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'Mr Harland and his companion will have every comfort,' Marion promised. 'I'll make the rooms look nice, they sound as if they might be an engaged couple,' she hazarded.

'The person on the phone didn't say, but it was a woman who booked the rooms,' the housekeeper agreed with her reasoning.

'That settles it.' Marion went about her task happily.

It would be pleasant to have company of her own age in the hotel. In Fallbeck itself, for that matter. Most of the small population was either middle-aged or elderly, or young children. Ben Wade was about the nearest person to her own age left in the valley, and given such a choice, Marion preferred her own company.

'I'm looking forward to meeting them,' she decided, and on an impulse she ran downstairs to pick a handful of old-fashioned cream tea roses that made a perfumed glory of the garden wall outside. 'I'll put the girl in the room at the head of the stairs,' she called through to Mrs Pugh. 'It's next to mine, and it's the larger of the two single ones.'

The effect was both comfortable and welcoming, she thought with a last satisfied look at the results, of her efforts. Both rooms were alike, with plain, modern furniture which had the dual advantage of twentieth-century comfort without clashing with the old, beamed rooms. Plain brown carpets set off gold curtains and covers, and white-emulsioned walls which age made too uneven for wallpaper to be practical. A brown pottery jug of tea roses added just the right personal touch, she decided, to make the occupant of the larger room feel extra welcome. Marion glanced at her watch. She had been longer than she intended, but she felt the results justified her efforts, and hoped they would be appreciated. If their guests intended arriving for dinner, they should be here at any minute.

'Will you answer the door, please, Marion? I'm just in the middle of making the gravy.'

The old-fashioned spring doorbell clanged a warning, Mrs Pugh called out simultaneously from lie kitchen, and Marion hurried downstairs. Briefly she wished she had time to change out of her slacks and sweater, but it was too late now. She swung open the heavy studded door with a welcoming smile.

'Come in. You're just in time for dinner.'

'Good evening. I'm Reeve Harland. This is....'

Out of a daze of shock she caught the name 'Willy', but the rest escaped her. She felt her hand grasped and shaken,
and the welcoming smile faded from her face as she stared in stunned disbelief straight into the dark, hawk visage of the passenger in the helicopter.

'His eyes are grey.' Through the haze the clear, cool colour registered on her consciousness. They were the grey of a mountain lake. Warm grey under the smile of the summer sun. Steely grey and hard under the dark storms of winter....

'We've booked two rooms. This is the Fleece, isn't it?' The man called Willy recalled her to her senses. With an effort she pulled her eyes away from the dark face above her and released her hand at the same time. Her cheeks went hot as she realised she had left it in the stranger's grasp for what must seem an unconscionable time to him. She glanced up at him quickly, and her confusion deepened as she caught an amused light in the grey eyes, which it seemed had never left her face.

'Er—yes—of course. You spoke to Mrs Pugh.' She stammered to a halt. He had not; the housekeeper said it was a woman who made the booking. She took a deep breath and tried again. 'Come upstairs and see your rooms. Dinner will be in about twenty minutes.' That would give her time to gather her wits, she thought desperately, and wished with all her heart she had not offered to serve the guests herself, to save Mrs Pugh the trouble. She turned her bade on them and hastened towards the stairs. And knew without looking back that it was Reeve Harland, and not his companion, who came soft-footed behind her. She could feel his look boring into her back, just as she had felt it on the hillside.

'Both the rooms are alike,' she spoke breathlessly, and hoped the man following her would think it was her hurried ascent of the stairs that was to blame. 'The room at the head of the stairs is the larger of the two.'

'I'll take the other one, then,' the man called Willy decided. 'Heights make me dizzy,' he said solemnly, and grinned suddenly at Marion's startled look.

'But you're the helicopter pilot,' she began, and stopped herself furiously. She had not meant to betray the fact that she recognised them. Now it was out, and she could not undo it. She bit her lip vexedly. Willy's joking was merely his manner of making way gracefully for the other, obviously more senior man, to take the larger room. She remembered belatedly that the accommodation had been booked in Reeve Harland's name.

'Ah, but when I'm driving the 'copter I don't have time to look down. I leave that to my passenger,' he said significantly.

'Cut along and get ready for dinner,' Reeve Harland interrupted him. 'We don't want to be late for our first meal here.'

How long did they intend to remain? wondered Marion uneasily, and yearned for the days when the valley boasted a bus service, and during the summer months they often had to turn away prospective guests because they were already full. There was no chance of using pre-booked rooms as an excuse to get rid of these two quickly.

'This is my room, I take it?' Reeve Harland's hand was on the door knob, opening the door, and there was the hint of impatience in his manner.

'Yes—oh!' Marion's hand rose to her mouth uncertainly. 'But I put a bowl of roses in there. I thought...' How could she tell this tall, slim stranger who towered above her that she thought he would be a girl? Her courage failed her, and she stopped speaking.

'I'm very fond of roses.' His cool gaze held hers for a long second, then with a nod he stepped inside the room. The room next to her own. She resisted the impulse to dive inside her bedroom out of sight. The thought of Reeve Harland next door took away its sanctuary. She heard his case thump on the trestle put at the bottom of the bed for that purpose, and the sound broke the spell that seemed to freeze her feet to the floor. She turned and fed downstairs, and sought refuge in the kitchen with Mrs Pugh.

'He's not a girl. I mean, he's two men. I mean....'

'What do you mean?' Mrs Pugh sent her a straight look over the bowl of gravy. 'What's the matter with you? You've not seemed yourself since you came back from the fell this afternoon,' she observed shrewdly. 'Has that Ben Wade been bothering you?' Her tone sharpened.

'Ben Wade? Good heavens, no!' Marion's surprised look was so obviously genuine that the housekeeper's face cleared.

That's all right, then,' she said in a relieved tone of voice, and put the gravy aside. 'If you've nothing else to do, you can go and lay the table in the dining room for me.'

'I can see to the rest of the dinner in here for you, if you like.' Marion did not want to meet their guests again if she could help it.

'There's no need,' Mrs Pugh denied her. 'Just lay the table, then you can run upstairs and get changed yourself.'

And risk meeting Reeve Harland on his way down, thought Marion. The possibility put speed into her actions. If she hurried, she might be in time to miss him. She shook snowy linen across the end of the long, dark oak refectory table, and after a brief hesitation she laid two places opposite to one another, ignoring the seat at the head of the table. She felt sure if she set a place there, Reeve would automatically take it as his right, and an obscure resentment made her determined he should not have the opportunity.

'You gave me a fright, this afternoon!'

She spun round and dropped a handful of cutlery with a clatter, as a male voice spoke from just behind her.

'Sorry!' it apologised. 'Now I've given you one.' Willy smiled at her ruefully. 'I didn't mean to play tit for tat, honestly.' His round face beamed in a friendly fashion, and Marion could not help smiling back. She liked the pilot, she decided. He reminded her of a cheerful egg. He was short and round, and almost bald, with merry blue eyes and an engaging smile. The antithesis
of
his friend—

colleague—boss—whatever Reeve Harland was to him. 'Here, let me pick it up for you, it's gone under the sideboard somewhere.' With surprising agility the corpulent little pilot retrieved the errant teaspoon and handed it back into Marion's nerveless fingers.

'
I
frightened
you
?' She found her voice. What did he think his appearance with the helicopter had done to her nerves? she wondered. But it was difficult, she discovered, to feel cross with Willy.

'We were cruising a bit low across the fells,' he admitted, 'but I didn't expect anyone to jump up from behind a rock like that. I thought there'd be nothing but sheep up there, and then you popped up like a jack-in-the-box.' He grinned suddenly. 'I must admit you made a pleasant change from sheep. But your sudden appearance like that shook the Skipper too. He insisted on us coming back to see if you were O.K., in case we'd upset you or anything.'

So Reeve Harland had insisted, had he? she thought tartly. She could well have done without the dark-haired man's concern.

'I don't upset so easily,' she said offhandedly, 'but I thought I saw you wave to me when you crossed the fell top,' she prevaricated. She did not want to discuss Reeve Harland, particularly with Willy.

'You saw right,' he nodded agreeably, 'but you didn't wave back,' he accused her. 'But then girls never do wave back. At least, not to me,' he said mournfully.

No doubt they would have waved back to Reeve. He probably took it for granted that they did.

'I saw you shake your fist at us, though,' Willy shot her an enquiring glance, and ejected her out of her momentary calm. She nearly dropped the cutlery again.

'Oh, that....' She tightened her grip on the spoons convulsively. She had forgotten her impulsive gesture. She had not thought she would see either the pilot or his passenger again, let alone have them lodging with her in the same house, and she bitterly regretted giving way to the childish retaliation.

'We did give you a fright after all.' Willy eyed her keenly. 'You looked real mad,' he remembered.

'I was mad.' Marion forced a laugh. 'The down draught from your rotors caught me by surprise, and I stepped back and trod on my sketching pencil. Just for the minute, I could have cheerfully stood on you, too,' she confessed with a shamefaced grin. She found she could laugh about the incident now, with Willy.

'I can't say I blame you,' he returned sympathetically. T should have felt the same. You must add it on to Reeve's account for the rooms,' he advised her, and unwittingly recalled her to the original reason for her haste.

'He won't be inclined to pay his bill at all if he's kept waiting for meals.' Marion hurriedly set out the rest of the cutlery. 'Dinner's almost ready, and I'm not changed yet.' The open friendliness of the middle-aged pilot had tempted her to stay talking for longer than she should.

'The evening papers have just come.' She handed them over. 'They'll while away the time for you until your friend comes down.' She obliquely laid the blame for delaying the meal on their other guest. Mrs Pugh would not serve the soup until they were both in the dining room. Marion left Willy reading and hastened towards the stairs. She was half way up them when Reeve Harland's door opened. If she had been nearer to the bottom she would have retreated, pretending she had forgotten something, but positioned as she was in the middle of the flight, it would look too obvious. She hesitated, but only for a moment. Her chin rose defiantly, and she continued upwards, acutely conscious of the tall, dark-haired figure standing at the head of the stairs, watching her ascent.

'I wish he wouldn't look at me like that,' she said to herself forcefully. She simmered with silent resentment. If he had got any manners at all, he would look the other way. Marion's complete lack of self-consciousness so far as her own looks were concerned made her unaware that her unusual colouring, perfect skin and lissom figure were sufficient to draw the eyes of any stranger, particularly a man. The grey ones watching her kindled with appreciation, but they were veiled again by the time she reached the landing, and spoke to him breathlessly.

'Dinner's ready as soon as you go down. Willy's already in the dining room.'

'Willy, eh?' He spoke, then, and the veil lifted on sudden laughter. Marion's colour rose treacherously.

'I didn't catch his other name,' she began defensively. Did this creature think she called any man by his Christian name after five minutes' acquaintance? she wondered hotly.

'Willy will do nicely,' he told her gravely. 'If you call him anything else he'll wonder who you're talking to.' The laughter reached his voice as he turned away, and Marion glared at his retreating back as he ran lightly downstairs. The steel grey jacket of his lounge suit fitted his broad shoulders like a glove, the sombre colour making him look taller and slimmer, if anything, than he really was. A maroon and grey striped silk tie added a discreet touch of colour against an ivory silk shirt and—she gasped at his impudence—he wore a small cream rosebud in the lapel of his jacket. One of the tea roses she had put in the vase in his room.

Did he hear the sound of her indrawn breath? If not, what else made him turn as he reached the bottom of the stairs, and look up, directly at her? And discover her still on the landing, watching him. For a long endless minute grey eyes met brown ones. His look speared upwards like a shaft of light in the cool dimness of the stairway. And then Mrs Pugh struck the gong and he turned away, and Marion felt as if shackles had dropped from her feet, releasing her. She spun round and ran to her bedroom door, grasped the knob and threw it open, as she had thrown open the front door of the hotel only that afternoon, and ran inside, slamming it behind her. She did not care if he heard it slam, she could not help it, and coherent thought was beyond her. She sank down on to her bed, feeling herself begin to tremble.

'Marion, are you coming down? Your dinner will be cold.'

How long she sat there she did not know. Mrs Pugh's call sounded as if she might be coming upstairs in search of her, and urgency moved Marion on to her feet. She called back,