bed, hadn't you?' he remarked at length. `I imagine you're going to be up very early.'
Her heart picked up speed. `Have I still got my job?' she asked eagerly. `Or do you intend I should do just this one job from expediency, then see to it I'm dismissed as soon as I get to work on Monday?'
'You know better than that!' he clipped, curtly-and she rather thought she did.
'I'm sorry,' she apologised at once, and, having just added insult to the rest of her crimes, she decided it might be an idea to get out of there before she said something that might annoy him some more-when he wouldn't give her another chance.
She had turned about to open the driver's door, when Thomson put his hand on her arm to stay her, his hand remaining on her upper arm, an exclamation leaving him. 'Ye gods, you're like ice!' he added-it didn't feel that way to her; his touch, his skin against her skin was burning. `Where's your coat?' he demanded.
'I didn't bring one!'
He did not comment adversely on that, as she fully expected, but, ever a man of decisions, in next to no time he had shrugged out of his jacket, and was wrapping its delicious warmth about her.
She was, she started to realise only then, freezing. Thomson Wakefield apparently had the power to make her forget all about the skimpiness of her attire on such a cold night.
Feeling quite dazed, Yancie turned again to open the driver's door. But found that Thomson was directing her to the passenger's door.
'I'll drive,' he said, and they were both in the car heading down the drive before she got her wits back.
'Where are we going?' she asked, which she owned wasn't the brightest of questions. `I mean, if you're driving me home, you'll need the car to get back to the party, and I won't have a car to take Doug…'
'I'm not going back to the party.'
'You're not?' she questioned, but managed to find a little more brain power from somewhere. `Oh, Thomson, I… Oh, heck!' she mumbled, realising she had just called the head of Addison Kirk by his first name. `Is that a sackable offence?' she asked. He laughed, just as if he couldn't help it; he laughed, and she loved it, as she loved him. `I'm sorry,' she went on swiftly, not ready yet to more fully acknowledge this world-shattering thing that had happened to her. `I didn't want to spoil the evening for you.'
'You haven't,' he assured her, his laughter gone but his tone pleasant.
'You were thinking of leaving the party anyway?' she began to question, and then thought of something else. `Did you spot me-nonchalantly-on my way out?'
'Too casual to be true,' he commented.
'You really are kind. As I may have mentioned before,' she added. And added too, only hurriedly, 'I'm not trying to butter you up, honestly, but you could have…' Her voice faded; she started to feel a fool. `So what's happening?' she asked unhappily.
'What's happening,' he took up, `since we're heading in your general direction, is that I'm going to drive as far as my place, and you're taking this car the rest of the way.'
'I see,' she murmured. 'You're-um-not going back to the party.' Somehow, she seemed more than a little confused, and even though he'd already said he wasn't going back to the party she felt a need to get everything crystal-clear in her head.
'And neither are you,' he stated.
'I'm not?'
'You're not,' he promised her firmly.
Well, that was clear enough. `Where's your car, by the way-the Aston Martin?'
'Where I parked it,' he replied, which to her mind was no kind of an answer. But it seemed she had recently come through a very sticky patch, and since by the skin of her teeth it seemed she still had her job Yancie decided not to push it.
So, `Thank you,' she said prettily. `What for?'
Not to go overboard-for being absolutely wonderful. `For letting me keep my job.'
'So what's with this pride thing?'
'Pride thing?'
'You said you needed this job,' he reminded her. `That it was a pride thing.'
'Ah.'
''Ah', as in?'
'As in you know so much, there's little more to tell.'
Silence reigned for several seconds. Then, `You're not going to leave it there, are you?' Thomson asked, and, fantastically, sounded in a very good humor.
'We're nearly at your house,' she said, recognising that part of the road.
'SO?'
'So my stepfather-and rightly so,' she inserted fairly, `was a little displeased when I lent my car to a friend and…'
'And said friend concertinaed it.'
Her mother had acquainted him with the fact. `Exactly,' Yancie agreed.
'You normally get on with the stepfather? Presumably-since your mother's just got engaged-her ex- husband?'
'I get on very well with him,' she agreed. `In point of fact, Ralph's a dear, and I love him very much, and he had every right to be cross with me.'
'But?'
'But-well, nothing, really.'
'But?' Thomson repeated-a man, she guessed, who seldom repeated a question. She roused herself to answer as requested.
'Well, he was rightly cross, as I said, and I would have taken a telling-off as my due.'
'Only?'
'Only my stepsister, Estelle, surprised me by chipping in and saying she hoped I wouldn't expect her father to buy me another car. I'd honestly no idea she resented me so much! Anyhow, when I said I'd pay for a new car out of my allowance, Estelle reminded me it was an allowance her father paid me, andand…' her voice faltered.
'And even though you worked unpaid as his housekeeper you knew you could never take another penny from your stepfather,' Thomson finished for her, and Yancie turned in her seat and stared at him.
'How do you know me so well?' she gasped.
The corner of his mouth twitched. `I don't I'm learning all the time.'
He made that sound so nice that Yancie was near to crumbling as he slowed the car and steered it up the drive to his house. That, she felt, as he pulled up at his door, had to be the most terrific drive of her life. The trouble was that she didn't want to part from him-yet had absolutely no reason to linger.
Yancie quickly pulled herself together. Good grief, they'd just been talking of pridehad she none where he was concerned? Acting on the moment, as Thomson started to come round to the passenger's door, she quickly got out and pinned a bright smile on her face.
'Thanks for the loan of the jacket!' she said cheerfully, taking it off and handing it to him-at once feeling in danger of getting frostbite as the cold night air nipped.
Thomson looked at her-five feet eight, slender and totally feminine. 'You'll be all right driving on your own at this hour?'
She looked back at him and sorely needed some backbone-she was in danger of melting. `You'll have to watch that, Wakefield,' she jibed. `Your gentlemanly streak is showing!'
He studied her. `Are you always looking for trouble?' he asked good-humouredly.
'It always seems to find me without me having to look for it especially,' she laughed-and then, as the cold night bit, she shivered-and Thomson took decisive action.
'You can't go home like that. You'd better come in; I'll get you a sweater.'
'I wouldn't dream…' She was talking to herself. He was already unlocking the door to his house, and he still had the car keys. `You don't have to…' she protested anyway, following him in. `Once I'm inside the car's heater will… '
'You've next to nothing on.' He closed the door behind her, and was totally intransigent. `With those bitty shoulder straps you're all bare arms and bare chest.'
