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shelf.
    He glanced
round the room, and his eyes fell on the vase of flowers. She was about to
hurry over to the mantelpiece when, to her surprise, his face relaxed. It was
warmer and more open than before, and she felt a rush of some strange feeling
rise up within her. She had not realised he could look so appealing.
    ‘There haven’t
been daffodils in here since . . . ’ he said.
    There was such
a wistful tone in his voice that she held her breath, wondering what he would
say next, but he never finished the sentence. Instead, his voice trailed away,
and Helena dare not move. He was
lost in thought, going back to some previous time, and the memory seemed to
please him. But it was made up of pain as well as pleasure, she thought,
because there was a twist to his mouth that cut her to the quick. She was
surprised at the stab of pain that shot through her, because she had not been
prepared for it, and for a moment she saw him not as an enigmatic and
forbidding figure, but as a man of flesh and blood.
    What had hurt
him? she wondered. Why did the simple sight of daffodils bring him pain?
    He roused
himself, and turning towards her, he said, ‘You have done well.’ He noticed
that she was standing by the bookcase and said, ‘You are interested in books?’
    ‘Yes,’ she
said.
    ‘Then you must
use the library. You may choose something to read whenever you wish.’
    For a moment
there was a gleam of friendship illuminating the room. It warmed her, as the
unexpected gleam of daffodils had warmed the moor. It relaxed something deep
inside her, something that had long been frozen, but in this strange place and
stranger situation, it started to come to life.
    ‘Thank you,’
she said.
    ‘You were
looking at this?’ he asked, going over to the shelf and taking out Le Morte
d’Arthur , which she had not pushed back properly.
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Then take it.
I think you will enjoy it.’
    He handed her
the volume.
    ‘It must have
taken generations to assemble a library like this,’ she said, looking round at
the laden shelves as she took it.
    ‘Yes, it did.’
    A sense of
longing welled up inside her. She had no home, and, saving her aunt, no family.
She did not know where she would be in a year, or even a month’s time. She
would have to go where the wind blew her. But he belonged to the castle. He was
lucky. He had his place in the world by right. She sometimes wondered, in the
dead of night, if she would ever find hers.
    ‘It must be a
wonderful feeling, to have a home, to belong,’ she said.
    He looked at
her strangely and she realized that she had forgotten to whom she was speaking.
The gleam of friendship he had shown her had lowered her defences and made her
forget her position, so that she had spoken to him as an equal, but she quickly
reminded herself that she and Lord Torkrow were not equals. They were master
and servant, separated not only by rank but by deception and the disappearance
of her aunt.
    ‘I have work
to do . . . ’ she said.
    She began to
head towards the door, but as she tried to pass him he put his arm out, resting
it on the desk so that he was blocking her path.
    ‘You call it
belonging,’ he said. ‘I call it being trapped.’
    He looked down
at her, and she felt herself being pulled into the strange aura that surrounded
him, a magnetic strength that held her fast.
    ‘The weight of
the castle oppresses me,’ he said, looking deep into her eyes as though seeking
understanding. ‘At night, the walls close in.’
    ‘But it is
your home,’ she said, searching his eyes.
    ‘It is not my
home. It is my tomb.’
    All light and
warmth had gone from his voice, and she was once more afraid of him, but the
fear was tempered with intrigue. She clenched and unclenched her hands, then
said: ‘But you can leave the castle if you want to.’
    ‘Can I?’ he
said with bitterness.
    ‘You were
returning to it on the day I arrived, so you must have left,’ she said,
striving to remain calm. ‘And you