'Get rid of her.' His voice had a dose of familiar ferocity in it. 'She mustn't see me.'

Legs felt thick-headed and drooping with tiredness having barely slept in forty-eight hours, her reserves now being fuelled by adrenalin alone. She wasn't sure she had the strength left to physically remove Kizzy from the farm, nor did it seem the right thing to do.

'Surely I should explain about things?' She lowered her croaky, lump-muffled voice yet further so that Brooke couldn't possibly overhear through the open office door. 'She hasn't a clue that she's at her own father's house. His identity's always been kept a secret from her.'

'Let's keep it that way a little bit longer,' he whispered back, taking her hand in his, thumb tracing the engraved P on the ring. 'I'll have to speak with Dad first, and now's not the time. Right this minute, the only person I want to talk to is you. She must go. Please.'

Snatching her hand away, she knew she should tell him to get lost, shout that she knew all about life of lies and his callous womanising, and stand up for poor Kizzy who was such an unwitting pawn in all this. But then he stepped closer, a warm hand cupping her cheek as he breathed in her ear: 'Graim thu.'

She leaned against him for a moment, drawing his heat, the lump in her throat inflating like an airbag. 'Give me ten minutes.'

Chapter 48.

Legs raced up the path to the tower, her breath like dragon's fire in her lungs, a stitch of anxiety already tightening into her side.

The tower was accessed by a thick oak door set in a deep arch. As soon as she stepped inside, she heard Kizzy's voice above her head, obviously placating Conrad on a mobile phone. 'I promise I won't leave until I see Gordon this time. He's definitely been staying here. The computers are still switched on ... OK, I'll look.'

Legs glanced around the semi-circular entrance hall she now found herself in, like the inside of a stone moon, the most amazing light playing on its walls and ceiling. At her feet was a huge pond, taking up most of the floor, filled with carp and under-lit so that the reflections danced all around her. The curved walls were skirted with a continuous bench seat, topped with a thick green velvet cushion, and their straight counterpart was hung with incredible art, the sort that Poppy publicly despised and privately coveted sensual, literal, and emotive, there were huge modern canvases depicting horses, dogs and landscapes. Legs recognised several as Stan McGillivray's, the notorious recluse and Brit Art rebel turned realist, whose work was amongst the most coveted of any living artist. Nothing hanging on this wall made any ironic statement whatsoever, it was a collection intended to bring pure pleasure.

She was in the Wizard of Oz's hideout, she realised.

Above her head, Kizzy's husky little Scottish voice was reporting to Conrad: 'It's OK, it's definitely a Ptolemy Finch book, not crime. I don't know where you got that idea from ... hang on, I'll read a bit out to you-'

Her anger ignited, Legs stomped up the spiral staircase.

'Stop it!' She burst into the room, then reeled back in shock. 'Jesus!'

She'd never seen anything quite like it. With its windows covered with heavy tapestry blinds, the room was as dark as a cave. There were huge computer screens on every wall and just one enormous leather swivel chair in the middle of the polished oak floor, in which Kizzy was currently sitting like a seductive Mastermind contestant prepared to tackle anything asked of her, especially passes. Her delicate frame appeared to be swathed in little more than a few wisps of butterfly-bright twisted silk which Legs vaguely recognised from the Shh window as the 'latest catwalk collection', several layers of which she had undone to reveal a lacy pink bra.

Still dressed in the dusty pedalpushers and creased tunic she'd been travelling in, new tattoo itching beneath her hair, Legs felt at a disadvantage, as though she was bursting into an artfully shot Hollywood scene looking like an extra from Albert Square market.

Kizzy cut her call, mouth forming into a little 'o' of surprise.

'Gordon would like you to leave now,' Legs said, her voice high and strained, like a school prefect on her first day.

'Legs!' Kizzy dropped her phone and went bright red as she fumbled to re-knot a few of the rags. 'This isn't what it looks like.'

'It is, Kizzy,' Legs sighed. 'You were reading out new Ptolemy Finch material. That's totally against Gordon's wishes, and Conrad knows that.'

Far from being the seductive panther of business espionage she'd first appeared, Kizzy was more like a kitten found hanging off the budgie cage now. If she could have run up and down the curtains with her tail bushed and a startled expression on her face, Legs thought she probably would have.

So flustered that she'd tied her dress up like Gandhi's dhoti, she scrabbled around for her dropped phone. 'What are you doing here, Legs?'

Momentarily asking herself the same question, Legs suddenly hit upon an answer. 'I'm Gordon's new PA,' she announced brightly. 'I've taken over from Kelly. And he would like you to leave now. He was most emphatic, and it doesn't do to upset Gordon, as Conrad has no doubt told you. Shall I call you a taxi?'

'No need, I have a hire car,' mustering some dignity, Kizzy started out across the room with her chin held high, limping on her broken shoe heel like Sarah Berhardt making a dramatic exit, then stopped as she realised her knots were a serious handicap. 'You can tell Gordon I'll be back in touch as soon as I've discussed the situation with Conrad,' she said as she adjusted her dress, trying very hard to maintain her professional edge. 'I take it he doesn't know about your new job?'

'Gordon didn't ask for references.'

'Please reassure him I wasn't reading new material. Even I know that's Raven's Curse.' She pointed at the screens around them. 'And I've only sped-read it.'

Glancing around, Legs realised she was right, but she was too busy shepherding Kizzy down the stairs and through the glittering, watery hall to dwell on it. 'I'm sure Gordon will be in touch very soon,' she said, suddenly feeling sorry for her, and guilty for throwing her out when her secret history was right in front of her here.

On the doorstep, Kizzy looked incredibly shocked to find herself on the receiving end of a warm hug.

'Gordon won't let his fans down,' Legs reassured her. 'He's an amazing person and really lovely underneath all that cruel and hurtful selfishness,' Pausing to regroup, she flashed an anxious smile, 'But of course he's so protective of his private life that he bulldozes over people emotions and ...' She stopped herself again. 'You'll like him a lot. You have so much in common. In fact you'll think of him as family, I promise. I know he's over the moon that you're going to be a part of his life.'

Kizzy smiled in amazement, her green eyes brimming with gratitude. She lingered for a moment in the arched door. 'I haven't had a chance to apologise for what happened with my mother. She was quite mortified afterwards. She's going to write to you.'

'Tell her she really doesn't have to,' Legs said hastily, not wanting to receive another of Liz Delamere's creative letters. 'All is forgiven. Speak soon. And don't let Conrad bully you into doing anything you don't feel comfortable with.'

She waved Kizzy away, watching her pick her way back down the path and cross the stable-yard before stepping into a very shiny little red hire car and driving away. Only then did Legs feel safe to retreat back into the wizard's lair.

She wandered upstairs again, looking around at the screens. They were all lined with writing, each showing a different page of a Word document. She picked out the words Ptolemy and Purple before she heard a door slam below her and turned to watch Byrne bounding up the creaking wooden treads, battered despatch case under one arm. 'You just saved my life. Thank you.'

'Hardly on the scale of climbing up a cliff or pulling me up on a horse.'

'I'm researching damsels in distress.' He strode into the room. 'You know what they say about authors; nothing is ever wasted. You haven't been snooping, have you?'

'Of course not.' She blushed, realising that she'd been about to indulge in exactly what she'd told off Kizzy for doing.

She watched him nervously, this caddish squire with his wild black hair and determined manner, striding between his computer screens. Here was Gordon Lapis in his tower, a master of description and deception; Jago Byrne at home, a horseman and a gambler, Ptolemy Finch in his attic observatory, reading the stars before flying off to save the world. He was a mass of contradictions, yet seeing him here in context made them all add up at last.

He sat down in his chair and started unzipping his long leather riding boots. 'No matter how many times I tell you to steer clear of me, you keep turning up.' He glanced up through furrowed brows, fierce eyes sparkling. There was a smile playing on his lips.

She found she couldn't answer, anger, love and compassion fusing her vocal chords closed. He seemed so sure of himself suddenly, whereas mortification and disappointment filled her with self-doubt.

The screens flickered around them still. Unable to stop her eyes being drawn to them, Legs read a few more lines on one, recognising a scene from the closing chapters of Raven's Curse, not long before she'd been forced to stop reading.

Swinging a hinged table across in front of him, Byrne pressed a couple of buttons on the keyboard there and the white screens were all simultaneously wiped to be replaced by a 3D screensaver of tropical fish around a coral reef picked out in extraordinary lifelike detail, so that suddenly it felt as though they were in a submarine.

'Tell me you'll stay a while?' he asked, casting his boots aside.

'You offered me a cup of tea, remember,' she muttered edgily, watching a clownfish dart from one screen to another. She couldn't look at him now, the new tattoo burning shamefully on her neck. She was damned if she was going to embarrass herself any more than she already had by throwing herself at his newly liberated feet in their bright red socks.

On cue, Fink the basset waddled breathlessly upstairs carrying a pair of slippers which he placed at his master's toes before turning back to welcome her, tail swaying, pressing his muzzle between her ankles.

Byrne looked abashed as he stepped into the soft leather mules. 'Fink's an old-fashioned hound. I'll put the kettle on to boil.' To her surprise, he then simply pressed a couple more computer keys and one of the screens flashed up with a message announcing the kettle on before returning to the reef once more. He really was the Wizard of Oz, Legs realised, straightening up from patting Fink.

'Don't you have a fireside one of these?' She pointed at the fishy landscape. 'We could toast crumpets.'

With a few more keystrokes they were surrounded by flaming logs.

'I was only joking.' She swallowed, circling the room, looking at each fireplace in turn.

He swung around in the chair, marking her progress. She felt like a performing pony in a big top watched by the circus ringmaster.

'You have to be in control, don't you?' she asked, getting more wound up again with every circuit, the virtual flames surrounding her finally igniting her incandescent anger.

He shrugged, saying nothing, tilting his head as he watched her.

'You're basically just a big geek, aren't you Byrne?'

'If you say so.'

'Incredibly clever, granted, but a control freak geek nonetheless. You have no idea how to handle women at all.'

'Is that a fact?'

'I think you're scared of us.' She started to walk faster.

'I'm more frightened for my monitors right now. I think you should change direction. You'll get dizzy,'

'I feel so sorry for Zina.'

'Why?' he laughed softly. 'She's happy. I don't ask her to clean in here, if that's what bothers you.'

She couldn't believe his arrogance. 'You entertain girls you meet on the internet up here all the time. That's so disgusting!'

'Whatever gave you that idea?'

'Your own father told me.'

'Dad thinks the internet is the Devil's brothel. He won't even have a computer in the house, which drives Zina mad because she's desperate to get on Mumsnet.'

Again, his arrogance took her breath away, and she panted to a halt. 'She doesn't even know you're Gordon Lapis, does she?'

'No woman knows but you, Allegra.'

'Why me?' She swung around to face him. 'Why confide in me?'

He was looking less self-assured now, dark brows furrowed low. 'I didn't confide. You guessed.'

'Come on, all the clues were there!'

'Only to you.' His voice was as soft as hers was shrill and accusing. 'Nobody here is interested. Dad's the only one who knows and he doesn't even read the books. He only cares about things with four legs, which technically includes his wife right now.'

'Zina reads the books.'

'She tries, but she only understands about one word in three; she learned all her English from watching CSI, so she thinks soothsayers and sorcerers are forensic detectives.'

'God you're heartless!'

He stood up smoothly and walked towards her, those furnace eyes as bright as the screensavers around them, reflecting the dancing flames. 'You are right about me, Allegra. Totally right. I am supremely selfish and I am a geek. I am Ptolemy, an immortal boy who cannot grow old, playing with my wizardry and plagued by my childish hang-ups. I am quite hopeless with women. My father brought me up to be highly suspicious of love.'

'And now your grime poo is spreading far and wide to make up for it?'

He turned away, hands in his hair, laughing bitterly. 'Perhaps you're right to call it that. It's like shitting on somebody from a great height.'

'How can you say that if you've never tried trusting a woman?' Legs exclaimed. 'Even your wife doesn't know who you really are.'

'I'm not married.'

'And you treat her-' she stopped herself mid-sentence, cocking her head, eyes darting left then right. 'What about Zina?'

'She's my stepmother.'

She gaped at him disbelievingly as he turned to look at her over his shoulder, a slow smile curling the corners of his mouth. 'You thought she was my wife?'

Legs felt her face flaming again, appalled at her misjudgement. 'But she's our age.'

He grimaced. 'Dad has a lot of hang-ups about that, so best not mention it. He wouldn't believe she loved him for a long time. She came through the agency as a live-in carer a couple of years back one of the benefits of my income is that I could get him a decent housekeeper. My Nan and her husband have lived in a bungalow beyond the orchard for years; they prefer their independence. Dad and Zina have the house to themselves now. She's restored his faith in love.'

She felt her face redden yet more. Then, like a porthole bursting open, the relief came flooding in, whooshing around her, bubbling and swirling and lifting her towards the beamed ceiling as grateful laughter caught in her her throat and tears touched her eyes. He wasn't married. He was a single man; one who she had just called a geek, disgusting and a control freak and accused of being frightened of women, she realised uneasily. The tide of relief quickly turned into a cold sweat of contrition.

'And you?' she managed to splutter.

He deliberately misread the question. 'I eat with them often, but mostly I'm working in here or away travelling. I keep meaning to buy a place of my own, but then I get writing and get too busy. I just write, Legs. That's what I do. I'm a geek you said it. I write day and night sometimes. It's the world I most want to live in.'

'Along with the rest of us,' she agreed tearfully. 'Your world is magic to millions.'

'Yeah.' He ran a hand through his hair again, turning away to look at the flickering fires. 'Trouble is I'm as scared of fame as I am of love. Scared of everything, me.'

'You're one of the bravest men I've ever met,' Legs protested, remembering him running into the cellars the night they thought a murder had taken place at Farcombe, drawing the gunfire to himself when Hector was taking pot-shots at Spywood and finally climbing up the cliff-face at Eascombe Cove to rescue her.

He shook his head. 'I like my world just as it is. I write, run and ride my three Rs. I'm just a typical Oirish farm boy.' He thickened his accent. 'Sometimes I climb mountains. I have friends I trust, but they can be forgiven for not trusting me when I keep so many secrets. I love my family. Conrad's like a portal to another world. He's the real sorcerer, turning my words into more cash than I know what to do with. I hate him sometimes, but what he does for me pays for the repairs here, so he's OK.' He looked around at the fires burning on the screens and gave his soft laugh. 'I just wish I had his literary knowledge.' He walked to his despatch case and pulled out a pile of paperbacks along with his laptop. 'Can you believe I've never read Joyce until now?' He held them up. 'That's a crying shame for an Irishman to admit.'

'His work's best appreciated when one's lived and loved a little, I think,' Legs bit her lip, heart starting to roar with hope. 'Now's probably the perfect time in your life to start.'

He smiled, looking down at the covers. 'When I got to Dublin airport, I realised I hadn't got anything for Nan she wouldn't forgive me if I came back from a trip without a gift. So I found some god-awful gift shop, and there, on a tea towel, was the first line of the letter Francis wrote you.'

'They weren't his words,' she breathed. 'They didn't come from his soul. He arranged them like a bouquet of florist's flowers to win me over, but my heart was already lost to a whole new garden I'd found growing wild all around me. I love you.'

Moving slowly up to her face, his eyes found hers, and blinked in wonder. 'Christ, I'm so fucking naive. You had to have it tattooed on your skin to spell it out to me.' He looked away, raking his hands through his hair. 'The farm boy geek who has no idea how to handle women. Can you sue the tattooist?'

She shook her head, laughter and tears catching together in her throat. 'I think you're the most incredible man I have ever met, the brightest, the bravest and definitely the sexiest.'

'You do?' He looked at her again, eyebrows curling up in genuine amazement.

'I can't believe you're for real. You're no typical Oirish farm boy. Or geek.' She bit her lip, shame-faced.