Chase A Green Shadow

Presently, he slowed and she saw ahead of them a small wayside public house. Its timbered facade was rather attractive, and when he turned into the parking area she glanced at him questioningly.

‘We’ll stop here for something to eat,’ he said. ‘Are you hungry?’

Tamsyn was tempted to retort that she couldn’t eat a thing, but she found she was hungry after all, and there was no point in depriving herself to irritate him, for she felt quite sure he was completely indifferent to her reply.

Nodding her acquiescence, she waited until he stopped the car and then opened her door and climbed out. A faint breeze cooled the air and she watched her companion as he slammed the car door and came round to her side. She eyed her cases on the back seat rather doubtfully, particularly as he had not locked the car, and as though sensing her indecision, he said: ‘Would you rather I put them in the boot?’

Tamsyn studied his dark features. ‘Will they be safe?’

‘Have faith,’ he remarked dryly, and walked away towards the lighted entrance.

Grimacing, Tamsyn followed him, and caught him up at the door. She was too interested in her surroundings to argue with him and she wondered in anticipation what they would have to eat. Steaks, perhaps. Or salmon salad. Her mouth watered. It would be her first taste of English cooking for ten years.

A smoky passageway led through to a bar at the back of the building. There were several people in the bar which was discreetly lit and exuded an atmosphere of tobacco and spirits. But where was the food? Tamsyn’s stomach gave a hollow little rumble and she glanced up defensively as Hywel Benedict looked down at her in amusement.

‘What do you want to drink?’ he asked. ‘I know you’re not eighteen, but no one here does, so how about a shandy?’

‘A shandy?’ Tamsyn frowned. ‘All right.’ She wasn’t quite sure what he meant. ‘But where do we eat?’

‘Here.’ He indicated the bar stools which lined the attractive little bar, and she slid on to one with some misgivings.

‘What do you mean—here?’ she whispered as he took the adjoining stool.

‘Wait and see,’ he advised, summoning the bartender without any apparent effort. ‘A shandy and a beer, please.’ He looked along the counter and Tamsyn, following his gaze, saw an assortment of bar snacks under perspex covers at the other end. There were meat pies and sandwiches, fruit tarts and cakes, and her heart sank.

‘Is this what you mean by something to eat?’ she demanded impatiently.

‘Yes, why? Did you expect a chic eating house?’

‘I thought we’d have a proper meal, yes,’ she answered shortly.

‘Why, this is a proper meal, bach! You wait until you taste those pies. Mouthwatering, they are.’

Tamsyn reserved judgement, but later, after Hywel Benedict had had the barman provide them with a selection of food from which they could take their choice, she had to admit he was right. The meat pies were thick and juicy, and washed down with the mixture of beer and lemonade which her companion had ordered for her they were satisfyingly delicious. There were hard-boiled eggs, too, and a crisp salad that the barman’s wife provided, and lots of pickled onions that Tamsyn firmly avoided.

Hywel Benedict ate heartily, talking most of the time to the barman about the state of the weather and the crops and the possibilities of a drought. He swallowed the huge glasses of beer without turning a hair, and Tamsyn, used to seeing her mother’s acquaintances tackling small glasses of bourbon or gin, was staggered at his capacity.

Once he caught her eyes on him and held her gaze for a long moment, causing the hot colour to run up her cheeks, and she was reminded once again of that moment in the airport lounge when she had encountered him scrutinising her. She bent her head in embarrassment, conscious of a prickling along her nerves and a quickening beat in her heart. It was crazy, but when he looked at her like that, something tangible semed to leap between them, and she knew that she could never be indifferent to this man, despite the disparity of their ages. She tried to think of Gerry, of his fair-skinned face and gentle brown eyes, and failed abysmally. All she could see were deep-set eyes and darkly engraved features bearing all the unconquered arrogance of his Celtic forebears.

At last, after she had refused a second slice of apple cake, he suggested they should go, and she willingly agreed. She was allowing this man too much space in her thoughts at a time when she should have been thinking of her forthcoming encounter with her father or speculating on what kind of a honeymoon her mother was having.

It was growing dark and a glance at her watch which she had changed to British time when they landed told her that it was nearing ten o’clock. She climbed into the car and when he got in beside her and reached for his pipe, she said:

‘How much longer will it be before we reach Trefallath?’

Hywel Benedict lit his pipe before answering, and then exhaling smoke, he answered: ‘Oh, perhaps another hour and a half—something like that. Why? Getting nervous?’

Tamsyn did not deign to answer that and with a shrug of the heavy shoulders he leaned forward and started the car.

Darkness brought its own uneasiness to a landscape which was fast becoming wilder and less closely populated. The lights of villages were fewer and farther between and Tamsyn gripped her seat tightly, her nerves playing tricks with her. It was all very well contemplating this visit from the calm and civilised environs of her mother’s world, and quite another encountering the stark facts of reality. Here she was, miles from anything or anyone she knew or cared about, in the company of a man who had identified himself only by means of a photograph and had since made no attempt to tell her anything about her father or even about himself.

‘Relax.’

The calm word startled her into awareness and she stole a look at his shadowy profile. ‘Do you know my father very well?’ she asked.

Hywel Benedict inclined his head slowly. ‘You might say that. We’ve known each other since we were children together, so I suppose I know him as well as any man could.’

Tamsyn nodded. ‘So you’ll know—Joanna, too.’

‘Joanna is my cousin.’

‘Oh!’ Tamsyn swallowed this information with difficulty. ‘I see.’

‘What do you see, I wonder,’ he commented wryly. ‘Very little beyond that small nose, I shouldn’t be surprised.’

Tamsyn unbuttoned and then buttoned the jacket of her suit. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘No? I would have thought a bright little mind like yours would have fastened on to the fact that if Joanna is my cousin she must have known your father a long time, too.’

‘Oh, that.’

‘Yes, that. It may interest you to know that Joanna was going to marry Lance long before he met Laura Stewart.’

Tamsyn gasped, ‘I didn’t know that.’

‘I don’t suppose you did. It’s not the sort of thing your mother would have told you, is it? I mean—well, it puts her in a different position, doesn’t it?’

‘My mother is no femme fatale, if that’s what you’re implying,’ stated Tamsyn hotly.

‘No. She was never a handsome woman, I’ll give you that,’ he remarked annoyingly. ‘But she had charm, when she chose to exert it, and I think Lance was flattered.’

‘How do you know what she was like?’ demanded Tamsyn.

‘Because I knew her, too. We were all in London at the same time. I even went to their wedding.’

Tamsyn was stunned. ‘I see,’ she said, rather uncertainly.

‘I didn’t approve of Lance marrying your mother,’ he continued complacently. ‘She wanted Lance to be something he could never be—an intellectual. He didn’t belong in London. He pined for the valley. For the simple, uncomplicated life. And eventually he gave up the struggle and went back there.’

‘And I suppose you encouraged him,’ accused Tamsyn scornfully.

Hywel shook his head slowly. ‘Oh, no, bach. It was nothing to do with me. I was in South Africa at the time, and I knew nothing about it until I came home and found Joanna and Lance together again.’

Tamsyn compressed her lips. ‘And I suppose you approved of that.’

‘Naturally. Joanna has made your father happy. Would you rather he had been miserable all his life?’

‘How dare you imply that my mother would have been responsible for his own lack of confidence?’ Tamsyn was furious.