Legs found laughter and sobs tangled in her throat. She looked up to the gnarled beams overhead, and told their wise eyed knots. 'I love him. Both of him.'

'I need that wine,' came a voice from the top of the stairs as her mother reappeared dressed in an inside-out smock dress, sleep-mask round her neck like a velvet choker, one iPod earphone dangling. She started downwards then paused, cocking her head, removing the other earpiece. 'Why is Hector making all that noise? I thought he was shooting wildlife not giving it a forty-one-gun salute?'

Legs groaned as she heard familiar, barracking shouts from the far end of the garden.

Dressed incongruously in a kaftan and ancient cords, Hector had several brace of pheasant swinging from an old leather belt around his hips so that he looked like he was wearing a feathery game tutu. Matched with the cartridge bag slung jauntily over his shoulders and the hippy beads around his neck, the look was psychotic transvestite meets trapper. Far worse, he had Fink the basset pressed up against a gnarled oak at gun-point, just a few feet from the cliff's edge.

'Admit you wrote them, you little bastard, or the dog gets it!' Hector was snarling in his deep drawl.

Was he referring to the threatening letters or the bestselling novels? Legs wondered wildly as she ran towards them, watching in horror as Byrne stepped from the shadows to place himself squarely between the gun and his dog.

Crashing through the undergrowth like a wild boar, Legs panted up to Hector's side. 'Stop it!'

'Legs, poppet, what in the name of Charlie Parker are you doing outside in a party frock?' he demanded, aim not faltering.

'Get back inside,' Byrne warned. Only Fink showed grateful relief that backup had arrived. Taking advantage of the distraction, he wriggled away from his master and raced up to Legs, long ears swinging.

'Hector, please leave the poor boy alone,' Lucy said soothingly as she appeared behind her daughter. 'He's doing no harm.'

'He is doing a great deal of harm!' Hector raised the gun to Byrne's throat. 'And he's about to admit the truth.'

Byrne looked at him levelly. 'I have indeed written something I regret,' he said. 'But it wasn't a letter, I can assure you.'

'I want you to get off my bloody land!' Hector raged.

'This is the North family's land actually,' Lucy pointed out.

'It's leasehold; it belongs to me.'

'How typically feudal,' Byrne hissed. 'I suppose you think that gives you the right to claim your tenants' wives as mistresses whenever you feel inclined?'

'Take that back.' Hector fingered the trigger.

'Stop this!' Legs wailed in horror as the gun moved closer to Byrne's face.

'You certainly had no qualms about stealing Poppy from my father,' Byrne went on, hardly seeming to notice the gun's presence.

'She was trapped and dying of unhappiness.'

'She still is.'

With an enraged howl, Hector lifted the stock to his shoulder.

Byrne's reactions were breathtaking. Before anybody could take in what was happening, he'd reached out to grasp the gun-barrel and wrenched it upwards. The shot that went off cracked through the oak canopy, showering them all with twigs and acorns.

Lucy let out a high-pitched scream and grabbed Legs' arm, dragging her back towards the house as another shot went off, this time blasting into the garden shed.

'Get in before they kill us!' Lucy pushed her daughter into the cottage porch.

'The gun's empty now,' Legs pointed out, but Lucy was taking no chances as she slammed the door behind them, then chivvied her upstairs, where they peeked out nervously from one of the tiny thatched dormers overlooking the garden.

Hector and Byrne were squaring up to one another amid the trees now. Fink retreated hurriedly beneath the old wooden bench.

'Where's the gun gone?' Lucy whispered as Hector reached for his cartridge bag. But instead of opening it to draw out more ammunition, he hooked the strap off his shoulder and took a swing at Byrne with it.

'He's hand-bagging him,' Legs gasped.

Byrne caught the flying canvas sack by its straps and tugged it from Hector's grip before aiming a punch towards him. But before he could land it, he received a face full of feathers as the older man hurled a pheasant at him.

Caught by surprise, Byrne reeled back.

'Ha!' Hector laughed. 'The early bird catches the worm!'

'This is the only bird you deserve,' Byrne flicked up his middle finger.

'You bloody thug!' With an enraged bellow, Hector threw two more pheasants which Byrne ducked to avoid. As he did so, his eyes alighted on the shotgun lying in the undergrowth. The cartridge bag had landed just inches away from it.

Spotting it too, Hector lunged towards it at the same moment and the two men clashed foreheads with matching cries of pain.

Seeing an opportunity to pillage, Fink had now re-emerged from beneath the bench to lay claim to the nearest pheasant, just as his master finally landed a punch on Hector, who lurched back and inadvertently trod on the dog's tail. With an incensed howl to rival those of either human fighter, Fink sank his teeth into Hector's ankle.

'Good lad!' Byrne whooped, but then his expression of delight turned to horror as the ankle kicked out violently and Fink shrieked with alarm, flying through the air before landing in a clump of forget-me-nots.

Glaring at Hector with open venom, Byrne stooped quickly for the gun and the bag.

'No!' Legs cried in horror, starting back towards the stairs. 'I must put a stop to this.'

'It's not safe to go out there.' Her mother tried to bar her way, but she pushed past.

By the time she made it outside, Hector had let loose his remaining stockpile of pheasants like plumed cannonballs and Byrne had reloaded the gun, which he now pointed at his nemesis.

'Go on, shoot me!' Hector goaded. 'I'll see you in hell soon enough.'

'Birdshot's too good for chicken-shit like you, Hector.'

Legs panted up to them. 'Will you two stop talking like cowboys in a bad Spaghetti Western? Give me the gun, Byrne.'

'I want Hector to apologise.'

'What for?' Hector goaded. 'Falling in love with your mother? Never!'

'In that case, keep pointing the gun while he apologises to me for that one too,' Legs joked nervously, glancing up at the cottage window through which Lucy was watching, then baulking when she realised her mother had a fresh glass of wine on the go, as though watching Shakespeare in Regent's Park.

Hector stubbornly said nothing. He didn't look remotely frightened.

Clambering out of the forget-me-nots unscathed, Fink flapped his long ears and sat down briefly to scratch his neck before waddling towards the scattered pheasants once more, issuing a low, possessive growl to nobody in particular.

'Please just give me the gun, Byrne,' Legs beseeched.

'Do as the girl says,' Hector barked irritably before turning to her. 'Shouldn't you still be in bed? You've had pneumonia.'

'You've had what?' Byrne swung round in shock, not realising he was pointing the gun straight at her now. 'You said it was just a touch of flu.'

Legs held up her arms nervously. 'I'm better now,' she insisted, trying not to cough or faint, both of which she had a sudden overwhelming urge to do.

'Does Francis know you're here?' demanded Hector.

'I have a right to see my mother without his written permission.'

'Well get inside the house, for goodness' sake. Lucy will make you herb tea. Let us settle this man to man,' his eyes flicked over the gun, clearly plotting a heroic lunge to wrest it back. He seemed to be almost enjoying the drama.

But before Hector could make his move, Byrne broke open the breech and pulled out the two cartridges.

'I think we've all had enough excitement for one day. You're right, Allegra needs to rest,' he smiled at her anxiously as he handed her the gun. 'Can you look after this? It's not too heavy?'

'It's fine,' she insisted, slinging it over her shoulder like a hearty mercenary and almost falling over backwards.

'Just till I'm gone,' Byrne's brows lowered with concern as he watched her. He turned to Hector, face hardening. 'If you'd hurt my dog, I'd have shot you right here. For hurting my family, that's far too merciful.'

'Get off my bloody land or I'll have the police on you,' Hector snapped.

'You don't own the sea.' With a final glance at Legs, Byrne turned towards the cliff.

'You can't go that way!' she cried. 'There's no path down.'

But he didn't even look round, and she watched in astonishment as he disappeared into the bright sunlight between the two outermost trees and seemed to drop off the edge of the garden to the sea. Only Fink looked unsurprised as he set off purposefully in the direction of the track towards the cliff path that led safely down to the cove below, a pheasant still clutched proudly in his jaws.

'I'll take that.' Hector snatched back his gun and hurried to his abandoned cartridge bag, clearly eager to open fire over the cliff side like an overzealous Home Guard brigadier.

'No!' Legs tried to grab hold on his sleeve to stop him, but he was too fast, marching towards the trees to look over the precipice. He then let out a loud huff of frustration. 'Damn man's disappeared!'

Realising that she was shaking so much her knuckles were rattling together like a Newton's cradle, Legs rushed to the cliff's edge and looked over, but all she could see was the long, rocky drop past the gulls' nests to the sea below.

Hector's hand landed heavily on her shoulder. 'Only wanted to scare him off. Bloody troublemaker.'

She looked up at him in shock. There was something truly bizarre about a twelve-bore Browning resting on a Barry White kaftan with hand-embroidered slash neck. Looking very pleased with himself, he turned to gather up the scattered pheasants.

'He's just like any Irish tinker you meet.' He tied feathery carcasses to his belt. 'Mannerless trespassers the lot of them, but cowards underneath.'

'He's your stepson.' She tried to control her anger, aware that he was once again carrying a loaded gun, and had fresh game to slingshot too. 'And he just went over a cliff! Shouldn't we call the coastguard?' Her eyes raked the rocky face below her once more.

'Odds on he swung along the ledge like a thief along guttering and is back with the happy campers already.' Hector was entirely unconvinced of his demise. 'Probably gathering a lynch mob. Can't be too careful with all these proles pitching tents out round the place.'

He appeared alongside her again, pheasant carcasses to the fore, his long face looming over hers like an Easter Island carving out-staring a rock climber. And at that moment she remembered something that left her in no doubt Byrne was safe. The night they had shared a table at the Book Inn, he'd told her he was an experienced free climber. He had never once fallen, he'd said.

She felt the ring on her finger positively glow as relief pumped through her, and she pressed its gold warmth to her lips. She knew that when Francis had handed her back the engagement ring which had belonged to his mother, it had felt like a curse; Byrne's felt like an enchanted power, a magical token that would guard her against evil.

Smelling menthol and eucalyptus, she realised that she was still carrying the Fisherman's Friend packet crumpled sweatily in her tightly fisted hand.

'What did you just say about camping?' she croaked at Hector, groping for one of the little lozenges.

'Nothing to worry your pretty head about. I'll take you back to the hall.' He grasped her arm. 'Francis will be going spare. He said you were staying in bed all day.'

'I must talk to Mum.' She started back towards the house, with Hector still clasping her arm so that she found herself hawking him along too like a long-legged, feathery handbag.

'You wait there,' she told him at the door, remembering the crumpled letters with a guilty start. 'I'll just pop upstairs and check she's OK.'

'I shall come too.'

'Actually perhaps we should go straight back to the hall after all. She's probably asleep.'

'I am not asleep!' came a rather slurred voice from the bathroom, followed by the sound of the cistern flushing. Lucy appeared, sleep mask on top of her head now, iPod earpieces trailing behind. She looked even more puffy-eyed, and had clearly been crying again.

'I'm taking Allegra back to the hall,' Hector announced firmly. 'Francis will look after her. She really has been very ill lately.'

'Yes, that's probably best,' Lucy shot her daughter a regretful look. 'I might just go up for another nap. This has all been very emotional.' Her face crumpled as reached up then fled towards the stairs, crashing into the bedpan as she went.

'Better wait until you're in bed before putting your sleep mask back on,' Hector snapped witheringly.

'Oh yes,' Lucy pulled it back up, sobbed again, and scuttled upstairs.

Legs tried to follow, but Hector still had her in his vice-like grip 'Let's get you back to bed too.'

Much as Legs longed to race upstairs and curl up alongside her mother, clinging on for dear life and taking her refuge, she knew that would do neither of them any favours. Hector still had his gun under his arm, cartridges at the ready, eyes darting from window to window in case Byrne brought his lynch mob back. He was not a man to argue with today, and she had no energy left with which to argue or ask any more questions. She was utterly wrung out in body and soul. The thought of bed, any bed, was so inviting she felt almost tearful with longing. She was sure everything would make sense again after a few hours' sleep.

'Best get you back.' He hurried her outside and on through the trees. 'Come on, the old truck's just on the cove track here.'

Legs was too wiped out to argue, tripping along half supported by him like a rag doll.

Bouncing around in the back of the Land Rover en route to the hall across the parkland Hector never bothered using the tracks if he could cross turf at speed she tried and failed to pull Byrne's signet ring off her fourth finger, not wanting Francis to see it. She tugged and sucked and prized and scraped, but it was stuck tight. In the end she gave up. She supposed it would at least give her a useful talking point to help open up a very difficult conversation she was about to have with him. She pressed her lips to the lions with their tower and drew strength.

Chapter 37.

Francis was predictably apoplectic to learn that she had been discovered at Spywood while his father took pot shots at 'that trespassing tinker son of Poppy's'.

'Have you got a death wish?' he yelled. 'You walked there alone through the woods. If a secondary infection doesn't kill you, some crackpot will!'

She tried to explain, but her coughing had reached fever pitch and she was sent straight back to bed like a naughty child. She was too exhausted to put up a fight. She had terrible shakes again. He gave her another slug of the salty-tasting barbiturate. It knocked her out like a tranquillised cat.

She woke up hours later with him stretched out alongside her on top of the counterpane like a carving of a medieval knight lying on a plinth, his head turned towards her. Moonlight cast his beautiful, sleeping face in stone. Then he opened his eyes, bright blue sapphires set in the marble mask.