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for complications,’ he drawled.
    ‘But it is complicated,’ she said. ‘It has to be. If we go there together, they’ll think—that we are—together,’ she finished lamely.
    ‘In other words, we may end up sharing a bedroom and a bed.’ He shrugged. ‘You must have done so before. It’s no big deal.’
    He’d said earlier that night that she looked untouched, but presumably he believed that was only skin deep. That a girl of her age and generation was experienced enough to shrug off any potential awkwardness. Maybe even to find it amusing.
    Only he couldn’t be more wrong, she thought, swallowing down the bubble of hysteria threatening to rise in her throat. Yet she was reluctant to let him suspect her total innocence in case it amused him, although being laughed at might be the least of her worries.
    ‘But in the past, it’s always been my choice.’ She made herself speak steadily. ‘That—might not be the case this time.’
    ‘So, what’s the matter, darling?’ he asked, the blue eyes narrowing as he reached for his coffee. ‘Scared I may not be able to spend two nights in your company without being overcome by lust?’
    He shook his head. ‘You really don’t have to worry. I never make a serious move on a woman unless I receive a very definite invitation first. And I can’t imagine anything of that kind coming my way from you. Right?’
    Her face was burning. ‘Absolutely right.’
    ‘Said with true feeling,’ he murmured. ‘However, if it’s any reassurance, in the past when I stayed at Queens Barton with a lady, admittedly in pre-Diana days, we were always given adjoining rooms. Mrs Martin, the housekeeper, is the old-fashioned kind.’
    He paused. ‘Naturally, I never bothered at the time to check if the communicating door locked, but I’m sure there’ll be a chair you can wedge under the handle if you’re worried I might sleepwalk.
    ‘In fact,’ he added, musing. ‘I might even take the same precaution myself, in case your dreams send you wandering in the small hours.’
    ‘They don’t,’ Marin said curtly. ‘And I won’t.’ She picked up her own coffee. Drank. Braced herself. ‘But there’s also the question of “window dressing,” as you call it,’ she added, her blush deepening. ‘I—I’d want that kept to a minimum.’
    ‘Agreed,’ he said promptly. ‘Even a peck on the cheek, arranged in advance and signed for in triplicate.’
    She sent him a bitter look. ‘It really is just a game to you, isn’t it?’
    ‘No,’ he said with sudden harshness. ‘It bloody well isn’t. I am deadly serious about keeping Graham and Torchbearer on side, even if it means negotiating my way through a fairly tricky forty-eight hours, and the rest.’
    His smile did not reach his eyes. ‘And the great advantage of having you beside me, instead of some more accommodating companion, Miss Wade, is that, as I told you before, you’re a total unknown.
    ‘You said just now that you hadn’t fooled Diana. Yet why else did she come flying over to accuse you of gate-crashing? Because you were a complete stranger, and it threw her. So she tried to find out who you were and what you were. And she’s still no wiser, so you need to be prepared to answer some questions at your next encounter.’
    ‘And what,’ she said, ‘am I supposed to tell her?’
    He shrugged. ‘As much or as little as you wish—apart from the fact that you’re only with me because you’re being paid.’ He added thoughtfully, ‘Tonight’s air of shy mystery went down pretty well with most people.’
    ‘Perhaps because it was perfectly genuine,’ Marin said huskily. ‘I am shy, and the real mystery was, what the hell was I doing getting mixed up with someone like you?’ She shook her head. ‘I think that things would have been a great deal easier if you’d just—married her as she wanted.’
    ‘Not easier in any way that appeals to me,’ he said drily. ‘Besides, Miss Wade, I’m not the marrying