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    Caprice dressed in tan slacks with a lemon yellow rugby shirt, she
    could not resist sneaking down the stairs and outdoors.
    The air was more chilly than she had expected, and she rubbed her
    arms under the short sleeves with a shiver. To her left, the wind took
    hold of a few pine trees and shook them, sending a light scatter of
    browning needles to carpet the ground underneath. She walked
    around the lodge aimlessly, feeling curiously lonely at that quiet time
    in that strange place.
    She had slept uneasily, with a restlessness and dissatisfaction that
    was unusual for her. Before she had slipped into that troubled rest,
    she had asked herself a myriad of questions with an unaccustomed,
    sharp bitterness. What was she doing here? What was she doing with
    her life? Why should she feel a lack of substance and depth to her
    existence now, of all times?
    In the early morning sunshine, she bowed her head and hunched her
    shoulders. With a poignancy she had not felt since early youth, she
    longed to go home.
    She had rounded one end of the lodge from the front, watching her
    pale brown, sleek leather shoes with some absorption, and when a
    male voice sounded from above, she started violently. 'Sorry,' said
    Pierce from above, sounding amused. 'Do you have any idea what
    time it is?'
    ' She put a hand to her thumping heart exaggeratedly, and heard him
    laugh deeply. Then she looked up, and found him leaning out of his
    open window, elbows propped on the sill, black hair tousled and
    gleaming glossy bright. It looked wet, as if he had just showered, and
    his shoulders and chest were bare. Her eyes ran over what she could
    see of him, involuntarily, for his skin was smooth over well-toned
    muscles, with just a hint of satin hair at his breast.
    Then her imagination brought to her a vivid picture of the rest of
    him, beyond her sight and quite nude, and dark colour tinged her
    cheeks. To cover it, she finally explained the reason for her early rise.
    'I don't sleep well in a strange bed. Besides which, I tend to be an
    early riser.'
    'Wait a moment.' His head ducked back in, and suddenly something
    cream coloured and fluffy floated out the window. She lurched to
    grab it, and found the article of clothing to be a masculine-styled
    cardigan. He reappeared, and regarded her rather quizzically. 'You
    seem to have a peculiar helplessness when it comes to dressing
    adequately.'
    'Unjust, unjust,' she said, without heat, as she slipped her arms into
    the sweater and burrowed in appreciatively. 'Last night I hadn't
    expected to go out on the lake, and this morning the sun looked
    warmer than it really is.' She sent her gaze running over him again.
    'Besides, you're one to talk, hanging out of an open window with wet
    hair and no shirt.'
    A slashing grin creased his face. She stared, obviously. 'You ought to
    see what I haven't on, below the windowsill.'
    'I'd suspected as much.' His laughing gaze lingered on her face at
    that, and one brow rose slowly at her second blush.
    'Is that so?' He looked to be hugely enjoying himself, and in no hurry
    to dress or shut the window. Then he marvelled, 'Goodness, what a
    high colour. It surely can't be sunburn at this hour?'
    She was thankful she hadn't lost any more of her composure, as she
    said mildly, 'You are a horrid man, and the question doesn't deserve
    an answer. Thank you for the use of your cardigan. You will find it in
    the lake.' She started to walk away.
    'I'll meet you in the dining room for coffee and breakfast in five
    minutes,' he called laughingly after her, and then she distinctly heard
    his window slam.
    She nearly went. As she walked to the back, she found herself
    actually wanting to go. But then, Apparently from nowhere, came an
    odd anger. A strange, shaking, upsetting anger it was, astonishing her
    with its force, wearying her with its inexplicability. She was angry at
    Pierce, she was angry at herself, but most of all, she was angry at
    Roxanne, of all people, for