CHAPTER ONE

      IT was just a week to the wedding. Sitting before the mirror of her dressing table, putting the finishing touches to her make-up, Helen couldn’t quite believe it. Wide-eyed, she stroked mascara on to her lashes, her brows ascending in a gesture of incredulity. Six months ago, when Barry had first put his ring on her finger, the fifteenth of October had seemed a very long way away. But gradually, through those warm lazy days of summer, the time had slipped away, and now it loomed ahead with nothing between but a last-minute fitting for her bridal gown, and the usual round of gatherings arranged to meet the members of Barry’s family with whom she had yet to become acquainted. Barry had still to meet her aunt from Coventry who was coming north for the wedding, and her cousins Alison and Linda, who were to be bridesmaids, and there was his uncle and aunt from Basingstoke, and his stepbrother, Morgan, from East Africa, all of whom Helen had never met.

      She had heard of Morgan, of course. Barry’s father had died when he was quite young and his mother had married again, to a widower who already had a teenage son. Barry had been too young to have much in common with his older stepbrother, and university followed by several years training at a London teaching hospital had not helped to seal the gap. By the time Barry was old enough to go to university, Morgan had married and left the country, and was presently living in Osweba, one of the emergent African states. Barry didn’t talk much about him, but his stepfather did, more in fact as time went by, and Helen guessed the old man regretted that his only son should have chosen to live so far away from his family. Yet his marriage to Barry’s mother had produced a daughter, and Barry and Susan were as close as any brother and sister. She was also to be one of Helen’s bridesmaids, although Helen herself found the younger girl rather silly and spoilt.

      Rising from the padded bench that faced the mirror, Helen considered her reflection with critical eyes. Shoulder-length hair, the colour of maple syrup, framed a face which what it lacked in beauty more than made up for in warmth and vivacity. Wide brown eyes, unusual with her colour of hair, high cheekbones, and a full-lipped generous mouth, she attracted attention wherever she went, and while she wasn’t conceited, she was aware that men found her attractive. She was quite tall and slim, although not excessively so, and her work in therapy had taught her the art of listening to what people were saying and giving them her full attention, which was in itself an attractive trait. So many girls were too busy or too full of their own importance to pay attention to what other people were saying, particularly older people, but Helen always showed interest and maybe that was why Barry’s father had confided his anxiety about his son to her.

      Wrapping the long cream velvet skirt about her waist, she recalled what he had told her the previous week. Mr Fox had written to Morgan, inviting him and his wife and daughter to the wedding, telling him that they were welcome to stay with the family. Morgan’s reply had been less than reassuring. He would be coming to England for the wedding, he said, but his marriage had broken up and his daughter, fifteen-year-old Andrea, preferred to stay at their home in Nrubi and therefore would not be accompanying him.

      Now, as Helen tied the cords of the cream figured jerkin that matched her evening skirt, she felt a pang of sympathy