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‘You envisage that?’ Shock made her voice shake.

‘Of course.’ He was enigmatic again. ‘I should think it’s inevitable. Kindly oblige me by not doing anything to stop it.’

Mrs Davies came in at that moment to remove the tea tray and Kate gave her husband a smile of saccharine sweetness for her benefit.

Kate
stirred drowsily and blinked against the morning light. It took her several seconds to orientate herself, and then she recalled where she was, in the Kensington house. She turned over sleepily, aware now, as she always was aware, of the arm closely about her and the warm body lying close to her in the bed. Her movement caused the arm to tighten and she felt Jerome stir beside# her.

‘Still hate me, Kate?’ From the tone of the words it seemed that he didn’t care whether she did or not, but all the same, she nodded and pulled the quilt up over her shoulders to cover her nakedness. This amused Jerome. ‘You’re such a private person, my dear, and you make it so obvious that I can’t resist invading that privacy, but not this morning. I’ve a board meeting at ten and a very heavy day. Expect me at six—meanwhile, choose a good nurse.’ He slid out of bed and with a slap at the hump which was her rear, went off to the bathroom.

And she
did
hate him, Kate told herself so all through her shower and dressing, and deliberately ignored the small inner voice which said, ‘Nonsense, no such thing! You’re getting quite used to him, and nobody can possibly hate someone they’re getting used to!’ There was a police theory, she remembered, that, given time, a rapport grew between captor and captive, and she wondered if a rapport was growing between Jerome and herself, then dismissed the idea as ridiculous. If anything was growing it was her sense of outrage and the irritating lack of privacy.

She inspected herself carefully in the mirror to see that she conformed with the image of Kate Forrest who was going to bore him to death, and was quite pleased with what she saw. A severely straight, dark skirt, a very plain shirt with a mannish collar and cuffs and nice, sensible shoes. She spared a moment to tighten her hair back a little and went off downstairs to the tiny breakfast room to catch Jerome before he left. At the door she drew a deep breath, straightened her back and marched in, her shoulders squared and determination in every line of her body.

‘After lunch, when I’ve seen this nurse you’re so insistent upon, I’m going to see Helen!’ Her eyes sparked, daring him to say ‘no’. She was not going to grovel for permission, she was giving him a plain statement of intent!

‘Mmm.’ He folded the newspaper he was reading and passed her his empty coffee cup for refilling. ‘Why the belligerence?’

Carefully she poured him the coffee and passed it before answering. ‘I don’t know the rules,’ she pointed out sarcastically. ‘For all I know, you might have a complex about impecunious artists of the hardworking loyal type. You mightn’t think them the right sort of company for me to keep. Perhaps it would be a good idea if you had one of your secretaries type out a list of “Do’s and Don’t’s”. I could pin it to the bedroom wall and consult it every morning.’

‘The restrictions are very few.’ Jerome stirred his coffee and held her gaze. ‘They operate for your safety and wellbeing, also Philip’s, and for my peace of mind as well. You will never take the boy out unless either the nurse or Tobias is with you, and if you want to go anywhere alone, Tobias will drive you, wait for you and bring you back.’

‘How nice!’ A bitter kind of honey dripped from her tongue. ‘I’m so glad you’ve told me. So the nurse is going to double up as a wardress, is she? I must remember to choose one who looks the part. Have you any particular qualifications in mind? Do you demand a judo black belt or would the first part of a course in karate be good enough?’

Jerome sighed wearily at her. ‘Don’t be childish, Kate! It doesn’t become you. There’s a perfectly good reason for most things I do. I’m a wealthy man, a member of a wealthy family, and even here in London kidnapping is not unheard-of.’

Just for a very short moment she felt like a badly behaved schoolgirl, but then she gave a mental snort. Jerome might possibly be concerned for Philip, but for herself, she doubted if his concern covered anything more than his bank balance; it was not for her, not personally. While these thoughts were running through her head, he had pushed back his chair, risen to his feet and come to stand behind her, his hand on her shoulder.

‘One other restriction, Kate. No contact with Gerald Twyford, please. I think I explained once before what would happen if you made a move in that direction, and I’m sure you remember. Apart from these few small things, you may do what you please, within reason.’

‘Then I’ll certainly go to see Helen this afternoon,’ she muttered, adding as an afterthought, ‘I should have invited her to the wedding.’

Jerome’s hands were heavy on her shoulders and they gave her a little shake. ‘I thought there was something withdrawn about you the day we were married.’ He sounded amused. ‘We did invite Helen and she came, didn’t you notice? She gave us a rather charming charcoal sketch of you and Philip.’

Delight robbed her voice of its former acidity. ‘Did she? How lovely. I must see that!’

‘Then open your eyes, my dear wife. It’s in the sitting- room, over the fireplace—and while we’re on the subject of wedding presents, there’s a list on the desk in the study. You’d better make a start on the “thank you” letters.’

‘But I haven’t seen any of them,’ she protested. ‘How can I thank people for things I’ve not even looked at?’

‘Quite simply.’ His hands left her shoulders and slid down to her waist, pulling her up and turning her to face him. ‘You say that whatever it is is very lovely or very useful and that we’ll treasure it for the rest of our lives.’ He was pulling her close, and Kate was holding herself rigid as she tried to think of something to distract him.

‘There was a girl on the stairs as I came down, she had a vacuum cleaner.’

‘That will be Mrs Davies’s “our Ellen”. One of the unfortunates—I believe they’re known as “educationally subnormal”. Make allowances for her, please, we don’t want to lose the Davieses. Tobias knows his job and Mrs Davies is a very good cook.’

Kate glared at him. ‘How dare you! To suggest that I would.... I’ve been a teacher, remember? I wouldn’t penalise a child or her parents for something that wasn’t their fault. Most of the E.S.N.s are very nice anyway, I never found them much trouble at all. It’s the intelligent ones that cause most of the bother.’

‘Then you must get that point over to Mrs Davies.’ Jerome was looking as if it was all her fault. ‘She’ll be worrying until you put her mind at rest—and by the way, I’ve told her to call you Mrs Jerome when she’s not saying madam; that way, she won’t muddle you up with my mother.’ He inspected her face closely and looked relieved. ‘Not too much make-up. I think I can risk it,’ and he bent his head and kissed her very thoroughly before he went quietly out, closing the door behind him.

When he had gone Kate sat morosely, leaving the coffee to cool in her cup. She didn’t understand—oh, not about his parting kiss, that had just been Jerome being aggravating, demonstrating that he could do as he liked when he liked; she was becoming used to that. No, it was herself she couldn’t understand. If she could only have talked it out—but for that she needed somebody totally remote from the mess she was in, somebody who could look ^t it from the outside and offer words of comfort and wisdom. She grinned to herself ruefully. There wasn’t anybody!

Whoever she spoke to would have to be a complete stranger, otherwise they might be biassed one way or the other, and she couldn’t imagine herself pouring out her heart to a complete stranger. The only thing for her to do was to get on with the mundane business of living, even though it was proving very difficult to live with herself, her new self which Jerome had created. This new, wanton Kate who dissolved into a passionate puddle and who accepted his lovemaking with an uninhibited response that appalled her!

There was one little ray of sunshine in the gloom. At least now Jerome couldn’t have such a bad opinion of her. He couldn’t accuse her, as he had implied before, of being promiscuous. He knew better now, and he had admitted it. Kate worried the problem a bit more and finally gave up in despair. Whichever way she looked at it, the needle was pointing to ‘Stormy and Unsettled’. Perhaps she could concentrate on the good points? Philip was happy, that was one bright spot, and they were together; they no longer had to run and hide, and she had finished completely with Noelle Lowe. That other self no longer existed.

Her faint stirrings of relief were interrupted by the thought of the nurse. Philip would now have his nanny and she, Kate, would be gently but firmly pushed out of his life. As for Noelle, she wasn’t really finished with her, was she? Not while Jerome had those negatives. She was back at the beginning again. She rose and, remembering, rushed back upstairs.

For convenience, Philip’s cot had been placed in her dressing room last night and when she had come downstairs he had been sleeping quite heavily, but Philip was equipped with some sort of radar sense so that, no matter how heavily he might be asleep, he always woke when there was nobody within screaming distance. Then, he either tried to shake the cot to pieces or climb over the side. Both were disastrous and always ended up in tears.

Philip’s radar was working beautifully this morning and Kate found him peering through the bars of the cot like a caged animal and uttering piercing yells of temper. Hastily she grabbed him and whisked him off to the bathroom, where he suffered her to wash several minute sections of his skin before demanding food. He didn’t want to be dressed or cuddled, he wanted cornflakes. Kate sighed with exasperation as she struggled him into his clothing, and then had an idea whereby she could kill two birds with one stone. She hoisted her squirming nephew under one arm and made her way back to the kitchen, where she marched firmly in and dumped her wriggling burden on the tiled floor.

Kate put on her calm teacher’s face as she felt the battery of two pairs of eyes assessing her. Both pairs, those of the housekeeper and ‘our Ellen’, were alight with curiosity and a lurking suspicion, but she ignored it as she had learned to ignore the same glint in the eyes of a new class of children.

‘Good morning,’ she smiled brightly. ‘I'm afraid I’ve let the coffee get cold. Could I ...?’

‘You should have rung, madam.’ Mrs Davies was severe.

‘Mmm, but it wasn’t worth it.’ Kate gave her a pleasant smile. ‘I only wanted one cup. May I have it here? I was feeling a bit chilly and your kitchen’s so beautifully warm. No,’ she added swiftly as she saw the housekeeper’s mouth open to speak, ‘don’t turn up the heating. It’s just me, I think. I haven’t adjusted to the lower temperature yet and I’m still a bit tired, I expect.’

The coffee was very hot and Kate ladled in sugar and cream with a lavish hand while she pondered. By the time the cup was empty, she had decided on her course of action.

‘Philip is washed and dressed and I’d like him to have his breakfast in here if possible,’ she gestured at the tiled floor. ‘Much better, don’t you think? His eating habits are rather messy and until Nurse is installed and he can have his meals in the nursery.... Then, if you would allow Ellen to keep him amused while we have a quick look around the house and I interview the nurses—that is, if you can spare her ..
.'

‘Indeed I can.’ The housekeeper flushed with pleasure and beamed at her silent daughter while Kate felt relief. Jerome had said to put Mrs Davies’s mind at rest about ‘our Ellen’ and she congratulated herself that she had done it quite diplomatically.

It was a very pleasant house, not over-large but elegant, and it had been recently restored or repaired. Kate noted that the bathing and toilet facilities were more than adequate. Three rooms remained undecorated and unfurnished, although they had been recently plastered, and the woodwork had been painted a dazzling white. Two were guest rooms on the first floor and the other, a small drawing-room, on the ground floor and overlooking the garden.

Mrs Davies explained, ‘We’ve only been here three days ourselves and Mrs Manfred said “First things first, get the nursery suite ready. There has to be a place for the boy and his nanny.” Well, I suppose you can’t expect a nurse to come unless there’s somewhere ready for her! Mrs Manfred sent the other furniture down from Derbyshire—it was better here, she said, than collecting dust in her attics. Good stuff, it is, better than you can buy. The bedrooms and the drawing-room she left empty. She said she’d interfered enough and you’d want some part of it,’ the housekeeper explained. That’s what Mrs Manfred said.’

So, Kate breathed in deeply, she was once more obligated to Jerome’s mother, and she didn’t want to be under any more obligation to the Manfreds. She didn’t consider Jerome’s munificence in quite the same light— she was paying for that! But as for his mother, she wanted to be able to hate with a clear conscience. She would have liked to go to Jerome and tell him that she would choose her own housekeeper, if she had to have one, but she couldn’t do that now, not to a woman like Mrs Davies who was struggling to keep an unfortunate daughter with her. In her pity for the housekeeper, she forgot her own problems for a while until she glanced at her watch and realised that she had only ten minutes before the applicants arrived for the nursing post. She walked back with the housekeeper to the kitchen and begged a cup of coffee. While she was drinking it, she remembered what Jerome had said about entertaining.

‘How do you feel about it?’ she asked, after she had explained. The housekeeper snorted as she unplugged the percolator.

‘It won’t be much, not unless Mr Jerome’s changed a lot since he was young. He was never one for a lot of socialising. A quiet place, some nice music or a book, that’s Mr Jerome. And,’ she looked sideways at Kate, ‘though I’m a good cook, I’ve not much time for these foreign kickshaws. Good plain English cooking, that’s what I’m best at. Give me a nice joint or a good plump bird any time. There’s nothing in these pasta and rice dishes but a lot of leftovers dressed up to look like something they’re not.’ She sniffed disparagingly. ‘I’m not fashionable,’ she concluded.