"S'cuse me, ma'am, but it's my door they're going to beat a path to."

"Well, I expect there'll be room for both of us," she conceded generously.

"You mean the three of us, don't you?" he asked with a grin. "You, me and that colossal ego of yours. They'll have to build somewhere just to house it."

"And the rest! Everyone knows Americans can't cook."

"Can't-May you be forgiven! And since you come from the nation that eats French fries-"

"Chips!"

"-with everything, doesn't think food is properly cooked unless it's swimming in grease, and can't make decent coffee-"

"All right, all right, I give in." She threw up her hands in mock surrender, then pointed to her plate. "This is really delicious, I'll admit that."

"All my own invention. When I've got it perfect I'll present it to the head chef."

''Oh, great! Now I'm a guinea pig. If I don't drop dead after eating this you'll know it's safe to offer it to the Sultan of Thingy and the Duke of Whatsit?''

"Something like that," he admitted with a grin.

She saw him regarding her outfit and said, "Nice, huh?"

"Love it, and the purple thing you were wearing when I saw you the other day."

Pippa chuckled. "The head housekeeper nearly fainted. She couldn't get me out of it and into my uniform fast enough. But I don't like people to overlook me."

''No danger of that. How do you afford fashion and pay for classes, as well?''

"I make my own fashion from other people's rejects. The jeans came from a rummage sale, the boots had been reduced five times because the color frightened people the hat came from an Oxfam shop, and I knit the sweater from remnants.". He grinned, enchanted.

His own story delighted her. He was, as she'd guessed, American, from Los Angeles, and his life seemed to have revolved around sun, sea and sand. His passion was cookery and the only books he ever opened were recipes. Beyond that there wasn't, a thought in his head apart from swimming, bodysurfing, eating, drinking and generally having a good time. There had been so little fun in Pippa's life that this young man, who seemed to make almost a religion of merriment, seemed to usher her to a new and magical world, one in which the light was always golden, the sensations exquisite and youth would last forever.