‘Yes, it is,’ she said slowly. ‘Last night it tried to kill me. This morning-it’s amazing. I can’t believe it’s the same place.’

‘It’s got more moods than you can think of. Stay at least a few days.’

She listened to the quiet again. It was made up of soft sounds, like birdsong and the muted roar of the sea. And if she went back? Noise, the smell of gasoline, fighting. Ferdy was shrewd enough to say nothing, watching her intently.

At last she gave a sigh, like someone reluctantly leaving a dream. ‘You’re forgetting,’ she said, ‘that my “fiancé” is about to boot me out.’

‘But that’ll take time,’ Ferdy said. ‘You can’t leave until your car is found.’

They smiled like conspirators, and Ferdy drew her arm through his.

‘Let’s go in to breakfast,’ he said.

As they neared the house Meryl saw Jarvis waiting for them, and had a slight shock. Coming upon him unexpectedly, without time to hoist her prejudices into place, she realised that there really was something to be said for him after all. It wasn’t his height, or the width of his shoulders. It wasn’t even the proud set of his head, or his air of authority; nor the way he was looking at her, like a man willing to admire but keeping his powder dry.

It was none of these, and all of them. And then it was something extra that would have made him stand out in any group of men. If they’d met at any other time she knew she would have found him interesting.

He approached and spoke with formal courtesy. ‘Miss Winters, I hope you slept well last night.’

‘Fine, thank you,’ she said, stretching the truth a bit. This wasn’t the moment to mention turnips.

‘I must say,’ he continued, ‘you look better in those clothes than what you were wearing when we last met.’

Into her mind there flashed the memory of her own moment of nakedness the night before. Quickly she raised her eyes to his face, and heard his swift intake of breath as he read her involuntary message. ‘You mean-your bathrobe,’ she said.

‘Of course,’ he said curtly. ‘I’m sorry it was too large-’

It was the wrong thing to say. The memory was there between them again. He stepped back as though scorched.

A woman appeared and Jarvis hastened to introduce her as Sarah Ashton. Meryl judged Sarah to be in her late twenties, with fair hair and a fine aristocratic face, not pretty but handsome. Ferdy had said she ‘had designs’ on Jarvis, and certainly she was looking at Meryl with blatant dislike. But she greeted her politely and stood aside to let her pass into the room. Then she took the place at table next to Jarvis and closest to the teapot.

‘Perhaps you would prefer coffee?’ she asked of Meryl.

‘I like English tea.’

‘Oh, really? Do you drink it very much in America?’

Meryl’s lips twitched. ‘Well, America isn’t on the moon, you know.’

Sarah presided over breakfast, assuming the role of lady of the house, terrifyingly gracious to Meryl, treating her like any casual visitor. If Meryl had been easily intimidated she would have gone down before this onslaught, but she had a determination that matched Sarah’s any day.

She soon sensed that Jarvis was uneasy, and it puzzled her that he shouldn’t have regained his poise. An English lord must surely be enough of a man of the world to cope, even with this situation. She addressed a pleasant remark to him. He answered politely but didn’t follow through, and Sarah steamed in to take over.

It was taking all Jarvis’s self-control to feign indifference. As Meryl had expected, a night’s sleep had restored his temper and he’d been prepared to meet her in a moderately friendly spirit. He would help find her car, and send her on her way with no hard feelings.

That was before he’d talked to Ferdy.

The discovery that this woman was as wealthy as she claimed had appalled him. If he became friendly now she really would think him a fortune-hunter, switching on his smiles for the sake of her money. He groaned inwardly as he recalled some of the things he’d said last night.

He’d watched her with Ferdy in the garden, deep in animated conversation. There was something magnificent about her. And he’d called her passably pretty. How her green eyes had glittered with indignation.

There could be no peace with such a woman, and no man in his right mind would want her around, disrupting his life. But she was splendid, like fire. And as dangerous.

He had tried not to dwell on the memory of her nakedness, but now he abandoned virtue and dwelt on it with pleasure. How could a woman be so slim and yet so beautifully rounded at the same time? Long, elegant thighs, delicately flared hips, a waist so tiny that his hands could almost have met around it-

‘I beg your pardon?’ he said hastily, realising that Sarah had spoken to him.

‘Do you want some more toast, Jarvis?’

‘No,’ he said hurriedly. ‘No, thank you.’

Sarah continued to steer the conversation magisterially, inviting Meryl to talk about herself, her family background. After Ferdy’s words about bloodlines she thought she could see where this was leading, and decided to have a little fun of her own.

‘Daddy was Craddock Winters-’

‘Of oil well fame,’ Ferdy put in.

‘But nobody knows about his family,’ Meryl continued serenely. ‘He was born in a shack because that was all his daddy could afford-at least, the man we think was his daddy, but his mom was a very popular lady and-’

‘You’re overdoing it,’ Ferdy muttered.

‘Am I?’

‘Yes,’ Jarvis added, but he hid his mouth behind his hand.

Only Sarah, with no sense of irony, ploughed on. ‘That must have made your youth very difficult. Unfortunate ancestors can be so hard to live down.’

‘Oh, no,’ Meryl said, her voice becoming more theatrically twangy by the moment. ‘Because by the time I was knee-high to a grasshopper we were rich. Of course we were still common as muck, but when you’re rich nobody calls you that. Leastways, not to your face. ’Course, when they talk to their friends they can say you’re a vulgar, jumped-up little so-and-so with no breedin’ or style.’

Jarvis’s head shot up. ‘I never said-’

He drew a sharp breath as he saw the fool’s trap she’d lured him into. Meryl’s eyes were challenging, filled with laughter.

‘Would you like some more tea?’ he asked tersely.

‘Thank you, yes.’

Ferdy leaned close to Meryl’s ear. ‘Where did you get that accent?’

‘From TV,’ she informed him in her normal voice.

As breakfast was coming to an end Sarah played what should have been her master card. ‘Miss Winters, we all owe you an apology. What my brother did was disgraceful. We both feel that, don’t we, Jarvis?’

‘Disgraceful,’ Jarvis echoed.

Meryl couldn’t resist. ‘Really?’ Her voice suggested unplumbed depths of innocence. ‘Whatever did he do?’

Sarah stared, wrong-footed. ‘Why, he-you mean, you don’t know-?’

For a moment an appalling vista of explanations opened up before them all. Jarvis glanced from one woman to the other and his lips twitched, but he kept his own counsel.

‘Of course she does,’ Ferdy grinned. ‘It’s all right, sis. I’ve made my peace. Meryl’s a very forgiving lady.’

‘For your sake, I hope so.’ Sarah made a partial recovery and addressed Meryl. ‘You must be very annoyed at having wasted your time.’

‘Who says I’ve wasted it? I’ve never been in these parts before, and I’m going to have a fine time looking around.’

‘We’ve got to recover the car,’ Ferdy pointed out.

‘And then I have to explain myself to the hire company,’ Meryl said.

‘I wonder how you’ll do that,’ Jarvis murmured.

‘With great difficulty,’ she came back at him. ‘They’ll probably say something about silly women. I’ll just have to put up with it.’

She was looking directly at him, and suddenly a grin broke over his face. It was a young, hilarious grin, inviting her to share his amusement. It hinted at the man he might have been if care hadn’t bowed him down too early, and seemed mysteriously to be linked with every other aspect of Larne that was subtly creeping into her heart.

‘Well, I’m sure we’re all grateful for your forbearance,’ Sarah declared, taking charge again. ‘It can’t have made a pleasant welcome for you, but I’m afraid you fell foul of the Larne family motto-Let invaders tremble.’

‘Is that what I am?’ Meryl asked hilariously. ‘Me? In that case, perhaps I should move into a hotel.’

It was a bluff. Hell would freeze over before she left a place that was proving more interesting by the minute. She was still watching Jarvis, feeling something start to sing inside her.

He pulled himself together with an effort. ‘I hope you’ll feel able to accept my hospitality as long as you need it.’

‘Why, how nice of you to ask! And so unexpected. I do hope I’m not putting you out.’

‘Not at all,’ Jarvis assured her.

She knew he’d understood her bluff, but was too much of an English gentleman to call it. The first round to her. As she prepared to go he rose to his feet with old-world courtesy, and Meryl could have sworn she surprised a look of reluctant appreciation in his eyes.

Ferdy was a charming companion, even if she did know he had an axe to grind. He conveyed her to the shore in his little boat, powered by an outboard motor, tied it up and led her to where he’d parked his car.

Once they’d driven along the coast to Whitby, locating her own vehicle was no problem. Everyone knew of the red sports car that had appeared as the water fell, trapped between some rocks, and vanished as the water rose again. It was a simple matter to arrange for a local firm to rescue it at the next low tide.

‘In the meantime, all my clothes are down there with it,’ she sighed.

An afternoon in the local shops took care of that. To Meryl, used to having everything made for her, it came as an eye-opener how much she liked the chic, sexy garments she found in this little place.

‘I’d have had to pay ten times as much for this in New York,’ she said, parading before Ferdy in a deep red woollen dress. ‘And I love it.’

She’d meant to buy only the bare essentials until she could get back into Benedict’s care, but she came away loaded with parcels. By that time the day was advanced and she called the castle to let Hannah know she wouldn’t be there for a meal. Then Ferdy took her to dinner and they had a long talk.

Late in the evening he ferried her across the water, carried her bags to the door, kissed her cheek, and went away, whistling. Hannah met her with the news that she’d left out ‘a little snack’ in the Library.

The Library lights were off except for one standard lamp and the fire. She chose a chair by the hearth, sitting cautiously lest the fragile brocade be further damaged. It was here Jarvis found her a few minutes later, followed by his dogs. He set down a bottle of wine and two glasses on a low table, and dropped to his knees to build up the fire. In his old darned trousers, and a shirt open at the throat, he seemed to glow with the fire, a healthy, vibrant countryman who’d spent his day in the open.

When he’d finished arranging logs he remained sitting on the floor, filling the glasses with wine.

‘Did you find your car?’ he asked.

‘Yes, but it’s wedged between some rocks and it’s going to take a crane to lift it out. They’ll do it tomorrow. In the meantime I had to buy some new things. I shall be glad to get out of this suit.’

‘It must be difficult wearing the same clothes two days running,’ he agreed.

‘Oh, stop that! We did all our fighting last night. Quit treating me like an enemy you had to repel.’

Not an enemy, but a danger, he thought. The greatest danger Larne had ever faced. The next moment she did something even more threatening.

‘Look, I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘This was all my fault-well, no, part of it was Ferdy’s fault. Anyway, it wasn’t yours. I suppose it was a bit much to descend without warning and expect you to cope.’

That nettled him. ‘I can cope with whatever gets thrown at me.’

‘Really? Most people say I’m too much for anyone to cope with.’

‘You flatter yourself,’ he said ironically.

‘That’s unkind when I’ve apologised.’

He grinned reluctantly. ‘You know how to cut the ground out from under a man’s feet.’ Whatever he’d expected, it wasn’t an apology.

Meryl uncovered the snack, which turned out to be chicken and salad and trifle. The dogs promptly gave her their full attention.

‘What are their names?’

‘Rusty and Jacko. They’re pests. I don’t know why I bother to keep them.’

‘Because you’re crazy about them,’ Meryl said.

He grunted. ‘Yes, that must be it.’

Rusty had been watching her carefully. Suddenly he dived for the plate and seized the chicken piece up in his mouth before she could stop him.