department.’
‘That was a long time ago,’ said Leonie dismissively.
‘Who are you trying to kid?’ Jess’s dark eyes mocked beneath the ash-blonde hair. ‘I saw you earlier on tonight.’
Leonie felt heat rush to her face. ‘You could see?’
‘Only because I was just behind you. No one else noticed, Leo. But from where I was standing—shuffling about, really; the boy couldn’t dance—it was pretty steamy.’
Leonie groaned and laid her head down on her knees. ‘Jonah was making an experiment to prove something to me. And it worked, damn him.’
‘Chemistry lesson?’
‘Exactly.’
Jess sighed. ‘No wonder you looked a bit hacked off when he asked me to dance.’ She grinned. ‘Not that I was flattered. I just happened to be nearest. He never said a solitary word except to thank me politely afterwards and take off as soon as he could.’
Leonie raised her head again, her eyes heavy. ‘It was so mortifying, Jess. The hormones still responded to Jonah no matter how hard the brain tried to put on the brakes.’ She shrugged. ‘Not that it matters. I’m unlikely to see him again.’
Jess frowned. ‘But if you still feel like that after all these years, Leo, couldn’t you bring yourself to forgive Jonah’s one indiscretion and get together again? I assume it was just the one?’ she added.
‘As far as I know. But don’t be fooled by what happened tonight, there’s absolutely no chance of my getting back with Jonah. Ever.’
‘Pity.’ Jess sighed, then stood up to wriggle out of her dress. ‘Though that’s tempting fate a bit, Leo. Never say never.’
CHAPTER THREE
NEXT morning, after what felt like only a few minutes’ sleep, Leonie got up early to help her mother provide breakfast for any of the guests who could face it. She slid out of bed as quietly as she could to let Jess and Kate sleep on, washed and dressed in Fenny’s little bathroom and went downstairs in the pale light of a cool spring morning.
Glad to find the kitchen empty, and her parents and Fenny still presumably sleeping, Leonie laid the big table, set out an array of cups and beakers on the central island, then filled kettles and got out coffee, sliced bread. Afterwards she made herself a pot of tea and some toast, surprised to find she was hungry. When her mother arrived a little later she smiled in surprise.
‘You’re early, darling, I hoped you’d sleep in for a bit.’
‘I opted for the inflatable mattress,’ said Leonie, grinning. ‘It was no hardship to desert it for the lures of breakfast.’ She poured tea for her mother, and offered to make toast.
‘Thank you, I think I will. Frankly I could have stayed in bed a lot longer this morning, but I had visions of pallid, hungover young things needing coffee and no one here to provide it.’
‘They could have gone over to the Stables and made Adam feed them.’
‘Always supposing they could wake him.’ Frances laughed. ‘I wonder how everyone slept? I imagine there was quite a fight for beds.’
‘Students are used to sleeping on floors,’ Leonie assured her. ‘I did it often enough in my youth.’
‘Darling, you talk as though you were Methuselah!’
‘I’m staring thirty in the face, Mother,’ Leonie reminded her.
‘You don’t look it this morning in those jeans. And last night you positively dazzled in that amazing dress. Nor was I the only one to think so.’ Frances buttered her toast and bit into it appreciatively. ‘I needed this. I didn’t eat much last night. And you abandoned your supper the moment Jonah arrived.’
Leonie eyed her mother in amusement. ‘Nothing gets by you, does it?’
The interlude of peace was short. In twos and threes the yawning party goers came down to join them. When Tom Dysart arrived with Fenny and Kate he gave a wry look into the room full of chattering females, and accepted with alacrity when offered a tray in his study.
Leonie took it in to him with the Sunday papers, stayed to chat for a while, then volunteered to fetch Marzi from the farm while Fenny and Kate had breakfast with the other girls. She collected a jacket from a peg in the scullery and went out alone into the crisp, bright morning, her lips twitching at the sight of drawn curtains and total absence of life in the Stables.
Leonie walked briskly down the drive and out on to the main road, passing only the occasional churchgoing car in the quiet of early Sunday. After a mile or so she turned down the lane which led to Springfield Farm, smiling at the sounds of yapping and barking in the distance as pungent, familiar smells came up to greet her. When she reached the farmhouse a young giant in stockinged feet opened the door in answer to her knock, Chris Morgan’s yawn changing to a grin at the sight of his visitor.
‘Well, well, Leo Dysart, home from foreign parts! Come in, come in.’
‘Hi, Chris, nice to see you again.’
Leonie kicked off her muddy boots in the back entry and followed Chris into the welcoming warmth of a kitchen where tempting smells of fried bacon hung in the air. Chris gestured towards the table and pushed the teapot towards her.
‘Sit down, help yourself. My father’s taken your dog out with ours. They’ll be back in a minute. My mother’s away, visiting my sister and new sprog.’
Leonie exclaimed in surprise. She’d attended primary school with both Chris and his sister Jenny. It came as a shock to hear that the new ‘sprog’ was Jenny’s third son.
Chris was all for providing Leonie with a vast fry-up, like the one he was devouring himself, but she shook her head, laughing.
‘I’ve had breakfast. And if I ate one like that every morning I’d need a new wardrobe.’
He grinned. ‘My turn for the milking this morning, I need refuelling. Besides, I’m a growing lad.’
‘Heavens, I hope not!’
‘How did the party go?’ he asked, as he went on with his meal.
‘Very well. I’ve left Mother and Kate serving coffee to the female revellers. There was no sign of life from Adam’s place.’
Chris made himself a sandwich with the last of his bacon and sat back, looking at her with open pleasure. ‘You look very perky for the morning after, Leo. Downright gorgeous, in fact.’
‘Why, thank you, kind sir,’ she retorted, fluttering her eyelashes. ‘Though if I do it’s a wonder. I spent half of yesterday travelling, and the other half partying. I’ll probably collapse in a heap today at some stage.’
Chris got up, eyebrows raised, in response to a knock on the back door. ‘Like Piccadilly Circus here this morning,’ he said, grinning.
The grin was missing when he returned with the new arrival.
‘Hello,
