`It was just a kiss,' she said. She had never been kissed like that again.

`Oh.' It was clear that Serena was disappointed. `Did he say anything to you afterwards?'

She had stared up at him as he had released her, shaken and dazed by the strength of her own

reaction. Luke's eyes had been narrowed as if he was taken aback at suddenly finding her in his arms, and he had stepped back abruptly. Kate had read disgust in the gesture, and she had flinched as the stinging slap of humiliation had hit her with the force of a blow.

`He said, "Go home, Catherine, and grow up,"' Kate said slowly, reliving that devastating moment before she had turned and stumbled away from the contempt in his eyes.

`Catherine? Is that what he called you?' Serena asked, diverted. `I thought you were always Kate.'

`Not at home. My mother always called me Catherine in the French way, and I was known as Catherine in Chittingdene. It was only when I went away to school that I became Kate to you lot.^'

'I see.' Serena risked another glance at Luke. `What happened next time you met him?'

`I never saw him again. He left the village a few days later. I don't know if he ever went back. Dad died a couple of months later and my mother couldn't wait to sell the manor and take us to France, so I never went back to Chittingdene. This is the first time I've seen him since.'

`I wonder if he would recognise you,' Serena said thoughtfully.

`Not a chance. Remember what I was like at sixteen, Serena? All bottle-bottom glasses and straggly hair! I've changed a lot since then, thank goodness. There's no way he'd recognise me. It's not as if I'm like Helen.'

`Why, what was she like?'

'She was-' Kate broke off, staring into the mirror, where Luke's face had lightened as a woman walked towards him. She laid her hand on his arm possessively, and took the drink that he handed her, apparently unconcerned that she had kept him waiting.