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aunt's; she was rich and my parents hoped she would leave me her money if they called me by her name.'
    'Did she?'
    'No, she left it to a cat's home. In her will she said she had always hated her name, and if my parents hadn't called me Patience she would have left me her money, but she despised them for saddling an innocent child with a name like that and said money had never helped her enjoy life so I'd be better off without any.'
    James laughed. 'She sounds interesting. And were you?'
    'Was I what?'
    'Better off without her money?'
    Sadly she shook her head.
    He began cleaning the blood from her forehead, exposing a long but thankfully merely a surface cut. James washed and dried it before covering it with a plaster, then washed the rest of her heart-shaped face and dried it carefully, very aware of her looking up at him, curling dark gold lashes deepening the effect of those eyes. He wished she would stop staring.
    Uneasiness made him brusque. 'Head hurting much?'
    'Not at all.'

    He held up three fingers. 'How many fingers can you see?'
    'Three, of course.'
    He stared into the centres of the hazel eyes but the pupils seemed normal, neither dilated nor contracted. She smiled, a sweet, warm curve of the mouth that made him flush for some inexplicable reason.
    He scowled. No, that wasn't honest; he knew very well why he had gone red.
    He had wanted to kiss that warm, wide mouth. He still did; in fact just contemplating the possibility made him dizzy. I'm light-headed, he thought.
    Am I coming down with some bug? There is flu going around the office.
    That must be it. Why would I want to kiss her? I don't even like this girl; she's a nuisance. She isn't much to look at, either. Not my type.
    She's too young for you, anyway, a little voice inside his head insisted. Look at her! You can give her a good fifteen years.
    Don't exaggerate! he told himself. Ten, maybe—she's in her early twenties, not her teens!
    She had been watching him, now she looked down, her dark gold lashes stirring against her cheeks. James hoped she hadn't picked up what was in his mind. He didn't want her getting any crazy ideas about his intentions. As far as she was concerned, he did not have any!
    A moment later Barny slowed, turning a corner. 'This is the road; where exactly do I find the house, miss?' He and James both contemplated the road of detached houses in large gardens. It certainly matched the address the girl had given them, but it did not match the girl herself. She didn't look as if she came from one of these gracious period homes set among trees and shrubs, with curving drives, and lawns.
    'Keep driving and I'll tell you when to stop,' Patience said, and obediently Barny kerb-crawled until she said, 'This is it!'
    The car stopped outside and both men stared curiously at the high Victorian house with gabled pink roofs on several levels, twisty red barley sugar chimneys, latticed windows behind which hung pretty chintz curtains. Built of red brick, the woodwork painted apple-green, the design made it look more like a cottage than a large house, a typical design of the last quarter of the nineteenth century. It was set well back from the road in large gardens in which spring was busy breaking out.
    A flurry of almond blossom on black boughs, green lawns covered in daisies, yellow trumpets of daffodils and purple crocus showing in naturalised clumps— James hadn't noticed until now how far spring had progressed. There was an over-civilised tidiness to his own garden that missed out on this lyrical note.
    'The Cedars?' he queried drily. 'What happened to them?'
    'There is one, but it's at the back. There were two when the house was built; the other one blew down in a storm years ago.' She gave him a defiant glare.
    'And will you stop being sarcastic?'
    *He didn't answer. 'Barny, take us up to the front door.'
    Barny swung the car through the green-painted open gates and slowly drove up to the porch which sheltered a verandah and a green front