The Feisty Fiancée

CHAPTER SIX

YANCIE recalled Thomson's sternly voiced `Go home' many times in the days that followed. And the more she thought about it, the more she began to wonder, rather lovingly, it had to be admitted, if his sternness had stemmed from him being more affected by their lovemaking, by that final kiss, than he was showing; more affected than he wanted her to see?

It was wishful thinking, she decided, when all days merged into one and she didn't so much as get a glimpse of him. If Thomson had been anywhere at all affected-perhaps more than was normal when male biological urges were let off the leash for a little while-then he had a peculiar way of showing it. She knew darn well he was in business, and that from time to time he'd call for a driver. But did he ever call on her to drive him? Did he blazes!

Unhappily, Yancie was discovering the very hard fact that being in love was painful. Being in love left her open to all manner of hurts and imagined slights. She had tried to deny that she had fallen in love with the brute, but that denial hadn't taken long to come and trip her up. She had known for sure how she felt about him on Saturday night. He'd taken off his jacket and wrapped it around her-and she'd known. It was just there, her love for him. And it was no good hoping it would just as swiftly go away again, because it just wouldn't, and no amount of wishing would make it.

She had fallen in love with Thomson, and she could do nothing to change that fact. Though, having fallen in love, she instinctively knew that he was the only man she wanted to be with. She just knew she would feel tremendously outraged should any other man attempt to kiss her in the way that he had done.

This self-knowledge brought her enormous relief. Because not only had she discovered that she had all the same natural wanting emotions of any other woman in love; Yancie now knew that she no longer had any need to fear she was like her flighty, fickle-hearted mother, or either of her aunts. Yancie realised that she had feared needlessly in those years of guarding against being like her mother. She was nothing like her in that fast and loose respect. Yancie knew then that she was not in the least permissive, nor ever likely to be. While she had truly wanted Thomson, her wanting was all part of her being so totally heart and soul in love with him.

But, while she was truly in love with him, she would not fully give of herself easily, but only when the time was right. And the time hadn't been right last Saturday, she now realised. She started to cringe at her intimation that, because he'd turned up at the party, she'd had to leave early, thereby depriving herself of a goodnight kiss from her escort. Oh, how could she have invited Thomson to do the honours instead?

It was that invitation that had instigated their lovemaking, and from which had come her recent awareness of her love for him-and her need for the solace of his arms.

Yes, even then she'd felt starved of lovehis love. Her love for him had been growing in her all the while. But-and that was the crux of the matter-Thomson did not love her.

Making love with him would mean everything to her-but absolutely nothing to him.

But, throughout her present despond, Yancie found that life went on. She had delivered Douglas Clements to the airport on time. Matthew Grant, obviously having obtained her address from Greville, had sent her `Thank You' flowers, so presumably all was well again with him and his ex. Fennia's mother wasn't any more friendly to her daughter, and Astra was working as hard as ever.

Like somebody else I know, Yancie sighed, wondering how much more of what she saw as being ostracised by Thomson Wakefield she could take. She didn't know what else she could call it but ostracism, she mused unhappily when she went into work on Friday morning. He hadn't asked for her to drive him anywhere-she might just not exist so far as he was concerned.

Pride at that moment came to her aid. Well, bubbles to him. She didn't care. If he asked her to drive him now she jolly well wouldn't. Ralph had phoned only last night practically begging her to go home-Estelle had upset the housekeeper and the housekeeper had walked out. Ralph had said if she was still too upset to accept her allowance then he would pay her to do his housekeeping, but, whether she took over that role or not, he wanted her home. So there, Mr lordly Thomson Wakefield-I can easily get another job if I want to.

She looked up from some paperwork she was completing-everybody had to fill in forms, apparently-to see Kevin Veasey heading her way. She pinned a smile on her face. `How do you feel about a trip to Manchester?' he asked.

'Love to,' she answered; she had intended to do a little household shopping in her lunch hour, but she could as easily do it tomorrow.

'You won't be back till late,' he warned.

'No problem,' she smiled. `Who's my passenger?"

'Mr Wakefield,' he replied, and while Yancie felt a roaring in her ears as her heart went into thunderous overdrive he added, if you'll explain to him that Frank's wife has started to have her baby a month early…'

'Frank was going to drive him?'

'Nothing personal,' Kevin smiled. `Frank was going to come in late because this trip means getting back late, but he's just phoned in. You'd better get off now, if you wouldn't mind.'

She should have minded. If her pride hadn't chosen that moment to go into hiding, what she should have done-knowing full well that all the other drivers were out on other assignments, and that she was the only one available-was to tell Kevin Veasey that she was leaving, as of now, to take up another job. But so much for her proud determination that she wouldn't jolly well drive Thomson Wakefield again, even if he asked her. What she did say to Kevin was, `May I take the Jag?'

It was another miserable, murky day, yet for Yancie, as she pulled up the Jaguar outside Thomson's house, the sun was shining. She'd missed him so much, and hadn't seen him since the very early hours of last Sunday morning when he'd stood on this same drive with her and told her to `Go home'.

Her heart was pounding against her ribs and she felt nervous suddenly, torn between a desire to stay exactly where she was in the car until he came out looking for his driver, and wanting to go and knock on his door the sooner to see him.

Be professional, she urged, and left the car to go and report that his driver was here. At his door she raised the heavy knocker and clouted the striking plate with it. She swallowed hard as she waited, issuing useless instructions to her brain not to make her face go crimson when she saw him again.

The door opened-but it wasn't him. A tall, angular woman of about sixty who looked as if she'd been on a diet of vinegar and lemons-no prizes for guessing whose mother she was-looked her over. And, obviously recognising the brown suit and beige shirt for the uniform that it was, complete with the name badge identifying Yancie as working for the Addison Kirk group, she ordered arrogantly, `Wait in the car! My son will be with you presently.' And, with that, she closed the door.

Well! Even Thomson had had the manners to invite her in and to go and get a cup of coffee, Yancie fumed, in two minds about getting in the Jaguar and driving it straight back to the transport section again.

She didn't, however-her need to see Thomson overrode that-but some form of protest was needed. She took off her name badge and tossed it into a pyracantha shrub growing against a wall.

Perhaps the old trout improved with knowing, Yancie mused as she waited. She recalled how Thomson had seemed a sour individual too when she had first known him. And then she'd heard him laugh, seen him laugh, seen how laughter lightened him, made him…

Yancie snapped out of it. If she went on like this she'd be a drooling wreck by the time he appeared. She picked up the car phone and dialled. Astra was working from home that morning. `Hello, it's me,' she said when her cousin answered. `Just ringing to say I'll be late home tonight,' she went on, and Astra, for once giving work a rest for a few minutes, seemed ready for a chat.

Yancie was still on the phone when the door of the house opened, and briefcase in hand, Thomson came out. Hot colour seared her skin, she turned her head so he shouldn't see, and concentrated hard on keeping her voice even as she started to wind up her call.

Thomson was in the car, the door snapped to, before she'd finished. 'I'll see you when I get back,' she said down the phone, her eyes meeting his in the rear-view mirror-he didn't look as if he'd got out of bed on the sunny side, a glare of impatience her reward for dropping everything to come and get him-even if she was paid to do it! `Manchester beckons,' she said light-heartedly to her cousin-well, she'd be darned if she'd let him know how ridiculously out of sorts just one frown from him could make her. `Bye,' she smiled down the phone to Astra, and, replacing the phone, she kept her smile in place as, `Good morning,' she greeted her employer.

'Where's Frank?'

And how are you this morning, Yancie? Not suffering nightmares from the time I almost seduced the pants off you, I hope. Calm down, calm down. `He and his wife have gone into premature labour,' she replied, and set the car in motion.

Thomson ignored her, and undid his briefcase. My stars, to think she'd been overjoyed to get this unexpected assignment today! She drove out onto the main road, flicking a glance into the rear-view mirror. Their eyes met; she loved him, but last Saturday night could never have been-and she hated him.

She flicked another glance at him. `Keep your eyes on the road!' he rapped.

Pig! `I didn't know you still lived with your mother,' she observed sweetly, glanced in the mirror again and saw he'd nearly cracked his face there for a second.

But no, he was determined, it seemed, to be as sour as she'd just thought him, and there was not so much as a glimmer of a smile about him when he barked, `My mother's staying for a few days while the decorators are at her place.'

Yancie opened her mouth to make some sort of a reply, but saw, as his head bent, that he was already regretting having explained anything at all to her, and that he was more interested in the contents of his briefcase than in any further conversation with her. Well, see if she cared; he'd speak before she did!

And so it was in silence that she drove, exchanging the M I for the M6, and, while the sun in her life started to grow more and more clouded over, the murky, bitterly cold day turned into a foggy, bitterly cold day the further north they went.

Kevin had told her that Mr Wakefield had a meeting at two o'clock-she did her best to get him there on time, but all the odds were against her. For not only was the fog becoming denser and denser by the mile, causing her to drive with extreme caution, but that day seemed to be the day for roadworks being in progress every other half-mile.

Knowing how Thomson's work seemed to be his lifeblood, Yancie started to feel a little desperate that she wouldn't be able to get him to his meeting on time. And yet, in these ghastly conditions, she didn't want to drive any faster.

If he'd been at all affable she might well have apologised. But, although he was no longer concentrating on his papers, and had his eyes on the road, he didn't have anything to say. Which could mean, she supposed, that he fully appreciated anyhow that nobody but an idiot would speed in these conditions.

Yancie got him to his venue at ten to three. She felt exhausted, her eyes tired and gritty from strain. 'I'm going to be later than planned,' he said as he snapped his briefcase shut.

'I'll cancel my date,' she replied pleasantly-she who was never going to lie to him again.

Without another word Thomson left her to go and chair his meeting. Yancie guessed she wouldn't see him again much before seven, but she was feeling down again and went and parked the car and then went and had something to eat. She calculated as she fed her inner person that if Thomson's meeting ended around seven, then he was going to miss his dinner. He could, of course, have been planning to stop for dinner somewhere on the way back. But now that she was driving him she somehow didn't think he'd bother. In normal times Yancie thought she would probably have got him home in three hours or so. But if the fog was still around tonight, then who knew what time they'd get back?

She wondered whether to take him a bun or something else to eat, then scolded herself for being an idiot. Thomson was a grown man, for goodness' sake. He was as capable as she of working out the chances of him ending the day dinnerless. If he felt in the slightest hungry he was more than able to send somebody out for some nourishment.

That settled tidily in her head, Yancie went and purchased a couple of packages of sandwiches anyway. Which, because she had her larger-capacity bag with her today in anticipation of the shopping she'd intended doing during her lunch break, went neatly inside. If he didn't mention food, then she wouldn't either.

Yancie had a walk around and then later she went and collected the Jaguar. She listened to the news on the car radio-the road traffic report was not good. At half past six she pulled up outside the venue, and prepared to wait. She had waited only twenty minutes, however, when the doors opened and Thomson and several businessmen came out. There were handshakes all around, then he was coming over to the car.

She'd wasted a `Good morning' on himm earlier-she didn't bother with a `Good evening', and he was likewise as talkative. The fog had worsened, grown denser instead of clearing.

Should she tell him now that the motorway was closed, or save it?

She started up the car and steered into traffic, and still hadn't told him when, a few miles later, `Pull over,' ordered a voice from the back. They were still in a built-up area, but there was no mistaking that the weather had deteriorated-soon visibility would be down to nil. Yancie drove on until she found a safe stopping place-perhaps he'd forgotten something and they needed to go back for it. But nothing so simple. `I'll drive,' he stated crisply. The sauce of it!

'No, you won't!' she argued-but she was wasting her breath; he had come round to the driver's door and had it open, and was waiting-not very patiently-for her to get out. She guessed he was tired and didn't want any argument. And normally that wouldn't have bothered her. But love did funny things to you, and she found she had pared her marshalled argument down to a minimal, 'Driving's my job!'

Unthinkingly she went and occupied the front passenger seat-it was getting to be a habit. Well, she wasn't going to ask him to stop so she could get in the back. He wanted to drive; he could put up with where his passenger chose to sit.

'Er…' she began when she saw he was heading for the motorway. She had his attention; he was listening. 'I'm afraid we're going to have to take the scenic route.' In this fog? You wouldn't see the proverbial hand in front of you! But he was waiting for the rest of it. `I tuned in to the news earlier-there's been a pile-up on the motorway. The motorway's closed.' A grunt was all the reply she got. Perhaps if she behaved herself he'd allow her to do some of the driving when his overconcentrating eyes got tired and gritty.

However, it didn't come to that. They were out of the built-up area and had been driving at a snail's pace for some while when the dim entrance lights of a hotel appeared out of the gloom. `It's ridiculous to go on any further!' Thomson announced curtly.

Yancie couldn't have agreed with him more. At the pace they were travelling, if they reached London by midday tomorrow they'd be lucky! Thomson steered the car cautiously up the hotel drive and pulled up. When he got out of the car Yancie got out too and went inside with him. Though they were out of luck when Thomson tried to book them a couple of rooms-everyone else on the road that night had given up driving as being hopeless, apparently, and there wasn't a room to be had.

'There's the Gainsborough Hotel about a mile down the road; they might be able to help you,' the receptionist, working hard because of unexpected influx of guests, tried to be helpful.

'Do you have their number?' Thomson asked, giving the receptionist the benefit of his charm.

'Shall I ring them for you?' she offered, as busy as she was.

A few minutes later, the last two vacant rooms at the Gainsborough Hotel reserved for them, they went out into the dreadful night. `Would you like me to drive?' Yancie offered; in her view he'd done a fair enough stint already given the filthy weather.

'No,' he grunted.

Get on with it, then, she fumed. He could be charming to everyone but her! Her mutiny soon faded, however; it was really treacherous out here. She knew she was a good driver, but she couldn't fault his driving. And, if she had to be driven by anyone on such an evening, she couldn't think of anybody she would have chosen other than him.

Eventually they made it to the drive of the Gainsborough Hotel, where it seemed the car park area was full to overflowing. `Go in while I find somewhere to park,' Thomson instructed, pulling up outside the entrance to the hotel.

It was on the tip of her tongue to say a cheery `Don't get lost' but she thought he wouldn't appreciate it. So, obediently she got out of the car and went into the hotel, and found it was packed with people thronging about. Given that some of the guests couldn't have anticipated not sleeping in their own beds that night, they seemed to have quickly adjusted, to the extent there was even a faint feeling of a party atmosphere about the place. There were two receptionists on duty. One was busy dealing with a guest, and Yancie gave preference to an elderly couple who had just come in and were enquiring about a room for the night. Then the other receptionist was free.

'You've two rooms reserved in the name of Wakefield,' Yancie began, and when the receptionist placed a couple of room keys on top of the reception counter and passed over a couple of registration cards Yancie saw no reason not to begin filling them in.

She had already made a start when she heard the elderly man next to her cry anxiously, `Oh, dear. No rooms! My wife's only recently had a hip replacement, and I really don't think I'm up to driving any more tonight!'

I shouldn't think so either. Yancie stopped writing while she waited for the receptionist to conjure up a room out of thin air. But no, even though the woman's tone was most sympathetic, she couldn't, it seemed, perform this particular trick. `I'm sorry,' the receptionist apologised, `every room is taken; we're even allowing people to sleep in the lounge areas, but I just haven't got another room.' But, prepared to go to extraordinary lengths in the circumstances, she added, `The lounge area's going to be crowded, but there's a chair in the office if…'

Yancie couldn't take any more. She pushed one of the keys across to the man, and also handed him one of the registration cards. `I only need one room,' she smiled. Well, she did, and she was sure Thomson wouldn't mind when she told him he'd be perching on an office chair that night. She smiled in acknowledgement of their gratitude and finished completing the one registration card and, endeavouring to think in advance, certain there would be the usual toiletries in the room, she asked the receptionist if there was any chance of being given toothpaste.

'Nobody's got round to thinking about that yet,' she smiled, clearly very pleased that the elderly couple would be able to get a good night's rest. `I can do better than just toothpaste,' she said cheerfully, and went away, to return with a sample tube of toothpaste, and a couple of toothbrushes.

Yancie thanked her, discovered the kitchen staff were going flat out, but that there'd be some sort of a meal for everyone that nightthough since the hotel was bursting at the seams where they were all going to sit might take more organising.

She came away from the desk, to hear another hopeful trying to get a room. With only one key in her hand she moved over to a spot where she could watch for Thomson to come in. And suddenly she began to experience a few anxieties of her own-about having given his room away. She didn't regret it. How could she? She was sure that she would only have to explain about the elderly couple, about the lady's recent operation… Besides, no one would make anybody drive on a night like this-least of all an elderly gentleman.

With her eyes glued to the door, Yancie saw Thomson, briefcase in hand, come in. Whimsically she felt she might have done him a favour. If he intended to work through the night, wouldn't a chair in the office be ideal?

He saw her at once and came through the scrum to where she was standing. And Yancie knew then that it wasn't whimsy, but nerveshe was going to kill her; she knew it for a fact. `I've filled in the registration form,' she said hurriedly when it looked as if he might go from her and over to the reception desk. Tell him, tell him. He can't kill you while all these people are about. `I've got the keys,' she added, and quickly made for the lift area. Had she said keys, plural?

Thankfully there were other people going up with them in the lift. Then the lift doors opened, and she stepped out-and so too did Thomson. She went along to her room-he went with her. She stopped outside her doorand knew she could delay telling him the glad news no longer. Especially when, her key already inserted in the door lock, Thomson waited for her to open the door, and held out his hand for his key. She turned to face him.

'The thing is…' she began. His eyes narrowed-oh, grief, he knew something he wasn't going to like was coming.

'The thing is?' he prompted grimly when her words seemed to have got stuck.

'I gave your room away!' she said in one blurted-out mouthful.

He stared at her. Disbelievingly, Thomson just stood and stared at her. A second ticked by, and then another, and when his voice came it was dangerously quiet. `You did-what?'

She was going to have to repeat it. 'I-ergave your room away,' she managed bravely.

For perhaps another three seconds Thomson still continued to stare at her as if he just couldn't believe his hearing. Then, without wasting words, he was moving her to one side, and was turning the key in the door, opening up the room, and stepping inside.

'What…?' she gasped, following him in, her eyes taking in the chair, the table, the double bed.

He turned and looked down on her from his lofty height. `Correction,' he stated. `You gave your room away.'

'Oh, come on, Thomson.' She was tired, and she knew he was; it had been a long day; she was too tired to `Mr Wakefield' him anyway. 'You'd have done the same.'

'I wouldn't.'

'There was this elderly couple-she'd just had her hip done. They offered her the office chair… You'd love the office chair. You could work all ni…'

He was not even tempted, she could tell. 'I'm having that bed,' he butted in.

'No, you're not! I am!' she insisted-and didn't like at all the way when, looking testily at her, a gleam of something other than irritability suddenly entered his eyes.

He transferred his gaze from her to the double bed, then back to her again, and his glance was definitely mocking, she realised when he suggested silkily, `We could always share it, I suppose.' And Yancie wanted to hit him.

'You toad!' she berated her employer. `You know what you can do to me, and how I don't want you to.'

He smiled an insincere smile, and she knew then that that was precisely why he'd made the offer to share-because he knew that she would never take him up on it. Not that he would again kiss her the way he had before. Well, she certainly wasn't going to ask him ever again for a goodnight kiss.

But she could be as crafty as him. `If you insist, I'll go as far as sharing the room with you,' she called his bluff.

'No way!' he snapped curtly, as she had thought having no intention of sharing either bed or room-but oddly that made her angry suddenly.

'I'm not likely to want to have my wicked way with you!' she snapped.

He didn't answer for some seconds but was obviously weighing up his options. He must know, Yancie was positive, how the hotel was cram full with unexpected guests, and the possibility of getting a room elsewhere-should one care to go out again into the dreary, cheerless night-hopeless.

His mind was made up, apparently. `You start anything and I'll sack you!' he threatened nastily-and Yancie's emotions were in an uproar.

She had only meant to call his bluff-but he had accepted! But-that aside-it made her furious that he should remind her she had been the one to start `things' the last time. `You should be so lucky!' she erupted, and thought for one weird moment that he was going to burst out laughing. Must be the weather affecting my brain terminals, she decided a moment later, because he was more glaring at her than laughing.

And then, as Thomson went and put his briefcase down on the table, Yancie all at once realised that-oh, heavens-she must have just agreed to share the room with him. She put her brain into overdrive mode. Her bluff to call his bluff by offering to share the room with him hadn't worked! While he'd initially decided it was out of the question, somehow she had talked him into changing his mind. Oh, crumbs!

While Yancie wasn't thrilled with the arrangement, she accepted that perhaps it was the only logical thing to do. But, while she felt that she knew enough of him to know she could just as well be sleeping on the planet Mars for all he was likely to come closer than he had to that night, she also felt it important that they get everything else settled here and now. Number one being that if anybody was going to have that double bed it was going to be her, not him. She looked at the one dumpy little chair in the room-if he thought she was going to sleep in that while he had the bed, did he have another think coming.

'Actually, Thomson-' she attracted his attention, wishing she'd missed off the `Thomson,' but too late now `-I asked at Reception about dinner-but apparently they've had a run on food and there isn't any left.' She lied nicely. `But I could swap you the bed for a cheese sandwich if you like?'

He studied her for long seconds. Then, `Done,' he said, and, suddenly awash with guilt, Yancie gained the impression that Thomson had intended she should have the bed anyway.

She looked away from him, finding the bedside phone of much interest. 'They'll probably have handed out all the spare blankets too,' she said. `It might be an idea to bring the car rug from the boot.'

'Anything else?'

Was he being sarcastic? She rather thought he was. `Don't forget to ring your mother!' she snapped, and went storming off to the bathroom, certain that was a hastily smothered laugh that followed her. No wonder she hated him.

She rinsed her face and, for something to do, cleaned her teeth as well, and was soon in love with him again, hate having small chance of staying around for long when she loved him so much.

She went and listened at the door; all seemed silent in the next room. She opened the door and went in. Thomson wasn't there. No doubt he'd gone to get the car rug, and possibly to drown his sorrows with the rest of the herd at the bar.

Yancie took the sandwiches from her bag, opened one packet and ate a sandwich, leaving a packet and a half for him. She looked at her watch, and could hardly believe that it was half past nine already. She'd better ring home.

'You're fog-bound?' Fennia guessed when Yancie told her she wouldn't be home that night so not to worry. `You stay where you are; with luck, it will be clear by the morning.'

Yancie rang off, hoping Fennia was right. She didn't know how she was going to get through one night sharing a room with Thomson; to have to share the room with him for a second night was unthinkable.

Where was he? It didn't take all that long to collect a car rug, did it? An abrupt and unwanted notion suddenly occurred to her. Oh, my giddy aunt, supposing, just supposing, he took it into his head to take a look around! Just supposing he took a look at the dining room. Oh, grief, he could, at this very moment, be having his dinner. In which case when he came back he might very well tell her she could keep her sandwiches; the deal was off, the bed his.

Possession, she decided, was nine-tenths of the law. She glanced about, and realised she couldn't lock him out because he had the room key with him. It would be undignified, as well as unfair, to put a chair under the door. She went for possession.

Hurriedly she cleaned her teeth again, took off her skirt and jacket and hung them up, briefly contemplated sleeping in her shirt, but decided against it, and hung that up too. She hadn't got a fresh shirt for tomorrow as it was-how much more rumpled her shirt was going to be if she slept in it. Besides, aggressive or kind, whatever Thomson's mood, she instinctively knew that it just wasn't in his nature to take advantage of her. She dispensed with her bra too, but because she drew the line at going to bed totally naked she opted to stay with her briefs. They were only bits of lace; she'd rinse them through in the morning; they'd soon dry.

She heard the sound of the lift, and dived into bed and out again to put out the main light, and dived for the bed again. Then discovered she needn't have bothered for she realised it wasn't Thomson but, as voices neared and passed the door, a couple of other people staying in the hotel.

Yancie tried to sleep but couldn't. She felt too on edge. And when, the time nearing midnight, Thomson did return, her heart started to pound so resoundingly she thought he might hear it.

He didn't put on the light and Yancie, hearing him moving about, was suddenly conscience-stricken. He was so tall, and that chair was so small. Had she been in any way decently clad, she felt then that she would have got out of the bed and told him that he could have the bed. Modestly, however, and an unexpected feeling of shyness at the intimacy of the situation, kept her where she was.

Eventually the only noise to be heard was the occasional creak of the chair as Thomson adjusted his position. Yancie studied the line of light coming under the door from the hall and, her eyes quite well accustomed to the darkness, the room consequently seemed to lighten.

She grew sleepy and closed her eyes, and drifted into a light sleep somewhere around two in the morning. She was awake again at three, but it was not the creaking of the chair that awakened her, but the feel of Thomson, plainly having had enough of trying to get comfortable, coming to lie down on top of the bed beside her.

She was not alarmed, but glad. It was an obvious solution. She felt like telling him so, but thought better of it. She had an idea he'd probably leave the bed early so that she would be none the wiser.

It was strange, she mused, but she would have thought she would be furious to be sharing her bed with him-albeit she was the only one beneath the covers-but, in fact, she wasn't. Actually she felt more concerned for him than furious-concerned because the car rug wasn't making much of a job of covering him, and his bare feet were sticking out from under it.

She was still worrying about his feet when she fell asleep again. She didn't wake up again until, ploughing through her stirring brain, she suddenly became aware of a bare leg against her own-a leg that wasn't hers!

She jerked awake to find dawn was breaking and that the leg wasn't the only thing that was bare. She was sharing the bed with a man who had on about as much clothing as she had.

From stirring to wakefulness, she flew straight to agitated panic. Thomson's naked chest was against her left breast, his face so close to hers she could have kissed it. Though her inclination just then was more to bite it than kiss it.

She gave him a gigantic shove-and as she struggled to sit up, taking the duvet with her, he became awake on the instant, awake and alert. `How could you?' she shrieked.

Thomson sat up too. She had the benefit of most of the duvet, and the sight of his naked broad shoulders and naked hair-roughened chest did nothing for her agitations. `I didn't know I had,' were his first words.

'Don't get clever with me!' she charged; if he was trying to be amusing she just wasn't in the mood for it. `You know what I meanhow dare you get under the bedcovers with me?"

'Ah!' he drawled, and then she realised he was too sharp for her. `You knew I'd had enough of the chair and had to stretch out? You knew I'd joined you on the bed?'

She wasn't sure there wasn't a hint of kindness there-she was in no mood for that either. `You didn't have to get into it!' she raged, wanting to push him furiously out of it, but not totally certain that he was wearing anything.

'Oh, put your chaste outrage away!' Thomson ordered bluntly. `The central heating went off. I was half asleep, half frozen.' There was not a scrap of kindness in his tone when he went on to say, `Do you honestly think that after our last amorous excursion I'd choose to repeat that non-event?'

Non-event! Her awakening! How she stopped herself from thumping him then she didn't know. Toad? He was worse than that! `Fog or no fog,' she snapped, 'I'm going back the minute I'm dressed.' If he was about to say that went double for him, Yancie wasn't waiting to hear.

Wrenching the duvet the rest of the way off him, she made a cape of it and, turning all at the same time, she left the bed and went storming to the bathroom. Tears sprang to her eyes; she swallowed them back. She never used to be so emotional. She didn't want to be emotional. She didn't want to be in love. Being in love hurt. And making love to her was a nonevent! Those intimate moments when she'd shared more of herself with him than any man had been a non-event! That awakening to how she felt, how she could feel, how she was her and not her mother-had been a non-event!

Yancie sat down on a bathroom stool with the duvet wrapped around her and hoped he froze. Though knowing him, without a cover to bless himself with, he was probably getting dressed and going to look for a cup of coffee. She could murder a cup herself.

It seriously crossed her mind to get dressed and get to the Jaguar and take off and leave Thomson stranded. Heaven alone knew where they were-she didn't. There was only one thing wrong with that-well, two, actually. One, Mr-non-event-never-again-Wakefield out there had the wretched car key. Two, if she did leave him stranded, it was a foregone conclusion she would lose her job. And, even though she was not thinking very kindly of him just then, she still wanted to keep her job. It was rare that she saw him, but she did sometimes, and she just couldn't face risking never seeing him again.

She got up and angrily shot the stiff bolt home on the bathroom door. Car key he might have, but he wasn't having the bathroom. The problem was, it was a bit boring sitting here doing nothing.

Yancie rinsed through her briefs, got most of the excess moisture out with a towel, and finished the drying process by use of the hairdryer attached to the bathroom wall. She felt like being perverse, and purely because she was positive, weather permitting or not, that Thomson would want to be on the road as soon as possible she decided she was no longer in a hurry.

She heard a sound like a door slamming to, and felt fairly confident that was the door to the room. She felt confident enough anyhow, though still with the security of the duvet around her, to unbolt the bathroom door and peer out. Good. T. Wakefield esquire had gone to breakfast.

Yancie went back inside the bathroom again, bolted the door and ran a bath. She had time, she decided, for a good long wallow. And, even if she hadn't, even if sir had merely gone to check road conditions and wasn't going to bother with breakfast, she was still going to enjoy her bath.

Yancie had her wallow, and found when she got out of the tub and patted herself dry that her long soak had calmed her. She was even slightly amazed that she could have been so mutinous. Hurt had done that to her. Since falling in love, she'd experienced so many differing emotions.

Never had she used to tell such whoppers either. Love had made a liar of her. Not that she would ever lie to Thomson over any large issue, so perhaps her small fibs weren't so bad. Perhaps as long as they didn't hurt him they didn't count.

Yancie knew for certain that she never wanted to hurt him, and was just resolving that she'd be good fromm now on when-shocking her so much she was like a startled rabbit, incapable of movement-the bathroom door suddenly opened, and Thomson stood there. He was bare-chested, but trouser-clad, and had obviously come in to take a shower.

'I locked the door!' she shrieked. Where was the towel?

While at the same time, his eyes staring as if hypnotised by her slender but curvaceous, long-legged body, Thomson hurriedly started, `You weren't around-I thought you'd gone to breakfast.'

Panicking wildly, the towel back on the rail two yards away, Yancie vaguely registered Thomson knew that the hotel hadn't run out of food, and equally vaguely supposed that she had appropriated the bathroom long enough to have bathed ten times over, so he could be forgiven for supposing she had now vacated it.

But, suddenly and speedily, she was on the move, too late now to fret that the door bolt couldn't have been so far rammed home as it should have been. Yancie went to dash past him, found the duvet had slipped off the bathroom stool, and all at once, while trying to avoid coming into contact with Thomson, she found she was treading duvet.

'Ooh!' she cried, and `Oh,' she wailed as the duvet suddenly turned into an octopus that refused to let her go-and the next she knew she was falling.

She never got to hit the floor, though, because Thomson's arms shot out and he caught her, holding her while she tried desperately to get her balance. She clung onto him, her arms clutching at his arms, his shoulders-then, startled, she stopped treading the duvet and became aware of nothing except that he had one arm around her holding her upright, while his other hand was near enough holding her naked left buttock.

'Thomson!' she gasped, and realised from the shaken kind of look of him that he had just become aware of the same thing.

'Yancie,' he said in a strangled kind of way, and as if he could do nothing about it, and Yancie knew that she certainly couldn't as his head came down, so she turned her face up to meet him. And, as their lips met, nothing else seemed to matter.

It was a beautiful kiss, and Yancie wanted more. But Thomson was attempting to put some daylight between their two bodies. Yancie did her best to back away from himbut she felt hungry for his kisses.

'This is a nightmare,' he said, his voice hoarse, not like his usual tone at all.

She wanted to help, but how? `I don't know what to do,' she mourned huskily.

She saw him swallow, saw him try for a light note as he replied, `I trust you aren't inviting me to show you.'

'I didn't mean that!' she strove to find the same light note-but missed by a mile.

'I know,' he said gently, and sent her such a wonderful smile, her legs almost buckled. He looked down into her upturned face. `I should let you go,' he seemed to be talking more to himself than her. `But…'

'But`?' Yancie asked, her eyes on him, his mouth, the mouth she wanted to feel again. And, as his head came down again, so she did, and it was so heavenly she could have wept.

She wanted to cry his name from the pure ecstasy of it. But he was kissing her again, one hand caressing over her naked behind, and she was going light-headed from the pleasure of it.

He kissed her throat, and she placed her arms around him, holding him to her, her naked breasts against his bare chest. 'Thomson!' she cried, his name refusing to stay down.

'Dear Yancie,' he breathed, and she thrilled anew. Was she his dear? She kissed him, felt his caressing hands on her back, felt them caress round to her ribcage, then, with whispering tenderness, he captured her breasts. A sigh escaped her. The pink peaks of her breasts hardened incredibly under his touch, and as he brushed his palms lightly over the tips a fire went wild inside her.

She clutched onto him, unthinking, feeling only. She wanted him, oh, so much. Again he kissed her. Then he was capturing her breasts, moulding them, tenderly fondling, and Yancie was burning out of control.

When he bent his head and gently kissed the tip of first one breast and then the other, she soared to even higher heights of wanting. His mouth captured one breast, tormenting its wanting hardness with his tongue, while his other hand caressed and moulded over her other breast, over her body and down one thigh.

And Yancie didn't know quite where she was when, holding her a little way away from him, Thomson trailed kisses down her throat, over her breast.

'Oh, Thomson' she murmured shakily when he held her to him again.

'I want you,' he told her, his voice thick in his throat.

'I-w-want you too,' she answered shakily-and guessed her nervousness must be showing, for suddenly he was gripping her arms tightly, and was deliberately putting an inch of daylight between their two bodies.

'This-er-' he broke off, then appeared to have got himself a little more together. `This won't do, Yancie Dawkins,' he told her quietly, and Yancie, never wanting to leave his arms, just knew that their time of loving was over.

'It certainly won't,' she whispered, and, though she wanted to stay exactly where she was, from some unknown somewhere she actually found the strength to take a small step. Though, as Thomson started to take a pace back from her too, so she took a hasty grab at him, and when he looked at her she swallowed and, her colour high, began, `I know, given that I haven't a stitch on, that I'm giving off all the signals that I haven't a shy bone in my body-but would you mind closing your eyes while I get out of here?'

That reluctant but wonderful smile of his came out and Yancie didn't want to go anywhere but back into his arms. But as he stood with his grey eyes gently holding hers, so he stretched out a hand and took a bath towel from the rail, shook it out and, with his eyes still on hers, wrapped the towel around her. Then he closed his eyes. `Go, Yancie,' he said. `While I can still let you.'

She wanted to stay. Wanted to kiss him surely he would feel her touch and kiss her again? But, `See you on the ice,' she gasped and, belatedly spying her briefs and hurriedly snatching them up as she went, she went quickly.