and nothing a pair of dark glasses would not hide. She took them out of her bag and put them on, feeling less vulnerable already behind the smoky lenses, although her opposite neighbour probably found her sudden donning of them both inexplicable and suspicious. It was as she was getting out of the train at Carlisle that she suddenly remembered she had not 161 paid her hotel bill before she left. The thought of Barney being not only deserted, but also landed with her hotel bill, proved too much for her, and she giggled as she lifted her case down on to the platform. The man with the book who was following her off the train gave her a swift, startled look and then hurried off, as if he doubted her sanity and was afraid he might get involved. She found a telephone box at last, and rang Uncle Nicholas, wondering what he was going to say when he knew she had left Barney again and gone off on her own. It took a few minutes to get through, and then Uncle Nicholas's familiar voice was humming against her ear. 'Dear Sam,' he said, sounding so relieved that she immediately felt guilty again. 'Oh, my dear, I wish you'd stop giving us all such frights.' 'I'm sorry, darling, honestly,' she told him contritely. 'I didn't mean to scare anybody.' 'I've just heard from Barney,' he said. 'He told me you've run off again. Now why, Sam?' 'Didn't you ask him?' Samantha said shortly, resenting the faint hint of blame she thought she detected in his voice. 'He should know if anyone does.' The instrument almost shuddered with a heartfelt sigh at the other end of the line. 'I did ask him, my dear, and he doesn't know.' 'Well, of all the ' She gripped the receiver hard, breathing heavily and feeling a strong desire to crash the instrument, wholesale, over Barney's arrogant head. 2 'Do I gather that you two have quarrelled again?' he asked. 'Yet again,' she agreed. 'But why, Sam?' You used not to quarrel, you and Barney. You .were always so ' 'Malleable?' she asked tartly. 'Well, I'm not any longer. Uncle Nicholas.' 'It seems to me,' her uncle informed her, copying her tone, 'that you're being stubborn and unreasonable, and frankly I wonder Barney hasn't lost patience with you before now.' 'He has, several times,' she told him. 'And I don't wonder!' 'Oh, Uncle Nicholas!' Those weak, insistent tears were threatening again. 'Don't side with Barney, please don't. I want to come home, I really do, but well, I don't want to marry Barney.' 'But why, my darling?' He was his more gentle, doting self again now, but he still couldn't see her point
of view. Because I oh, because I don't like being pushed into things, Uncle Nicholas. Please try to understand.' 'I am trying, my dear,' he told her, and obviously meant it. 'But you've known Barney all your life nearly, surely you know how you feel about him by now.' 'That's the trouble, I don't,' Samantha complained. 'And I've known him for so long that I've never had a chance to really get to know anyone else. It's always been so cut and dried. Uncle Nicholas. I just wanted to to try out my wings for 163 a change. Look around and see if there's anyone I like better than Barney.' 'Sam!' 'Well, why not?' she challenged. 'You mean like Bill Smith, or Peter What's-hisname, or this hiker fellow?' her uncle observed dryly, and she felt herself colouring furiously, as if he had accused her of having a serious affair with each and every one of them. That was probably the impression that Barney had given him. 'I might have known Barney would tell tales,' she said. 'And trimmed them up a bit, I don't doubt. He would ' 'He wasn't exactly telling tales,' her uncle denied, but Samantha snorted her disbelief. 'I'd like to know what else you'd call it,' she retorted. 'But I suppose he didn't see fit to tell you about the the trail of bosomy blondes we've left all across the country, did he? Or the fact that Patsy Gordon spent part of last night in his cottage?' 'Sam!' 'Ah!' she said triumphantly. 'I thought he wouldn't have mentioned that little detail.' 'Sam dear, you must be mistaken. Barney loves you.' 'Then he has a funny way of showing it,' Samantha retorted, and to her dismay felt the warm wetness of tears on her cheeks again. 'He just hates the idea of my escaping him,' she went on, desperately brushing away the rolling tears. 'He's always considered me his property, and he expects me to just meekly do as I'm told, like some well-trained, 164 obedient little dog, regardless of what he does, or who he takes a fancy to, and I've no intention of spending the rest of my life being a meek little yes-woman while Barney carries on his his Casanova activities with every blonde in sight!' 'Oh, my dear, you are upset.' He sounded so concerned, and she would have given anything to be home and able to sob it all out on his sympathetic shoulder. Instead she was isolated in a glass-sided telephone box on Carlisle station and liable to make a complete and utter fool of herself at any minute. 'I I'm all right,' she insisted, swallowing hard, arid brushing away the tears. "I'm perfectly O.K., Uncle Nicholas, really. Just just angry, that's all.' 'With Barney?' 'Yes, of course with Barney. Haven't I good reason?' He sighed again. 'I don't know what to make of any of it, my dear. Are you coming home?' There was the carrot dangled temptingly in front of her again, but she resisted it firmly and shook her head, even though he was hundreds of miles away and couldn't see it. 'Not just yet. Uncle Nicholas. I I thought I'd go to the lakes again for a day or two and get my bearings. I need to think, and it's so beautiful and peaceful there.' 'Isn't it peaceful in Scotland?' he asked, and she laughed shortly. Nowhere's peaceful with Barney and Patsy Gordon around,' she told him. 'I'll be O.K., Uncle Nicholas, don't worry about me, please.' He sighed again, deeply, and sounded almost 165 resigned. 'All right, my dear, but please don't forget to keep in touch with me. I do worry about you when you're chasing around on your own without Barney.' 'I'll be in touch,' she promised. 'I'll ring you as soon as I get to Bowness, Uncle Nicholas, I promise.' He seemed resigned to the idea by now. 'Good,' he said. 'And try not to be away too much longer, Sam dear. We miss you.' Samantha said nothing more except a rather strangled goodbye, because those wretched tears were coursing down her cheeks again, and something was sticking in her throat in a solid lump. She wished she did not feel so utterly miserable, and that she could do something about that small niggling wish at the back of her mind, that Barney was right behind her, taking up the trail again. i66