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He smiled, and she felt her pulses leap. It was too early in the morning for her to be able to cope with the wonderful sweetness of that smile.

'Don't worry,' he said. 'I know what Brian's like. Thank you for caring enough about him to be worried.'

This wasn't Prentice McCulloch! This wasn't the man she had met and been so disturbed by a few weeks before. This man, who watched her as he reclined lazily in his bed, was relaxed and very, very human. Prentice sat up suddenly and reached for her wrist.

'You don't have to run away,' he told her mildly. 'I'm not going to eat you.' The covers slid downwards to his waist.

Oh lord! Dani wanted to escape from the jade eyes and the curving mouth that seemed to mock her, and from the tanned body revealed by the falling bedclothes. Did he sleep in the nude and was one of them about to be very embarrassed? She doubted that it would be him.

'I have to get ready for school,' she protested weakly. 'I have to change, have breakfast. . .'Getting to school early was one of the things she prided herself upon, but timing was all important.

'Oh? You aren't going to school like that?' His eyes ran down the T-shirt to the figure-hugging jeans.

'Of course not!' She laughed at the idea. 'These were the first things I could find.'

'You look like a kid.' His gaze slid upwards. 'Well, part of you does,' he amended with a lift of his eyebrows, and Dani remembered how the T-shirt clung to her body and felt the red creeping into her cheeks.

'I have to go,' she said again. 'I've got a busy day today.'

'No, not yet. Tell me what's happening in the village.' His hand was still on her wrist, not hurting her but holding her securely. 'I think you should be civil to me after you were rude enough to wake me up.'

Dani wanted to know what he was doing there anyway, but she did not like to ask. He had given her an ideal opportunity to talk to him, however, and for the sake of the village and the school she loved so much, Dani did not hesitate. She did not want to stay with the man, but this was more important than her own feelings. With a daring that she did not know she possessed, she perched on the side of his bed and looked straight at him.

'I'm on the committee for the annual fete,' she told him quietly. 'We have to decide if we can hold one this year, and if so, where.'

'Where do you usually hold it?' A glitter of understanding appeared in his eyes. 'Or could I guess?'

'Mrs Desmond always allowed us to hold it on the front lawns of the Manor,' Dani admitted. 'We always left the place immaculate . . . we're always very careful.. .'

'And there's nowhere else?'

'No. No one has a garden big enough to take all the stalls and the marquees.'

'Marquees?'

'Only little ones,' Dani told him hastily.

'I see.'

There was a short silence and Dani wondered frantically how long she would be able to keep her eyes pinned to his face when her curiosity was niggling at her to let her glance slide downwards, just a little.

Keith, when she had been married to him, had been nearly nineteen and had possessed the body of a youth. Prentice McCulloch had the body of a man; a powerful man whose conservative clothing completely camouflaged the smooth, muscular planes of his chest and arms. She wanted to look at him again, and as the thought stayed in her mind she shrank inwardly from the tiny shaft of desire that ran through her. What would it be like to touch that warm, tanned skin? What would it be like to be drawn closely against the strength of his body and to rest her head on his shoulder? What would ...

'I don't see why you shouldn't use the grounds again this year.' What was he saying? Startled, Dani focused her eyes on his face again. 'The club won't be opening for several months.' He shrugged. 'There's no reason why you shouldn't have the use of the grounds.'

'Why. . . thank you!' She was too surprised to say much more. It was so unexpected, this generous gesture of his. 'It's very kind of you.'

'It'll delay the need for you to find another place at short notice.' He sounded offhand. 'Do you need any part of the house, too?'

'Well, the kitchens?' She knew she was perhaps asking for too much, but he seemed to be in a good mood.

'Such as they are, they're yours.' Again that casualness. 'Tell your committee they can come and go as they please. Most of the work's taking place around the back, but they can liaise with Harry about that and make sure they don't get in his way.'

'Thank you.'

'My pleasure.'

The committee would be so relieved! Dani could imagine their faces when she told them the good news, and involuntarily she smiled.

'Something funny?' He missed nothing.

'Not really. I'm just happy we've had a reprieve. The fete usually raises a lot of money for the school and for other clubs in the village, too. The over-sixties club, the youth club . . .'

'I'm sure.' He interrupted her, but he was smiling. 'Maybe I'll come along and see for myself.'

'You should open it!' Dani was carried away by her enthusiasm. 'The house is yours now, and . . .'

'. . . and maybe not.' The smile widened, quirking the corners of his mouth upwards. 'I think that might be rather too much for the village to take, don't you?'

Reluctantly Dani nodded. 'Maybe,' she admitted. 'Sorry. Oh!' Another thought struck her. 'One more thing.'

'Lady, don't you think you've wrung enough out of me for one day?'

'The children always used to have a nature ramble across the bottom of the estate,' she said breathlessly. 'Through the spinney and over the stream . . .'

'. . . and you'd like to do it again this year.' He finished the sentence for her. 'Well, why not? But I'm soon going to have the stream cleared.'

'We'll come today,' Dani promised. 'You won't even know we're around.'

'Hmm.' He seemed to doubt the veracity of that statement. 'Well, just be careful none of the kids fall in and drown. I'm unpopular enough as it is.'

The remark could have been uttered in such a way as to make the man seem uncaring, and yet Dani knew instinctively that it was not meant like that. It was as though he was somehow ashamed of the gesture he had made to her, and was covering up his generosity.

'They won't drown,' she said confidently. 'Thank you.'

'My pleasure.' He stretched his arms above his head, and this time Dani could not restrain herself from staring at him. There was such strength in that lean, supple frame. Vitality flowed out to her from the tips of his flexed fingers all the way down his arching body to his waist, and she felt herself begin to melt inside in sheer wanton need of his power.

No! She stopped herself sharply. It was stupid to think like that. Yet there was something disturbingly intimate about the unselfconsciousness of his action, as though she had sat on the side of his bed many times before and his nakedness was something very familiar to her.

'I have to go.' Awkwardly she got to her feet, aware of how close they had been on Brian's couch and how she had just been staring at him openly. 'Or I really shall be late for school.'

'I'd hate to make you late.' As if a mask had been dropped into place, he became cool and polite. Only his rumpled hair and his lack of clothes were reminders of the unguarded man she had seen only seconds before.

'Yes. Well . . .' She could think of no suitable way to close the conversation.'. . . thank you once again. You've been very kind.'

'I have, haven't I?' He seemed a little surprised. 'You must have caught me on a good day. Or before I was awake.'

'Sorry.'

'So you should be.'

Dani did not realise that her watch was missing until after she had returned to school from her afternoon ramble with the infants. It was small and gold but its importance to her was not in the value. It had been a twenty-first birthday present from her parents.

Worried and apprehensive, she saw all her charges on their way home, and then began to retrace her steps, her eyes scanning the ground all the time, walking back down the street along which she had just come.

On the pavement it was possible to keep up a reasonable pace, but when she turned into the narrow road that passed the main entrance to the Manor, she stopped and bit her lip in frustration. So much ground to cover, and her first search had to be along the edge of the village pond.

It was not a nice pond. For a long time now, Dani had been urging the parish council to have it dredged and cleaned, but so far her lobbying had fallen on deaf ears. Algae grew so thickly on it that she had thrown a small stone into the middle to demonstrate this to the children, and it had been a couple of seconds before the green crust on the pond had been sufficiently weakened to let the stone sink from sight. The children knew it well, of course, but Dani had stopped there to try and point out some of the small birds that made their homes in the trees that grew on the far side, and a couple of uncommon plants that were struggling for survival in their deep shade.

If she had lost it around here, then she would probably never find it. Dani hunted along the edge of the pond and then promised herself that she would look again
on
her way home. The smell of rotting vegetation' made her wrinkle her nose in disgust, and once again she wondered how the village could stand having such an eyesore.

Abandoning the search there for a while, she climbed the stile that led into the field she had so recently crossed with the children, staring around her in dismay at the acres of grass before her. It had seemed quite a small field when she had last walked over it, but now it only served to underline the enormity of her task.

The sun beat down strongly on her back and penetrated the thin cotton of her blouse to heat her shoulders. She sat on the top of the stile and scanned the grass for a few minutes, looking for a reflection of the sun's rays off her watch glass, but she could see nothing. With an inward shrug at her own optimism, she climbed down and set off across the field, her eyes raking the greenness around her, and just occasionally raising her head to look at her destination so that she did not completely lose track of where she was going.

It was more pleasant to search around in the spinney, when she finally reached it, because the leaves protected her from the direct glare of the sun. Yet it was also more difficult because it was hard for her to keep track of every single tree and shrub. She just could not be sure that she had not missed some vital piece of ground.

Eventually she reached the shallow, slow-moving stream that wound its way sluggishly around stones and over weed. Prentice was right to want to have it cleared, she thought. It was not pretty in its present state, although a haven for tiny creatures that would be disturbed when it was invaded by men with spades and rakes.

Dani could remember exactly where they had crossed the stream, and she sat down on the bank and let her eyes work for her, scanning every centimetre of grass and stones and mud, and then peering into the water. It was hopeless! She kept her eyes on the stream, unwilling to give up the search even for a moment, but she allowed her shoulders to droop and she rested her elbows on her bent knees and let her chin drop into her hand.

'What are you doing?' The soft voice made her jump and she tilted her head back to see Prentice McCulloch a little further up on the other side of the stream, his hands in the pockets of his trousers as he watched her.

'I've lost my watch,' she said simply. 'I'm just sitting here looking for a minute before I go back through the spinney. How did you know I was here?'

'Saw you from one of the bedroom windows. I thought you seemed to be looking for something. Can I help?'

'Oh.' Suddenly the tears were close, and she blinked them away furiously, knowing that it was the quiet concern in his voice that had caused them.

'You'd rather I went away again?' The green eyes were quizzical and she smiled wanly.

'No, of course not. It was nice of you to come, but. . .' she gestured around her hopelessly, ' ... it could be anywhere.' A great lump rose in her throat at the thought of never having her watch on her wrist again. She had loved it so much.

'We'll find it.' He crossed the stream as he spoke, his long legs spanning its width easily, and when he held out his hand to her, she took it gratefully and allowed him to pull her to her feet. 'It's too early to give up yet,' he continued, and in the quietness of the spinney his voice sounded gentle. 'Where have you looked?'

'Everywhere.'

'If you'd looked everywhere, you'd have found it.' He squeezed her fingers and she felt her heart contract with the pressure. He was trying to help, he almost seemed concerned for her, and she smiled. The least she could do was to allow him to raise her hopes a little.

'That's right,' she agreed. 'And I'm sure it's on this side of the stream. I was lifting the children across.'

'So you could have dropped it in the water?'

'I suppose so.'

'I see.' As she watched him, his eyes scanned the narrow stretch of water and then returned to the same stone she had stood upon to lift the children across. 'Did that take your weight without sinking?' He nodded to the stone without looking at her.

'Yes.'

'Well, I'm not sure that it'll bear mine, so just in case . . .'

He had a tweed sports jacket slung over his shoulder. As she waited, he threw it to the ground and rolled up the sleeves of his immaculate cream shirt. Then he took off his socks and shoes and placed them neatly side by side, obviously not at all confident of the stability or the safety of the rock. And he was right. As he stepped on to it, it sank just enough to allow a trickle of water to flow over it, and he flashed Dani a grin of triumph that his judgement had been so accurate before crouching down so that he could run his hands along the bed of the stream.

The water was not deep, but Dani could imagine the squelchy mud and weeds at the bottom and she wrinkled her nose, hating the idea of sinking her own hands into the silted bed. If her watch was really in there, then it was probably ruined.

The sun glinted on his head, highlighting the auburn tints, and she leaned against a tree and watched him, fascinated by his absorption, her eyes running along the curved line of his spine to the back of his unprotected neck upon which the sun shone hotly.