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As the time went on she found herself listening for sounds coming from the other room that would denote that the door would shortly open, and tensed a dozen times only to find herself mistaken. There were two jobs of equal importance she could do—one was to check through a file for some information William wanted, the other was a batch of typing. She opted to type. Should Crawford elect to say a few words as he passed her desk—though she secretly doubted he had anything he wanted to say to her after the way they had last parted—then she wouldn’t give him the opportunity to say very much. He was hardly the kind who would stand and yell over the noise of the typewriter.

The door opened just as she was rolling a fresh sheet of paper into her machine. She knew without looking up that it was Crawford, and gave her full concentration to straightening up the paper. It was unnerving being in the same room and not one word being spoken, but since he obviously had nothing to say, she wasn’t going to be the first one to speak. She felt rather than heard him move, and felt her muscles tighten as he came to the back of her to stand behind her chair.

Then all her nerves gathered together in one jangling alarm system, for she felt his hands in her hair, and one by one he was removing the pins from her neat bun.

‘What are you doing?’ was jerked out of her as she spun round on her chair, feeling her hair falling about her shoulders.

‘So you do have a tongue?’ Those slate grey eyes didn’t seem at all put out by her furious expression. ‘I thought we’d progressed past the schoolmarm image.’

If that was an oblique reference to the way she had responded to his lovemaking, Gerry knew, as a fresh surge of colour rioted through her face, she just wasn’t up to getting involved in answering remarks of that kind, and she’d have thought anyway that he would have preferred to forget the whole episode.

‘I don’t like my hair loose at the office,’ she said after a few moments when it seemed he had nothing further to add, appearing quite content to prop himself on the corner of her desk and admire his handiwork.

‘I do,' was his brief comment as he stood up. ‘Leave it the way it is.’ it wasn’t so much a request as an order, and instinctively her rebellious spirit had her hands going to her hair, her eyes on the pins he had extracted and laid on the desk in front of her.

His eyes followed hers, and if he read the thought in her mind that as soon as he had gone those pins would again be securing a neat if unbecoming bun, he couldn’t have thwarted her intention more easily. In one movement every one of the pins had been scooped up and were resting in his pocket before her hand could reach them.

‘I said leave it.’ His eyes hadn’t missed the spark of anger at his action, but it didn’t seem to bother him, for his glance went from her eyes, moved to her mouth, and smiled as though recalling pleasant memories, before returning to hold her eyes once more. What he said next was the last thing she expected him to say, for he took her completely unawares, seeming impervious to the fact that she was angry with him.

‘Come and have dinner with me tonight.’

‘I can’t.’ Her reply had been quick and without thought. It sounded blunt, she knew, as it sank in that Crawford was actually inviting her to have dinner with him.

‘Why can’t you? Or is it that you don’t want to?’

It was no news to her that Crawford didn’t easily take no for an answer, but this time he was going to have to. Apart from the fact she had nothing decent to wear that could do justice to the occasion of dining with the man who unknown to him had stolen her heart, she couldn’t leave Teddy on her own. And the implication of what his dinner invitation really meant sank in, that he was aware how easy it was for him to get her to respond to him—hadn’t he just referred to it in a roundabout way? She knew that love him she might, but she had no intention of being just a passing affair.

‘I never go out at night,’ she told him, and saw the beginnings of frost appear in his eyes, for all his mouth was smiling.

‘Then it’s about time you damn well did,’ he said, and she wasn’t at all deceived by his mild tone.

She knew she had irritated him. He probably thought she’d be a pushover for his charm—well, she was. If he knew how much her nerves were jangling at this very moment he would have no doubt about it. His tone altered slightly, a persuasive note entering that had her weakening when she knew she shouldn’t.

‘Come on, Gerry,’ he cajoled. ‘I give you my word I won’t seduce you if that’s what’s worrying you.’

It seemed incidental to tell him he wouldn’t get the chance. He would know that was pure bravado talking— since he’d got her into such a state the last time he’d kissed her she had buttoned up her dress with ten thumbs. She looked into his slate grey eyes, not wanting to give in, but owning at last that she was too much in love with him to let thoughts of Teddy deny her this one evening.

‘Mrs Chapman can sit with your sister, if you’re anxious about leaving her on her own.’ His tone was quite gentle now, understanding even. But at the mention of Mrs Chapman’s name, all her deserted wits came rushing back. Storming home came the remembrance of how much she owed him, how much she was in his debt—how unlikely it was she would ever get out of his debt.

Tearing her eyes away from his, she looked down at her desk. ‘I don’t want to dine with you,’ she said, and couldn’t help that her refusal was blunt to the point of rudeness, because this conversation had to be terminated, and now. She mustn’t give him another chance to work on the crumbling foundations of her will power.

What he would have said, she didn’t know. Perhaps he wouldn’t have said anything. Perhaps her refusal to dine with him didn’t bother him anyway, but just at that moment the telephone on her desk bleeped to be answered, and she was never more glad of the interruption, as still without looking at Crawford, she lifted the phone off its rest to answer it.

It was an internal call. And when she heard Robin’s voice at the other end, in an attempt to make Crawford believe she was in no way affected by him—for he showed no inclination to leave her office—Gerry's voice was a shade warmer than it might otherwise have been.

‘Hello, Robin,’ she said eagerly, her voice sounding as though she hadn’t seen him for months instead of the hour or so ago it had been in the corridor.

‘I didn’t say a quarter or an eighth of what I wanted to say to you, Gerry,’ Robin’s voice came back, sounding warm in return. ‘I wondered if we could meet somewhere —it’s impossible to talk in this place ...'

Robin was going on to suggest where they could meet that evening, and Gerry was overwhelmingly conscious of the stillness of Crawford standing not a yard away from her, ready to listen to every word of her side of the conversation.

‘Why don’t you come to supper?' she found herself saying, when it was the last thing she wanted to say.

‘Will Teddy be there?’

‘Of course.’

‘Then if you don’t mind, I won’t.’ So he still had this thing about Teddy. She refused to let it rattle her while Crawford was taking in every word. She hadn’t asked
him
to supper—nor did he have a thing about Teddy, though she doubted he would have accepted anyway. ‘How about lunch today—since you aren’t taking up any of my offers for an evening date?’

She must have missed that part of his conversation in her attempt not to overplay her hand with Crawford there. ‘That would be lovely—what time?'

‘Five past one outside the main entrance?'

‘I’ll look forward to it,’ she was saying as the door from her office into the corridor slammed shut, as Crawford left.

She badly wanted to cry after she’d put down the phone. Crawford would never again ask her out to dinner—not after the way she had refused his invitation and before the breath of her refusal had cooled, straightaway, and in Crawford’s presence, invited another man into her home. She didn’t cry, told herself she had done the only thing possible. She knew she should feel glad at Robin’s timely phone call, but far from looking forward to seeing Robin again, she knew she couldn’t wait for two o’clock when she would be back at her desk again.

Robin was waiting for her when she pushed through the swing doors just after one, his pale face lighting up when he saw her.

‘Glad to see you’ve let your hair down,’ he said, giving her a smile that at one time would have thrilled her but now left her cold, as she realised he thought she had taken the pins out of her hair for his benefit.

He took her to a cafeteria not far away, and although it was crowded at this time of day, they managed to find a small table for two squashed up in a corner. While Robin downed beans on toast and Gerry drank her soup, Robin filled her in on what he had been doing in the time since they had parted. The job in Birmingham hadn’t come up to his expectations, he told her, coupled with which he had missed her more than he had thought he would. He had tried to stick it out, but when he had seen a job advertised at Arrowsmiths he had applied and been accepted for it. He had been overjoyed on his first day there to hear her name mentioned as the P.A. to the Mr Gillett who had left under a cloud.

‘You were in London at the time,’ he reminded her, ‘But I came to see you the first day you were back.’ He didn’t mention how shocked he had been at how she had changed, but went on, ‘When you fainted, Mr Arrowsmith ordered me out, and as I said this morning, I tried to find out where you lived, but nobody seemed to know—then I went down with this rotten summer ’flu. I was quite ill,’ he said reflectively. ‘Anyhow,’ he resumed, ‘now we’re together again, and I wanted to tell you my feelings for you haven’t changed, Gerry.’

Gerry concentrated on her empty soup bowl. She’d known all along that she shouldn’t have come. It hadn’t been fair on Robin to give him even the small encouragement of having lunch with him. Her circumstances hadn’t changed—there was still Teddy and the twins to be looked after. Any plans Robin had for her in his scheme of things didn’t include Teddy, she knew that without having to ask, and it seemed like hitting below the belt to mention it, since she had no intention of their relationship ever going any further.

‘I’m sorry, Robin,’ she said quietly. There was no way she could dress it up. ‘I—my feelings for you have changed.’

She was back at her desk before two. Robin had not been very happy at what she’d told him. He had seen her acceptance of his offer to lunch as encouragement, as she had suspected too late he would. There had been a stiff silence between them as they walked back to the office, and Gerry had been unable to think of anything to say to break it—and with Robin looking the way he had, she was sure he wouldn’t have answered her anyway.

William Hudson returned from his own lunch shortly afterwards, and paused by her desk for a few moments and they exchanged a few pleasantries prior to him continuing through to his own room. Gerry asked him if he was anywhere near straight at home, remembering it had taken an age to get everything shipshape at the cottage when she and Teddy had moved.

‘Another ten years should sort out the chaos,’ he exaggerated on a grand scale. ‘Though the main rooms are clear—bedrooms too,’ he added as an afterthought. ‘We’ve even got one of the guest rooms sorted,’ he mused out loud. ‘I thought Crawford might want a place to doss down other than a hotel when he comes to Layton and stays overnight. But he always was a loner, and I can’t say I blame him for preferring to put up at the Creighton House,’ he said, naming a hotel just outside Layton that was well known locally for its service, cuisine and, Gerry thought, its high cost. ‘My family seem to have a crisis every other day,’ he confessed, smiling as though he took his family crises all in his stride. ‘Well, I must get on—Crawford’s a hard taskmaster and I get no special treatment just because we happen to be related.’

Gerry reflected when he’d gone that William hadn’t got the job of Company Secretary just because of his blood tie with the head of Arrowsmiths. He had told her himself with the easy way he had with him, that he had had to apply formally along with all the other candidates for the job.

On Saturday, as arranged, with Teddy sitting in the back of the A35, Emma and Sarah either side of her, their pushchair in the boot and with Gerry driving, they went into Layton to shop.

Gerry could see her sister was enjoying every moment of it as she bought three dresses without hesitation, lingerie and shoes for herself, new outfits for the twins, plus two frothy bits of nonsense that were babies' dresses, which cost the earth, wouldn’t last five minutes, and had nothing to recommend them except Teddy’s opinion that, ‘They’ll look simply gorgeous in these.’ Gerry smiled affectionately at her sister, realising how much it meant to be able to spend without counting the cost.

But when Teddy insisted she also should have something new, she demurred. ‘The money was sent for you, Ted, not me,' she said gently, not wanting to upset her happy day.

‘Phooey!’ said Teddy, using her favourite expression when she didn’t think there was anything to argue over.

‘But Mark’s great-aunt would be upset if she knew you were spending her money to buy clothes for me,’ Gerry felt bound to protest, and felt uncomfortable as Teddy fixed her with one of her ‘I’m the elder sister’ looks.

‘Don’t spoil the day for me, love,’ she said, making Gerry feel awful. ‘You’ve spent enough on us in the past— do you want me to start feeling guilty about that?’

‘Oh, Teddy, no!’ Instantly Gerry was won over, and didn’t see her sister's satisfied grin at her piece of emotional blackmail.

Gerry chose a brown linen skirt and waistcoat and matched them with a creamy-coloured shirt to go underneath, which she thought would do very nicely for the office. And at Teddy’s insistence that the silky dress in a lovely silver-grey shade must have been made specially for her—its large sleeves emphasising her delicate wrists, the fitted bodice making the most of her average sized but firm bust, and the way it swung in gores with every movement round her calves, and in view of Teddy’s remarks about making her feel guilty, Gerry accepted that dress too.

‘It’s the sort of dress you can wear during the day and in the evening when we entertain,’ Teddy said, and they both burst out laughing as each had the same thought. ‘I know,’ said Teddy, once they had sobered, ‘we never entertain, do we?’ It was lovely to see Teddy laughing, Gerry thought.