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She said, ‘You Oh God, you…’ Then her voice broke, and she began to cry, her body shaking under the i sobs

‘Why did you stop me?’ she wailed between paroxysms ‘Why the hell did you stop me?’

He got up silently, handed her an immaculate white handkerchief from his breast pocket, and vanished

Amanda buried her head in the cushions and wept until she had no more tears left When she eventually lifted her head, he had co down a tray, laden with tea things, on to a table in front of her

He said, conversationally, They say tea is the best thing for shock I wonder if it’s true?‘

She said huskily, ‘I don’t want any bloody tea! What are you doing here, Malory?’

‘I followed you fro soht I should stop you That’s all’

‘All?’ she echoed bitterly ‘Didn’t it occur to you to mind your own business?’

‘You’re engaged to ave me—a kind of responsibility’

‘Your half-brother’

‘If you want to split hairs’

‘And I’ed to him’

‘So I infer’

It was that coolly precise way of speaking which had so often needled her about Malory She supposed it cas in those damned laboratories of his But she wasn’t a substance under his bloody microscope—and how dared he be so calm and ?

He poured out some tea and handed it to her She would have liked to have thrown it over him, to see if that would ruffle that distant poise of his, but instead she sipped the hot breatching him sulkily over the rim of her cup This was only the second tie, she realised, and he’d lost no ti his way around the kitchen

She said, frowning, ‘How did we get in here, anyway?’ Her keys, she ree