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.