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he might have made up some phoney job which didn't really need
doing, and when she actually saw the old desk piled high with forms,
letters, government leaflets and official documents, she was quite
sure that her father needed her. He needed a secretary badly, and Prue
was a good secretary.
'Leave all this to me, I'll sort it out,' she said confidently, and after a
token protest her father obeyed her gratefully.
She spent the next few days working her way through the long
neglected office work. James Allardyce's business life was in a
complex muddle, and Prue wondered how he had managed to carry
on for so long with so many unanswered letters, unpaid bills, not to
mention money owing to him in his turn. While he was out on his
land working with the animals, keeping his land in order, his walls
mended, his trees in good shape he had ignored everything else, but
Prue gradually tidied up the office and got all the necessary work
done. Letters were answered, typed out and posted; bills sent out and
bills paid. Everything else was neatly filed where Prue could put her
hand on it quickly.
Josh called in most days for some reason or another. He was, after all,
her father's landlord, and their working lives intermeshed far more
than Prue had ever suspected. He never stayed long, though, and he
and Prue were never alone; James Allardyce or Betty Cain or Josh's
mother were always there, which made it both easier and harder for
Prue. She was relieved not to have the strain of being alone with Josh,
but it didn't ease the ache of desire she felt whenever she saw him;
Just made it easier to hide, at least from others. She wasn't too
optimistic of hiding it from Josh. His quick, shrewd, dark eyes didn't
miss anything, and the occasional glance or mocking smile told her
how little she fooled him, but Josh was being careful to keep his
distance at the moment.
She told herself she was glad about that; she didn't want him any
nearer. Somehow she didn't convince herself of her indifference to
him any more than she apparently convinced Josh.
It was over a week before any news was heard of Lynsey and David,
and the intervening time passed more quickly than Prue would ever
have believed it could, because she was able to stop herself thinking
too much by working hard. She had finished the accumulation of
years of paperwork, and had begun to help her father in other
ways cooking his meals, helping him on the farm. Days began very
early, and she was usually in bed and fast asleep from sheer physical
exhaustion by ten-thirty.
She was busy preparing a casserole for her father's supper one
afternoon when Josh walked in without knocking. Her heart turned
over as she looked round.
'Oh, it's you!' she said huskily. It was the first time she had seen him
for two days and she was very conscious of the empty house around
them. 'Dad's tramping the fields. If you want him you could catch him
at . . .'
'No, I want you,' Josh said, and Prue swallowed, her eyes lowered.
'Oh?'
'We've heard from them.'
'From who?' she blankly asked, and then looked up, turning pale. 'Oh
. . . David?'
'And Lynsey,' said Josh flatly, his brows black above his watchful
eyes. 'We had a letter this morning?'Prue looked down again at the
steak she was cutting up, trying to hide a dismay she felt at the
thought of news from the runaways. She didn't know how she would
cope if David and Lynsey had parted, or if David came back here and
she had to face him. He had walked out on her, so he probably
wouldn't dare ask her to take him back, but if he did she would have
to say no and David would think it was jealousy. But did it matter
what he thought?
'Well?' she asked huskily when Josh didn't immediately tell her what
the letter had said. 'What did David say? Where is he?'
'They're married, and in another week they'll be on their way to
Australia,' Josh curtly told her, sounding so savage that her hand
slipped, and instead of cutting the steak the sharp, serrated knife cut
her finger, and she gave a sharp gasp, dropping the knife. Blood
welled up on her skin and she put the finger to her mouth, the pain
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