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beautiful one.
    ‘I will no doubt see you this evening, Miss Bennet. At dinner,’ Alistair called over his shoulder as he walked off.
    ‘Yes. Yes. Of course . . . I wish you’d call me Penny,’ she said as an afterthought.
    He did not turn or acknowledge her call.
    ‘Miss Bennet!’ Gregory’s voice caught her unawares and caused a weakness in her most energetic muscles. His voice was melodious; a rich mix of church organ and jazz clarinet.
    ‘If you’ll come this way,’ he said as he unloaded her luggage and began to walk towards the eastern side of the yard. ‘The stable-lads will take care of your horses.’
    At the sound of his voice, two young men, barely twenty, strode out through the wide door of the main stable block where stalls were ranged in rows down one side.
    She smiled at the stable-lads. They smiled back.
    She followed Gregory, taking full advantage of the opportunity to run her eyes down over his broad back and tight behind. She started at the sleek blond hair that covered his head like a page-boy in some Renaissance painting. Her observations proceeded over the thickly classical neck and the masculine shoulders that rippled beneath the jersey, straining with the weight of her luggage. His stride was long enough to suit his legs, and his thigh and calf muscles seemed to fight against the stiff cotton of his washed-out jeans as though they were trying to escape.
    Her room was on the third floor in a high tower that brooded at the eastern corner of the house. It looked older than the rest, perhaps a leftover from some Civil War battle.
    The steps leading up were made from stone and wound between cold matching walls. Just for a moment, she wondered about the comfort of the accommodation allotted to her. Would it too be stone, unyielding and dankly cold like some tattered poet’s garret?
    She needn’t have bothered worrying, she told herself, as a heavy wooden door, like something out of a medieval romance, opened on a room that she immediately fell in love with.
    The room was circular, the ceiling high, its beams running from the top of the walls to a central apex. It was as though the room was a giant tent.
    The bed was big and old, with heavy wooden posts of barley-sugar twists at head and foot. There was a fireplace with a real fire burning, thick tapestries lining the walls, and ancient, though expensive, rugs were scattered over the polished wooden floor like some giant patchwork quilt.
    There was also a mirror – massive and enclosed within a dark wooden frame of intricate carving that stretched almost from ceiling to floor.
    There were plenty of cupboards, plenty of writing space, a television and an en-suite bathroom. Some hotels she’d stayed in, she reflected, didn’t have rooms as good as these.
    ‘It’s lovely,’ she exclaimed with honesty as her bags hit the floor with a thump. ‘Are all the rooms like this?’ She watched him closely as she waited for him to answer. Her breathing had quickened. Was it the fault of the stairs or the study she had made of his body? He did not answer. He busied himself putting her things away; and watching him tear around her room like some manic chambermaid angered her.
    So far she’d got precious little in the way of conversation from Gregory. But it was worth trying again just to hear the rich mahogany of his voice.
    ‘Do you ever talk?’ she asked in a sudden fit of pique.
    His back was to her, yet she was sure he must have heard.
    ‘Damn you!’ she yelled as he took three strides or so and disappeared into the bathroom.
    Penny heard water running, then saw steam rising. It didn’t take a Sherlock Holmes to realise he was running a bath.
    ‘I didn’t ask you to do that,’ she called out. Either the taps were gushing too loudly or he was deaf or just plain ignorant. Still she got no response.
    ‘What the hell!’ she exclaimed, then sighed loudly. ‘OK. I’ll take up the offer. I’ll have a bath.’
    A bath was just what she could do