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wedding’s this Saturday isn’t it? Your twenty-fifth birthday?’
    Her eyes lowered, her hand curling into a white-knuckled fist as she pulled it violently from under his and thrust it down into her lap. His investigations must have been appallingly extensive. How much more did he know? Please God, not enough!
    ‘Yes.’
    Her curt response didn’t stop his probing as he leanedback again in his chair. ‘You must be looking forward to it after such a very long engagement? And only four days to until death do you part. No wonder you look slightly…emotionally ragged. It’s going to be a big church wedding, I understand. I’m amazed you could spare the time to dash down here…or was this a welcome distraction from the bridal jitters?’
    Vivian lifted her chin and gave him a look of blazing dislike. At the same time she lifted her champagne glass and took a defiant sip.
    He watched her with a thin smile, and suddenly she had had enough of his subtle tormenting. Any moment now she was going to lose her temper and give the game away. Thinking, In for a penny, in for a pound, she closed her eyes and recklessly quaffed the whole lot. It really was glorious, like drinking sunshine, she decided, drenched in a fizzy warmth that seemed to invade every body-cell.
    She was still feeling dazzled inside when she reopened her eyes and found him regarding her with serious consternation.
    ‘You shouldn’t knock Dom Perignon back like water!’
    Well, she had certainly succeeded in changing the subject! She gave him a smile that was almost as blinding as her hair. ‘I thought that was the way you were supposed to drink champagne. It gives such a delicious rush! I think I’ll have some more.’ She held out her glass.
    His jaw tightened. ‘One glass is more than sufficient for someone who claims not to drink very much.’
    ‘But I like it. I want another one,’ she insisted imperiously. ‘A few minutes ago you were trying to ply me with wine, and now you’re sitting there like an outraged vicar. More champagne, garçon! ’ she carolled, waving the glassabove her head, suddenly feeling marvellously irresponsible. She might as well get thoroughly drunk before she met her fate.
    ‘Vivian, put the glass down before you break it!’ he ordered sharply.
    ‘Only if you promise to fill it,’ she bargained, crinkling her eyes with delight at her own cunning.
    He looked at her silently for a moment, during which her body began to take on a slow lean in the chair. ‘All right.’
    She chuckled at him. ‘You promise?’
    ‘I promise.’
    ‘Cross your heart and hope to die?’
    ‘Vivian—’
    ‘Stick a needle in your eye—!’ She broke off the childish chant, putting her free hand to her open mouth, her face blanching under the freckles. ‘Oh, God, Nicholas, I’m sorry.’
    ‘The glass, Vivian—’
    She was too shocked at her thoughtlessness to register anything but her own remorse. ‘Oh, Nicholas, I didn’t mean it, I was just being silly. You mustn’t think I meant—’
    ‘I know what you didn’t mean, Vivian,’ he ground out, as she regarded him owlishly from behind her spectacles.
    ‘I would never tease you about your eye,’ she whispered wretchedly.
    ‘I know,’ he said grimly, lunging to his feet and reaching for her glass just as her limp fingers let it go. It slid past his hand and shattered on the stone-flagged floor into hundreds of glittering shards.
    ‘And now I’ve smashed your lovely crystal,’ she saidmournfully, her eyes brimming with more tears at the knowledge of the beauty she had carelessly destroyed. ‘You must let me buy you another one.’
    ‘By all means pay for the glass. You’ve smashed a hell of a lot worse in your time. Perhaps it’s time you were made to pay for that, too,’ he growled, and caught her just as she toppled off the chair, bumping her cheekbone on the edge of the table.
    ‘Oh!’ Her back was arched across his knee, her head drooping over his powerful arm, hands