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Katie pushed her hand deep into the sand and held it up, letting the yellow grains filter slowly between her fingers as she spoke. “Fran meant well,” she said defensively.

“Oh, I don’t doubt she did,” he agreed, “but who for?” He turned his head towards her. “And why didn’t you take the opportunity to get in a dig?”

“It was cruel!” she answered him without thinking, and bit her lip a second later in regret.

She was aware that he had taken off the concealing glasses and, propped on one elbow, was regarding her with that steady gaze she found so disconcerting. “You mean to me?” he asked, and when she did not answer, “I’m well able to take care of myself, you know. You needn’t have worried.”

“It shouldn’t concern anyone but you,” she said, wishing the subject had never been raised. “It’s your affair,” and she felt that she could have chosen a better word.

“That’s right,” he answered her in his more usual clipped, precise way. “It is, and I’m glad that one of you at least realises it.” He sat up further, curling his long legs under him, leaning on one hand and near enough for her to see the fine lines around his eyes as he narrowed them against the sun.

"Fran is pretty obstinate when she gets an idea into her head,” he said slowly. "If you can straighten her out on a few points, it would be for her own good.”

Katie curved her mouth into a smile at the thought of trying to deter Fran from something she had set her mind on doing. “I hardly think I’d have much effect,” she said.

“But you
could
try,” he insisted. ‘You’re pretty good friends, after all.”

“I don’t quite see. why you’re so bothered about Fran,” Katie said rather crossly. “After all, it wasn’t Fran who was lunching with a horrible-looking man and taking presents from him. Though she would have, given the chance,” she admitted, reluctantly honest.

The vivid blue eyes were disconcertingly close and she thought she detected a trace of amusement about the straight mouth. “You don’t like Eleanor, do you?” he asked.

The question made her blink in surprise and she shook her head without speaking. “Jealousy, perhaps?” She opened her mouth to protest, but he forestalled her, “Oh, I know you’re far more beautiful than she is, even Eleanor would have to concede that.” She felt the words were more of a statement of fact than a compliment. “But after all she is a very successful woman, and I don’t suppose that makes her very popular with her own sex.”

“It has nothing to do with that,” she objected. “I know it’s a very hard profession and perhaps it makes the people who work in it hard, too, but—”

“But you don’t like her?” he finished for her. “And you could never be a model, could you?” he asked, his voice quiet so that she could barely hear him. “You could never be hard, could you, Katie?”

“No,” she admitted, and added with a wry smile, “I’m not the right size or shape!”

“Aren’t you?” She knew that he had deliberately misunderstood her. The blue eyes had an unfamiliar warmth as he looked at her and she felt the excited skip of her heart when he moved his free hand on to her arm and pulled her to him.

“John!” She knew unreasoning panic suddenly as he pushed her down on to the hot sand, his hands on her shoulders, until she could feel her body sink in the shifting warmth under her, his mouth hard and relentless. She struggled briefly and fought for breath, then he released her as abruptly as he had kissed her and she lay for a breathless moment, the sun only partly responsible for the hot colour in her cheeks, her eyes half closed against its glare.

He looked down at her for a moment with an intensity that made her tremble, then he turned away. “I’m sorry.” The clipped, incisive apology was chillingly practical after the warmth of his kiss and she turned her head away, not to look at him.

He stood up, brushing the clinging sand from his clothes, not looking at her as she sat up, and swung her black head back and forth to shake the sand from her hair. He hesitated before offering a hand to pull her to her feet and she noticed that the blue eyes were as cool and steady as ever. “I’ll take you back," he said, and she nodded, brushing down her brief cotton dress, and followed him to the landing stage.

He paused as she came up behind him and looked at her steadily, but she refused to meet his eyes. “Katie—” She stood by him not speaking, but wondering what he would do if she returned the surprise and kissed him in turn, as unexpectedly as he had done to her.

He helped her into the launch even as the thought passed through her mind, and the temptation was even greater when she saw Eleanor Barlow approaching, her thin face sharp with curiosity.

“Why, John!” the voice excluded Katie from the welcome. “I’d no idea you were here.”

“Hadn’t you?” Katie thought she detected a note of anxiety in the brief question and smiled to herself. “I thought you were in London; you told me you had to go back the other day.”

She laughed briefly. "Oh, I decided to take a few more days,” she said, eyeing his dishevelled hair and Katie’s sandy locks as if she suspected heaven knows what, Katie thought “I see.” He made no mention of the fact that he knew about her meeting with the other man or that he minded her seeing him with Katie, though Katie suspected he did. "I'm sure you deserve the rest, Eleanor, and this is an ideal spot to relax.”

“Yes, isn’t it?” The brittle voice conveyed a wealth of meaning in the words. “But, darling, why on earth didn’t you come up to the house? You know you’re always welcome.” This time Katie felt her exclusion was very deliberate and she bit her lip not to retort. “I’m going back now,” she glanced at her watch. “It’s a pity you’re not alone, you could have run me to the station.”

The slanted eyes, unprotected against the glare of the sun, looked more cat like than ever as she looked at Katie. “It’s Fran’s little friend, isn’t it?” she asked. “The one who nearly got herself buried alive? I do hope you’re recovered from your ordeal, Miss Roberts. One has to be so careful on this coast—it can be very dangerous, can’t it, John?”

“I think Katie has learned her lesson.” His voice had its usual edge of impatience as he answered, but he did not move away, Katie noticed, from beside the mooring post.

“I do hope so,” the girl drawled. “You really can’t be expected to risk your neck for every schoolgirl prank Fran and her friends get into.”

“I am
not
a schoolgirl!” Katie could keep quiet no longer, though she realised that she was at a disadvantage being on a much lower level and having to raise her angry eyes to look at the cool blonde face of the other girl. “And neither is Fran. What happened to us could have happened to anyone, it was an accident.” She felt the dignity of her anger slipping away from her into a very undignified fit of temper. “Had I known that this beach belongs to you,” she said hastily before she gave way to angry tears, “I wouldn’t have come!”

The amber eyes turned enquiringly on John as he unconcernedly coiled the stem mooring rope and tossed it into the launch. “Why
did
you come?” Eleanor asked with deadly quietness.

“It’s very hot,” he answered, as incisive as ever, “and I brought Katie out for a breath of sea air. Dr. Barlow knows I use this mooring,” he said. “Perhaps I should have asked you as well, Eleanor?”

“Darling, of course you can come whenever you like.” The brittle voice took on a soothing tone as she put a hand on his arm, a slight pout pursing her thin lips. “I’m sorry I was so cross, but I do have the right to be a little jealous, don’t I?”

Katie turned her head away as John Miller’s mouth crooked into an enigmatic smile and she heard Eleanor Barlow laugh softly and deeply as if at some minor victory.

FRAN was bursting with curiosity as she watched
Sea Mist
approach the quay with Katie’s black head and her cousin’s blond one side by side in the cockpit. “Hello,” she greeted them as Katie came up the steps and John threw the mooring ropes up to Clay. “You haven’t been rescued again, have you, Katie?”

Her cousin tugged at her long hair gently and half smiled. “No, we’ve only been for a spin, Miss Inquisitive,” he teased.

“I didn’t know you two were going for a joy-ride,” she said, her frank, ingenuous face beamed into a smile. “If I had I’d have come with you.”

“Would you?” he asked, walking with them across the road to Coral House. “I don't know that you’d have been invited.” He turned to Katie, “I hope you’re convinced now that there was no one on the shingle strip,” he said. The blue eyes looked at her steadily, as if they had never been warm and excitingly close, and she had noticed the brief meaningful glance that had passed between him and Clay Pengarth before he joined them crossing the quay. At the gate of Coral House he left, striding off towards his own house, without a backward glance, or waiting to have Katie confirm that she was convinced about the voices below the cliff.

“Katie,” Fran tugged her arm, “come and talk to me.” An exuberant but panting Golly greeted them as they walked up the drive to the house, and there was no one in the lounge, which was blessedly cool after the heat of the quay. Fran curled inelegantly in one corner of the settee and Katie sat perched on one edge of it, not at all sure that she wanted to talk to Fran, for she was sure that her friend would misconstrue what had happened that morning. “You will tell me, won’t you,” Fran’s blue eyes were puzzled, “what you and John were doing out in
Sea Mist?”

Katie laughed, leaning back, trying to feel as relaxed as she usually did in the company of Fran. “It was just as John said,” she told her half truthfully. “I thought I heard voices below the cliff, on that strip of shingle that the tide uncovers, and I wanted Clay to warn whoever was down there before the tide turned.” She frowned as she remembered the man’s obvious reluctance to believe her. “He said I was imagining things—it was almost as if he didn’t want to believe me. But I did hear someone down there, Fran, I swear I did!”

“Gould have been,” Fran said doubtfully, “but it seems unlikely. It’s not a very inviting spot and dangerous, too,” she smiled ruefully. “Even
I
would have known that! Where did John come into it?”

“He’d been out in the boat,” Katie told her, “and when Clay told him what I’d said, he was as dubious as Clay. I was angry,” she admitted, “and I wanted John to go back round there and look again to make sure that no one was in any danger. Well,” she looked down at her hands, fingers twined in her lap, “he said I’d better go with him so that I could see for myself.”

“And was anyone there?” Fran asked. Katie shook her head, not looking at her. “And?” Fran prompted.

Katie shrugged casually. “He didn’t come back, not right away,” she said. “He went on round there to St. Miram. It was lovely and cool on the water and he was going very fast.”

“John throws that boat around like an expert,” Fran said enviously. “Which he is, of course. Did you only go as far as St. Miram?” she added curiously.

“Yes,” Katie nodded, “we went ashore for a little while, but not for very long.”

“Aha!” there was a gleam of understanding In Fran’s blue eyes as she looked at her. “Barlow’s place?”

Katie nodded again, a frown appearing between her eyes which she hoped would discourage Fran from further questioning. “Yes,” she said.

Fran raised her brows queryingly. “Then cousin John has more sense than I gave him credit for,” she said.

Katie flushed, remembering the cool, insolence of Eleanor Barlow. “I wouldn’t have gone there if I’d known who it belonged to,” she said shortly.

“Exactly,” Fran retorted. “That’s what I meant.” She gave her friend a long look that spoke volumes, “It’s a lovely quiet beach, isn’t it?”

“Very nice,” Katie agreed, noncommittally.

“La Barlow didn’t see you by any chance, did she?” Fran asked hopefully.

“Yes, she said.” Katie flared anew at the memory. “I detest that woman, she looks like a cat and she spits like one, too!”

“Oh, dear, poor you!” Fran’s malicious smile had no connection with the sympathy of her words. “Still, she would, wouldn’t she? Finding John in company with a beautiful girl, on her doorstep, so to speak. I suppose,” she asked, “you weren’t—?” She raised her brows delicately.

“No, of course not!” Katie flushed hotly. “Fran, you really are the limit!”

“Well, it was just a thought,” said Fran, obviously disappointed. “Taking you there in the first place was impulsive, and John isn’t given to being impulsive, he’s strictly practical, no sudden impulses.”

“Not always,” Katie said unthinkingly, and Fran brightened again when she saw her expression.

“Oh, good! ” she enthused. “Then there’s hope yet. If you can play your cards right you could prise la Barlow away from John. I’ll be eternally grateful if you can—you’re a clever girl, Katie, to think of it.”

Katie stared at her in sudden anger, getting up from the settee, her hands clenched, her eyes very near to tears, almost falling over a recumbent Golly stretched out at her feet. “Fran ! I won’t be treated like a—a tool to be made use of!” She looked at her friend, her eyes dark and stormy, trembling and hurt at her lack of perception. “I refuse to be used as a means of achieving your ends!”

Fran stared at her in surprise, her eyes wide as she sought the reason for the outburst. Sir Janus came into the room from the terrace, peering in the dim light after the bright sun outside. “Katie, my dear!” he took her hands in his and found them trembling, the grey eyes bright with unshed tears. “What’s wrong?”

“Oh, Sir Janus,” she shook her head, “I’m sorry, it’s nothing really.”

The old man held her hands with his head tilted on one side queryingly, his eyes shrewd as he looked at her.

“Of course it’s something when you’re so upset. What has Fran been saying to you that made you so angry?” He glanced at his granddaughter, who sat pouting ruefully, not looking at either of them.

“It was my fault, Janus,” she confessed. “I wasn’t very bright, I said the wrong thing, but I didn’t mean to upset Katie.” She glanced at Katie apologetically. “I’m sorry, Katie, I didn’t realise.”