The Flawed Marriage. PENNY JORDAN

closing up, the huge golden eyes shadowed and shuttered.

      ‘An accident,’ she told him tonelessly. ‘Do you live locally?’

      ‘Relatively speaking. What sort of accident?’ he asked smoothly, refusing to allow her to change the subject.

      ‘I was hit by a car—driven too fast.’

      ‘Which makes your carelessness of a few moments ago all the more foolhardy.’

      ‘Only if you happen to be a speed-crazed maniac,’ Amber snapped back.

      The dark eyebrows rose, reinforcing the almost demonic features of the man opposite her, his mouth curling downwards sardonically as he scrutinised her.

      ‘Speed-crazed? Oh, I hardly think so,’ he offered. ‘Forty isn’t considered excessive on these roads—not when one knows them.’

      Which meant that he must live locally, Amber reflected, even though he hadn’t answered her earlier question.

      ‘Even in thick fog?’ she demanded, refusing to cede victory.

      ‘A little mist,’ her companion scoffed, deftly navigating a series of tortuous hairpin bends. ‘You said you were up here for an interview for a job. Why? You aren’t a local.’

      ‘I wasn’t aware that was another prerequisite,’ Amber began sarcastically, a little dismayed by the alert, ‘Another? Why, what was the other?’ that he fired at her.

      Exhaustion and depression forced down her guard, allowing a little of the bitterness she normally kept bottled up inside her to spill over her iron control.

      ‘Can’t you guess? I should have thought a man of your perception would have realised immediately. As you so sapiently mentioned earlier, I limp.’

      ‘And because of that you were turned down for the job?’

      Although all his concentration was on the road and the powerful car, Amber felt his sideways glance, probing the thin skin barely covering her emotional scars.

      ‘Although my qualifications were good, as a junior housemistress they wanted something more mobile.’

      ‘Junior housemistress? That would have been a living-in position, surely, and a time-consuming one.’ She felt him looking at her ringless fingers and guessed the mental assessment he was making. Single, and likely to remain so through circumstances rather than choice: an object of pity and derision.

      ‘So what will you do now?’

      Cold and shaken by her experience both at the interview and afterwards, Amber made an attempt to shrug unconcernedly and failed pitifully.

      ‘I don’t know. God knows I wish I did,’ she muttered under her breath, not intending the words to be overheard, but his hearing was obviously as acute as a predatory hunter’s, because his head swivelled towards her, and the car slid to a smooth halt in a small layby, across the bridge from the village. Thinking that he had taken her as far as he meant to, Amber reached for the door handle, but he stopped her, reaching across her body to grasp her hand. Amber shrank from him instinctively. She had learned in hospital that although she might be an object of medical interest and curiosity to the young doctors clustering daily around her bed, as a desirable and attractive woman she no longer existed; pity rather than admiration was what she read in their eyes; a pity that she had seen time and time again in the months that had followed. From taking the vibrant beauty which had been a facet of her personality before the accident for granted, she had retreated into a world where her beauty had been dimmed by pain and loss of self-confidence. If Rob could no longer find her attractive how could any man? Unwittingly over the weeks she had adopted the mien and shrinking manners of a girl who knows herself unattractive to men, and so she shrank now; not from any fear that her companion might touch her but from his assumption that she might want him to do so and the humiliation of rejection which must surely follow.

      ‘What’s the matter?’

      There was a fine thread of amusement woven into the conventional words, a smile deepening the attractive grooves either side of a mouth which looked as though it didn’t smile often enough. ‘Having second thoughts about the wisdom of accepting a lift? Too late, fair maiden,’ he mocked. ‘I have you within my toils now, and there’s no one to stop me having my wicked way with you. Tell me about your life before this accident,’ he demanded with an abrupt change of front.

      ‘What on earth for? Look, I must go, otherwise I’ll miss my train.’ Amber reached again for the door handle, only to find the door immovable beneath her urgent fingers.

      ‘I’ve locked it.’ He motioned towards the highly technical-looking dashboard. ‘And I won’t unlock it until you’ve answered my questions.’

      ‘But why? What possible interest could you have in me?’

      ’The very natural one of a prospective employer,’ came the totally unexpected reply. ‘I need someone to look after my son.’

      ‘How old is he?’ Ridiculously it was the first question which came into her mind.

      ‘Six.’

      ‘But why should you want to employ me? Before this evening we hadn’t even met. I don’t even know your name…’

      ‘That’s easily remedied. I’m Joel Sinclair. I live about eight miles away from here.’

      ‘And you need someone to look after your son. Surely a fully trained nanny would be better? And your wife…’

      He was shaking his head.

      ‘I’ve made up my mind that you’ll be ideal. What’s your name?’

      Hesitantly, hardly daring to believe that the day might after all have have some benefit for her, Amber told him.

      ‘Amber? Because of your eyes, of course.’

      She blinked at him, surprised that he had noticed. Rob had been going out with her for over a month before he had made the connection.

      ‘Mr Sinclair, are you sure? About this job, I mean?’ she asked formally. ‘You aren’t just…’ she fumbled for the right words, hating the thought that he might have offered her the job on impulse because of some misguided feeling of pity.

      ‘Sorry for you?’ His face hardened. ‘When you get to know me better you’ll learn that there isn’t room in my life for such unnecessary emotions.’

      ‘Well, hadn’t I better meet your son before we settle anything? I mean, he might not…’ She was glancing down at her leg, and she saw that he too was looking at the frail limb.

      ‘Oh, he’ll like you all right,’ came the response. ‘So, do I take it you’re prepared to accept the job?’

      A tiny frown touched Amber’s forehead. He seemed to be treating the whole affair far too lightly. After all, what did he know about her, apart from what she had told him? What did she know about him, come to that? She moistened her lips, darting a quick glance up at him, dismayed to find him watching her with sardonic amusement.

      ‘It all seems so… so unconventional. I mean, you’ve just met me and you offer me the job of taking care of your son without asking for references, without…’

      ‘I know all I want to know,’ he told her, cutting her short, ‘In fact, Amber Douglas, you’re something in the nature of a gift from the gods.’ His laughter shocked and hurt her, although she tried to conceal it. Rob had thought her a gift from the gods once, but not in the same terms as Joel Sinclair, who only saw in her twisted leg a flaw which would probably make her pathetically grateful for his offer of a job.

      ‘But we haven’t discussed terms,’ she said uneasily. ‘A contract…’

      ‘Don’t worry,’ he told her suavely, ‘you’ll have a contract; and you’ll be well paid. Now, are you interested, or shall I drive across the bridge so that you can escape on the train that’s due in any moment now?’