Gracious Lady. Кэрол Мортимер

of having to come after her. Oh, God, she didn’t know what to do, and she could feel his impatience with her increasing by the second.

      ‘You either get in the car and let me drive you into the village, or I call the police and put them to the trouble of coming out to pick you up,’ he warned in a dangerously soft voice.

      ‘Oh, yes!’ Sophie pounced eagerly on the latter suggestion. Not that she actually intended remaining here to get picked up by the police; Aunt Millie would have a fit if she was driven back in a police car! But if she could just get this man to leave, she could make sure she was well away from here by the time the police came along. ‘That sounds like a great idea,’ she encouraged enthusiastically. ‘There’s a telephone in the village——’

      ‘I have a car phone,’ he cut in derisively.

      A car phone! Why hadn’t she thought of that? Damn modern technology! A few years ago it hadn’t been possible to telephone anyone from the confines of your car; now it seemed almost everyone had the convenience of a car phone. It was just her luck that this man should have one—— Perhaps that was just what it was… She could always call his bluff about using the phone, and that way she would know too whether he genuinely wanted to give her a lift to the village or if he was just using the idea of it as a way of getting her inside the car.

      ‘Then perhaps I could use it to call my aunt?’ she suggested lightly, not wanting to antagonise him–especially as her claim to being a karate expert had been pure invention!

      She cursed the fact that the darkness prevented her being able to see him properly, but, even so, she could see he was a big man by the amount of space he took up inside the car, and his voice sounded strong and authoritative, as if he was used to issuing orders–and having them obeyed! She had probably already annoyed him intensely by not doing as she was told.

      ‘I’m a little later than I told my aunt I would be,’ Sophie explained ruefully. ‘And she’ll be worried about me.’ The truth of the matter was her aunt wouldn’t be worrying about her at all, because she would assume Sophie had come in and gone to bed hours ago. And she would be deeply upset to realise that wasn’t the case at all. But Aunt Millie’s displeasure seemed the lesser of two evils at the moment!

      ‘I would be worried about you too if you were my niece,’ the man told her disparagingly. ‘Here.’ The car phone was thrust up in front of her nose. ‘Just dial the number and wait for the connection,’ he instructed wearily as she hesitated.

      ‘Wait’ seemed to be the operative word, her assumption that her aunt had already gone to bed seeming to be the correct one as the telephone rang and rang unanswered at the other end of the line. ‘She’s probably fallen asleep waiting up for me,’ Sophie told the man hastily as she sensed his growing impatience.

      ‘I wouldn’t be in the least surprised,’ he murmured critically, condemnation in his voice.

      Sophie didn’t know what gave him the right to be so critical about her; if he weren’t up and still out at this time of night then the two of them wouldn’t be having this conversation at all. And there were a limited number of reasons why one might be out this late in this area… Which was obviously why he seemed only too happy to make assumptions concerning her own presence here.

      ‘I’m sure she’ll hear the telephone ringing in a minute–Oh, Aunt Millie!’ she cried out thankfully as the receiver was at last picked up the other end and she heard the reassuringly familiar sound of her aunt’s voice on the other end of the line. Although her aunt’s reaction when she realised it was Sophie making the call wasn’t quite so reassuring–as she had feared it might not be!

      ‘What on earth——? Do you realise what time it is?’ her aunt demanded indignantly as she obviously came fully awake. ‘Where are you? What are you still doing out at this time of night; I thought you had gone to bed ages ago. Sophie, this is really too much——’

      ‘I realise how worried you are, Aunt Millie,’ Sophie cut in, her voice lightly cajoling, purely for the benefit of the man sitting inside the car so obviously listening. What she actually said was for his benefit too; at the moment her aunt was obviously more angry than worried about her. Not that she could exactly blame her; her aunt, whenever it was possible to do so, liked to retire early for the night, and had probably been asleep for hours before the telephone rang so intrusively. ‘I just wanted to let you know I’ll be home soon, and that——’

      ‘You got me out of bed at this hour just to tell me you’ll be home soon?’ Aunt Millie said incredulously. ‘Sophie——’

      ‘Yes, that’s right,’ she continued the act. ‘Um–Ally was delayed in town, and so I’m getting a lift back with–with another friend.’ This conversation was very awkward, to say the least. She wanted to reassure her aunt without actually alarming her, while at the same time letting this man know that someone knew where she was and was expecting her home within the next half-hour, which was the most it should take to drive back from town.

      ‘What friend?’ her aunt said sharply. ‘Sophie, you’ve only been here a day,’ she continued exasperatedly. ‘And already you’re causing chaos!’

      ‘What friend…?’ Sophie repeated slowly, thinking fast, knowing she was just making the situation worse with her half-truths and evasions. ‘His name is——’

      ‘Maximilian Grant,’ the man supplied quietly from inside the car.

      ‘Ma–Brian Burnett!’ Sophie frantically replaced, staring inside the car with horrified fascination. Oh, my God, Maximilian Grant. Of all the people who could possibly have stopped, it had to be him! Thank God she hadn’t just blurted his name out to her aunt; that would really have put the cat among the pigeons. ‘Er–Brian Burnett,’ she repeated in a calmer voice, turning away from the car now. ‘You remember him,’ she spoke quickly, desperately trying to think of a way out of this situation–there wasn’t one! A hard knot of misery formed in the bottom of her stomach; she could never remember outstaying her welcome in a matter of hours before. ‘Ally’s brother,’ she added vaguely.

      Maximilian Grant! She still couldn’t believe her luck. Anyone else and it wouldn’t have mattered; but him? Oh, lord!

      ‘Of course I remember him,’ her aunt answered impatiently. ‘He’s been——’

      ‘Look I’ll have to go, Aunt Millie,’ Sophie cut her off quickly. ‘I’ll be back soon, and we can talk then.’

      ‘I am going to bed, Sophie,’ her aunt told her in no uncertain terms. ‘We will talk in the morning.’

      And Sophie knew her aunt well enough by now to know that when she said they would talk in the morning, what she actually meant was that she would talk and Sophie would listen. And learn. Or else. It was ridiculous that at twenty-two she should still be in awe of her aunt Millie and the undoubtably sharp edge of her tongue, but it was a lesson she had learnt the hard way during long summer holidays with her aunt’s family when she was a child. If anything, her aunt had become sharper over the years, not mellowed! And she didn’t have her cousin Arlette to act as a buffer between her aunt’s impatience with her impetuosity this time either, Arlette being away in Germany at the moment.

      ‘Er–I don’t have a key to get in,’ Sophie muttered reluctantly into the mouthpiece of the telephone, her mind racing all the time as she wondered exactly what she was going to do about the man sitting inside the car, impatience emanating from him now at the delay.

      But her panic concerning him was of a different kind now, for she no longer feared his motives in stopping; this man certainly wasn’t about to attempt to rape or murder her. However, he did have a power over her life that——

      ‘Well, really!’ her aunt said incredulously. ‘You really are the limit, Sophie. I would have thought you would have matured the last few years, given all that’s happened to you, but I can see from your behaviour tonight that you’re just as irresponsible as you ever were! I should never——’

      ‘You’ll