Karen watched her cousin roll herself in the covers and prepare herself for sleep. ‘I suppose so,’ she agreed slowly. ‘Don’t you want to know who he’s going to marry?’
‘Not particularly.’ Ashley was abrupt. ‘Oh, Karen, for goodness’ sake, put out the light. I’m tired. I want to go to sleep.’
During the next couple of weeks, Ashley thought very little about Jake Seton. The weather was unusually cold for early March with heavy falls of snow blocking the roads, disrupting bus and train services. The moorland farmers who gathered in the Golden Lion on market days talked incessantly of the shortages of animal foodstuffs and the difficulties of lambing in these conditions. Ashley herself seemed to spend her time hurrying from home to school and then home again, and felt no desire to go out in the evenings as Karen did.
One afternoon, when a watery sun was fighting a losing battle with the freezing temperatures, she was walking home from school with a girl-friend when a sleek, dark green sports car slid to a halt beside them. They were scarcely a hundred yards from the school and at first Ashley thought it was someone who wanted directions. But then the nearside window was rolled down and she found herself looking into Jake Seton’s face.
‘Hello, Ashley,’ he said, almost as if he had expected to see her. ‘Can I give you a lift?’
Susan Knight, the girl who had been walking with her, drew back awkwardly, obviously recognising Jake, and Ashley felt embarrassed.
‘I—we don’t have far to go,’ she replied briefly. ‘Thank you all the same.’
Jake’s lips thinned. ‘I’m going that way anyway,’ he said, thrusting open the door. ‘Get in!’
There was such authority in his voice that Ashley found herself responding to it almost automatically, merely giving Susan an apologetic smile before stepping forward and climbing into the luxurious vehicle beside him. He leant across her to close the door with controlled firmness and for an instant she could smell the heat of his body and a faint trace of Havana tobacco, and felt the hardness of his arm against the softness of her breasts. Then the force of unrestrained power beneath the bonnet of the car was pressing her back in her seat as the car swept forward.
She had been in quite a number of cars during her comparatively short life, but never one like this. Everything about it was smooth and expensive, and even without the scrawled identification along its side she would have guessed it belonged to some exclusive stable of custom-built sports cars.
Within seconds they had reached the end of Castle Lane and turned into the High Street, and Ashley’s fingers tightened on her briefcase as he drew up outside the Golden Lion.
‘Thank you,’ she managed, and looked round for the door handle.
Without a word, Jake leant across her again and thrust open the door, and with a nervous smile she swung her legs out and stood up. She turned to close the door and found him sliding across her seat to climb out at her side, tall and disturbing in a black leather battle jacket over black suede trousers.
‘Well?’ he challenged, looking down at her, and she detected impatience in the word. ‘That wasn’t so bad, was it?’
‘No.’ She looked down at the toes of her shiny black boots.
‘But you didn’t want to ride with me, did you?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’ He was clearly perplexed.
‘I—Susan had to go home alone.’
‘That was Tom Knight’s girl, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then, as I recall it, they live along Westbrook Terrace. She was about to turn along Westbrook Gardens, which is not your way at all.’
Ashley looked up at him. ‘How do you know?’
‘Her father used to work for us.’
‘Oh, I see.’ Ashley resumed her contemplation of her toes.
‘So would you like to tell me the real reason why you didn’t want me to give you a lift?’
Ashley looked round. The Golden Lion was in a prominent position in the High Street and standing here beside the unmistakable lines of the sports car they were attracting quite a lot of attention from late afternoon shoppers.
‘Oh, please,’ she began. ‘I—I expect I was surprised to see you there, that’s all. Look, I’m freezing standing here. Are—are you coming in?’
‘Are you inviting me?’ His eyes probed hers with disturbing intensity.
‘Me?’ exclaimed Ashley ungrammatically. She moved her shoulders helplessly. ‘Isn’t it Mark you’ve come to see?’
‘So far as I am aware, Mark is at work,’ replied Jake easily, his thumbs tucked into the low belt of his pants.
Ashley was at a loss to know what to do. She wasn’t used to dealing with men, and particularly not with a man like Jake Seton. She shifted her weight uncomfortably from one foot to the other, not knowing what to say. Then, as though taking pity on her, or perhaps it was simply that he was tired of waiting for her to make a move, Jake suddenly shrugged his broad shoulders and with a slight bow of his head walked round his car and swinging open the door climbed behind the wheel. There was a slight squeal of protest from the tyres as he drove away, but Ashley scarcely registered it. Her heart was pounding so loudly she couldn’t hear anything else.
Her aunt was in the kitchen as usual when she entered the hotel, and gave her niece a surprised look. ‘You’re home early,’ she exclaimed. ‘Is it snowing again?’
Ashley shook her head, turning away to get herself a drink of water from the tap. ‘No. No—I got a lift actually.’
There was silence for a moment as she swallowed half the glass of water; but when she turned back to her aunt she saw she was waiting for further explanations.
‘It was Mr. Seton. He gave me a lift.’
Mona Sutton raised her eyebrows. ‘Jake?’
‘That’s right.’ Ashley unbuttoned her duffel coat. ‘I’ll go and get changed——’
‘Wait a minute!’ Mona bent to take a tray of sausage rolls out of the oven. Putting them down on top of the cooker, she added: ‘What did he say?’
Ashley shrugged. ‘Nothing much.’
Mona sighed. ‘He must have said something. How did he come to give you a lift?’
‘I don’t know.’ Ashley fidgeted with the toggle fastenings of her coat. ‘Susan and I were just walking along when—when he stopped. And offered.’
Mona frowned. ‘And where is he now?’
‘I expect he’s gone home.’ Ashley turned towards the door.
Mona clicked her tongue. ‘I wonder why he didn’t come in. It’s not like Jake to be in the vicinity and not call. Oh, well …’ She began lifting the sausage rolls on to a wire tray to cool. ‘Perhaps he was in a hurry.’
‘Perhaps he was,’ agreed Ashley quickly, and went out of the door before her aunt could say anything else.
But in her room the incident could not be dismissed so lightly. She knew that Jake’s reasons for not coming into the hotel had had to do with her attitude, and she couldn’t help feeling a little guilty. After all, she had absolutely no reason to behave towards him as she had, and she knew that the rest of the family would not be at all pleased if they discovered the way she had reacted to his kindness.
As she changed out of her school clothes into her usual attire of jeans and a sweater she tried to find excuses for herself. He made her feel uneasy, unsure of herself, and the knowledge that everyone else regarded