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‘That child’s becoming like a wild animal,’ Moira announced. ‘I can’t understand Alistair wanting to keep her at home. Richard is right. She should be at school; that’s one thing over which he and I are in complete agreement, and that’s where she’ll go as soon as we’re....’ she stopped and smiled graciously at Rachel. ‘Of course, I’m not denigrating what you’re doing, Rachel, don’t think that; in fact, I’m sure it's working very well. As a temporary measure, of course.’

'Miaow!’ thought Rachel. She looked at the other girl’s long scarlet fingernails and saw that they were indeed like claws. Moira McLeod, she realised, would make not only a dangerous enemy but also an uncomfortable friend.

Moira got back into her car. ‘I’ll ring Rick tonight,’ she said, swinging it round and driving off at breakneck speed in a cloud of dust.

Miraculously, Melanie appeared and hopped into the Mini beside Rachel, showing a gap-toothed grin.

‘My goodness, you’ve lost a tooth!’ Rachel pretended to be surprised although the tooth had been hanging on by a thread for nearly a week. ‘What have you done with it?’

Melanie held out her hand proudly and showed Rachel the tiny little tooth in her palm.

‘Put it under your pillow tonight. You never know what the fairies might leave in its place. Now, shall we go and watch the boats at Ardenbeg?’

Melanie nodded happily.

But on the way to Ardenbeg Rachel had another idea.

‘I’m going to take you along the high road to Dunglevin, Melanie,’ she told the little girl quietly. ‘I’m going to take you to the place you don’t like, that for some reason frightens you so much, and I’m going to show you that you’ve nothing to fear. I shall be with you all the time and if you can you must show me what it is that you are so afraid of. Then I’ll be able to help you.’ She glanced briefly at the child. ‘Do you understand, dear? There’s nothing to be afraid of, I only want to help you.'

Melanie didn’t move, but Rachel could sense the sudden tension in the little body beside her. She drove through Ardenbeg talking all the time, occasionally giving Melanie’s hand a quick squeeze. As the road rose so Melanie crept closer to her and her face began to pale.

‘Now, it's all right, we’re not going to stay here long,’ said Melanie as she parked the car at the vantage point high above Eilean Dorcha. Melanie had cowered back into a corner of her scat and cohered up her eyes. Gently, Rachel drew her towards her and put her arms round her. ‘You’re quite safe, Melanie. I’m with you. I won't leave you.’

At these words Melanie flung her arms round Rachel’s neck and began to cry.

‘There, there, it’s all right, darling. You’re quite safe with me.’ Rachel opened the car door. ‘Come along, let’s get out and have a look at the beautiful scenery
.'
She swung her legs out of the car, but Melanie clung to her and would neither leave the car herself nor allow Rachel to. ‘But why not, Melanie? What are you afraid of?’ Rachel asked. But Melanie couldn’t tell her. She clung to Rachel, sobbing, and there was nothing Rachel could do but hold her close and talk to her comfortingly. At last she became calmer, and still holding her firmly Rachel managed to ease her out of the car and over to the railings.

‘Look, there’s the little lighthouse where we went for a picnic with Ben. Bo you remember?’ Rachel pointed to the spit of land beside the island far below where the tiny derelict lighthouse stood.

At first Melanie hung back, but then her curiosity overcame her and she peered down through the trees and undergrowth growing on the mountainside to the scene below, still clinging tenaciously to Rachel.

‘One day we’ll walk down to the lighthouse from here,’ Rachel told her. ‘There’s a pathway, can you see it, over there? It winds down through the trees, see?’

Melanie’s eyes widened and she stared, fascinated.

‘Want to go and have a look?’ Rachel smiled encouragingly, but Melanie shook her head vehemently and pointed to the car.

‘All right, if you’ve had enough. We’ll come back another time. You won’t mind so much now, will you?’

Melanie shook her head again, but more uncertainly this time. The tension, although it was still there, had lessened, but her grip on Rachel’s hand had not.

They drove back to Ardenbeg and watched the boats on the loch for a little while and then they went home. Rachel was thoughtful. She had still not discovered what it was about that spot that had terrified Melanie, but maybe in time....

Wednesday was the day of the planned sail to Arran, and it dawned with a light mist over the glen which heralded a hot day. Melanie was beside herself with excitement and kept getting in the way as Rachel packed the picnic.

Bring plenty of warm clothing, Richard had warned, it’s never as warm on water as it is on land. There’s always a cool breeze.

Rachel and Melanie were both wearing old jeans and T-shirts and Rachel packed two thick sweaters apiece and rolled up raincoats in case it rained, which didn’t seem likely.

Moira arrived looking like a model from the Boat Show. All her clothes, even down to her brand-new deck plimsolls, were absolutely right for the occasion and had plainly been purchased specially. Her auburn hair was pulled back in a ponytail fastened high on her head and her make-up was discreet. As always, she made Rachel feel ordinary and insignificant—plain, was perhaps the best word.

They were going in Richard’s nineteen-foot sailing cruiser
Thursday’s Child
—named after Melanie, he had once told Rachel, with a bitter twist to his mouth, ‘although that child should have been born on a Wednesday,’ he'd added, ‘Wednesday’s child being full of woe!' There was no mistaking his disappointment in the child he had fathered.

He was waiting for them at Ardenbeg pier when they drove up in Moira's car.
Thursday’s Child,
the boat he kept simply for his own pleasure, to sail when he had not arranged fishing parties in
Celia,
a much bigger and heavier boat, was ready and waiting at anchor and he rowed the two girls and Melanie out to it with long, easy pulls on the oars. Then, after helping them aboard and boarding himself, he made the dinghy fast behind and they set sail.

‘If you‘d like to take the tiller, Moira,’ he directed, ‘and keep a straight course, Rachel can help me with the sails. Melanie, you sit there, in that corner, and keep out of the way.’

Rachel found the next five minutes the most confusing of her life. The cockpit seemed full of ropes, which were not called ropes at all but halliards and sheets. But she managed to follow Richard’s instructions without making too many mistakes.

The day was perfect. With just sufficient wind to fill the sails the sun was warm on Rachel’s face. It was like a day out of time, she thought as she sat with Melanie on the foredeck, watching the bow rise and dip with the slight swell of the sea. Richard had relieved Moira at the tiller and she was sitting with him in the stern of the boat with an expression on her face like a cat that’s stolen the cream. This was going to be her day and nobody was going to spoil it for her.

Rachel gave a mental shrug. Richard had invited her today as Melanie’s governess, to bring Melanie on an ‘educational trip’. Nothing more. Moira had made it abundantly clear that Richard belonged—or soon would—to her; his behaviour in her, Rachel’s, sitting room a week ago was best forgotten. If that was possible. Her only consolation was that she was in no danger of betraying her own feelings if it should happen again because it never would. Richard had been quite definite about that.

They sailed through the Kyles and out into the Sound. Here the water was so deep it was like sailing on a sea of black ink. Rachel had never seen water so dark yet so calm and unmenacing. She felt strangely at peace. Melanie was enjoying every minute and her eyes were everywhere, but mostly she was fascinated by the great sea-birds that wheeled high above the water before plunging, their wings folded back, like arrows, straight down into the sea, only to come up again with a fish, which they would swallow whole.

‘Look at those birds! It’s a marvel they don’t knock themselves out, they must hit the water at a terrific speed,’ Rachel called over her shoulder to Richard.

‘They’re gannets,’ he called back. ‘Their skulls are specially protected against this. I believe the bone is honeycombed or something—just another one of Mother Nature’s provisions for her children. Keep your eyes peeled for whales, too. You can sometimes see them in these waters.’

But Melanie was not interested in looking for whales just then, she was hungry. So Rachel took her into the cabin to prepare lunch; hot soup and rolls, fruit and coffee, which they all ate out in the cockpit.

Moira was very quiet and ate little, confining herself to an apple and a cup of black coffee.

‘Aren’t you feeling well, Moira?’ Richard asked.

Moira put on an heroic smile. ‘Yes, I’m fine. Really. A bit of a headache, that’s all. Please don’t fuss.’

Rachel looked at her. She didn’t look at all well. ‘Perhaps if you went and sat on the foredeck the motion of the boat would be slightly different and you would feel better,’ she suggested.

‘I’m
not
feeling seasick, if that’s what you’re thinking,’ Moira said sharply. ‘I merely have a headache. And I’m perfectly all right where I am, thank you.’ She tucked her hand through Richard’s arm.

‘Look!’ Richard freed his arm to point to the coast of Arran. ‘There’s the Sleeping Warrior.’

‘Sleeping Warrior? Whatever do you mean?’ Moira sounded a little petulant.

‘Can't you see? The contours of the land form the shape of a man; see? he looks as if he’s lying between those two mountains. That’s why he’s called the Sleeping Warrior.’

‘Yes, I can see him,’ said Rachel. ‘Look, Melanie, can you see his big tummy with a row of buttons down his coat? And his head—there, look, with his big nose?’

Melanie nodded, her imagination working overtime.

‘I don’t see....’ Moira pushed her sunglasses up into her hair and leaned against Richard to get a better view, squinting against the sun as she did so. ‘Oh, yes, I think I can see his hat.’ She lowered her sunglasses but remained clinging to Richard.

Rachel collected together the lunch things and went below to wash them and stow them away. When she came back she found Richard teaching Melanie how to helm, much to her surprise and Melanie’s obvious delight. Moira was sitting beside them, trailing her hand over the side and looking thoroughly bored.

Arran loomed larger and larger, its steep cliffs barren and forbidding, and Rachel began to wonder why Richard had chosen such an uninspired place to sail to. It came as a complete surprise to her when they rounded a bleak-looking point and quite suddenly found themselves sailing into a beautiful sheltered bay, where the water was deep and so clear that you could see the bottom, and the mountains rose on three sides, green and littered with sheep. A little town, hardly more than a row of houses, edged the shore and on a grassy spit jutting out from the shore into the bay stood a ruined castle.

Rachel rubbed her eyes. ‘It’s just like a fairy tale! ’

‘But it isn’t. It isn’t a mirage, either, it’s quite real. Unexpected, though, isn’t it?’ Richard smiled.

‘It’s perfect,’ Rachel breathed.

‘Do you think there’ll be a chemist’s where I can buy aspirin?’ Moira asked.

‘Sure to be. No doubt people get headaches even in a place like this,’ Richard told her cheerfully. ‘We’ll moor here and I’ll row you ashore.’

He moored
Thursday’s Child
and rowed them all ashore in the dinghy. Immediately, Moira went off to buy aspirin and Rachel found a shop where she could buy Melanie ice-cream. ‘I’ll take her up the hillside a little way,’ Rachel told Richard. ‘It will do her good to run around. She’s been very good, but she’s had to sit relatively still on the boat for quite a long time.’

‘That’s a good idea, we’ll all....’ Richard began.

‘Rick, there’s a teashop over there. I need a drink to help me swallow these aspirins.’ Moira caught his hand. ‘We’ll see you later,’ she called to Rachel.

Richard said nothing but went with Moira, politely putting his hand under her elbow to guide her across the road.

Rachel felt saddened as she followed Melanie up the mountain track, the little girl scampering happily ahead. Moira was going to marry Richard, there was no doubt about that. Rachel recalled David McLeod’s words at the Midsummer Ball, ‘My sister is a very determined woman. She knows what she wants and she usually gets it.’ And Moira McLeod wanted Richard Duncan, that anyone could see with half an eye. All except Richard, it would seem. It would appear that he was the last person to realise this. He invariably treated Moira in a polite and friendly manner, apparently not even noticing her possessive gestures. Rachel sighed. Was he still grieving so much over his dead wife that he couldn't see how Moira was trying to manipulate him? How he must have loved Celia! With a start of guilt Rachel thought of Keith, her dead fiancé, and realised that he had not been in her thoughts much at all lately, and when she did think of him it was with affection but no longer with any sense of loss.

She sauntered on up the hillside, leaving the track and wandering between rocks and boulders bedded in mossy grass, singing to herself as she went. After a while she sat down on a rock and looked down into the bay. It was a picture-postcard view with the sea and sky a perfect blue against the green hillsides and little white houses. She could pick out
Thursday’s Child
from the other boats scattered in the bay by its cream hull and tan sails. How excited Richard must have been at the birth of his little daughter, and how proud of her he had once been to name his boat after her. Yet now she was little more to him than an embarrassment. She looked round for Melanie to point the boat out to her.

‘She's up there, by that rock, watching rabbits,’ Richard said from beside her.

‘Oh!’ Rachel turned in surprise. She had neither seen nor heard his approach, so deep in her own thoughts had she been. ‘But where’s Moira?’