She watched him, ready to leap to his aid should the need arise. It wasn’t exactly a strain. Looking at him.

He was-local damage excepted-far from doddery. Or old. On the contrary, Dr Benedict Faulkner’s thick, shaggy sun-streaked hair didn’t have a single grey hair, and she was prepared to bet that under normal circumstances his pared-to-the-bone features lacked the library pallor of the dedicated academic. As for the exquisitely cut fine tweed jacket he was wearing-and it did look very fine indeed, over a T-shirt and jeans worn soft with use that clung like a second skin to his thighs-it was moulded to a pair of shoulders that would not have been out of place in a rugby scrum, or stroking an oar in the university eight.

And, to go with the great hair and the great body, Dr Faulkner possessed a pair of spectacularly heroic blue eyes. Ellie-again from a purely professional stand-point-considered appropriate adjectives. Periwinkle? No, too girly. Cerulean? Oh, please…Flax? Not bad. Flax had a solid, masculine ring to it-but was it the right blue…?

‘What about you?’Dr Faulkner asked, breaking into her thoughts.

‘What about me?’ Ellie responded, as for the second time that day she was yanked back to reality.

‘Who the hell are you?’

So, he hadn’t been unconscious, then. Just in too much pain to move.

‘I’m Gabriella March. I work for your sister. Adele,’ she added. Who knew what damage she’d done? ‘She asked me to house-sit for you while she was away, since she wouldn’t be around to take care of things.’

‘House-sit? How long for?’

‘Twelve months.’

He responded with a word that suggested he was not noticeably impressed by his sibling’s thoughtfulness.

‘She expected you to be away for that long.’ Then, in case he took that as a criticism, ‘I’m sure you had a good reason for coming back early.’

‘Will a civil war suffice?’ Then, ‘If she’s away, why didn’t she ask you to house-sit for her?’