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“I was rather worried,” Katie admitted. “They both seem so strong-willed.”

Fran laughed again. “They are,” she said. “All the Dennisons are—it’s a family trait, hadn’t you noticed it?”

“But they’re Millers,” Katie pointed out, “not Dennisons.”

“They’re Dennison on their mother’s side,” Fran told her, smiling wryly.

“She was Janus’s daughter?” Katie wondered if Fran would take exception to her curiosity, but the oddly childlike face smiled, if a little ruefully.

“She still is,” she said. “She’s married to an American and living in the States.”

“Oh, I see.” Katie felt it wiser not to say any more, especially since Jamie had just walked in through the french windows, his brown, good-looking face wearing an unusually chastened look. He saw Katie and his cousin and came across to them.

“Hello,” he said blithely, looking from one to the other of them. Katie felt an insane desire to laugh at his determinedly happy expression, and catching Fran’s eye briefly, she half smiled and a second later both girls exploded into laughter. “Very funny,” Jamie said in injured tones. “I wish you’d let me in on the joke.”

“Oh, Jamie!” it was Fran, her expression apologetic but her blue eyes still glistening with laughter, who put a hand on his arm. “I'm sorry, but you’re trying so hard not to look sorry for yourself.”

“Well, I am sorry for myself,” he said, looking at Katie. “First I put my foot in it with Katie, then big brother stepped in and read me a sermon.”

“You didn’t fight,” Katie said, relieved.

“You don’t have to fight with John to come off worst,” Jamie said ruefully. “He can
talk
you into seeing sense—he’s like Janus.”

‘For the second time that evening Katie heard John Miller described as being like his grandfather, but she had to admit that she could see no similarity between the two men apart from their good looks, of course, and the entire family seemed to share those. Fran cast her a look of triumph that things had been as she predicted.

Jamie smiled as if his chastened mood had been forgotten. “Will you dance with me?” he asked, and Katie shook her head.

“Not this time,” she said firmly. “It’s time you changed partners.”

“Oh.” He turned to his cousin. “Fran?” he smiled at her, his arms open invitingly, and she moved into them, looking at Katie over his shoulder.

“See you in a moment, Katie,” she said, and danced off, her fair head inches below her cousin’s chin, so that he smiled at Katie as they moved away.

The baby-faced young man was quick to take advantage of Katie being alone and was at her side in a second as the others moved off. He held Katie with equal enthusiasm as he had Fran and performed his own version of a quickstep which she endeavoured, sometimes vainly, to follow. Whirling into a particularly complicated set of steps on a comer, he swung her round with such force that she barely missed colliding with Eleanor Barlow, gliding elegantly in the arms of John Miller. For the brief second that she looked into his eyes before she was snatched away by her energetic partner Katie could have sworn that she caught a glimmer of amusement there.

“You’re a very good dancer,” her partner told her earnestly. “I’m not always easy to follow, I know, but you seem to manage to follow me very well.” He smiled at her, his eyes almost level with hers, before clasping her back again in the bear hug he affected. He seemed disappointed when the music stopped and would have escorted her to the bar, but Katie excused herself, having seen Fran signalling to her from the other side of the room.

“Jamie’s getting us a drink, and circulating a bit,” she said, her fair head turned slightly to keep her cousin in sight. “He isn’t very sociable when he’s in a mood like he is tonight and Janus is getting cross because he isn’t dancing with some of the other girls, so I’ve asked him to get drinks, then circulate for a while. Katie,” she looked at her friend from the corner of her eyes, “will you do something for me?”

“Of course,” she was puzzled by the air of conspiracy about the other girl. “What is it you want me to do?”

“The next dance,” Fran said, “is a ladies’ request, and I want you to ask John to dance with you before Eleanor Barlow can ask him.”

Katie flushed, gazing at her friend unbelievingly. “Fran, I couldn’t!” she protested, appalled at the thought of approaching John Miller, let alone asking him to dance with her, and the idea of pitting her chances against the tall, elegant model with the malicious eyes filled her with horror. “I wouldn’t dare,” she said, glancing across the room to where the two in question sat side by side smoking and talking together.

“Stuff!” said Fran inelegantly. “Of course you can, he won’t eat you.”

“But why?” Katie asked plaintively.

Fran narrowed her blue eyes. “Because I don’t like the way she’s monopolising him,” she said. “It’s time he danced with somebody else.”

“He’s already danced with me once,” Katie reminded her, “and I don’t think it was exactly a thrilling experience for either of us.”

“Oh, he was warning you about Jamie, I suppose,” Fran shrugged, dismissing it as nothing, but the accuracy of the guess discomfited Katie.

“It wasn’t a very pleasant few moments,” she said, “and I don’t particularly want to repeat it.”

“Oh, he won’t be horrid to you again,” Fran took it upon herself to promise, “and I don’t like Eleanor Barlow. I don’t like her fastening on to John like she is.” The blue eyes rounded in appeal. “Please, Katie, do it for me, and I promise you I’ll relieve you when you’ve been round twice.”

“But why can’t you ask him?” Katie protested. “Because, my dim infant,” Fran said patiently, “I shall be keeping la Barlow occupied while
you
ask him. After all, it is my party, even the sophisticated Barlow can’t ignore her hostess.”

“I’ll try,” Katie promised reluctantly. “But he may refuse, then what happens?”

Fran eyed her up and down shrewdly, her smile knowing. “He won’t,” she said, and with an encouraging nod she crossed the room to where Eleanor Barlow sat elegantly at ease, a drink in her hand.

Katie saw Fran sit beside her and draw her into conversation though she could not for the life of her think what on earth topic they could have been discussing. John Miller smiled indulgently at his cousin’s chatter and leaned forward on his chair, his elbows resting on his knees, hands together between them.

Katie had never felt so self-conscious as when she walked across the room just as the music started to play for the ladies’ request. She approached him from one side so that he did not see her until she stood beside him, her heart beating alarmingly fast, and feeling unusually gauche and uneasy. He glanced up as she stopped beside him, and she flushed as the vivid blue eyes flicked in surprise at the sight of her.

She felt ridiculously shy as he rose, tall and rather overpowering. “Will you dance with me?” she asked, and was conscious of Fran’s approving smile and Eleanor Barlow’s somewhat outraged expression as they moved on to the dance floor.

“I’m honoured, of course,” he said after a seemingly endless silence, “but I should like to know why you asked me.”

His hold this time was more relaxed and more intimate and she had to admit that he was an excellent dancer, but she also wished she could think of an answer to his curiosity. He glanced down at her, and she saw that his straight mouth was crooked into the ghost of a smile. “I think I owe you something of an apology,” he continued, since she did not answer him. “My brother and I had a talk after you very wisely went back to the house just now, and it seems I misjudged you.”

She looked up at him, her surprise plain on her face at his admission. “You’re not a very good judge of character,” she told him, far more boldly than she felt.

The blue eyes narrowed at the rebuff. “I
have
apologised,” he said with his usual impatience.

“Thank you.” She wondered if he expected her to return the compliment by saying she was sorry for the things she had said to him. “I shouldn’t have said some of the things I said to you either,” she said reluctantly. “I’m sorry.”

“Only for some of the things?” He sounded remarkably like Jamie and she caught the ghost of a smile again as she glanced up at him. “You’re a very good dancer,” he told her unexpectedly.

“Thank you,” she acknowledged the compliment solemnly, aware from die comer of her eye that Fran was approaching; presumably they had completed the required two circuits.

“Excuse me,” Fran’s freckled face smiled impishly and she put a hand on her cousin’s arm, but he merely halted long enough to remove her touching fingers, then continued dancing, leaving her gazing after them in surprise.

“Not yet, Fran,” he told her as they moved away, “I don’t like being interrupted.”

He was smiling, if somewhat frostily, and Fran, Katie noticed, after recovering from the initial shock, was far from upset by the rebuff and moments later she passed them clasped in the breathtaking embrace of the baby-faced young man, giving Katie a broad wink as she went by.

“Did Fran organise this chicanery,” he asked quietly, “or was it your idea?” She blinked her surprise, her colour rising as he looked down at her intently. “No,” he said, answering his own question as he saw her expression. “It must have been Fran.” He frowned his curiosity as she still did not answer. “Now just what, I wonder,” he said slowly, “is she up to now?”

“I—I don’t know,” Katie said truthfully enough.

“I hope not,” he said feelingly, and danced the rest of the dance in silence, returning her to Jamie who waited, frowning curiously as they approached.

“You look desperate,” Jamie commented, as his brother walked away. “Whatever made you ask big brother to dance?”

“You’re supposed to be circulating,” she said, to save herself the necessity of lying to him.

“At Fran’s request,” he said thoughtfully. “She said it was Janus, but I’ve only got her word for that, and she wanted drinks too,” he complained, “and then didn’t claim them. She’s up to something.” Katie restrained a smile at the shared suspicions of the two brothers about their cousin, and took her drink gratefully from him.

It was Jamie who took her home, his brother having left a few moments earlier with Eleanor Barlow. So much for Fran’s effort to part them, Katie thought, watching the long thin hands of the model curved possessively round John Miller’s arm.

Aunt Cora, she suspected, would be listening for her return, although she had said that she would not wait up for her. Jamie’s car was similar to his brother’s in so far as both were only two-seaters and left very little room for movement, so that Katie’s arm brushed constantly against her companion’s all the time during the short journey.

He stopped the car at the gate of Smuggler’s Rest and eased himself out of the seat without opening the door, then came round to help Katie out. He took her hand and pulled her from the low seat of the car into his arms. “Cinderella safely home,” he said softly, his eyes glinting as he bent his head. “Will the fairy godmother be waiting up?”

Katie glanced at the darkened window of her aunt’s room and shook her head. “She said she wouldn’t,” she whispered, not wanting to advertise their presence in the quiet street, “but I expect she’s still awake.”

He followed her gaze and smiled. “Then we shan’t wake her if we talk,” he said. “Are you going to ask me in, or shall we stand in the porch?”

“I can’t ask you in at this hour in the morning,” she protested. “For one thing, Bridie would wake the street with her barking.”

He pulled a wry face. “That furry little horror!” he said; and added, “But still I should be grateful to her, I suppose; if she hadn’t started a fight with Fran’s Golly I’d never have met you.” He bent his head and kissed her gently. “I owe her a lot for that,” he whispered.

Katie felt terribly vulnerable standing in the road as they were and she moved round the car and into the garden of her aunt’s house. The shrubs and trees seemed taller in the moonlight and rustled softly in the slight breeze. Jamie followed her and brought her to a halt beside one of the taller trees. “Don’t go in yet,” he pleaded, holding her hands. “Talk to me, Katie.”

“Jamie, it’s almost half past two in the morning,” she said, and was amazed how wide awake she felt.

“I want to talk,” he insisted stubbornly. “I like talking to you.”

“All right,” she sighed in mock resignation. “What shall we talk about?”

“About you,” he said promptly. “Fran says you’re an orphan—are you?” He stroked the thick black hair back from her forehead with gentle fingers.

“Yes,” she frowned briefly at the reminder, and added without quite knowing why, “I
know
you’re not.”

She felt him tense as she spoke and the caressing fingers paused, momentarily still against her hair. “How do you know?” he asked, then laughed suddenly and softly. “Same source, I suppose—Fran.”

Katie nodded, puzzled by the change in his manner. “She said your mother was in America and married to an American, that’s all. I didn’t ask any questions.”

“Wise girl,” he teased. “Or were you afraid of what you might discover about the Dennison family skeleton?”

“Of course not,” she shook her head. “I just assumed that perhaps your mother was widowed and had remarried, that’s all. I didn’t know there was a skeleton to find.”

“Not widowed, divorced,” he took her hands in his, lifting her fingers to his lips. “Magda went off when I was only
two.
When her American friend went back after the war she went with him and left us to our own devices.” He looked unusually serious as he talked, his eyes not looking at her. “Robert, our father, divorced her and then a couple of years later he died, and Janus took us over. He’s a wonderful man, my grandfather.”

“He is,” Katie agreed softly. “In fact you’re a rather wonderful family.”

“Including big brother?” he asked teasingly, and she felt her face colour, thankful for the darkness.

IT was a day or so later when Fran suggested a boat trip in the Dennisons’ sleek-looking little motor launch moored at the quay, and Katie viewed the prospect with delight, for it was very hot still.