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“Of course I don’t,” she told him softly. “And it’s such a relief to know that you won’t be going to gaol. I worried about that so much I couldn’t think straight; that’s why the fact that you were a policeman never occurred to me.”

“I didn’t think it would,” he told her dryly. “You were so intent on making me a crook!”

She eyed him thoughtfully. “You must be very clever.”

“Not as clever as your Aunt Cora when she asked you to stay with her here,” he said, and Katie flushed, as she remembered her aunt’s allusions to her marrying soon and quite sure that it would not be Jamie who would ask her, almost as if she
had
planned it.

She gazed at him wide-eyed. “Oh, John, you can’t think that—Aunt Cora wouldn’t!”

“Elderly ladies like Miss Manson are incurably romantic,” he assured her solemnly. “I was probably the intended victim from the start.”

“John, no!” She suspected that his jest might have had a basis of truth and she could not meet his eyes. A finger raised her chin and she found him studying her with an intensity that set her heart racing, his fair head tilted to one side, a smile round his mouth.

“No? Oh, well, perhaps I’m not a very good detective after all.”

“You’re a very good artist, so I hear,” she said, seeing an opportunity for revenge. “So Mrs. Clubb says. She saw a picture of me that you’d painted.” The vivid eyes narrowed for a moment as the realisation dawned on him.

“Of all the idiotic things to do!” he said at last. “It could have been—oh, I dread to think what would have happened if Eleanor had heard about that. It was unforgivably careless of me to leave it where that wretched woman could get her hands on it. I’d never have forgiven myself if anything had happened to you because of it.”

She blinked as the truth occurred to her. “I never thought of anything happening to me. I was afraid for you if Eleanor found out.”

“Were you?” he asked softly. “Even though you thought I was a crook?”

“But you’re not, you’re a detective, and you didn’t trust me enough to tell me.”

“I daren’t,” he protested. “But I have now. A man can’t have secrets from his wife, can he?”

“Have you got a wife?” she asked innocently, and he shook his head.

“Not yet,” he said softly, “but I hope to have soon, if the girl I have in mind will marry a policeman.”

“Are you a very important one?” she asked solemnly, as if it mattered one way or the other, and he shook his head, hugging her closer.

“Not very, only a Chief Inspector, but that’s important enough for the moment, isn’t it? I hope it is, or won’t you consider marrying anyone less than a Chief Superintendent?”

“I won’t insist,” she told him, and added with certainty, “Anyway, you will be one day.”

He laughed, tightening his arms round her, his blue eyes so close that she could see the tiny lines at their comers. “My darling, inquisitive Katie, I would have asked you to marry me when we collided at the station that first time, if I could. I’d never seen anyone so lovely.” He kissed her mouth gently. “I’m asking you now, will you marry me?”

“Yes,” she said, and would have added, ‘I love you’, but his kisses were no longer gentle and it was some time before she had breath enough to tell him that.