breathed again.
Some while later she recognised they were nearing the smart area where Astra's father's flat was… `I should be driving you home,' she said hurriedly.
'You've had a long and-trying-day,' he answered kindly.
And Yancie was quite taken suddenly by the fact that this man she was sitting beside had not barked at her once in the last couple of hours. She was still feeling a little bemused by his kindness when, Thomson having read her address once, apparently, and with his photographic memory filed it away, he pulled the car up outside her home.
She vaguely recalled she had a shoulder bag in the back somewhere, and stretched an arm back, connected with it, but in pulling it over she accidentally clipped Thomson on the ear with it.
Oh, my word, he was not amused. But unfortunately, at the what-the-hell-are-you going-to-do-next kind of look he threw at her, Yancie very nearly collapsed.
Oh, help, she could feel a fit of the giggles coming on. It was his pained expression that triggered it. She laughed; he didn't. She strove hard for control-it was a wasted effort. Thomson got out of the car. Think of something awful. She couldn't.
He came round to the passenger door and Yancie got out of the car, her eyes brimming with merriment. She coughed down another giggle as she struggled for control.
Oh, my giddy aunt, she would have sworn she hadn't had a fit of the giggles since she and her cousins had been at boarding-school. But, as she stood on the pavement with him, so Yancie knew she was fighting a losing battle with her giggle-muscles.
She was still swallowing down laughter, or trying to, when Thomson, standing there silently studying her, found the cure. `You're stupid!' he gritted exasperatedly. And when that only seemed to make her explode into more giggles he did no more than catch hold of her and, his head starting to come nearer, he kissed her.
There was not a glimmer of laughter about Yancie when he pulled back to look down at her. Satisfied, as she just stood there and stared at him, Thomson, without so much as a goodnight, turned and walked away.
Walked away and left her with a wild mixture of emotions raging in her. He started up the Jaguar and drove off, but Yancie didn't move. She had known Thomson had a wonderful mouth, but had never thought to experience it against her own.
Yet, while it had not been a lover's kiss, or even a friend's kiss, it was a kiss that seemed to shatter all she knew. Her heart, her mind seemed to be in uproar. She felt breathless, dizzy-and had the craziest notion that-if she didn't know better-she'd have said she had fallen in love with him!
CHAPTER FIVE
SHE WAS not, not, not in love with Thomson, Yancie told herself repeatedly as the weekend came and went. She was still telling herself the same thing when Thursday rolled around again-a week, a whole week since she had last seen him-and thoughts of the head man at Addison Kirk seemed to be still totally dominating her mind.
She supposed, on balance, seeing what a hash she'd made of it the last time she'd been called upon to chauffeur him-when he had ended up chauffeuring her-that she couldn't blame him for not requesting her to drive him since. And yet-even though she wasn't in love with him-she missed him. Indeed, sometimes she felt so heartsore, she ached just to see him. But she wasn't in love with him!
Yancie occasionally worried that she might be growing to be like her mother, or her cousins' mothers, Aunt Portia or Aunt Imogen. But it didn't feel like it. This-this feeling inside of her wasn't a feeling she got for any one anywhere-likely-looking man. It was just for Thomson Wakefield.
It upset her, this new and never experienced-before emotion. Yet, when she, Astra and Fennia had always been able to discuss absolutely everything, including their innermost thoughts, she felt completely unable to discuss this-whatever it was she felt for Thomson-with them. It was too private. Somehow, it was much too private to share with even her two lovely cousins.
Yancie tried hard to think of something else other than Thomson, yet thoughts of him seemed to consume her. Ridiculous, she told herself; totally ridiculous. It was for sure he wasn't wasting a minute's sleep in thinking of her. If he were, he'd be on that phone to Kevin asking for her to drive him somewhere. But had he rung for her? Had he blazes!
'What's the matter, Yancie`?' Fennia asked her when they met up at Astra's flat that night.
'Matter?'
'You've been-different. All this week you've been quiet. Sort of as if your mind is elsewhere.'
'I'm sorry,' Yancie apologised.
Fennia shrugged her apology aside. `You're not having problems at work? With your mother?'
'Oh, Fen!' Here was she, moping about, when Fennia had much more serious problems. `How are things with you and your mother?'
'Like she doesn't want to know.'
'What we need is a party,' Yancie decided to be cheerful.
'True, but Astra's got a whole load of work on this weekend, and it wouldn't be fair.'
'So Saturday night's out,' Yancie agreed.
'In which case, I'll take myself off on Saturday to see my mother-who knows? She might give me a less frosty reception than last time.'
'Would you like me to come with you?'
'I couldn't let you,' Fennia replied-they both knew that if Portia Cavendish was not ready to make friends with her daughter, then her cousin Yancie would be included in the permafrost.
'We've been through worse.'
Fennia laughed. `Do you remember…?'
With Astra busy most of Saturday, and with Fennia planning to call on her mother that evening-Fennia's mother refused to speak to her daughter on the telephone-Yancie, for the first time in her life, felt at a loose end.
She had worked on Saturday morning, getting a Mercedes spruced up. Because she was off to the airport very early on Sunday morning, taking Mr Clements to catch a plane, she was being allowed to take the Mercedes home.
Yancie knew full well that she was not allowed to use the car for personal use but she felt out of sorts, without feeling ill. Felt restless, unsettled and needing to be doing something. She could, she knew, go and pay her mother a visit. And Ralph would always welcome her; she knew that.
But, as ever, she turned to her aunt Delia in this time of needing she knew not what. Yancie drove the Mercedes over to her aunt's home.
'Yancie, my dear, how lovely to see you!' Aunt Delia beamed, warming Yancie's heart immediately. `Come and tell me all you've been up to.'
Two hours later, while making a determined effort that her aunt should not know she was feeling a little flat just then, Yancie was enjoying her aunt's company when Delia Alford said she'd make some more tea. 'I'll make it!' Yancie straight away volunteered, when just then the telephone rang.
'You answer the phone-I'll make it,' her aunt countermanded at once. `I don't want to speak to Imogen Kirby if it's her.'
'I'll tell her you're tied up with the plumber.' Yancie laughed, guessing the two half-sisters had had words about something or other.
It was not her aunt Imogen, Astra's mother, on the phone, however, but Matthew Grant, a friend of Greville's, asking if by any chance Greville was there. `That's not Mrs Alford, is it?' it suddenly dawned on him.
'Guess again,' Yancie suggested, having met Matthew on numerous occasions, and liking him very much.
'You've got to be one of Greville's stunning cousins.'
'Which one?'
'I can't say 'the pretty one', because you're all ravishing.'
'I wonder why some girl hasn't snapped you up yet, Matthew?' Yancie laughed. `It's Yancie. How are things with you?'
