'It doubles as either.'

'Well…'She didn't go on.

'I await your decision with bated breath, Mrs Hastings,' he said with irony after several moments.

They faced each other across the living-area and Davina discovered two things. That she would like nothing more than to tell him to go to hell, but that she couldn't quite bring herself to do it.

'Tell me something,' she said a little huskily as this dawned on her. 'What happens if I do turn out to be- exotic but quite useless?'

He smiled, just a bare twisting of his lips, his eyes remained a cool, watchful, curiously mocking hazel, and he said, 'I would pack you back to the mainland very swiftly, Mrs Hastings-but you aren't, are you?'

Davina licked her lips because she sensed an odd sort of tension between them that she couldn't quite define. 'How can you know, though?'

'I'll just have to rely on my intuition. In fact,' he said drily, 'I wouldn't be at all surprised if you were extremely competent-'

'That's a change of heart!' She flashed him a cutting little look.

'And intelligent,' he went on, unperturbed, 'and that is quite a waste, doing what you're doing with your life. I'd also be very surprised if you were a-frigid bitch, Mrs Hastings, but if you care to continue to masquerade as one, so long as it gets my job done, you're welcome to it.'

Davina gasped then paled slightly as she suddenly realised that this powerful, worldly man who could switch from insulting her with lazy mockery to malice aforethought incensed her, yet his attitude puzzled her… Why? she wondered numbly. I would have hated him if he'd made the traditional pass; I have to hate him as it is for… everything else; why should it be at all important to prove to him that I'm… anything?

'Mrs Hastings?' S. Warwick said, and added with sudden impatience, 'Look, if you really don't want the job, I'll send you back first thing tomorrow morning and they'll just have to find a replacement. It's up to you,' he added curtly. 'We've been-' he glanced at his watch '-fencing with each other for over an hour now and I'm getting tired of it. Yes or no?'