The Feisty Fiancée

CHAPTER SEVEN

IT WAS Astra asking that afternoon if she was all right that warned Yancie she had better get her act together. Fennia had asked what was the matter just over a week ago.

'Yes, of c…' she began, and looked up to see that both her cousin Astra and cousin Fennia were observing her with a good deal of concern. And suddenly she couldn't bluff it out. `Well, no, actually, I'm not,' she admitted, and her cousins urgently wanted to know what was wrong so that they could help. `You can't help,' she told them, and confessed. `I've done the stupidest thing-I've fallen for this man and he's so constantly in my head, there just isn't any room for anything else.'

'Oh, Yancie!' Fennia gasped.

'How does he feel?' Astra, the more practical one of the three, asked.

'Like-he doesn't want to know,' Yancie replied.

'I don't believe it!' Fennia exclaimed. `To know you is to love you,' she added stoutly. And all three of them laughed.

'Tell him that,' Yancie said.

'Thomson Wakefield?' Astra asked.

'How did you work that out?' Yancie asked in amazement.

'There's something different about you when you come home after driving him,' Astra replied.

'Really? Well, I doubt I shall ever be driving him again,' Yancie said. He had driven as far as his home today. Then, as if their mindblowing, intimate embrace had never happened, he'd bluntly instructed her to see to it that the Jaguar was returned to the firm's garage.

'Do you want to talk about it?' Fennia asked. Yancie shook her head, and loved her cousins the more that they didn't pry, but let her know that they were there for her at any time and in any place, Astra stating she was taking them out that evening. No man was worth staying in for on a Saturday night.

In actuality, Yancie would have preferred to stay home. She felt a need to be by herself, but Astra was right; she ought to be going out and setting about putting Thomson out of her head. But, how could she?

After her speedy exit from the bathroom she had hurriedly donned some clothes, attended to her light make-up and her hair. A hasty look out of the window had shown that, while weather conditions could have been better, they weren't as bad as they had been. Yancie had opted to wait for Thomson down in the hotel lounge.

She hadn't had to wait very long. But when she had been feeling all shy at the thought of seeing him again after their heated lovemaking it had been at once obvious from his cool expression that he was regretting what had happened.

'I'll drive,' he'd said, his tone even, but a hint of iron there that said, Don't argue.

Suit yourself, she'd fumed, hating him that he could put her on this emotional treadmill. There she had been, sitting there weaving cosy dreams where Thomson, when he joined her, he might suggest they met outside of work so that they might get to know each other a little better. But, forget it! He was physically attracted to her; she knew that much. But did he have to make it so painfully obvious that that was all it was-physical? That his emotions were not otherwise affected? That, in fact, he didn't want to know her any better?

So why couldn't she stop thinking about the wretched man? It was for certain he wasn't wasting any time thinking about her.

In that, however, Yancie found she was wrong. It was around five, late that day, when she was drumming into her head how she was going to go out with Fennia and Astra that night, and how they were going to have a whale of a time, when the phone rang.

Fennia was in the bath, Astra was in her study; Yancie picked the phone up and said, `Hello.'

'Thomson Wakefield,' he announced, and at the thought that he was ringing to ask for a date her mouth went dry. But, date? Forget it! `I need a driver,' he went on, seemingly recognising her voice from that one word. `Can you pick me up at seven?'

I'm afraid Yancie's out; she has a heavy date tonight, but I'll tell her you rang when I see her in the morning. She so nearly said it, but she loved the brute. `No problem,' she answered, managing to keep her tone even. `Where am I driving to? I mean, do I need to look up a route?"

'I'm attending a recital not far away; I'll give you directions when I see you.'

'Right,' she said-and hung up.

You're pathetic, Yancie, pathetic, she told herself, knowing that what she should have told him was, Drive yourself, and while you're at it you can have my resignation. Had not her emotions been involved, she would not have hesitated to do so. In fact the old Yancie would never have put up with so much. But this love she had for him had crept up on her and, while the old Yancie was still in there somewhere, love had, for the moment, debilitated her.

Fortunately there was more than one bathroom in the flat; Yancie went and showered and washed her hair and was dressed in a black trouser suit with a white silk shirt when she went to seek out her cousins. They were in the kitchen having a cup of tea.

" Er-I'll have to cancel tonight,' she opened.

'You've had a better offer?' Fennia asked.

'My boss rang-I've got to work,' Yancie explained.

'That's your new uniform, is it?' Astra grinned, knowing full well who her boss was.

Yancie had to laugh; so did Fennia. Yancie left the apartment. She was smiling again as it only then dawned on her that, for all Thomson had instructed her to return the Jaguar to the firm's garage, he must know that she hadn't done so yet. Just as he must know that she'd had no intention of doing so until Monday morning.

As she'd known they would, her insides started to play up as soon as she pulled up on his drive. She left the car and went to ring the doorbell of his home. She sent stern instructions to her facial muscles. Stay impassive. It might well be the housekeeper who answered the door, but it could equally well be Thomson, or even her ladyship, his mother!

The door opened and, looking splendid in dinner suit, crisp white shirt and bow-tie, Thomson stood there-and her heart fluttered crazily to see him.

He seemed a little taken aback to see her, she thought, but as his glance travelled over her, taking in her silk shirt, her long length of leg in her expensive trouser suit, Yancie realised that he was only taken aback because he had expected her to be dressed in the same fashion as when he had last seen her.

'My uniforms are at the cleaners,' she lied. Her mother was right; her uniform was drab.

'Shall we get on?' he ignored her lie-but very nearly poleaxed Yancie when he added, `I have to collect my date, first.'

Yancie turned abruptly about so he shouldn't see her expression. She felt sick at heart, sick to her stomach, and was never more glad of her pride. Because it was pride, and pride alone, that got her through the next few minutes, and saved her from either crumpling there and then, or telling him he could drive himself, that she'd had it with him.

Yancie felt even sicker when his date turned out to be an elegant, sophisticated woman of about thirty or so. While she was not beautiful in the accepted sense, she had a certain charm Yancie could see some men might care for. Clearly Thomson Wakefield was one of them.

'It's very good of you to give up your Saturday evening to drive us,' she addressed Yancie from the rear, to Yancie's mind sitting much too close to Thomson.

Charm or condescension? `Mr Wakefield caught me when I'd got nothing on,' Yancie replied, adding, `Madam,' for the sheer hell of it. And, ignoring the cold look in Thomson's eyes as their eyes clashed in the rear-view mirror, she started to grow angry with the pair of them. How dared this Julia-whatever-her name-was patronise her? How dared Thomson-? Suddenly she was furious with him. He of the `Go, Yancie. While I can still let you' that morning when, naked, she'd stood in the circle of his arms. He had known about-and had probably looked forward tohis date with Julia that night!

Following his directions, Yancie turned into the drive of a large manor house. There were many other smart cars parked in the drive. At first it pleased Yancie when she saw at once that she wouldn't be able to park in front of the house, that position already taken. It was a cold night; it wouldn't hurt Julia to walk a bit, to Yancie's way of thinking. Though when she had a sudden and unwanted vision of the woman hanging onto Thomson's arm as they walked up the drive Yancie decided to drive on and for a few seconds double park at the front door.

She stopped the car and heard Thomson's date voice the opinion that the recital and following supper would probably end at about eleven. He got out and went round to the passenger door to open it for her jealously gave a vicious nip, and as far as Yancie was concerned the woman could break a leg before she'd get out and open the door for her. Having closed the passenger door, Thomson came to the driver's door, but whatever it was he had to say Yancie wasn't interested. She was off, away down the drive.

An hour later she'd cooled down sufficiently to go back again. That in itself had been a tussle. For her money, Thomson and his date could walk home. But they wouldn't, of course. There would always be someone around to give them a lift-and what would she have achieved, apart from losing her job? Nothing, except that she had given Thomson the idea that she had been upset about something. Bubbles to that!

Yancie found a parking spot and went for a stroll around. It was a bitterly cold night, so it wasn't much of a stroll. She did, however, notice, on walking by a Rolls-Royce, that there was a chauffeur's peaked cap on the front seat.

She had already decided that she wasn't going to go back to the car and sit there freezing to death until the function was over. That clinched it. She'd go where all good chauffeurs went on a bitterly cold night.

In actual fact, she found there were only three of them when she made it to the kitchen. Mick, Jerry and her, all the other guests-teetotallers or license-riskers, obviously-opting to drive themselves.

'You must be starved,' the housekeeper said, after a while, when Yancie had explained who she was. `I'll just get this food sent up, and then you can have your supper.'

It wasn't a bad life, being a driver, Yancie reckoned, having dined on venison pie, duchesse potatoes, and a cranberry and red cabbage mix. Afterwards, as they sat at a table in a corner and Jerry got out a pack of cards, Yancie found there were still some considerable gaps in her education.

They had been playing cards for about an hour when Mick volunteered, `You're all right, Yancie. I thought you might be a bit stuck-up when I heard your plummy accent. Butyou're all right.'

'Thanks,' she accepted his compliment. `You're all right too.'

An hour after that and one of the housekeeper's assistants came in to say people were about to leave. `See you, Mick. See you, Yancie' said Jerry, abandoning the game.

It was a signal for the three of them to get back to their vehicles. Yancie was behind the steering wheel when Thomson and his date of the evening came out. Yancie considered he was strong enough to open the door for Juliashe wasn't moving, that was for sure.

'You've got the car warmed for us,' Julia observed pleasantly, as Yancie moved off. `I do hope you weren't waiting outside all this while.'

'Oh, no,' Yancie answered pleasantly. `I've been playing poker in the kitchen with some of the boys.'

Yancie heard a strangled sort of cough from her employer, hoped it was flu, and felt like saying as much-how dare he take somebody else out and have the nerve to ask her to drive him? But she wasn't speaking to him.

Which, sadly, didn't seem to affect him one iota. In fact he didn't even notice. But, when she was determined she wasn't going to utter so much as a word to him, she found, when they pulled up outside Julia's home, that her wayward tongue was getting away from her.

He had just helped his date out of the car, but poked his head back in. Though, before he could say what it was he had to say, Yancie heard herself enquire, `Do you wish me to wait, sir?' Had she added, Or are you staying the night? it couldn't, she knew have been more obvious.

'Wait!' he snarled, and escorted his female inside the building.

As Yancie tormented herself by visualising Thomson taking the woman in his arms, so she almost took off and left him stranded there. Only a last-minute notion that he might yet decide to stay the night if he had no transport home kept Yancie where she was.

It felt as if a ton lead weight had been taken off her when, in next to no time, she saw Thomson coming out of the building. If he had kissed the wretched woman, then there'd been no time for him to make a meal of it.

Yancie decided she didn't want to think of him kissing somebody else, and the moment he was in the car she started it up and put her foot down. `Watch the road conditions!' ordered a voice from the back.

The road conditions were icy and treacherous, and finding that Thomson was right and that she needed to concentrate totally on her driving gave Yancie little time in the next few miles to think of anything but the hazards presenting themselves as the night grew colder and colder.

They were in open country approaching a T-junction when Yancie was starting to think better of Thomson in that when she had been expecting that at any minute he would tell her to pull over, that he was driving, he had not.

It was about all she remembered, because a split second either way and they would have been all right. But, with abominable timing, they were passing the junction just as another car was going into a skid as it tried to come to a halt. It came hurtling at them-and there wasn't a thing she could possibly do to stop it. 'Thomson!' she cried his name. If he said anything, she didn't hear it-in fact she didn't hear anything again for quite some while.

Her head hurt. Yancie came to, to find that she was in hospital. `That's better,' a gentle, kindly voice soothed, and Yancie opened her eyes to find a nurse bending over her, having just finished sponging her face.

'What…?' Her head felt muzzy. `Where…?' she tried again.

'You'll be all right,' the nurse reassured her. `You're in hospital. You were in a car accident, but you've been extremely lucky. You've been concussed and have bruising and shock, but you're otherwise okay. You're going to be fine.'

'Wh…?' Yancie broke off. She had been driving. 'Thomson!' she exclaimed in panic. 'Thomson, where is he? Is he…?' Fear paralysed her. Her voice rose. `Where is he? What…?' If he was dead, she wanted to die too.

But Thomson wasn't dead. Though he had not come out of the accident as well as her.

They had both been brought to the same hospital, but he was unconscious still and was being nursed in the intensive care unit.

Yancie wanted to see him and vague promises were made that someone would take her to him, but nobody did. In fact, it wasn't until the next day, when she was allowed out of bed for the firstt time, that she managed to see him-courtesy of her two cousins.

She'd had a constant stream of visitors before and after she had regained consciousness, but Yancie's agitation over Thomson would not be held down any longer. Her mother had been to see her. Ralph, her aunt Delia and cousin Greville had just left when Astra and Fennia came again to visit.

'I've got to see Thomson,' Yancie fretted. `Have you any idea where the intensive care unit is in this place?"

'I'll go and find out,' Fennia volunteered, and sped off.

Yancie somewhat shakily got to her feet. Everything hurt, but that did not concern her. 'I'm going to need you to lean on to get there,' she said to Astra.

'Hang on there for a minute,' Astra bade her, and disappeared, to return pushing a wheelchair. `We're going to have to be quick,' she said, helping Yancie into it. `I pinched it from outside the X-ray department.'

Just then Fennia came back to say she had enquired but only close family were being allowed to see Thomson. Between them Fennia and Astra wheeled Yancie to the intensive care unit. As they got there so a nurse was just coming through the double doors.

'This is Yancie Dawkins, a very close friend of Mr Thomson Wakefield. She has to see him,' Fennia announced.

The senior nurse surveyed the trio, with a professional eye on the pink silk-robe-clad pale figure in the wheelchair. `One minute,' she said after a moment, and, taking hold of the wheelchair, she ordered, `You two stay here.'

Had Yancie had a smile in her she might have spared one for the nurse. But she was too anxious about Thomson to have a smile for anyone as the nurse wheeled her to where he lay, and where another nurse was on constant alert.

Yancie's heart turned over when she saw Thomson. A sheet pulled up to just above his waist was his only covering, while wires and tubes were attached to him, and monitors beat out a steady rhythm.

Tears threatened to choke her as Yancie stretched out her hand to gently touch the back of his hand as it lay on top of the sheet. Yancie covered his hand, and, able to see for herself that he was in a critical condition, she willed him to live.

'That's three minutes,' the nurse whispered to her, and Yancie looked at her, a question there in her distressed blue eyes. `He's a fighter,' was the best the nurse would answer and, as Yancie took a last look at him, she turned her and wheeled her back to where Fennia and Astra were waiting.

The next few days were a total nightmare for Yancie. She wouldn't cry-to do so would mean she was ready to accept that there might be some doubt that Thomson would recover, and she wasn't going to have that. He would get better, he would, he would.

Yancie saw him twice more in those few days, and also established a communication line through the kindness of his nurses who apprised her nurses with the latest information on him. His mother was a constant visitor, apparently, and Greville had managed to see him. But Greville did not know of Yancie's feelings for Thomson, so he concentrated on being sure she knew that no blame was attached to her for the written-off Jaguar, more than on trying to convince her that the chairman of the company would be all right.

'It wasn't your fault,' Greville assured her, when all she could remember was Thomson getting back in the car after seeing his date to her door. After that, it was all a complete blank. `The other chap came out of it with nothing more than a broken arm, by the way.' Yancie did know, having thought to enquire. Greville continued, `He may get prosecuted for driving without due care, but you've got nothing to worry about.'

Only Thomson. And her worry over him was driving her demented. And then he started to improve. Nicola Stewart, the nurse who had been with her when she had just rejoined the world, came back from her lunch break one afternoon to say Thomson had opened his eyes and, while still sedated, had regained consciousness and was back in the land of the living. Yancie very nearly cried then.

'May I see him?"

'You'll get me shot.'

'You don't have to take me. I'm getting stronger by the day, and the exercise will do me good. Dr Jordon was talking about the possibility of me going home on Friday-so I must be up to it.'

'You'll have to come back for physiotherapy for that shoulder,' Nicola Stewart began. Then, caving in, she said, 'You'd better make a dash for it round about teatime when everyone will be busy.'

From what Yancie had seen there was never a time when the hospital staff weren't busy. But she wasn't arguing, and waited in a fever of impatience, glad for once not to have any visitors. Then, having taken a shower, brushed her hair and put some lipstick on, she made her `casual' way along the hospital corridors.

She looked through the glass doors of the intensive care ward, and her heart went into her mouth when she saw that the bed Thomson had used was now occupied by somebody else.

She controlled her initial panic, reasoning that if he was starting to get better, even though he was still sedated, he had probably been moved to a side ward. Yancie was too anxious to see him to give up now. She pulled the edges of her silk dressing gown closer around her, and slowly, because she still ached all over, she went looking for him.

Yancie found him not too far away. She opened a door two doors down from Intensive Care, and there, allowed one pillow this time, he lay. He was awake-and Yancie didn't know what to say.

She went closer to the bed. `I suppose this puts paid to my driving career,' was what she did say-and joy, utter joy, filled her heart when he found a smile for her.

'Yancie!' he exclaimed, uttering her name, and, albeit he appeared to be infinitely weary, she felt he seemed pleased to see her. She went closer-and needed the chair that was pulled up to the bed when he stretched out a hand to her. She sat down quickly and gave him her hand. `They said you were all right,' he said, just the effort of talking seeming to drain him of energy. `But…'

'I'm fine,' she assured him swiftly, while finding it incredible that in the short time he'd been conscious he must have asked about her. But she was more concerned thenn that he hang onto what reserves of strength he had.

He smiled, gripping her hand. She wanted to kiss him, to hold him safe and kiss his dear head, and felt choked to the core of her being when he teased, `And what mischief have you been up to today-given that it looks as though you've given your warders the slip?'

Yancie laughed-she guessed her dressing gown had given her away. `I haven't been up to any mischief,' she said softly, loving him, loving this way he was being with her. `I promise,' she added, knowing as his eyelids started to droop that it would be more health giving to him if she left now and let him sleep.

So, although she would by far have much preferred to stay exactly where she was, she started to get to her feet. Though she sat down heavily when his eyes opened again, and, every bit as if he was fighting with all he had to beat off the effects of the sedation that had been administered, he requested, `Promise me something else.'

'Anything,' she replied, and meant it.

He gave her hand a faint squeeze. `Promise me, Yancie Dawkins, that you'll marry me?' he said.

Yancie sat rooted, her mouth fallen open, and was still not believing what she thought she had heard when his fight against his medication failed, and his eyelids drooped once again, and he went to sleep.

Feeling stunned, Yancie just sat there holding his hand. He had said it; he had. She knew he had. `Promise me, Yancie Dawkins, that you'll marry me', he had said. He'd proposed! Incredibly, Thomson had proposed! Yancie was still in stunned shock when-the nursing staff still keeping a strict eye on him, it seemed-a nurse came in and Yancie knew her visit with him was over.

His proposal and the fact that he looked so much better stayed with Yancie for the rest of that day. Though when Fennia and Astra came to visit her that evening she found she couldn't tell them of it. Instead she asked them to bring her some clothes in.

'You're thinking of going over the wall?' Astra queried, having taken home the clothes Yancie had been wearing.

'They're letting me out the day after tomorrow. But I've had enough of nightwear,' Yancie answered.

'I'll drop some stuff off on my way to work in the morning,' Fennia promised.

Yancie couldn't sleep that night for thinking of what Thomson had asked. And, while part of her denied his proposal had any meaning, she just couldn't believe he would ever say something like that and not mean it. He was drowsy, remember. Yes, but he had known it was her he was speaking to. Must have done. Yancie Dawkins, he'd called her. `Promise me, Yancie Dawkins, that you'll marry me?' Excitement surged up in her. Did he love her; dared she hope? She couldn't wait to see him tomorrow.

Fennia dropped by in the morning with some clothes for her, as she'd said she would.

'Anything you need when I come in tonight?' she asked before she dashed off to her nursery work.

'I have everything,' Yancie smiled, and as Fennia went on her way Yancie couldn't help but wonder, and hope, Had she? If it was true and Thomson did want to marry her, did love her, she would not want for anything else.

Fennia had brought Yancie one of her very favourite dresses-a very fine wool affair in a most gorgeous shade of blue. Yancie showered and dressed and waited as long as she possibly could before she slipped along the corridors.

She was nearing the side room where she had seen Thomson yesterday, when all her hopes were sent crashing. Mrs Wakefield was just coming out of his room. Yancie saw that Thomson's mother had recognised her and knew that she wasn't thrilled to see her when, coming only a little away from the door, she blocked her progress.

'Haven't you done enough?' she challenged viperishly.

'The accident wasn't my fault,' Yancie pointed out reasonably.

'What are you doing here?'

Honestly! `I've come to see Thomson' Yancie answered-grief, if all her dreams came true, this dragon was going to be her mother-in-law!

'Thomson, is it?' Mrs Wakefield challenged, in Yancie's view clearly having been feasting on the churlish tart again. `Mr Wakefield,' the woman went on heavily, `has no wish whatsoever to see you.'

'I think you'll find you're wrong there,' Yancie refused to give ground.

Mrs Wakefield cared not. `The only persons my son wishes to see-' she ignored what Yancie had said `-are myself and his fiancee.'

Yancie went cold. `H-his fiancee?' she questioned huskily, feeling staggered, and knowing it was showing. `I didn't know Thomson was engaged.'

'I can't think why you should imagine you have any right to know!' Mrs Wakefield said arrogantly.

Hope, stupid blind hope, began to surge upwards in Yancie again. Oh, heavens, could it be, dared she hope, that Thomson had just told his mother that he was getting married? True, he had fallen asleep yesterday before she'd had a chance to say yes, yes, a thousand times yes, but… `When did…?"

'Not that it's any business of yours, but my son and Julia Herbert have been engaged for quite some months now.'

'I…' Yancie gasped, reeling, her colour draining away. Then pride, wonderful, face saving pride, took a nip at her. `Of course. Julia. I'm sure they'll both be very happy.' With that, and it took all her strength to stay physically upright, Yancie turned about and went back the way she had come.

She left hospital the next day. She had discovered through the nursing network that Thomson was off the critical list, and was expected to make a full recovery. That news warmed her heart, but it was the only joy she found.

Knowing that he was expected to make a full recovery did not stop her from worrying about him, however, and she picked up the phone several times in the following twenty four hours to ring the hospital before putting it down again. He didn't care about her, and she was being silly.

Saturday afternoon had rolled around before, silly or not, she just had to give in to the compulsion to ring the hospital to find out how he was. `Mr Wakefield was well enough to be moved,' she was informed by an efficient sounding voice.

'He's gone home!' Yancie exclaimed; he wasn't well enough yet! He couldn't be.

'He won't be ready to go home for a week or two yet,' she was informed. `Although, once he's on his feet, he should from then on make a speedy recovery.'

That was a relief. `He's gone to another hospital?' Yancie realised. `May I know which one?"

'I'm afraid I'm not at liberty to say.'

Yancie saw Mrs Wakefield's hand in that. She could almost hear her giving the instructions not to give out to anyone where he had transferred to-particularly not to any company driver.

Yancie did find out where Thomson was, however. Greville told her. He kept in touch, wanting to know about her progress, and seemed to see it only as a normal reaction since she had been driving Thomson at the time of the accident-that she would want to know about him. It was a red-letter day when Greville told her Thomson had been discharged from hospital.

As well as flowers from Kevin Veasey, Yancie had received a host of lovely get-well cards from Wilf Fisher and the other men in the transport department at work. But when her bruised shoulder was healed enough for her to go back to her driving duties Yancie had to give serious thought to her future-did she want to go back?

She still needed paid employment; there was no doubt about that. But could she face seeing Thomson again? Face possibly driving him again? Well, you never knew; they might be desperately short-handed one day and Thomson would have to take the risk; though that accident had never been her fault anyhow.

But, while aching to see him again, what good would it do? Could she bear to drive him knowing he was engaged and could be planning to marry Julia at any time? She might even be called upon on some occasion to drive both him and her.

Knives seemed to stick in her heart. That, she knew, she couldn't take. Without giving herself time to think further, Yancie rang Kevin Veasey and resigned.

'You're sure?' he asked, adding, obviously not holding the written-off Jaguar against her, `You don't want to think about it for a while?'

And, clearly assuming she had lost her nerve after the accident, he assured her," I'm sure, given time, that once you get behind the wheel again…'

'You're very kind, Kevin. But I've decided to train for a different career.'

She would too, she vowed-only not just yet. Although her bruises had cleared up, she still felt mentally bruised, beaten-and needed some time.

Which she had in plenty. Between them Fennia and Astra wouldn't allow her to do a thing domestically. And days stretched endlessly before her. Days when she had time to think. Too much time to think.

She half regretted her decision to leave Addison Kirk when Greville told her a couple of weeks later that Thomson had returned to work. She had given up all chance of seeing him again. But she must be strong. To make a clean break of it was the only way.

Yet that didn't stop her thinking about him. She went over and over again her every meeting with him. Recalled again that first meeting, remembered how she had thought he didn't have a laugh in him, and then recalled seeing him laugh.

Yancie knew she was spending too much time just dwelling on his every word, his every look, his every action, but she couldn't seem to stop. She didn't want to love him, but she couldn't stop that either.

She recalled how passionately they had kissed. How it had seemed then that they would make complete and beautiful love with each other. And how he had been so wonderful at her first hint of hesitancy.

He'd had too much common decency to attempt to persuade her after understanding her hint of uncertainty, even though he had probably known that her resistance would have been a weak thing had he renewed his onslaught to her senses.

His innate decency, his integrity, was something else she loved about him. She'd heard him time enough on the car phone dealing with some business or other, or dictating some important correspondence to Veronica Taylor, and knew that his integrity was unshakeable.

She remembered the…

Yancie's thoughts suddenly ceased midflow. That word `integrity' began to pound in her head. They just didn't come any more ethical than Thomson; she just knew it. Suddenly her heart, which had been a plodding muscle of late, started to race. Was she supposed to believe that once he left his office, once he put his business dealings aside, Thomson put his in-built integrity aside also?

She couldn't believe it, she realised. She could not. And yet that was what she had been believing. All these weeks she had trusted, believed what his mother had told her-that he was engaged to Julia Herbert and had been for some months now.

But, leaving alone that the men in the transport section were the biggest gossips she'd ever met, not one word had she heard about him being attached to anyone. Could she believe Thomson would forget totally and utterly that he had a fiancee when some other woman more or less invited him to kiss her?

Loud and strong the answer hammered back-no, he would not. Yancie pulled at the question every way she could. She had to work it out squarely and not arrive at the conclusions she wanted to arrive at purely because she could not take much more of this living in limbo.

He'd kissed her, she'd responded-oh, my, how she'd responded. But-he hadn't pushed her away, as a man engaged to someone else, a man with his integrity, would have. Thomson had instead kissed her again, many times. And, Yancie felt, would have made her his. Yet would he completely ignore the fact that some other woman was wearing his ring?

Had Julia been wearing his ring? Yancie couldn't remember seeing a ring on her finger; but then she couldn't remember not seeing one, either.

Yancie's stomach tied up in knots at the magnitude of her thoughts. If Thomson wasn't engaged to someone else, then he had every right to kiss where he pleased. Every right to ask someone else to marry him.

Yancie knew that she was not very good company for Astra and Fennia that night, and she went to bed early, to plough through the same thoughts over and over again.

But it was the not knowing that moved her to do something about it the next morning.

Yancie was up early, checking through her wardrobe. She knew what she had to do. She felt nervous, shy, all churned up in her stomach-but she couldn't take another day of going around in the same not-knowing circles. She was going to have to go and see Thomson.

Of course he might have absolutely no recollection of asking her to marry him. He had been critically ill, remember. Well, she might not even mention that-but at least, if he had some memory of asking her to marry him, he was entitled to an answer. And what Yancie did remember was that she hadn't given him one.

Fortunately both her cousins went to work early-Yancie felt much too uptight to want to talk about this obsession that had taken her over with anyone but him.

She was wearing an elegant suit that had once fitted snugly but which, although still looking smart, now hung on her thinner frame as she made her way inside the Addison Kirk building.

She chose not to go to the reception deskshe was not in any mood to have her progress stopped before she'd made it as far as the lifts.

But, having made it to the lifts, having got in and started to ascend, Yancie's insides started acting up with a vengeance.

Doubts, great clawing, scratching, spiteful doubts, started to go for her the moment she stepped out onto the floor where Thomson had his office. Don't be ridiculous, scorned the gremlin that had just jumped on her shoulder. Just because Thomson was totally honourable in his workplace, it didn't necessarily mean that he was the same in his relationships. Why, the world was littered with two-timing men who…

She reached his door and found she was half hoping he wasn't in. Didn't she know from personal experience that some days he didn't come into the office at all, but had a driver pick him up from his home and take him wherever his business happened to be?

Oh, please, let him be in! She felt a total mass of contradiction as, having no intention of calling first at his PA's office only to have Veronica Taylor tell her he was too busy to see her, Yancie reached for the handle of Thomson's office door.

She swallowed, gripping it hard, some part of her wanting to flee, her life seeming to depend on her staying and going in. Her last memory before the accident had been of Thomson getting into the Jaguar after he'd seen Julia Herbert to her door. He hadn't wasted any time about seeing her to that door, either, but was soon back, Yancie made herself remember. What sort of behaviour was that for a supposedly engaged man?

On that thought, Yancie gathered together all of her courage, opened the door and went in. Thomson was there. He looked up from his desk, plainly not expecting anyone. He was thinner too, she saw straight away, and her heart started to ache for all his suffering. But he was staring at her as if astounded by her nerve in barging into his office unannounced as if she was the last person he expected to see. She wanted to speak, but her throat felt parched. `H-how are you?' was what she managed for openers.

'I don't recall having an appointment with you!' he barked curtly, rapidly recovering from having appeared momentarily rocked.

Appointment! He really could be a swine when he wanted, she fumed; she was angry, not to mention a bundle of nerves into the bargain. Perhaps that was why, when she had half decided not to mention his proposal if he didn't remember it, she forgot totally what she had or had not decided, and snapped back bluntly, `That's no way to speak to your fiancee!'

Her mouth fell open from the shock of the unintended words she had just hurled at him. But as Thomson, rising from his desk, stared back at her, his expression positively staggered, Yancie didn't know which of them was the more shocked. What she did know, though, was that this was the first he'd heard of it or wanted to hear of it.

It was time, she realised, for her to get out of there!