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there you are!' Prue was all smiles. 'Alex has brought me the Japanese prints, and they're exactly what I wanted... Fiendishly expensive, of course, but I couldn't beat him down.'
    'I'd have Pa to answer to if I brought them down by so much as a penny piece,' Alex said with a courteous firmness, which Anna couldn't help but admire. She admired the way he looked, too—cool on this humid evening in a white cotton shirt and grey linen trousers, with his brown hair brushed smoothly back.
    Smiling at her, he introduced his son, pushing him slightly forward. 'Mrs Fellowes is a sister at the hospital, Tom; it was she who looked after Imo, and got her well again.'
    'She didn't like it there; she was glad to get home.' Tom's defiant voice was back. 'She has to have all her food taken upstairs—she's not better at all.'
    'She'll become better in a day or two, I told you that,' Alex admonished, looking embarrassed and frowning at his son. Don't let him ask the kid to apologise, Anna found herself praying.
    But if that was his intention he had no time to carry it out for Prue spoke first, putting a hand on the boy's rigid shoulder, 'Tom's an accomplished horse rider, Anna. He's showing his horse at Collingham this year, Alex has just been telling me.'
    'I'm in the under-fifteens class,' Tom supplied, and as he looked up at Anna and smiled she could see the likeness to his father. He had the same vivid blue eyes, the same thin, wide mouth. 'If I pass,' he went on, 'I get a rosette; if I'm the best I get a medal.' His face was flushed; he looked childlike and eager—all his ill-temper had gone.
    'Imogen Rayland taught him to ride,' Alex explained. 'She's by way of being a veteran; has been riding all her life. She goes out, now, with the riding school at Haverleigh on occasion.'
    'I've got my own horse—a pony,' Tom chattered on. 'She's called Greensleeves; she's got a proper brick stable and a paddock at home.'
    'Lucky old her,' Anna smiled, backing towards the stairs. She was longing to shower and change and sit down with something to eat. 'Good luck at the show, Tom; mind you take that medal home.'
    'If he does we'll frame it and hang it in the shop.' Alex pulled a face and laughed, moving down the steps with his son, closely followed by Prue. Anna could hear Tom chattering excitedly all the way down to the gate. Alex was silent and walking slowly, seemingly deep in thought.
    Prue, as Anna knew, loved children and had a way with them, and a way was certainly needed with a prickly boy like Tom. Even so, he must ride to a very high standard to be competing at Collingham—the biggest and best of the southern agricultural shows. It was held every year, lasted five days and attracted exhibitors from all over England south of The Wash.
    Collingham, a small market town some twelve miles north of Charding, became, for those five days, an important meeting-place for farmers, trade and professional people from all walks of life.
    Years ago—ten, to be exact—Anna had been to the show herself. She had been seventeen then, and had gone with her parents when on holiday at Charding. It had been her last holiday before starting her training. Her father, she remembered, had volunteered to help with a heifer that had been overcome by the heat.
    I wouldn't mind going again, she thought as, stepping out of the shower, she towelled herself, pulling on shorts and a brief bikini top. She was eating her supper by the open window when Prue banged on her door, calling to her through the letterbox, 'Anna, you're wanted on the phone!'
    'Who is it?' Anna joined her on the landing.
    'Alex Marriner.'
    'What on earth would he want with me?' She was totally mystified.
    'Well, go down then you'll find out.' Prue, a little puffed, stood aside for Anna to pass, watching her run down the two flights of carpeted stairs and snatch up the phone in the hall.
    'Anna Fellowes here.'
    'Oh, Anna, hello.' Alex's voice came jerkily into her ear. 'I'm so sorry to bring you