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  Searing colour scorched her cheeks, so that she was glad he now had his back to her and could not witness it. And then, loving him even as she thought, you swine! Devon was glad that fury winged in that he could speak to her so. Though her words, when she did find them, were controlled and icy, as she said:

  `I came here fully prepared to complete my half of the bargain we made. You cannot now,' she told him, grimly holding back on the fury that had erupted in her, 'go back on your word not to prosecute him.'

  That he was still taking exception to her telling him what he could and could not do was evident by the sharp way he spun round, then threw at her roughly:

  `I shall do whatever suits me!'

  Her throat went dry at the threat behind his words. But if he had scorned her, then there was a whole world of

  scorning for him, as she retorted, 'Behind his back? While he's away in Scotland at . .

  `I've already been on the phone,' he snarled, fury coming to him too that she was daring to jibe. 'Arrangements have been made for your father to fly home today.'

  The wind was well and truly knocked out of her sails, and she stared at him thunderstruck. 'You've . . . He's . . . ' she spluttered, all manner of fears striking. And never more had she wanted to poleaxe Grant Harrington when, his fury departing to see he had knocked the legs from under her, he drawled loftily:

  `Now will you go and get packed?'

  CHAPTER TEN

  DEVON awoke in her own bedroom on Sunday. Her father had arrived home the previous night looking fit and well, and more than ready to tease her about her dates with Grant.

  She got up and, dressed, went downstairs hoping, although he was such a dear, that her father would not resume his teasing this morning. Though even as she thought it, she saw that if she had had to wait so long to be just like any other girl, he had had a long wait too before he could treat her as such, teasing from one's parent being a natural part of family life.

  The first one up—her father was having a lie-in after his journey—Devon went to the kitchen, her face pensive as she thought of the threat to his liberty that, though he did not know it, still hung over him. He had said last night that he had no idea why Grant had recalled him, but that if he had not yet come to a decision about whether or not he should return to his office come Monday, then he had brought enough paperwork back with him to last him through all of next week at home.

  `Though,' he had added, his eyes twinkling as he began to tease again,' I shouldn't be at all surprised if Grant doesn't get in touch with one of us before Monday!'

  She had coloured then, and had turned away, concern and love choking her that, seeing her through a father's eyes, he should think it unlikely that any man, having taken her out a couple of times, should not want to do so again: And while she knew that she ought to try to prepare him for that dreadful fate that would be his, there were

  just no words in her then to tell him that because she had been too forward, Grant had gone off her and that she had lost not only all chance of ever seeing him again, but that she had also lost him that chance of not seeing the inside of a prison.

  overslept,' said Charles Johnston, coming cheerfully into the kitchen. 'A quick breakfast, I think, then I'll set up office in the dining room. Can we eat lunch in the kitchen, do you think?'

  wouldn't dream of disturbing your paperwork,' Devon agreed, and smiled, wanting to tell him he was wasting his time doing paperwork that wouldn't be needed —but she found she just could not.

  Her father surfaced for lunch, a more lengthy meal than breakfast had been, during the course of which Devon was to find, ever with an eye to her care, that he was more observant than he had been over his rushed breakfast.

  `Something troubling you, Devon?' he asked, his face serious, when she was clearing away the main course, her plate barely touched.

  With this opportunity to tell him, she looked at his dear face, his hair prematurely white, and she just had to let him be happy for a little while longer. 'No, not a thing,' she replied, putting on a bright face—but only to find that her parent knew her better than that. Though his speculations were a mile off.

  `Grant will be in touch, I'm sure he will,' he told her gently, when she knew darn well the only communication they would get from Grant would be through his solicitor. Then, 'Ah-h,' he said, as if suddenly catching on, 'it's not Grant, is it? It's your appointment with Mr McAllen tomorrow. You always did get yourself keyed up just before a visit to him.'

  When he left the kitchen to return to his labours, Devon was again choked. She had had to let him think that her

  appointment with the consultant tomorrow afternoon was the only cloud on her horizon. She had been near to tears as he'd tried to get her out of her quiet mood by referring to what she had told him. 'Dr Henekssen said your last operation was a great success, didn't he?' he had coaxed. And she had smiled and had wanted to put her arms around him, for it just wasn't fair. He had done wrong, yes, but not for himself, never did he think of himself.

  It was early-evening when the doorbell went. Her father had returned to his work in the dining room after emerging for a quick cup of tea and a sandwich, so Devon guessed as she went to answer the door that he would be too engrossed in what he was doing to want to disturb himself.

  Remembering his surmise that Grant would be in touch, even if she didn't believe it, Devon could not help that her heart started to race overtime. But when she pulled back the door and saw that it was Grant standing there, dressed casually, and looking so aloof to see her again after his drawled 'there's nothing more guaranteed to turn a man off than to have a woman throw herself at him' she found she had invited him in without thinking, needing to turn her back on him for a few seconds as scarlet colour darted to her face.

  It was Grant who closed the door, and Grant who spoke first, as for the moment she couldn't find anything to say to him.

  `I've called to see your father,' he said coolly, and her fears for her father had her spinning round to look into his arrogant face. 'Privately,' he added succinctly.

  `What do you want to see him about?' she asked sharply, loving him, yet wanting to hit him that he looked down his nose as though to say, that's my business. 'If you're going to upset him, I want to be in on it too,' she

  said heatedly, ignoring that Grant did not look well pleased.

  `Upset him?' he said shortly, an angry look coming to him. 'Don't you yet know me better than that? Good God, woman, we've lived together...'

  `Shut up!' she hissed, not missing his look of astonishment. 'I don't want my father to . .

  The sound of the dining room door opening made her rapidly break oft Then her father was coming out into the hall, his hand outstretched as he said, 'I thought I heard your voice, Grant,' shaking hands with the big man, and consequently making relief wash over Devon, for having heard his voice, her father would never have shaken hands with Grant if he had heard what he had said.

  `How's the job going?' queried her father's employer, his tone very different from the short way he had been with her.

  `I'm working on it now.'

  `I'll have a look, if I may,' said Grant. And as the two men strolled the few paces to the dining room, Devon ignored as she trailed behind them, they disappeared inside, where Grant turned and promptly shut the door on her.

  Swine, pig! she thought, wandering back into the sitting room, but keeping the door open as she broke out into a sweat. One half of her wanted to barge in and make Grant Harrington say whatever he had to say in front of her, the other half remembered his 'Don't you yet know me better than that'. And the thought occurred, could she live with, laugh with, and love—leaving aside the times she had wanted to bash his head in—a man who would ultimately deprive her father of his freedom?

  There had to be a certain something in Grant that was not harsh, aggressive and hard, for love in her to be born for him, she thought. And she was recalling his gentle

  lovemaking. But it wasn't only that. He was wit
ty, sarcastic, but he was kind too. He had thought to get her a swimsuit so she could get the sun on her limbs. He had been considerate too. Though that didn't, begin to analyse why she loved him—though she was afraid to think that yes, she did know him better than that because twice in the past she had thought , he had let her off, and subsequently her father, but only to find that it was not so.

  To Devon, waiting for the dining room to open, it seemed to be an hour before she heard the click of the door handle. And she was out in the hall like a streak of lightning, face to face with Grant as he emerged, then closed the door.

  `Been listening at the keyhole, Devon?' he asked, one eyebrow arched, receiving his answer by the way she ignored his sarcasm and hissed:

  `What have you said to him?' And without waiting for his reply, she tried to brush past him. 'I must go to him.'

  A firm irremovable hand on her arm stopped her from going forward. But Grant had propelled her with him to the front door, and was standing looking down into her hostile face, before he did make any reply. And then it was clear he had no intention of telling her any of what had been said, when, his voice conversational almost, he asked:

  `Is it tomorrow you go to see your consultant?'

  He was the limit! Devon decided, battling hard to keep the lid on her fury that he was holding her there by force when what she wanted )c, do was to rush in to see her father.

  `Don't tell me you've forgotten,' she snapped with hot sarcasm.

  `What time is your appointment?'

  Quietly seething, Devon saw the sooner she answered his questions, the sooner he would let go of her. 'Four

  o'clock,' she said tautly—and was little short of amazed when after considering her answer, he slowly drawled:

  `There's a chance I may be free just before then. I'll give you a lift.'

  `You'll give me . . .' Flabbergasted, she stared. Then, recovering, she was quick to tell him in no uncertain terms, want nothing from you, Grant Harrington!'

  But by now she was getting to know that look that said she was not going to like what was coming. As usual, he did not disappoint her.

  `It didn't seem that way to me in the early hours of yesterday morning,' he softly let fall.

  `You swine!' she hurled at him, but for all that, she went scarlet.

  `When you look like that,' Grant drawled, a devil in his eyes as he observed her going all shades of pink, 'I'm sorely inclined to forget my—er—principles.'

  She'd seen that look before too, that look, when the devil left his eyes, that said that whether her eagerness had put him off or no, right at this moment his need to possess her had returned. But he had already flattened her father with what he had told him, she was convinced of that. And so it was stiffly, borrowing some of his plentiful supply of arrogance, that she told him coldly:

  `My father will take me to keep my appointment.' And because she could not help it, bitterly she threw at him, 'He'll be upset enough when you've done, without my taking the pleasure away of accompanying me on my last appointment.' Grant's enquiring eyebrow going skywards had her adding, 'My father has been looking forward to my final visit almost as much as I have.'

  Her arm was suddenly free. 'Far be it from me to deprive him of anything,' he said, and turned to open the front door.

  And Devon knew then, as she closed the door after him,

  that that must be Grant at his satirical sarcastic best, for far from not wanting to deprive him of anything, he was about to deprive him of his liberty.

  But in that thought, Devon was to find, as she hurried back along the hall and into the dining room, she had never been more wrong.

  `I thought you'd prefer it if I let you be the one to see Grant out,' said Charles Johnston, and he was positively beaming as he witnessed her heightened colour.

  Something's wrong somewhere, she thought. He wasn't looking remotely flattened. 'Er—Grant was in here with you for a long time,' she fished, and thought for a moment, as her father looked briefly away, that he was going to be evasive.

  `He was casting an eye over the work I've done so far,' he told her equably after a moment. Then his broad grin was not to be restrained, and he was beaming again, too overjoyed himself to see that she was trying to hide her amazement when he followed up with, 'As soon as I've got this little lot cleared up, I'm to take myself back to my old office.'

  That night in bed, Devon cried. She told herself it was just relief from tension that had been with her ever since her return from Sweden. But she knew that it wasn't. Grant had been far more magnanimous than she had thought. Without charging her to settle that outstanding debt, he had told her father to complete the project he had been engaged on, and that though he had re-thought the idea of a new plant, it would be of great interest to him to see how a fresh mind had tackled the problem.

  She wept again as she recalled her father saying, that alive look in his eyes, 'I told Grant I should have my calculations completed by the weekend. And he said, as if it was the most natural thing in the world to say, "A week on Monday should see you back at your old desk, then,

  Charles." And when I just looked blank, he shook me by the hand, and said, "You've suffered enough, man"..'

  Oh, Grant! she wept, and loved him more. She should have known him better, and she hadn't. She should have seen from just the way he had been, from the way he had made her rest, even as she had objected to being wrapped in cotton wool, that bitter though he might be about her father breaking that trust he and his father had placed in him, there was a kindness in him that redeemed his harshness.

  Her mind was so full of Grant that night, she got up the next morning not totally surprised, even though she did admit to its being slightly unbelievable, that not once had she dwelt on her visit today to Mr McAllen.

  Always before, a visit to her consultant had seen her spending a sleepless night. But though admitting now to feeling a twinge of apprehension, last night she had been too consumed with Grant to even remember her pending four o'clock appointment.

  Her father joined her in the kitchen for lunch. And, when he rose to return to his endeavours, fully expecting him to say something to the effect that he would wrap things up at three so he could get ready to go with her to the clinic, when he did not, she had the impression, when she had so much proof of the extent of his caring, that he had forgotten all about it.

  `I'll be off at about quarter past three,' she said by way of a hint. And then as he shuffled his feet, she could have sworn he looked uncomfortable. -Suddenly she saw the reason why. 'I'm a big girl now, Dad,' she said, and was smiling as she added, 'Do you mind very much if I go on my own?'

  He looked at her, his face grave, then after a pause, quietly, sincerely, he told her, 'I want what you want, Devon.'

  She kissed him then as she told him to get back to his fusty old papers, for the reason why he preferred to work rather than go with her on her last appointment had just occurred to her. She felt indebted to Grant, and he too felt that same feeling of being in debt to him, only in his case because he could not repay him, he wanted to waste no time in getting stuck into Grant's work.

  The words 'repay him' were in her mind the whole time she waited for her turn to see Mr McAllen. That same apprehension that had awakened with her was growing, and mingling with thoughts on the debt they owed Grant. Correction, she thought—the debt she owed Grant. For if Mr McAllen told her what she wanted to hear, then it was Grant who had forked out and paid for her to be a whole woman, and not, she saw clearly now, the withdrawn apology for a woman she had been on the way to becoming.

  `Hello, Devon,' said Mr McAllen easily, when, clutching nervously at her bag, she eventually went in to see him. 'Let's-have a look at you, shall we?'

  She was elated as she swung away from the consulting rooms, Mr McAllen's, 'I don't expect you'll be sorry not to have to see me again,' still in her ears, the way it had been when his examination was over, his questions over.

  `You mean,' she had said chokily, 'I don't
have to come again?'

  He had smiled, aware of her being strung up. 'You're as good as new,' he told her. 'Dr Henekssen did a first class job on you, Devon—you have a lot to thank him for.'

  One of her first jobs, she thought as she walked on, was going to be to write and send Dr Henekssen the best `Thank you' letter he had ever received. Mr McAllen was right, she thought, as she came to a park, the bright flowers growing there in abundance in tune with her mood calling her in; she did have a lot to thank him for.

  And not only him, she thought, as she went over to a bench and sat down. Mr McAllen too. And her father— never would she be able to repay him, not only for his years of caring, his years of always putting her first, but the last and final most gigantic thing he had done for her—sacrificed his integrity.

  Love was in her heart for her father, but gratitude and admiration for his courage were there too. For it must have taken a tremendous amount of courage to have done what he had done, wrong though in the eyes of the world that act would appear. It must have cost him dear to have done it, but had it not been for Grant, it would have cost him so much more.

  She had known it would not take long for her thoughts to come around to Grant. But, whole again, knowing from Mr McAllen's words that she was whole again, Devon knew that there was one very big 'Thank you' outstanding to Grant.

  She owed him, yet he did not want payment. His words about her eagerness turning him off were etched in her soul. And yet last night, there had been that look of fire in his eyes again when he had told her, 'When you look like that I'm sorely inclined to forget my, principles.'

  What principles had he been talking of? Was it—a fluttering inside her had to be controlled before she could get her thoughts straight—was it as she had challenged him once, that he would take no action to get her to complete their bargain until after she had seen Mr McAllen? All of a sudden Devon's thinking took off in all directions.