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innocently, until they looked remarkably like Fran’s. “I hope you didn’t take him seriously; anyone would think I needed a keeper.”
    ‘Don’t you?” she twinkled at him over her glass, her humour restored by his company.
    He finished his drink, his eyes fixed on her steadily, and put his empty glass down on a chair. “Put that drink down,” he said, “and come outside.”
    “Not until I’ve finished my drink,” she protested. “I’m thirsty!” But he took the glass from her fingers and set it down beside his own. “Jamie!”
    He made no reply but took her arm and steered her through the open french windows and on to the coolness of the terrace. It was shadowed out there and several whispered cautions betrayed other couples enjoying the cool air and the moonlight in their own way.
    Jamie guided her down the few steps to the deeper shadows of the lawn below and beyond the rustling darkness of the tall beech trees to the rose garden, his grandfather’s pride and joy. The heavy scent of the roses made the warm night air as heady as wine and Katie felt a twinge of uneasiness as Jamie’s hand on her arm urged her further away from the lights and laughter of the party. Remembering his brother’s warning, she halted suddenly, not wishing to have John Miller proved right, yet reluctant to mistrust Jamie.
    “The roses smell heavenly.” She spoke for the first time since they left the house, her voice as matter-of-fact as she could make it, her head bowed over the sweet perfumed roses.
    He stopped beside her, his hand still on her arm, and turned her to face him. “And you look heavenly,” he whispered, his hands caressing the soft skin of her arms as he held her and looked down at her, his eyes shining in the moonlight, taking on a strange, unnatural glow. “Jamie—” she tried to keep him from holding her too tight by keeping her hands between them, her open palms flat against the smoothness of his jacket. “Perhaps we’d better go back,” she ventured, and wondered at her own reluctance. Jamie laughed, a short, harsh sound that startled her with its unfamiliarity, and a moment later he held her so tightly that she could scarcely breathe, his mouth hard and relentless on hers until she felt her head spinning dizzily. She could only remember John Millers words as she fought to free herself. ‘Don’t get too involved with Jamie. I wouldn’t like either of you getting into anything you’ll be sorry for.’ “Jamie, stop it, Jamie!” she heard her own voice as from a distance as she tried to break his almost savage grip on her. “Jamie!”
    “Let her go!” John Miller’s sharp command had more effect than her own pleadings, and she moved gratefully out of reach as Jamie turned to look at his brother.
    “Now don’t be a spoilsport, big brother,” his voice was dangerously quiet and very like his brother’s. “Katie isn’t a baby and neither am I.”
    The vivid blue eyes flicked for a moment in her direction. “I suggest you go back to the house,” John said tersely, and turned back to Jamie, as taut and tense as a coiled spring.
    Katie flushed at the tone of his voice and at the manner in which he had spoken, almost ordering her to return to the house. She stood her ground stubbornly and was conscious of Jamie’s smile of triumph as she did not move. “You see,” he said to his brother, “I’m not such a baby.”
    “You little idiot!” The words, she realised with a start, were addressed to her, and the arrogant face was turned in her direction. For a moment they both watched her and she understood suddenly what her stubborn refusal to leave must look like to the elder brother. Jamie, on the other hand, must be thinking that her former reluctance had been merely pretence and would expect to meet little or no opposition when his brother had left them.
    She turned her grey eyes from one to the other of them, poised nervously with her hands together, then suddenly she lifted her long