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'You needn't put yourself out on my account,' she told him sharply. 'Today's already been a write-off because of me,' she flung his own words back at him bitingly. 'I wouldn't dream of troubling you again. I can get a taxi.' For a brief, traitorous moment, she almost wished they lived in Merevale, where there was a bus service.

'It needn't be a trouble,' he assured her smoothly. 'The trip to the hospital shouldn't take very long, and afterwards we could go and have some lunch, and come back at our leisure during the afternoon.'

'Lunch, as well as the trip into Dale End?' She looked at him in amazement. 'What a waste of time,' she jeered. 'Think of all the work you could be doing instead. All the people you could be interviewing—no, bribing—to leave their homes,' she corrected herself sarcastically.

'Well, isn't that what you want?' he asked her. He slanted a glance at her, cold, probing, and distinctly hostile.

'What, for you to take me back to the hospital?' That was the last thing she wanted, she told herself.

'No, for you to take me away from my work.' His mimicry brought an angry flush to her cheeks. .'It's an ideal delaying tactic,' he pressed his point home remorselessly. 'You'll gain at least another twenty-four hours, possibly more if the cloud continues low, and I still can't finish the survey I should have done this morning.'

'If you're suggesting I fell over the waterfall simply to foil your plans ' she began hotly.

'I'm suggesting
nothing of the kind,' he said smoothly, and drew to a halt on the forecourt of the Fleece. He slid out of his seat and came round to her side of the car, and with calm deliberation he opened the door and reached in, and picked her up in his arms. 'You can't walk without your crutches, remember,' he grinned, and she willed herself to remain still, to appear indifferent. His face—his lips—were close above her own, too close for her peace of mind, and she hastily turned her face into his jersey so that she need not look up and meet his eyes. If she did, she feared the expression in her own might betray her.

'It's an excellent delaying tactic,' he goaded her, reverting to his earlier remark.

'The same, sort of tactic that you used to alienate me from everyone else in the bar-room?' she flung back bitterly, anger restoring her courage. Strategically, his tactics had been remarkably successful, but he was well versed in their use, and she was not.

'The same sort of thing,' he agreed unabashed. 'If there's going to be a fight,' he continued, his voice challenging, 'then let battle commence, with no holds barred, and no quarter given on either side,' he warned her.

She
deliberately got up late the next morning, to avoid seeing Reeve. She made her foot the excuse, although there was no need, she saw with relief; the combination of firm bandaging and a night's rest had reduced the swelling to negligible proportions. She tried it cautiously, and found with the support of the bandage she could even stand on it without too much discomfort.

'Have your breakfast in bed for a change. A rest won't do you any harm.'

She took the tray Mrs Pugh brought up to her and started on the contents with a pang of conscience. Her injuries did not warrant breakfast in bed, but to please the housekeeper she ate what she was given without demur, and gave the empty tray to Rose who popped an enquiring head round her door to see if she was awake.

'I'm getting up,' she announced, 'it's only grazed hands and a ricked ankle. Those won't stop me from working on my woodcut.'

She slipped into a fresh sweater and slacks. Those she had on the day before looked very much the worse for wear, she decided ruefully. The chocolate brown outfit had been one of her favourites, but it had suffered from her unpleasant experience almost as much as she had. She searched out a chunky cream sweater and some new red corduroys, and added a heavy garnet pendant for good measure. The bright splash of colour raised her spirits miraculously, and her mirror boosted her confidence enough to send her downstairs feeling more cheerful than when she had ascended them the night before.

'The clouds are still low,' she commented to Rose, who was busy with duster and polish on the landing. The air felt cool, and she glanced out of the landing window. Reeve would not be able to work from the helicopter today. The ceiling, as Willy called it, was still very low, she saw with malicious satisfaction.

'Has Mr Harland gone out yet?' she asked Rose casually. She had slept soundly after her experiences, and did not hear him get up or go downstairs.

'I haven't seen him, miss. Oh, perhaps that's him now. Did you want him?' Rose got ready to run and fetch him as the front door slammed on an unseen back, and receding footsteps echoed on the forecourt outside.

'No, don't disturb him, it'll do later,' Marion checked her hurriedly, and waited until she heard an engine start and a car drive away. It was safe for her to go downstairs at last.

'I shouldn't walk too far on that ankle,' Rose warned her, and she smiled.

'I won't.' She was too keenly aware of the possible consequences if she was rash enough to ignore the doctor's advice, and she had no desire to be incapacitated for any longer than was absolutely necessary. As it was, her injury would prevent her from doing much for a few days to keep a check on Reeve's moves among the inhabitants of Fallbeck, and perhaps assuage some of the damage his persuasive tongue might inflict, she thought grimly. It only needed one family to give in, and agree to leave.... The thought sent her downstairs one step at a time, on her seat instead of her feet. She could hop the rest of the way through the kitchen to the stable block, she decided. She reached the bottom with a feeling of achievement when Reeve strolled along the passage and halted in front of her.

'Where are you off to?' he enquired interestedly.

'I thought you'd gone out. The door slammed ....'

She went scarlet with mortification. After taking all that trouble to avoid Reeve, and now she had to blurt that out. He would guess she had been waiting for him to go out, before coming downstairs. The gleam in his eyes told her he knew, and that it amused him.

'That was Willy,' he informed her. 'He treats every door as if it was fixed to his helicopter cabin.'

'I'm going to my studio.' She stood up and hoped fervently she would be able to walk without a limp. For the first time she deliberately called it a studio, and bit her lip as she saw his twitch. That seemed to amuse him, too.

'Allow me.' He picked her up without ado, and her patience snapped.

'For goodness' sake, put me down!' she shouted angrily.

'For your ankle's sake—no!' he refused her calmly, and tightened his hold.

'Willy will be waiting for you.' She tried another tactic. Why did he have to cradle her so tenderly against his heart that she could feel beating next to her own? Did he do it deliberately, because he knew how it undermined her resistance to him?

'Willy's gone to prepare the helicopter....'

'You won't be able to fly today, the cloud's too low.' She did not try to hide the satisfaction in her voice, and his eyes gleamed. The light of battle, perhaps? The battle in which no holds were barred? The hold he had on her now was one she would not try to bar, if only it meant the same to him as it did to her.

'... to prepare the helicopter for when the cloud lifts,' he finished his interrupted sentence, and grinned as he saw her face fall. 'In the meantime,' he toed open the door of her studio and deposited her carefully on her stool in front of her neglected woodcut, 'in the meantime,' he said significantly, 'I've got several people to see, to start negotiations with regard to their properties, so the time won't be wasted.' He stressed 'negotiations'. Marion had called it bribery.

'Who are the people you're going to try to bribe?' she corrected his definition bitingly, and had the satisfaction of seeing his face tighten.

'Do you expect me to tell you that?' He shook his head, and the light in his eyes became steely. 'If I told you, I'd be playing right into the hands of the opposition,' he refused her. 'I didn't go to the trouble of spiking your guns,' he referred to his effective disposal of the crutches, 'merely to give you any information you ask for, like a naive schoolboy. Oh, by the way,' he turned at the door and came back towards her, 'here's your chisel.' He slid a long, narrow wrapped package on to her work bench. 'Don't drop it on the floor again,' he said critically, 'it's too fine a tool to be damaged by carelessness.'

And then he was gone. Briefly his figure blocked the doorway, shutting out the light from her work bench. With a decisive click he shut the half door behind him. The click stirred her into action. Even Reeve would not have the effrontery to lock her in—would he? In her haste to get to the door, she forgot her damaged ankle, and it reminded her sharply that it still expected to be treated with consideration. She gave a gasp and held on to the stool for support, and nearly dropped the chisel again. She grabbed and caught it, and gave a sigh of relief as she managed to prevent it from landing on the quarries for the second time. Not that she cared tuppence for Reeve's warning, she told herself wrathfully. It was only that she, too, had a reverence for good tools. It was about the only thing she and Reeve shared.

She laid the still wrapped chisel safely on the bench and hopped to the door with as much speed as she could muster. The converted stable still retained its half doors. The top half was pegged back permanently against the wall, but the bottom half ....With fingers that shook she pulled it towards her. And almost fell over when it gave easily and swung inwards to her touch.

'I don't need to lock you in.'

Reeve had nearly reached the end of the yard, but he must have heard her and guessed why she was at the door, because he turned.

'Your ricked ankle will serve as an effective ball and chain,' he taunted, and with a derisive wave of his hand he strode out of sight.

She stared at his retreating back in helpless frustration. Even after he turned the corner of the buildings and disappeared, she still gazed at the spot where he vanished, until her one leg began to ache with the strain of supporting her full weight, and she turned and hopped disconsolately back to the stool.

She sat down and passed a hand over her eyes, trying to ease the ache that lay behind them. There was a corresponding ache in her throat, and she swallowed and blinked, then picked up the chisel, resolutely concentrating on unwrapping the oiled paper from around it. As her eyes cleared she looked at the wrapping with closer attention, and noticed it bore the name of a firm of hardware specialists in Dale End, who offered a service to their customers to sharpen any tool from a ploughshare to a penknife. When she dropped the chisel, the iron-hard quarries of the stable floor had chipped the blade. Now there was no chip to be seen. She examined it closely. It had been expertly honed, and—she ran the ball of her thumb gingerly across the edge of the blade—it was razor-sharp. As sharp as Reeve's parting thrust, which brought the ache to her throat, and behind her eyes. He must have taken the chisel in to Dale End specially to get it sharpened for her. She should have been grateful, but .....

'I wish he hadn't bothered,' she muttered rebelliously. It was Reeve's fault the blade was damaged in the first place. If he had not startled her, she would not have dropped it. She regarded her favourite tool with distaste. If only she had another one, of the same size ....But like her pencil, there was just the one, and she needed it for the finer points of her woodcut.

She turned to her neglected work. The blade of the chisel cut easily, without requiring much pressure from her hands. She still retained the padding on her palms to absorb the thrust of her tool handle, but the keen blade sliced with an ease and precision that in spite of herself filled Marion with the pleasurable satisfaction she always experienced in her work. She soon became completely absorbed, to the exclusion of Reeve and the reservoir, and even her damaged ankle, and the time passed by without her noticing. The clump of carved harebells grew steadily, standing out in bold relief from the base panel, as dainty and lifelike as the sketch which she had pinned on the baize-covered board which stood propped at the back of her bench for guidance.

'Hmmm!'

It could not be Reeve come back. He was not given to apologetic coughs. With his normal arrogant assurance, he would have walked straight in without a 'by your leave', she thought tartly. She straightened up reluctantly from her work. It could not be Willy, either. He had gone to the airport to service the helicopter.

'Why, Mr Cornish,' she regarded the elderly schoolteacher with surprise, 'what brings you here during school hours?'

'It's half term.' John Cornish took her smile of welcome as an invitation, and let himself in through the door. I'm looking for Mr Harland,' he explained. 'Mrs Pugh said he might still be here with you.'

The went off a little while ago.' Marion's lips thinned at the mention of Reeve's name. 'He said he'd got some calls to make on people. To begin what he calls negotiations for the sale of their property,' she explained, 'and I'm stuck here with a sprained ankle, and can't do a thing about it,' she added bitterly.

'Didn't they give you some crutches or something, to get about on?'

'Yes, but we accidentally left them at the hospital, and now I'm tied by the heels—literally.' Not for anything would she admit, even to John Cornish, how easily Reeve had outwitted her. 'I'll tell Mr Harland you want him, when he comes back,' she offered.

'I don't particularly want him,' the schoolteacher corrected her wryly, 'but I must see him.'

'About the school?' she queried sympathetically.

'That, and my job.' He looked desperately worried, and anger surged through Marion anew. Multiplied, the schoolmaster's plight was the plight of everyone in the valley, thanks to Reeve.

'I envy you,' her companion said wistfully, and at her enquiring look, 'You can work from wherever you happen to be.' He ran his fingers appreciatively over her carving.