that she had been staring, she turned away in embarrassment, making some comment about her uncle waiting for the bottles, and she sensed, rather than saw, Mark and his companion go down the hall and enter the private lounge at the back. In the bar, David Sutton regarded her flushed cheeks with some amusement.
‘What’s happened to you?’ he asked, putting the back of his hand against her forehead. ‘You running a fever or something?’
Ashley unloaded the bottles on to the floor behind the bar and began stacking them on the shelves. ‘Of course not,’ she denied swiftly.
David looked down at her bent head. ‘Well, someone’s responsible for that or I’m a Dutchman!’ he declared.
Sighing, Ashley rose to her feet. ‘Mark’s just come home.’
David frowned. ‘So what did he say to you?’
‘Nothing. He—er—he wasn’t alone.’
‘I see. Who was with him? Don’t tell me he’s brought some girl home!’
Ashley moved her shoulders reluctantly. ‘No. It was a man, actually. Someone called – Jake Seton.’
And only as she said the words did realisation of his identity come to her. Seton was the name of the people who lived at Bewford Hall. Sir James Seton was Mark’s employer. Jake Seton had to be some relation.
Her uncle was grinning broadly now. ‘Oh, I’m beginning to see,’ he chuckled, much to her annoyance. ‘It was Jake who spoke to you, was it? Yes—well, the lassies get a bit hot and bothered when he’s around.’
Ashley assumed a defiant stance, her thumbs tucked into the low belt of her jeans. ‘Do they really? Well, I was just embarrassed, that’s all.’
Her uncle nodded thoughtfully. ‘Of course. You won’t have met him yet. But you’ll soon get used to seeing him. He and Mark are good friends in spite of the differences in their backgrounds. I hadn’t heard that he was back.’
In spite of herself, Ashley was curious. ‘Back?’ she echoed.
‘Yes. From Austria. Jake’s been away about six weeks, I guess. Just after Christmas a group of them went on a skiing holiday.’
‘I see.’ That explained the tan, she supposed. ‘Well, do you need any more—bottles, I mean?’
David looked at the neat rows. ‘I don’t think so, love. You go and talk to Mark and Jake. Where’s Karen?’
‘She’s gone out with Frank.’
Her uncle grimaced. He could have wished his daughter was more like Ashley when it came to choosing her friends. ‘All right,’ he said now. ‘I’ll let you know if I need you later.’
Ashley nodded, but when she left the bar she stood rather hesitantly in the hall, wondering whether she dared to go up to her room instead of having to join her aunt and the two men in the lounge. She was hovering near the foot of the stairs when her aunt came out of the lounge closing the door behind her, obviously on her way to the kitchen.
‘Oh, there you are, Ashley,’ she said, when she saw the girl. ‘I’m just going to make some coffee. You go in there and speak to Mark and Mr. Seton.’
Ashley smoothed her fingers over the rounded knob at the end of the banister. ‘I—er—I was just going upstairs, Aunt Mona,’ she murmured.
Mona frowned. ‘Why? What’s wrong with you?’
‘Nothing’s wrong. I—well, I knew Mark had a guest, and I thought I’d go and read——’
‘Oh, get along with you!’ Mona clicked her tongue impatiently. ‘It’s only Jake! Go on into the lounge, and stop talking such nonsense. I shan’t be long.’
Heaving a sigh, Ashley crossed the hall and opened the lounge door. Both Mark and Jake Seton were settled in the easy chairs at either side of the blazing fire. They looked relaxed and comfortable, and Ashley felt as though she was interrupting them when they looked up at her entrance.
Jake Seton got immediately to his feet, indicating his chair. ‘Would you like to sit here?’ he asked.
Ashley closed the door and quickly subsided into a smaller chair quite close by. ‘No, really, thank you. I’m perfectly all right here.’
‘Very well.’
Jake exchanged a glance with Mark and then resumed his earlier position. For a few awkward moments nobody said anything and whatever conversation had been going on before Ashley’s entrance had clearly been broken up. Ashley shifted uncomfortably. She should have insisted upon going upstairs.
But then Jake drew out a slim case of cheroots and offered them to Mark, saying: ‘Mark tells me you’re still at school, Ashley.’
Ashley flashed a quick look in Mark’s direction, but he was leaning forward to light his cheroot from the lighter Jake had proffered and didn’t notice. ‘Yes, I am,’ she replied, rather tersely.
Jake lay back in his chair inhaling deeply on the tobacco. ‘And what do you intend to do afterwards? Go on to university?’
Ashley tugged a strand of her hair. ‘I don’t think so. I—well, I shall probably take up library work. That’s really what I want to do.’
‘Library work,’ considered Jake thoughtfully. ‘Where? In Bewford?’
‘As a matter of fact, yes.’ Ashley didn’t altogether care for this interrogation.
Jake nodded. ‘You like it here, then? You come from London, don’t you?’
‘Mark seems to have told you an awful lot about me, doesn’t he?’ parried Ashley, feeling not unreasonably impatient.
Jake smiled then, a lazy attractive smile that seemed to attack her in that vulnerable region below her ribcage in a curiously disturbing way. ‘Actually, he didn’t tell me that,’ he confessed charmingly. ‘David—your uncle, that is—told me you were coming to live with them before I left for Grüssmatte.’
‘Oh!’
Ashley dug her nails into the moquette upholstery of her chair arm, refusing to look at her cousin who she sensed was annoyed with her now. And as though to prove this point, Mark got to his feet just then and said: ‘As Ashley seems averse to talking about herself for once, shall we have a drink? Jake—your usual?’
Ashley looked up. ‘Your mother’s making coffee!’ she exclaimed.
‘So?’ Mark looked down at her penetratingly, and her eyes dropped before his. ‘Is there any law which says we can’t have both?’
Ashley didn’t bother to reply and Mark opened the lounge door. ‘Shan’t be a minute, Jake.’ He flicked his gaze to Ashley. ‘If you get into difficulties with this monster, just yell.’
After the door had closed behind him, Ashley felt worse than ever. At least when Mark had been present the onus had not been upon her as it was now. Forcing herself to meet Jake
