Betty Neels: Tangled Autumn

“I?” Rolf asked. “Bully you? My dear girl, don’t you know that the Barons—the bold, bad ones, that is—only bully those who are unable to look after themselves? And from what I have seen of you, you are perfectly able to do that.” His face split into a sudden grin.

Sappha was terribly angry with him, but at the same time she was enjoying every minute of his company. She said slowly, “I’m sorry. I know you wouldn’t bully anyone or anything.”

Rolf stood looking down into her face, then said quietly, “A remark like that needs celebrating.”

Romance readers around the world were sad to note the passing of BETTY NEELS in June 2001. Her career spanned thirty years, and she continued to write into her ninetieth year. To her millions of fans, Betty epitomized the romance writer, and yet she began writing almost by accident. She had retired from nursing, but her inquiring mind still sought stimulation. Her new career was born when she heard a lady in her local library bemoaning the lack of good romance novels. Betty’s first book, Sister Peters in Amsterdam, was published in 1969, and she eventually completed 134 books. Her novels offer a reassuring warmth that was very much a part of her own personality. She was a wonderful writer, and she will be greatly missed. Her spirit and genuine talent will live on in all her stories.

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CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

THE rain fell, soundless and gentle, veiling the dimming heather and all the rusts and reds and brown of the autumn countryside, and almost blotting out the distant mountains while it in no way detracted from their beauty. This view was not, however, shared by Miss Sappha Devenish, sitting behind the wheel of her red Mini. She had been halfway up a moderately steep hill when the little car had coughed, spluttered, hesitated and then continued its climb, only to come to a halt again. The road was a narrow one, the Mini had stopped squarely on its crown, and its driver, calculating her chances of steering it into the side, decided against it. The country was fairly open ahead of her—anyone coming down the hill would see her in ample time to pull up, and anything climbing behind her would be, of necessity, travelling slowly. Besides, she had no mind to ruin her expensive suit and still more expensive shoes—someone would be bound to pass one way or the other, sooner or later. It seemed as though it would be later, she had been watching the rain for more than an hour, and now turned to study the map on the seat beside her.

She had left the main road at Torridon and had passed through Inver Alligin, which according to her reckoning meant that she was a bare five miles from her destination. She glanced at her watch—it was already four o’clock, and her thoughts dwelt longingly on tea, though it was her own fault that she wasn’t going to get it. She should have filled up at that last petrol station, but she had been in a hurry to arrive at her journey’s end and she had thought that she could just do it. Foolish, and all the more so after her well-planned, effortless two-day trip from London—almost six hundred miles. Well, she had wanted to get as far away from Andrew as possible—the hospital too; it looked as though she had achieved her purpose, for the countryside she was now in was indeed far away.

She had jumped at the chance her uncle had offered her to go as nurse to a patient of his staying in this remote district of the Western Highlands, but now, suddenly, she wondered if she had been wise. Viewed from faraway London, and with the bitter aftertaste of her break-up with Andrew still to be borne, it had seemed a splendid idea, but now, surrounded by distant mountains and an unfamiliar countryside made sombre by the rain, she wasn’t so sure. She stared glumly out of the car’s windows, beset by the feeling that she shouldn’t have come; a feeling that was heightened by the nagging suspicion that she would probably be homesick for the ward she had left behind her at Greggs’.

She had been Sister of Women’s Surgical for only a year—she had been a fool to give it up; any other girl, less soft and silly than herself, would have put a bold face on things and stuck it out. She sighed, aware that however reasonable this argument sounded, she would remain soft and silly, although in the last few weeks she had succeeded in acquiring a cool impersonal shell to cover it. She interrupted her thoughts to consider the sound of a car coming up the hill, travelling rather faster than she thought either possible or wise. She turned in her seat and craned her neck to peer out of the rain-washed rear window. It was a Land Rover, coming towards her with a fine burst of speed which took no account of the possibility of there being other traffic. It came to a halt only a foot or so from her rear wheels and its driver did not immediately get out; when he did, his movements were irritatingly unhurried. He was a very tall man with broad shoulders, wearing, she observed, a shabby duffle coat and corduroy trousers stuffed into rubber boots—a farmer, she decided, then felt uncertain of this as he approached and she was able to take stock of him, for he didn’t look like a farmer at all, not with that dark fierce face, haughty and hawk-nosed above a straight mouth; dark hair brushed back from a wide forehead and a pair of winged eyebrows, so arched and thick that they gave him the look of a satyr.

She wound down the window, feeling nervous and just a little silly—justifiably so, as it turned out, for he said without preamble:

‘Of all the fool places to stop—I might have known it was a woman.’ He had a deep voice with the hint of an accent and he spoke without haste and apparently without temper, which for some reason caused her own to rise.

‘I’m out of petrol!’ she snapped, and could have bitten out her tongue the next instant, for he said at once:

‘Naturally.’ His dark eyes studied her person in leisurely fashion. ‘A stranger, of course—no one in these parts travels without a spare can, let alone allows the tank to run dry. You could have got to the side of the road, though.’

Sappha lifted her chin. Even though she was aware that she had been careless, she didn’t much care for the way he was pointing the fact out to her.

‘It’s raining,’ her glance went involuntarily to her shoes—hardly made for a muddy road in the more remote parts of the Scottish Highlands. His gaze followed hers and his rather stern mouth curved for an instant. He said with perfunctory kindness:

‘I don’t suppose that you realised that tweeds’—his gaze flickered over her beautifully cut suit, obviously he didn’t mean that kind of tweed—‘and thick boots are—er—more suitable at this time of year.’ He gave her an enquiring look. ‘But perhaps you’re only passing through? If you are, I should warn you that the road ends at Dialach.’