The Feisty Fiancée

CHAPTER THREE

YANCIE was up extra early the next morning. She was due to pick up her passenger at eight sharp. There was absolutely no way she was going to be late. Thomson Wakefield wanted to judge how good she was-she intended to show him, in all respects. She was going to be on time, smart and courteous and, above all, ensure that he would find no fault with her driving.

Fortunately, her cousins were early risers too, and Astra, scheduled to meet a client later, volunteered to give her a lift to Addison Kirk where Yancie would pick up the Jaguar prior to collecting her boss. Then she would head up the motorway with Thomson Wakefield to a conference on the other side of Leeds.

'A pity you'll miss Greville's party tonight,' Astra commented as they drove, knowing Yancie had telephoned him last night to say she wouldn't be able to make it because she was driving Thomson Wakefield north.

'You more than anyone know that work comes before pleasure,' Yancie answered. `Do you never get tired of it?"

'Not so far,' Astra grinned, and soon they were chatting away about work, finance and about Yancie's journey when Astra suddenly remembered, `Doesn't Charlie Merrett live up that way?"

'He does!' Yancie too remembered. `He liked it so much, he stayed up there when he finished university.' The three cousins and Charlie had been at nursery school together. He had been a shy, diffident boy, and between them, as young as they'd been, the three girls had started mothering him.. They still, if spasmodically, kept in touch. `Enjoy the party,' Yancie smiled as she got out of the car at Addison Kirk.

'Show him how brilliant you are,' Astra smiled back, having heard her cousin's theory that if she didn't perform well that day she knew it would be bye-bye time.

The Jaguar was a wonderful car to drive. Black in colour, sleek in its lines, little or no effort was required to have it purring along.

Thomson Wakefield lived about an hour's journey away from the office, and it had just gone seven-thirty when, as smart as new paint in her uniform, Yancie turned up the sweeping drive to his elegant rural Georgian home.

Because she was early, Yancie opted to wait in the car until just a few minutes before eight. She had only been sitting there for a short while, however, when the front door of the house opened, and a suited Thomson Wakefield came out.

Yancie left the car and had a bright, but courteous `Good morning' hovering on her lips-but it was totally not needed. `You can't sit out here in the cold for half an hour,' her employer clipped before she could say a word. 'You'd better come into the house.'

Chivalry was not dead, then! `I…' she opened her mouth to argue that, yes, she could, that the car was lovely and warm, then realised that to argue wasn't the way smart and courteous went.

'Good morning,' she said anyway, and was left, unanswered, to trail after him into his lovely home.

'Go and find my housekeeper and get her to make you a cup of coffee,' he decreed, pointing Yancie down a long and wide hall.

Yancie didn't want a cup of coffee. She opened her mouth to say as much, to refuse his invitation. Then supposed she had a lot to learn about this work environment business it wasn't an invitation, but an order.

She started down the hall; he crossed it to what she could see from the open door was a study. Another door was open further down the hall; she saw it was a drawing room, and went in. She'd wait there.

Yancie was staring out of one of the long windows-for all it was a murky wet morning, she could not help but admire the peace and tranquillity of the setting-when Thomson Wakefield, briefcase under one arm, an overnight bag in his hand, came into the room.

She turned at the small sound, and, feeling suddenly her old sunny self, but attributing it to the restfulness of his home, she gave him the benefit of her natural smile. `It's lovely here,' she said without thinking, and for a moment thought, as he stared at her, that he was about to smile back. Perish the thought.

He glanced down to the small table which wasn't littered with a coffee cup. `We'll go,' he unsmilingly announced.

Yancie's sunny side went into hiding. She went out to the car with him, enquiring politely, `Shall I take your bag for you?' when they reached the boot of the car, and found herself surplus to requirements when he opened the boot himself and dropped down his expensive-looking overnight bag next to her expensive-looking overnight bag.

Still trying to get it right, Yancie dutifully had the rear passenger door open for him when, boot lid closed, he walked round the side of the car. Without so much as a glance to her, he tossed in his briefcase and then got in. Yancie civilly closed the door, and went up front to the driver's seat.

She owned, as she drove along-carefully and solicitously to other road users-that, whereas with other executives she would very soon forget she was carrying a passenger at all, somehow, she couldn't forget about Thomson Wakefield in the back.

And why would she forget him? Didn't she have to be on her toes today where he was concerned? No way did she want this weekend's work to end with laughing-Jack back there giving her the big heave-ho.

Yancie took a glance in her mirror, not at the road behind, but at him. Their eyes met! Her tummy did the most peculiar somersault. Quickly, she looked away. 'Er-would you like the heating turned up-er-or down?' she enquired, purely from a sudden need, never before known, to say something.

'No,' he answered briefly.

Suit yourself! Yancie carried on driving, and a short while later realised Thomson Wakefield was not gripping onto the leatherwork for dear life-as she'd supposed he might-but had so far forgotten his driver, he was getting on with some work. Surely that meant he was comfortable with her driving! Yancie, while alert to the rainy road conditions, started to otherwise relax.

An hour and a half later and he was still hard at work. If he wasn't reading reports and making notes, he was making calls on the car phone, or dictating material for Veronica Taylor to type back. Did the man never rest?

'We'll stop at the next service station,' she heard him say, and for a moment she thought he was still dictating a letter.

When the service station was duly reached, however, and Yancie decided to stay in the car and wait for him, Thomson Wakefield came round to her door and opened it for her to step out.

'I don't want…' she began.

And got the shock of her life when he said curtly, `You need a break,' and she realised that the stop was for her benefit. To realise he wasn't risking her getting eye-strain or overtired in the wet weather.

'You're right, of course,' she murmured, pleasantly, and stepped out of the car-but, as he blocked her way, found she wasn't going anywhere for a moment or two.

'Take your name tag off,' he instructed.

She blinked-she had been told to wear it at all times. `My name tag?' she enquired witlessly-what was it about this man? Usually she had a brain.

'Take it off,' he repeated, with more patience than she would have given him credit for. `I know you're trying hard-but I've a feeling you'd prefer not to let all and sundry know that you're Yancie Dawkins from Addison Kirk.'

'Well, not unless we've been formally introduced,' she said with a smile, saw his glance flick to her upturned mouth-but he didn't smile.

It was uphill all the way with this one, she mused, as himself, not needing a break, apparently, sent her off to get a coffee, then went back to his telephoning. And yet it had been thoughtful of him. And what about the way her insides had somersaulted when her eyes had met his in the rear-view mirror? Something very peculiar was going on here!

Yancie returned to the car after a fifteenminute break, denying that anything in any way peculiar was going on. The only reason her tummy had been a bit butterfly-like was because it was so vitally important that she did her job well that day.

On his instruction she drove straight to the conference centre, and when he got out of the car she got out of the car too. `I shall be some hours here,' he stated. Ho-hum-more hanging about! But not so, apparently, she discovered, when, standing there and looking down at her, he went on, `You've got the name and address of our hotel; go and book us both in-perhaps you wouldn't mind having my bag put in my room.' Perhaps you wouldn't mind! `Then go and have some lunch. I'll see you back here at five-thirty.'

She didn't have to hang about waiting! He was giving her time off! For good behaviour? Yancie's natural smile came out. `Have a good conference,' she bade him, before she could stop to consider-were mere drivers supposed to say things like that?

The hotel, when she found it, was large, expensive, and efficient. Having expected, however, that she would be shut away in a broom cupboard somewhere, Yancie was agreeably surprised to find Veronica Taylor had booked her a room of the same quality as their employer's. Yancie knew this because, wanting to ensure that nothing went wrong this weekend while she was being `put through her paces', she went personally with the bell-boy up to the floor above hers to deposit Thomson Wakefield's bag.

She then realised that she was hungry and so went down to the hotel's restaurant and enjoyed a leisurely lunch. Presumably lunch was laid on for her employer at the conference centre. Back in her room she unpacked her bag, shaking out the folds of the dress she had brought with her, and also the trousers and shirt. She hadn't done an overnight job before, but unless she had to she wasn't minded to stay in her uniform the whole time.

She freshened her make-up, brushed her pale hair and decided against changing into a new shirt. She'd brought two with her, but, needing one to go home in tomorrow, she might need a fresh one to wear tonight should he require her to chauffeur him to some other meeting. What did she know? Heads of companies might have meetings every Saturday night for all she knew.

Wanting to be in plenty of time, Yancie was at the conference hall with a half-hour to spare. Perhaps they'd finished early-perhaps they were overrunning-she went inside to find out.

There seemed to be no one about so Yancie nosed about. When she came to some double doors she thought they looked interesting and she opened one of them. She found herself standing at the back of a crowded hall, where, apart from the man now on the platform speaking, there was otherwise a silence in which you could have heard the proverbial pin drop. The man now speaking was none other than the man she had come to collect. Thomson Wakefield.

Not wanting to draw attention to herself by going out again, Yancie spotted one chair at the back that was vacant and silently crossed to it, and sat down. She listened to what he was saying. Truly Thomson Wakefield had a wonderful voice. She looked carefully aboutand could not help but be taken with the way he held his audience. She felt quite proud suddenly-and wasn't sure that her heart didn't give a little flutter.

Totally absurd, of course, and yet… She listened-my word, did he know his subject! He was quite spellbinding. No wonder he headed Addison Kirk. A burst of applause erupted, and then someone was closing the conference.When people started getting to their feet, so too did Yancie. She was the first out and by the time her employer came out from the building she was sitting primly behind the steering wheel. He was not alone but was in conversation with several other men before, with handshakes all round, he headed over to where she was parked.

It was still a cold, damp day. She considered, as befitted her position in life, getting out and opening the passenger door for him, but, on balance, decided that he was quite big enough to open the door for himself.

He got in. If he'd seen her enter the conference hall-and quite honestly, for all he hadn't faltered in his speech, she couldn't see how he might have missed seeing her-he didn't comment on it. In fact he had nothing at all to say.

Which left her to slew round in her seat, and enquire, `To the hotel?'

He nodded and, terrific orator though he might be, Yancie, steering away from the pavement, started to feel a bit peeved that he had so few words for her. Peeved? Good grief, she was out to show him what a good, polite, thoughtful, absolutely terrific employee she was. She didn't have space to be peeved this trip!

Having given herself a small talking-to, Yancie started to lighten up, and as they left a built-up area behind she looked in her mirror-and again discovered his glance on her. Their eyes met, and Yancie found herself saying, `That was some speech you made!'

His eyes widened the merest fraction, though not from surprise that she had been in that hall, she was sure, but more from the fact that she'd referred to it-either that, or surprise that she was dishing out a compliment.

'You know anything at all about ergonomics`?' he enquired, his tone cool.

'Not the first thing,' Yancie owned, and laughed-he didn't. She was getting just a trifle fed up with him. `Perhaps that's why I'm so easily impressed,' she added, and was scowled at for her trouble.

'Watch your driving!' he instructed her shortly, and Yancie began to wonder if she would ever get the hang of this being employed business.

While she was certain that few went around being servile these days, she was having one heck of a time in remembering that she was a driver and, therefore, while at work, not an equal. Thomson Wakefield was the top man and she a mere driver, and she'd better remember that.

Yancie was of the view that the journey to the hotel would be completed without him saying another word to her. She was mistaken. She had just driven into a semi-rural area near to the hotel when the car phone rang-she left it to her employer to pick it up. Quite obviously, since he used the vehicle as an extension of his office, the call was for him. Besides which, no one of her acquaintance knew this telephone number.

Or so she thought. She heard him answer the phone-then nearly jumped in surprise when he said shortly, `For you.'

She half turned in her seat. `For me?' she asked half-wittedly, one hand leaving the steering wheel as if to take the phone from him.

'Pull over!' he ordered.

Yancie pulled over onto a grass verge, her mind going from stunned to racing. It had to be Kevin Veasey; he was working all day today. It had gone six, but he often worked late. Perhaps some urgent job for tomorrow had come up and he wanted her to go somewhere once she'd dropped off her present passenger.

With the car halted, she turned and took the phone from her employer. `Hello?' she said and just couldn't believe the voice she heard it was not Kevin Veasey.

'Who was that?' her mother demanded of the man who had answered the phone.

'What's wrong?' Yancie asked quickly, stunned but realising her mother would only have traced her to this number in an emergency.

She should, she almost at once acknowledged, have known her mother better than that. `Nothing's wrong!' her mother retorted tartly. `Everything couldn't be more right. Who was that who answered the phone?' she repeated.

'Er-nobody you know,' Yancie managed, getting herself a little together; though heartily glad she had her back to Thomson Wakefield, she had an idea she was a pretty shade of scarlet.

'Are you going steady with someone?' Ursula Proctor demanded. `Mother!'

'I don't know what's the matter with you! When I was your age I had men cutting a path to my door. You're pretty. If I do say it myself, you're quite beautiful sometimes. Why…'

'I' m-er-a little busy right now.'

'I've spent the best part of today trying to contact you-and now you haven't time to talk to me.' Her mother broke off to draw breath. 'You'd better come over and see me I'll expect you tonight at…'

'I can't come tonight.'

'Why ever not?'

Oh, grief, there seemed no way she was going to be able to get her mother off the line until she was ready to go-and Yancie was in agonies, knowing that Wakefield esquire was tuned in to every answer she made. `I'm not at home this weekend.'

'You've never gone away with some man?"

'I'll ring you later…' Yancie began.

'No, you won't. Ralph said you were out for the day, but when I rang Delia to tell her my news Greville answered the phone, so I told him-and mentioned at the same time the problem I was having getting hold of you.' Poor Greville! Her mother was still giving forth, taking her to task for giving her half cousin her car phone number and not her, when Yancie blanked off, her thoughts on her cousin. Poor Greville; the fact of her mother `mentioning' anything meant that her mother had gone on at him ad infinitum. Yancie then knew that Greville, probably meaning only to nip into Aunt Delia's to collect something or other she had prepared for his party that night, had been delayed by her mother bending his ear for half an hour. Yancie guessed he probably had a note of the firm's car phone numbers in his wallet, and must have given her mother this phone number from sheer, worndown desperation.

'What was your news?' Yancie questioned when her mother broke off to draw another breath, realising only too well that, short of unforgivably putting the phone down on her mother, she wasn't going to be able to end this conversation until she heard it.

'I'm getting married again!' her mother announced bluntly. `Naturally, I wanted you to be the first to know.'

'Oh, I'm sorry.' Yancie was instantly apologetic.

'I'd have preferred your congratulations!' her mother retorted acidly.

'Well, of course, I'm pleased for you. I…'

'Good, you can come and meet Henry tomorrow,' her mother snorted pithily-and hung up. And Yancie felt as if she'd just been pulled through the wringer.

Absently she handed the phone back to Thomson, and only realised that she had forgotten that he was breathing down her neck for all of two seconds when, mildly for him, he enquired, `Family problems?'

In an instant Yancie was back to realising she was in a car parked on a grass verge, not chauffeuring the man she was hoping to impress with her efficiency. `I'm sorry,' she apologised. `My mother's-er-um just got engaged.' Yancie started to feel hot all over. 'She-um-wanted me to be the first to know,' she explained, and set the car in motion, hoping with all she had that her employer would think the news qualified as sufficiently urgent for her mother to have contacted her through the garage, via Kevin Veasey, who had passed on the car's phone number to her.

Not another word was said, and by the time she had driven onto the forecourt of the hotel Yancie was giving serious thought to telling her mother when next she saw her-tomorrow or die, by the sound of it-that she was not only no longer living at Ralph's home, but that she had found herself a job. Well, to be more exact, Greville had found her a job.

Yancie took a swift glance at Thomson Wakefield as they got out of the car. If she still had a job, that was. His glance at her was brief, then he was striding towards the hotel entrance. She went hurrying with him and started to feel annoyed. She half expected when they reached the door of the hotel and he opened it that he would go through and leave it to swing back in her face. But no, he did have some manners, it seemed, in that he held it open for her to go through first.

They were at Reception waiting for their keys when he informed her that he would not be requiring her services that evening. `I'm dining with some people I'm doing some business with. I see no point in you waiting around or coming to collect me when I've no idea what time I shall need you.'

'You'd like the car keys?"

'I'll take a taxi.'

That probably meant he was celebrating some business deal with a glass or two of something! `If you're sure?' she checked-this to a man she was growing positive was sure in all he did.

He didn't deign to answer, and they were going up to their rooms in the lift when he told her, `Make certain you have something to eat yourself.' Yancie got out of the lift on her floor and she didn't deign to answer.

She was in her room when she began to wonder why the man had the power to-without effort-niggle her so. Probably, she pondered, because she had never met a man like him before. The man was an automaton. `Make certain you have something to eat yourself,' he'd said. Well, of course, she would.

Though, having eaten in the hotel's dining room by herself at lunchtime, she had little wish to dine by herself that night. But the only person she knew in this neck of the woods was Thomson Wakefield, and he was dining elsewhere, thank you very much.

She paused then and stood stock-still as the thought suddenly came to her-was that why she was feeling all niggled? Because he hadn't asked her to dine with him?

Oh, come on! As if she wanted to dine with him, for goodness' sake! To do so would mean she was keen for his company, that she liked him. Why, she couldn't even stand the man! Having indisputably established that fact, Yancie did a mental trawl of girls she'd been at boarding-school with, but, before she could come up with a name, she remembered Charlie Merrett. She reached for the phone.

'Fennia,' she said when her cousin answered, `have we got Charlie Merrett's phone number between us?'

Fennia had it in her address book, and not only gave it to her but said Greville had phoned to say if Yancie got in touch and said her mother had found her would she forgive him? `Apparently Aunt Ursula was particularly hell-bent on finding you,' Fennia added.

Yancie had a ten-minute conversation with her cousin and told her to tell their half-cousin that she understood perfectly; that she'd probably have done the same in similar circumstances, and that she forgave him completely.

After her phone call to Fennia, Yancie rang Charles Merrett's number. 'Yancie!' he exclaimed when he heard her. 'How're things going? Lovely to hear from you. Still in London?"

'At this moment, I'm nearer to you than I am to London. You're not free to have dinner, are you?"

'Am I not!' he answered eagerly. `Just give me a minute to cancel my arrangements for tonight, and I'll be with you.'

'Oh, I wouldn't want you to cancel…'

'I would! I can see my male friends any old time,' he said warmly.

'You're sure?"

'Where are you?'

Because it seemed she was staying in a hotel in an opposite direction from where Charlie lived, Yancie said she'd make her own way to the restaurant he'd suggested.

'I couldn't let you,' he argued.

'Yes, you could,' she laughed, and had only one other question to ask before she agreed to meet him at the appointed place at eight-thirty. `Does this restaurant have a car park?'

'That's a small part of the reason why it's so popular,' he answered.

Yancie took a shower feeling pleased, since it sounded as if the restaurant they were going to was very up-market, that she had brought the dress with her that she had. After her shower, she dressed her white-blonde hair in a knot on top of her head, applied the small amount of make-up she normally wore, and slipped into the long-sleeved ankle-length black lace dress with its black silk petticoat lining.

She left her room knowing that she looked good and, strangely, half wishing that Thomson Wakefield could see her. Well, she defended, when trying to work out why she should think anything so ridiculous, she wouldn't have said her brown uniform was the most flattering garment she had ever ownedbut it was the only thing he had ever seen her in or was likely to, for that matter.

Yancie had a small, but only a very small, tussle with her conscience on whether she, like her employer, should take a taxi. But why, for goodness' sake? She had a perfectly good car out there doing nothing, and she knew that she wouldn't have any trouble parking it. It wasn't as if she was likely to bump into Thomson Wakefield or anything like that, was she? Nor, since he'd taken a taxi, which indicated he intended to do a little celebrating, was it likely that he'd be back before she was.

Charlie Merrett was just as she remembered him from the last time she'd seen him-about a year ago. Tall, handsome and around the same age as Yancie, she found him as willing and eager to please as ever he had been.

'You're gorgeous, Yancie. Absolutely gorgeous,' he said enthusiastically as they entered the restaurant.

Who wouldn't be fond of him? `And so are you,' she teased him, and they both laughed. Then, as the head waiter came up to them, so Yancie looked about-and nearly went into heart failure. There, across the room, wining and dining at a table with several other people, sat Thomson Wakefield. And, while he was looking straight at her, at the same time he managed to look straight through her.

Oh, crumbs. While he wasn't acknowledging her, Yancie knew he had registered her. Too late now to wish she'd taken a taxi-oh, help-she had the firm's car out there. A car, she swiftly realised, which, since Thomson Wakefield had already started on his meal, he was bound to see when, as was likely, he left the restaurant before she did!

It fleetingly crossed her mind to pop outside and park the car somewhere else. But that was just a thought in the panic of the moment. For heaven's sake, hadn't he said-no, ordered her to have something to eat? Well, that was exactly what she was doing-obeying orders. He hadn't specified where she should eat, had he?

Yancie was profoundly thankful just the same that the waiter led her and Charlie to a table in a small alcove. At least she was spared having to look at the boss man while she ate. Though that too bothered her because, being unable to see him, she started to feel all on edge that any moment she would feel a hand on her shoulder and hear a cold voice request that she hand over the car keys.

She pushed Thomson Wakefield out of her head and made herself concentrate on Charlie Merrett. She had asked him out to dinner, so the least she could do was to play the game. Though in truth Charlie seemed happy enough just to be there.

'So what have you been doing?' she asked, and the next hour went by with the two of them catching up on the happenings of the last twelve months.

Yancie discovered that, while finding it impossible to lie to a friend, she was avoiding telling Charlie that she had left home and had a job-even though it was highly unlikely that he would bump into her mother and comment on it.

They were tucking into a fine pudding when Charlie looked across the table and suddenly recalled, `You never said what you were doing in my part of the world.'

Yancie took a spoonful of the fruit and meringue concoction while she thought how best to answer. `Someone I know was giving a speech at a conference centre up this way,' she smiled. `It was quite something.'

'That sort of thing-making a speech would terrify me,' he said. `Is your pudding all right?' No wonder they were all so fond of Charlie.

It was about half past ten, when they had drunk the last of their coffee, that Yancie told Charlie how super it was to see him again but that she'd been up early that morning and thought she'd go back to her hotel and her bed.

'You'll give my love to Fennia and Astra,' he beamed, and as Yancie promised she would she was bracing herself to walk through the restaurant where he was dining. Should she give him a smile or, following his example, do a bit of looking straight through him?

It irritated her that this man should do this to her confidence and make her so that she had to think how to act rather than follow her natural instincts. However, the situation of whether to smile or whether to look straight through Thomson Wakefield didn't arrive because, when she took a glance over to where he had been sitting, she saw that he wasn't there. His party had gone.

She and Charlie hugged and kissed farewell in a friendly fashion, knowing, without pain, that it could be another twelve months before they saw each other again, and Yancie began her journey back to the hotel.

She'd had an extremely pleasant evening with Charlie Merrett, but it was not thoughts of Charlie that occupied her on that drive-but Thomson Wakefield. Had he gone back to the hotel-had he gone on somewhere?

Gone on somewhere, she decided. Grief, it was only a little after half past ten. On a Saturday night, too! Of course, his dinner had been of the business variety, but corporate entertaining-she was sure she'd heard that phrase somewhere didn't end when the clock struck ten; she, without the smallest experience of `corporate entertaining', felt she could be positive about that. But, in any case, she suddenly felt she could be equally positive that if Thomson Wakefield had decided to return to the hotel and, on his way out, had spotted the company Jaguar, then she wouldn't at all have put it past him to have come back in and ordered her to drive him back to the hotel. And she, eager as she was to keep this job, would have had to comply.

By the time Yancie was parking at the hotel she had drummed up a fine head of hate against the brute. She was, though, by then, fully confident that he had moved on to continue his evening's entertainment elsewhere. Of a certainty, since she was going straight up to her bed, she ran not the smallest risk of seeing him again that night. The next time she saw him would be tomorrow morning-or so she thought.

It was a cold night and once she had locked up the Jaguar Yancie didn't hang about but hotfooted it into the hotel. Hurrying in, passing a lounge area on her way to Reception, she saw Thomson Wakefield, and stopped dead in her tracks. Their eyes locked full-on. He didn't smile-when did he ever?

Tearing her glance away, and without acknowledging him either, Yancie went swiftly on and out of his sight. She all at once felt all shivery and shaky inside, and she just knew that it had nothing to do with the cold weather.

It had been a shock to come in and see him sitting there nursing a Scotch. What rotten luck; another five minutes and he might have gone to bed. Yancie asked for her key, and was all of a sudden indecisive again, her normal confidence fractured. Should she walk back and say something? What? Goodnight? What if he didn't answer? She'd feel a proper idiot.

To the devil with him. Key in hand, she turned from the reception desk-and discovered that her shocks for the day weren't over. There, endorsing her thought that a few minutes more and her employer would have finished his Scotch and made tracks for his bed, stood Thomson Wakefield, waiting for her.

It was a shock too that, instead of going straight over to the lifts, he was standing near, while she claimed her key, ready to walk over to the lifts with her.

'Good evening?' she enquired as they reached the lifts and he pressed the call button.

Thomson Wakefield didn't answer but looked at her, his glance taking in her blacklace-covered arms and upper chest, her lace dress with its modesty lining. `You're not afraid of catching your death?' he enquired evenly in return, his glance going up from the fine column of her throat to her piled-on-top of-her-head ash-blonde hair. And suddenly, as his glance fell again to her elegant dress, Yancie just knew that he knew that she would never have been able to afford such an expensive item on what Addison Kirk were paying her.

'Er…' She felt left-footed again. `Um, I forgot to bring a coat,' she mumbled-and was suddenly cross. Hang it all, she sounded more like a fourteen-year-old than the confident twenty-two-year-old she, up until then, had considered herself to be.

'Your uniform jacket didn't quite go?'

Was she being reprimanded? Or-she didn't believe it-was he teasing her? Yancie looked up into his grey eyes-there was something there, but she couldn't be sure. But his reference to her uniform reminded her, if reminding she needed, that she was there only because of her job-the job she very much wanted to keep.

'I haven't been drinking!' she exclaimed hurriedly, apropos of absolutely nothing.

'Did I suggest you had' he answered mildly, and the lift came and Yancie was glad to step inside.

She watched as, plainly knowing which floor she was on, he pressed the two buttons, and the lift started to ascend. `You did insist that I had some dinner,' she thought to excuse that she'd been out to dine using the company car.

'So I did,' he agreed, but, his tone cooling slightly, he added, It didn't take you long to pick somebody up.'

Pick somebody up! Of all the nerve! All too obviously, this was his way of referring to her escort of the evening! Yancie, who was trying her very best to behave, felt the restraint she had put herself under all day getting away from her. Confound it, she had been good all day and on her best behaviour-well, mostly-and, while she tried hard to let his remark go, she couldn't. The words just would not stay down.

'I thought he looked a bit of all right,' she replied-and dared to look at him. And just had to go on looking at him when, definitely yes, most definitely-she saw his lips twitch.

'So how long have you known him?' he asked.

'We were at nursery school together,' she owned. `I rang him.' And suddenly she found she was laughing. She heard Thomson laugh too, stared at him, mesmerised, saw the way his mouth picked up at the corners, saw his white even teeth-and was never more glad when the lift stopped at her floor and the door opened. `Goodnight,' she said quickly-and went swiftly along to her room.

Lifts never used to affect her like that, but really-and it had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that, coincidentally, she had seen Thomson Wakefield's smile for the first time, heard him laugh for the first time-she felt all sort of breathless and fluttery inside.