MRS MARTIN

And at last it seemed she would have the opportunity to tell him how grateful she was.

Finally the housekeeper stopped before one of the doors. She leaned her ear against it for a moment before she straightened and knocked.

"Come in," someone instructed.

Annie couldn't tell if it had been her guardian's voice, but she wasn't given much time to wonder. Mrs Martin opened the door and indicated with her hand that Annie should step inside.

Only when she has did Annie realize that the housekeeper wasn't coming in with her. She started to protest, just as the housekeeper stepped away from the door she had opened and started down the hall. Annie drew a fortifying breath and then looked back towards the room she had just entered to see a pair of clear crystal eyes looking intently on her.

Ian Sinclair was seated in a comfortable chair before the cheerful fire. He was fully dressed, as elegant as the first time she had seen him. Expecting an invalid, perhaps even a dying one, Annie could not have been more surprised had she entered the room and found one of the men who had attacked them that night holding court.

"I understand you've been ill," she said, walking forward.

There was a small, uncomfortable silence.

"And I wonder who Told you that?" her guardian asked.

He sounded as if he really wanted to know. Remembering Mrs Martin's warning, Annie understood why. And, despite the servants' coldness, she had no wish to get any of them into trouble.

"After several years of looking after the younger girls, my powers of deduction are well-honed," she said. "You disappeared the night we arrived, and I haven't seen you since. In that time, both a physician and your brother have come to the house, the former on several occasions and the latter for a visit of some days. It seemed rather obvious."

"I'm sure none of your charges was ever able to put anything over on you," Mr Sinclair said, laughing.

And then his laughter became hard coughing. Lucy Bates had died last year of such a cough. Of course, Lucy had never been very strong to begin with, Annie reminded herself, remembering the fragile little girl, whose arms and legs had been more like sticks than like the sturdy, rounded limbs of most of her girls.

And just because something terrible had happened to Lucy Bates that didn't mean anything terrible would happen to Mr Sinclair. She could not, however, control the surge of anxiety as she lost to the deep congestion the cough revealed.

"Are you all right?" She asked finally as it faded.

"Of course," he said.

His hand was pressed against the centre of his chest. However, since Mr Sinclair preferred it, Annie gave in to the pretence that what had just happened had not happened and that he had not really been very ill at all.

"I have wanted to thank you since that night," she began, determined to say all the things she should have said then and had not Had the chance to say since.

"I truly wish you would not."

"I owe you my life, Mr Sinclair. Or at least..."

She almost said my virtue, but then thought that the expression of that reality might be improper. Although she has had a sheltered upbringing, there had been no doubt in her mind about the kind of danger she had faced.

"You owe me nothing of the kind," he said into her pause. "Quite the reserve, I believe. If you hadn't taken a hand, the outcome might have been very different. You had an uncomfortable journey and a dangerous encounter with a couple of rogues you should have never been exposed to. On top of that you have spent a lonely holiday in a house full of strangers. I can only promise you that was not my intent and apologize profusely."

"I am not to express my gratitude for your rescue, and yet you may apologize for a series of things that were not your fault and were undoubtedly beyond your control?"

"As your guardian, I should never have put you in the position of having to be rescued, either from rogues or a broken axle or a snowstorm."

"And if you had not, I should probably never in my life have seen the outside of Fenton School," she retorted.

"I take it, then," he said, smiling at her, genuinely relieved, she realized, "that your experience have not all been unpleasant."

The memory of her arms wrapped around his body while they knelt together in the snow brushed through her mind. She supposed that was not the kind of experience Mr Sinclair meant.

"Indeed they have not. Your home is very lovely."

"And the servants have seen to your needs?"

Except for the need of company, she thought, but she didn't say that, either. If he could be gracious, despite his illness, then surely she could manage not to mention that she had indeed been both bored and lonely in his home.

"Yes, thank you. I have been very well looked after."

"And yesterday was Christmas day," he said, his voice regretful. "I'm afraid I didn't even have the opportunity to shop for a present, but i do have a surprise for you which I hope will help in some way to make up for that lack."