Seductive Stranger

James Allardyce looked at her, then away, a dark flush in his face.

'No, he was here on estate business—we're wall-mending, before lambing starts, and Josh was making out the rota. We all help out on jobs like that; every year some walls get damaged by weather, both rain and snow can make a wall collapse, not to mention the sheep! It's a never- ending chore, like painting the Forth Bridge.'

'So he didn't ask if we were going there for dinner?'

Her father didn't look up. 'He mentioned it. I'd promised to let them know, and I'd been putting it off until you woke up.' He gave her another of those pleading looks, and Prue suppressed a sigh. How could she refuse when he looked at her like that?

'Well, if you want to go,' she said, and her father's face brightened.

'You'll come? I'm sure you'd enjoy it, Prue. It's a lovely house, you know—do you remember it?'

'Oh, yes,' she said with faint irony as he got up, but he seemed deaf to her tone, and suddenly in a tearing hurry to get to the phone.

"Lucy will be delighted,' he happily said. 'I'd better ring her now. Josh said he'd shot some partridges and Lucy will want to know how many birds she'll need to prepare.' He looked back at Prue. 'You do like

partridge?'

'1 can't remember ever eating them, but I like duck and quail, so I probably like partridge; one game bird is much like another, isn't it?'

He made a laughing face. '1 wouldn't say that, but I'm sure you ate partridge as a child; there are so many game birds on the estate and I used to bring them all home. 1 don't remember you disliking any of them. Crab, now, you didn't like that.'

'Seafood brings me out in a rash!' she said, moved that he remembered.

He picked up the phone on the other side of the kitchen. Prue drank her tea, frowning. She still wasn't eager to facie Lucy Killane, but she had to meet her again some time—why not tonight? Every time her father mentioned the other woman her antennae quivered. Maybe her mother hadn't exaggerated or invented anything! She didn't know what was between her father and Lucy Killane—but she was sure there was something!

She listened to her father talking. 'Lucy? Jim. We're coming! Yes.

Josh told me; Prue likes partridge, at least, we think she does!' His voice was warm, intimate, casual—and that was the real give-away.

He was talking to Lucy Killane the way a man talks to his wife, and again Prue thought ... if they love each other, why haven't they got married? There was no point in speculating, though, so she slipped upstairs to look through her wardrobe.

She hadn't brought anything very chic with her—she only had one really special dress, jade green, smooth-fitting, made in silky Merino wool by one of Australia's top young designers. Deciding to wear that, she hunted out some small gold earrings and a fine gold chain which matched, a gold link bracelet watch her stepfather had given her on her twenty-first birthday. She chose black shoes and black stockings, some filmy black underwear, laid them all out on her bed, then went to have a bath. She wouldn't be nervous of facing the Killanes if she looked her best.

Prue liked to travel light, with meant jeans and shorts and thin cotton tops, all uncreasable and easy to wash. This visit had been intended as a brief one before she and David headed for France then down through Spain to the sun again, or maybe to Italy. They hadn't made any specific plans or booked anything. David had said, 'Let's free-fall, take it as it comes!' and she had cheerfully said, 'Yes, let's!' and each of them had packed the minimum. It would have been a carefree way of travelling if Prue hadn't had her father on her mind; she wished now that she had left this trip to Yorkshire until the end of the holiday. David wouldn't be in a hospital bed and she wouldn't be in this bath, dreading the thought of the dinner party ahead of her!

As time ticked by, she grew more and more edgy, and her father looked anxiously at her as they drove to Killane House.

'I'm sure you'll enjoy yourself—they're very hospitable.'

She dredged up a smile from somewhere. 'I'm fine, don't worry, Dad.'

He tried to look hopeful, but merely looked nervous. Five minutes later, they drove up a long, tree-lined drive and pulled up outside the shabby, glorious facade of the old house; the car's headlights shone over it and Prue gave a gasp as she saw tiny, black shapes stream upwards from under the roof.

'Dad! What on earth . . ..?'

James Allardyce laughed. 'Pipistrelle bats—quite harmless!' he said, and just then Josh Killane materialised out of the shadows under the portico. He was in a dinner-jacket and had barely shown up against the unlit stone walls.

'This must be Count Dracula!' Prue muttered, and her father laughed.

'Poor Josh—you have got it in for him! But I must admit he looks the part.'

Josh came down the steps, bent down, nodded to Prue. 'Welcome to our home,' he said formally, opening her door.

She slid out with a shiver of reluctance and he glanced down at her. it is quite chilly tonight—c

ome in quickly, it's much warmer in the house now that we've installed central heating. It was a draughty old barn when I was a boy, but it's much more comfortable now.'

'Funny you should compare it to a barn!' said her father. 'Prue just jumped out of her skin when she saw some bats up there.' He pointed upwards. 'Did you know there were bats under the roof, Josh?'