Sinful Nights by Penny Jordan Page B

the half-reverent, almost worshipping kiss he had given her just outside the church doors. Sighing, Sapphire hung up her clothes. She would wear the plain black wool dress she had brought; it was a perfect foil for her colouring and a perfect accompaniment for her mood; Alan had always liked her in it.
    Alan! She hadn’t told him yet about Blake. She gnawed on her lip uncertain as to whether to ring him, or wait until he came up. She was sure he would understand; Alan was always logical and reasonable. For the first time it struck her just what she had committedherself to. She would have to give up her job; her flat; her London life; everything she had fought so hard for when she left Blake. But surely it was a small price to pay for her father’s peace of mind? But say Alan did not accept her decision. She would not only have lost her job, she would have lost a good friend and potential lover as well. She couldn’t understand why the knowledge should cause her so little pain. Perhaps the agony of meeting Blake again; of being forced to remember how much he had hurt her had anaesthetised her against other, lesser hurts. Sighing she finished unpacking and went downstairs. One thing she did remember about farm life was that there was always work to be done and work, as she had learned in London, was a very effective panacea.
    ‘I’m just going down to the village to do some shopping and pick up your father’s prescription,’ Mary told her when Sapphire asked if there was anything she could do. ‘Want to come with me?’
    ‘No, I’ll stay here if you don’t mind.’ Sapphire frowned. ‘I would have thought the doctor would call every day, in view of Dad’s illness.’
    Mary eyed her sympathetically. ‘There’s really no point now,’ she said gently. ‘Are you sure you won’t come with me?’
    ‘No … no thanks.’
    ‘Well I’ll be on my way then. I want to call at the butchers, your father loves shepherd’s pie and I thought I’d make one for him tonight.’
    How could Mary be so matter of fact, Sapphire wondered, watching the other woman driving away, butthen as a nurse she would be used to death; she would have learned to accept the inevitable. As she had not, Sapphire acknowledged, but then she had had so little time to come to terms with the reality of her father’s condition. Blake had broken the news to her almost brutally. The way he did everything. Unable to settle to anything she went up to her father’s room, but he was asleep. Not wanting to disturb his rest she left again. What on earth could she do with herself? Perhaps she ought to have gone with Mary. She wandered aimlessly into the yard, bending to pet the sheepdog that suddenly emerged from the field. Tam, the shepherd followed close behind, a smile splitting his weather-seamed face as he recognised her. Tam had been her father’s shepherd for as long as she could remember. He had seemed old to her when she was a child, and she wondered how old he was. He was one of a dying breed; a man who preferred the solitude of the hills, spending most of the summer in his small cottage watching over his flocks. The rich acres of farmland in the valley were given over to crops now, but her father still maintained his flock of sheep on his hill pastures.
    ‘Weather’s going to turn bad,’ Tam told her laconically, ‘Ought to get the sheep down off the hills, especially the ewes. Suppose I’d better get over to Sefton and see Blake,’ he added morosely, whistling to his dog.
    Watching them go Sapphire realised the extent of Blake’s influence on Flaws Farm. No wonder he didn’t want to lose the land. He probably looked on it as his own already. She had wanted to protest to Tam that her father was the one to ask about the sheep, but instinctivelyshe had known that Tam wouldn’t have understood. What she considered to be Blake’s interference would be taken as good neighbourliness by the old shepherd.
    As she walked back into the kitchen the