As far as Yancie's mother was concerned, having learned that Sukey Lloyd had written off Yancie's car, to Yancie's astonishment, had naturally assumed that the Jaguar Yancie had driven the day she'd called was a replacement.

Yancie's immediate superior had given her a very intensive driving test before stating that her driving was up to his high standard. She had then been measured for a hurriedly tailored uniform-two jackets, two skirts in brown and several shirts in beige, bearing the brown embroidered Addison Kirk logo of a bridge spanning the world. Yancie supposed the logo to be something to do with the manufacture of industrial material which the company seemed mainly concerned with. But so long as she could hide the logo underneath a brooch of some sort when she was visiting friends she didn't much mind what the firmm did. She didn't want to risk anyone she knew bumping into her mother and giving a hint that her daughter was now earning a wage.

Yancie executed a neat piece of laneswapping and went back to reflecting how, as her aunt had said, her cousins had wanted her to move in with them.

'Don't you dare think of living anywhere but with us,' red-haired Astra had declared warmly.

'I second the motion,' grinned black-haired Fennia-and it was just like being at boarding school again, only better. The three cousins had been born within a month of each other and were as close as sisters. Closer, in fact, than were the three sisters who had borne them.

But, love her mother, her aunt Portia and her aunt Imogen though she did, Yancie didn't want to think of them in any depth. Between them these three ladies had managed to give them enough hang-ups to dwell on.

Thankfully, just at that moment Yancie spotted that the petrol gauge on the dashboard was pointing to empty. Oh, crumbs-she'd never make it back to London. It was doubtful she'd have enough juice to make it back to pick up Mr Clements!