The next week in London was hectic but Audrey welcomed it. She worked late every night at the hospital in an effort to begin setting the wheels in motion for an easy takeover by her replacement. Once home, she ate her dinner and then had an hour or so cleaning out cupboards and things of that nature before falling into bed about midnight. She wanted to leave the flat in pristine condition when she left.          As promised, Audrey returned home at the weekend to help Amy with the heartrending task of sorting out her parents’ belongings and clothes. Thankfully, she saw nothing of James while she was home, but when she and Amy accepted an invitation for Sunday lunch from Anthony, Gillian Blackburn mentioned that he had taken Clarice to dinner in the previous week.“I didn’t know he was in London.”       &

          Audrey saw and heard nothing of James in the short while before she left London for good, and she was grateful for the break. The evening she’d spent in his company and particularly the last minutes of it, had unsettled her far more than she liked.          She’d found she couldn’t get him out of her mind for more than a few minutes at a time and it unnerved her. His touch… his kiss had unnerved her. James Mayer unnerved her. She had dealt with James more easily when he was being obnoxious, she admitted to herself a day or two after their dinner together.          Audrey hadn’t wanted to enjoy being in his company but she had found herself doing just that. And his kiss… Why was it this man only had to touch her for bells to ring? It was humiliating, the response he triggered in her body

          James left the house twenty minutes later. Amy had agreed she would consider the possibility of becoming a temporary live-in housekeeper for a while for his father but stressed this would depend on both George’s wishes in the matter and how she felt she would fit into the household when she met him again.          Amy had also suggested the issue should be raised naturally in conversation rather than James mentioning it beforehand. It was the best he was going to get and a great deal more than he had expected.          When the taxi he’d called dropped him outside the charming cottage, James didn’t immediately go inside in spite of the drizzling rain. He stood in the shadows, cursing the fact he’d let his heart rule his head back there at Seymour House.     &n

          George Mayer called that evening to say he would be delighted if Amy would stand in as his housekeeper until the work at Seymour House was finished, by which time he was sure he could arrange for a replacement to take over.          While Amy stayed with him, Audrey must consider his house, the cottage, as her own, George added, and he would like to think she would come and share breakfast, lunch, and dinner with them both.          Audrey was glancing through color schemes for the bedrooms, brochures spread out in front of her as she sat cross-legged on the living room carpet, when Amy finished the phone call.“Eat with you and George at the cottage? I don’t think so,” Audrey responded when Amy put her up to speed. “From time to time, maybe. I need to be at Seymour House. There’s a lot to

          The next few weeks were frantic and messy with umpteen minor panics as the builders moved in but, although she only averaged four or five hours of sleep a night, Audrey welcomed the agitated pace.          The knowledge that she was responsible to oversee the alterations to Seymour House virtually on her own was heavy at times, but it did mean her mind was fully concentrated on the job at hand. During the day, that was. Her dreams, which regularly featured a tall dark man with riveting blue eyes, she could do nothing about.          George seemed surprisingly glad to leave everything to her and Audrey hadn’t expected this. Apart from the odd hour or two once or twice a week when he visited the house with Amy, she only saw the pair of them when she called in George’s house for her evening meal.&nb