THE TOUCH

''Fast-moving and immensely readable ... a page turner from start to finish'' Maeve BinchyAlexander Kinross is remembered in his native Scotland only as a shiftless boilermaker''s apprentice. But when he writes from Australia to summon his bride, his relatives realize he is now a man to be reckoned with. Arriving in Sydney after a difficult voyage, sixteen-year-old Elizabeth Drummond meets her husband-to-be and discovers that he frightens and repels her. And, isolated in Alexander''s great house, Elizabeth finds that marriage does not prompt her husband to enlighten her about his past life - nor his present one, in which his mistress, the sensuous, tough, outspoken Ruby Costevan, still plays a part -