Fire Beneath The Ice. HELEN BROOKS

and get her thoughts in order for the next barrage.

      The September evening was growing dark outside when she walked dazedly from his office a few hours after entering it, with a small list of several items of correspondence he needed typing before she left. She sat down at her desk with a weary little plop and flexed her aching hand gently. He was some sort of a machine! She stared across at the closed door separating them, aware that her head was pounding, and a distinct feeling of nausea was reminding her that she hadn’t eaten all day. Well, she had no time now: it was going to be at least another two hours before she could leave——

      ‘Lydia?’ The box on her desk crackled as it spoke her name abruptly. ‘Order us both coffee and sandwiches and take a break for half an hour. You’re no good to me looking like you did when you left this room.’

      ‘I’m fine.’ She glared at the inoffensive intercom as Wolf’s last words made her cheeks burn. ‘I can——’

      ‘Do as you are told.’ The tone was uncompromising. ‘I rarely make suggestions—that was an order, in case you didn’t recognise it.’ Both the harshness of the deep voice and the authoritative arrogance made her hands clench at her sides as she struggled for composure, but it was a good few seconds before she could bring herself to reply. How was she going to stand working for this megalomaniac for five or six days, let alone five or six months?

      ‘Very good, Mr Strade.’ The use of his surname was deliberate and there was a blank silence for a moment before he spoke again.

      ‘Did you come by car this morning?’ he asked coldly.

      She nearly said ‘What?’ for the third time that day and checked herself just in time. ‘No, I didn’t,’ she said abruptly. ‘I travelled by tube—it’s not far.’

      ‘Then when we’re finished here you order a taxi. The name of the firm we use is under T in Mrs Havers’s address-book in the left-hand drawer of the desk, and you charge to the firm’s account, OK?’

      ‘There’s really no need——’

      The deep, long-drawn out sigh cut short her protest. ‘I might have known.’ His voice was laconic and extremely sarcastic. ‘Here was I thinking I’d found the perfect substitute secretary—pleasant to look at, highly efficient and utterly devoid of fanciful ideas.’ By that she supposed he meant that with a husband and child in evidence he was safe, she thought furiously. ‘But unless I’m very much mistaken, there is a strong streak of stubbornness in you, Mrs Lydia Worth. Would you really prefer to wander about London on your own late at night when you can be safely transported to your door?’

      ‘I don’t intend to wander anywhere,’ she retorted tightly, ‘but I am more than capable of getting home——’

      ‘Order the taxi ten minutes before you think you’ve finished,’ he said sharply, ‘and I don’t want to hear another word on the subject.’ She heard him mutter something rude a moment before the click of the intercom signalled the conversation was at an end.

      She wasn’t going to be able to stand this. She shut her eyes for a second before lifting the internal phone to call down to the canteen for the coffee and sandwiches. He had to be the epitome of all the qualities she most disliked in the male of the species, he really did. It wasn’t so much what he said but the way he said it most of the time—arrogance was far too weak a word to cover such cold, aggressive hostility. Was he like this all the time?

      She was pondering exactly the same uncomfortable thought later that night as she lay in the peace and tran-quillity of her bedroom with her head spinning from the impressions of the day. She had finished the work he wanted just before eight, presenting the neat pile of typewritten pages to him in fear and trepidation and waiting by the side of his desk while he checked them through.

      ‘Excellent.’ He had raised piercing blue eyes to the soft brown of hers. ‘I can see we are going to get along fine, Lydia, despite a few hiccups. Have you ordered the taxi?’ She had nodded reluctantly and his mouth had twitched as he lowered his eyes to his desk again. ‘Good. Well I suggest you scoot off home to that husband of yours and reassure him that this won’t happen every night. Goodnight.’

      ‘Goodnight.’ She had just reached the door when his voice had spoken her name again.

      ‘And, Lydia?’ She had turned to face him, her eyes apprehensive. ‘You really have done a magnificent job today, thank you.’ And then he had smiled, really smiled, and she had almost reeled from the shock of it, from the transformation it had wrought on his whole face.

      Had he smiled at those other girls like that? she asked herself as she flexed her toes in the warmth from the electric blanket—it was almost October now and had been a particularly cold autumn. If so, she could under-stand why they had been smitten. Not that it affected her like that, she assured herself hastily, definitely not. She knew what he was really like—cold, aloof, hard and quite inexorable, but nevertheless…The softening of the austere classical features would cause any female’s heart to give a little jump.

      Thank goodness she was immune. She nodded to herself firmly. He was pleased with her because she did her job well and was guaranteed not to get any romantic ideas about him. Well, that suited her just fine. She didn’t need any complications in her life at the moment. Hannah more than filled any spare time she had. She turned over in the big double bed and pounded her pillow into shape with unnecessary vigour.

      There had been the odd suitor since Matthew died, but none had remotely stirred her blood or her heart and she had never repeated any of the dates more than once. Perhaps she would never marry again, never find a man to replace Matthew? She shut her eyes and let her thoughts roam where they would.

      She had known Matthew forever: they had grown up next door to each other from babies and she couldn’t remember a time when she hadn’t been going out with him. Marriage had been a natural progression. He was as familiar to her as her own skin, and life had been comfortable, peaceful and relaxed with him—no big highs, no desperate lows. Perfect. She curled into a little ball in the warmth of the bed. Their lovemaking had been gentle and infrequent, but that had suited both of them. They had been busy with their separate careers. She didn’t believe in the sort of mindless passion one read about in books, anyway. She smiled whimsically in the darkness. Such emotion was a figment of writers’ imaginations, poetic licence, and if it became a reality would probably prove to be unbearably uncomfortable.

      The last three years had been a hard struggle, she reflected quietly, and painful at times, but she had managed to get through by her own determination and fortitude, finding within herself a tenacity she hadn’t known she possessed. She had still been a child in many ways when Matthew died, protected and cocooned by circumstances and his love, but she had had to grow up very suddenly, and now her hard-won independence was precious, very precious.

      She straightened in the bed, fingering her wedding-band as her thoughts wandered on. It hadn’t occurred to her for a long time to take it off—in a way it was a solid link with Matthew that time couldn’t erase—but when a friend had hinted she ought to think about doing that very thing, she had been shocked and horrified. Hannah deserved all her time and love for the next few years. Her daughter had been cruelly robbed of her natural father and no one, no one, could replace a father’s love. She had seen too many situations where the children of a first marriage were subtly pushed aside as a new baby made an appearance. No. She wouldn’t betray Matthew’s memory or Hannah’s trust by giving her anything less than her whole heart. Besides…She twisted restlessly in the bed. She had got used to being alone, to making her own decisions, she had. And everyone got lonely at times, even people who had been happily married for years.

      No, everything was fine in her world, just fine. It didn’t occur to her that this was the first time she had ever had to assure herself of the fact, which was probably just as well because sleep was a long time in coming. A certain hard, masculine face, with eyes the colour of a winter sky, kept getting annoyingly in the way.

       CHAPTER