'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?