Table of Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

      CHAPTER ONE

      CHAPTER TWO

      CHAPTER THREE

      CHAPTER FOUR

      CHAPTER FIVE

      CHAPTER SIX

       CHAPTER SEVEN

       CHAPTER EIGHT

       CHAPTER NINE

       CHAPTER TEN

       Copyright

       CHAPTER ONE

      ONLY another fifty kilometres or so to go. Shelley had paced herself and her ancient Citroën carefully during the long drive from London to Portugal, but now she was tempted to succumb to the long-suppressed sense of excitement fizzing inside her and put her foot down. But the deep vein of caution that life had bred in her stopped her.

      With it came a wave of intense pain and sadness. If only she had made this journey six months ago. If only…

      At twenty-four she considered herself long past such vain hopes, but it had been such a shock to discover the truth that in the last few days she had sometimes had difficulty recognising herself.

      It was getting close to midday, the overhead August sun throwing sharp shadows across the dusty road as she drove through the centre of yet another sleepy village. Although she had often holidayed on the continent, this was her first visit to the Algarve, and it was not at all what she had expected. True, she was not driving along the coast, but she had not anticipated the degree of timelessness that embraced the land; she had driven past smallholdings of vines and fruit trees, tended by gnarled men and black-garbed women; she had eaten in small dusty squares where the degree of courtesy and courtliness which had accompanied her sparse meals had entranced her.

      The Algarve was a land that had once, long ago, known the beneficent and civilising hand of the Moors, a land from which had sprung a race of seagoing adventurers who had carved out for themselves an empire.

      Thinking about what she had read about the country helped to quell the nervous butterflies fluttering in her stomach. Nervous? Her? Shelley grimaced faintly to herself, well aware how surprised and even disbelieving her colleagues would be if they could see into her mind now.

      She knew that at work she had the reputation of being cool and very, very controlled. Too controlled and withdrawn, in some people’s eyes. She had once been told by one of her university professors that she was far too wary of human contact, too determined to keep her guard up, and she knew that it was true. After getting her degree she had deliberately chosen a large organisation over a small company, wanting the anonymity such an organisation would give her, needing it to preserve her defence systems.

      She had risen quickly from her first position and was now head of the department responsible for all the company’s overseas contracts. She had flown on company business to Australia and the States, and even to the Far East, but none of those journeys had given her one tenth of the sense of excitement and fear she was experiencing now. But then this journey was different. It was a journey into her past, a journey to meet the family she had never even known she possessed until four weeks ago.

      Even now, Shelley could scarcely credit the fragile chain of coincidences that had brought her on this journey. If she had not refused a date with Warren Fielding, and decided to spend her Sunday in the reading room of a local museum, she would never have seen the advertisement, never have known the truth.

      Several men had shown an interest in her over the years, although she couldn’t understand why. Lacking in self-confidence, she could see nothing particularly attractive in the way she looked. She was just above medium height, with shiny, thick brown hair enlivened with copper highlights. Her skin, like her hair, betrayed traces of her Celtic origins, being fair and flawlessly clear. Her eyes were almond-shaped and could change from gold to green depending on her mood.

      Since she had known almost as soon as she was able to understand the spoken word that no man would ever want to marry her, she had never been burdened with the need to impress any member of the male sex, and so she chose her clothes and make-up according to her own tastes rather than theirs. Additionally, her crisp, cool manner was one that suited her, rather than being designed to flatter and attract.

      Irrationally, or so it seemed to Shelley, some men seemed to find her very indifference a challenge. Warren Fielding had been the most persistent of this breed. An American colleague, he made a point of getting in touch with her every time he came to London, and Shelley had discovered that her best defence against his invitations was simply not to be at home to answer her phone.

      Her circle of friends was very small, mainly composed of girls she had been at Oxford with, now all married or working abroad, and hence her Sunday visit to the museum reading room.

      What whim had compelled her to start reading the personal columns of the newspaper, she did not really know, but the shock that gripped her when her own name leaped off the page at her was something she would never forget. She had read the advertisement over and over again, wondering why on earth any firm of solicitors, but especially one with such an establishment-sounding name as Macbeth, Rainer & Buccleugh, should want her to get in touch with them.

      She had waited until the Wednesday of the following week before telephoning the London number, reluctant to admit to her own curiosity. An appointment had been made for that afternoon, and contrary to her expectations she had discovered that Charles Buccleugh was relatively young; somewhere around the forty mark, with a charming smile and a desk full of framed photographs of his family.

      When he mentioned the name of her father her first instinct had been to get up and walk out. Only her self-control stopped her. She had taught herself years ago that it was a hard fact of life that there were countless thousands of children in the same position as herself: unwanted by the men who had fathered them.

      It had been from her grandmother that she had learned the sad but common story of her parents’ marriage. Her mother had married against parental advice, and it was no surprise that the marriage had ended as it had, her grandmother had constantly told her. The moment he knew his wife was pregnant, her father had started to neglect the young girl he had married. ‘He disappeared for weeks at a time—told your mother he was looking for a job. But I knew better. I told your grandfather how it would be from the moment she met him. Thank the Lord he didn’t live long enough to see how right I was.’

      Shelley knew that her grandfather had died before she was born. She also knew from her grandmother that shortly before she was born, her father had deserted her mother, leaving her alone at nineteen with no one to turn to apart from her mother.

      ‘Of course, they had been living with us right from the start of the marriage. I insisted on that,’ she had been told. ‘I wasn’t going to allow my daughter to be dragged off to some dirty one-room flatlet. She could have done so well for herself, too. All he was interested in was his drawing. Never even tried to get himself a decent job. Your grandfather and I never