Chapter 3

Maple trees lined the almost deserted main street, and flowers in window bowls had withered in the heat of the sun. Mystic Falls was a quiet, and unpretentious little town. Progress and civilization had almost passed it by until they had started delving for coal four years ago on an open tract of land ten kilometers out of town. The influx of miners and their families had necessitated the erection of a school and a well equipped hospital, but the peace and tranquillity had somehow remained undisturbed.

Elena reduced her speed to a crawl as she drove her car into the narrow lane that led to her cottage. The gravel lane continued past her cottage , curving and twisting down among the tall maple trees towards the river where the local residents occasionally spent their weekends playing in the rushing waters, or picnicking beneath the shady trees.

She unlocked the door of her thatch-roof cottage a few minutes later, and walked down the short passage to her bedroom where she flung her handbag on her bed and kicked off her shoes. There was peace in her surroundings, but there was no peace in her heart at the moment as she turned towards the dressing-table and pulled the combs from her honey-brown hair to let it flow down in glossy waves on her shoulders.

Have I changed much? She wondered as she unintentionally appraised herself in the mirror. Candid grey eyes stared back at her from beneath attractively arched brows. Her nose was small and straight, and there was an upward tilt at the corners of her wide, generous mouth which suggested that she smiled easily.

Her glance became somewhat critical when she studied her figure. She had lost a considerable amount of weight five years ago, and she had regained very little of it, but her slender body had lost none of its resilience.

Elena did not linger in front of the mirror, and even if she had she would not have noticed the appealing beauty of her fine-boned features. There was strength in the firmness of her chin, and a natural grace in the way her supple body moved, but she was not aware of this as she went to the kitchen to make herself a cup of coffee, her heart filled with thoughts of Stephan.

She was tired, and she felt clammy beneath the spotless white uniform when she filled the electric kettle and switched it on. She drew aside the curtains to stare out of the window, but she did not see the vegetable garden she had cultivated with such care, neither did she see the rocky hills shimmering in the heat beyond the river. The door had been slammed securely on her past, but Lady Mint had wrenched it open with her disclosure, and Elena could no longer curb the memories that spilled out into her mind.

She had met Stephan Lynch on a date which had been arranged by Damien Quinn, a mutual friend in the medical profession. Elena had been attracted to Stephan at first because of his outward appearance. He was tall, with dark hair which had a tendency to curl on his broad forehead, and he had the bluest eyes she had ever seen. Later she had liked him for very different reasons. He had not made an issue of the fact that, at thirty, he was a qualified neuro- surgeon, while she was a junior theatre sister.

He had been eight years her senior, but Elena had been able to talk to him in a way in which she had never been able to talk to any other man. He had a quick mind, and a sharp, sometimes stinging wit which had appealed to her intellect. She had found him both bracing and challenging to be with, and it had perhaps been inevitable that she should eventually fall in love with him.

They had been engaged to be married when Stephan was offered the opportunity to spend four years working with some of America’s most eminent neuro-surgeons, and it had been an opportunity which he could not afford to reject. Their wedding date had been brought forward so that Elena could accompany him, but with less than a month to go before their wedding and subsequent departure to America, something happened that altered the course of their lives.