Unknown by Unknown Page A

wrong in assuming it was the pantry. The window was high in the wall of a passage with a drop of about nine feet.
    She heard his snort of impatience. ‘Trust a woman! Hold on, I’ll come and help from inside.’
    In the few minutes before he reached her Taryn realised what a ridiculous position she had got herself into. She could get neither in nor out. She hated to think what would have happened had Luke not turned up. Perhaps she would have eventually managed to get down the other side, but even so she would never have got out again. It would have meant spending the night in the house. The haunted house! A prickle of fear ran down her spine. It was easy to convince herself she didn’t believe in old Henry’s ghost in the sane light of day, but in the still of the night—she would be scared half out of her wits.
    Luke appeared now, a tall, shadowy figure in the gloom of the house. He carried a pair of step ladders. ‘Hurrah for Andy,' he said drily, putting them down beneath Taryn’s protruding body. In two seconds he was pulling her the rest of the way through the window frame. Her feet found the steps, and then she was down. Reaction set in and her legs felt so weak that she unconsciously clung to Luke for support. She made no demur when his arms tightened about her shoulders. ‘You silly little goose,’ he murmured. ‘I thought you had more sense.’
    She looked up, saw the tender smile on his face and stiffened. How many times had Mark looked at her in just that way? She shook her head and struggled to free herself. She must get away. This was madness.
    Luke released her the instant he saw her reaction. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said, misinterpreting her reason, ‘I won’t molest you, though if anyone saw us now I’d have a hard job convincing them otherwise.’
    He looked at the front of her blouse. Taryn had forgotten it was tom and to her humiliation saw that it revealed most of her very brief underwear. Colour flooded her cheeks. Desperately she clutched together with one hand the remainder of her shirt. ‘Don’t flatter yourself,’ she said tightly, ‘that thought was farthest from my mind.’
    ‘Then what—oh, lord, don’t say we’re back to that again? Listen here, young Taryn, it’s about time we had a serious talk about Mark Vandyke.’
    ‘Don’t young Taryn me,’ she retorted hotly.
    ‘Is twenty so old?’ he mocked. ‘As I can give you all of thirteen years you seem very young to me. Of course, I could be mistaken, but I would have thought that a mature twenty-year-old would consider it beneath her dignity to scramble through windows.’ Taryn turned her back on him and took refuge in silence. There was nothing she could say. He was determined to get the upper hand.
    ‘Shall we talk outside?’ he asked pleasantly, almost as though nothing had happened. ‘It’s quite cool in here.’
    ‘If you like.’ Taryn followed him along the corridor, resentful of his apparent indifference.
    Once outside he carefully locked the door and handed her the key. ‘Andy should have given you one, but you’d better have this in case you decide to make any more evening calls.’
    ‘I doubt it,’ came her brief reply as she walked with him to his car.
    ‘Now,’ he said, after they were settled, ‘suppose you tell me all about your ill-fated love affair? Once you get it out of your system perhaps our relationship will stand a better chance.’
    ‘As I’m only your employee,’ said Taryn, studying a tiny fly as it walked across the windscreen, ‘I can’t see that it really matters.’
    ‘But it does,’ he insisted. ‘How can you expect to put your best into your work when you resent me?’
    She looked at him then. ‘It’s not you personally. It’s ’
    ‘I know—but it amounts to the same thing.’ His voice deepened. ‘Wouldn't you like to tell me?’
    ‘If you insist—though I don’t think it will help.’
    ‘Let me be the judge of that.’ He touched her hand briefly. ‘Start