'When can I see the dam at close quarters?' she asked abruptly, firmly closing the other subject.
'Tomorrow, in the afternoon. Understand this, though, Natalie. I keep you right under my hand. I don't want you climbing on turbines. It's strictly a visit to plan the shots for your team.'
Quite clearly he had her spotted for an idiot but she needed his help so she simply nodded her agreement, praying she would get all this over with as quickly as possible before the uneasy feelings inside flowered into something utterly impossible.
She was in town the next morning when she saw Kip. He walked into the shop as she was looking for pegs, fishing about among a whole basketful for the right thing.
'Opening a laundry?' He was right behind her and the sound of his voice had her dropping her careful selection.
'They're for the shots I took. Having had films ruined in foreign parts, I develop my own. My equipment bag
contains the necessary things but I've no pegs to hang them up. I'll have to set up a little darkroom in the bathroom at the hotel.'
'You enterprising creature.' He grinned down at her and turned her away, ignoring her protests. 'Luckily, I can save you a lot of trouble. The previous tenant of the government house I occupy was a photographic fanatic. He set up a small darkroom at the back of the house. You can use it.'
'Suppose I don't want to?' He already had her at the door of the shop and she set her feet firmly, looking up at him with mounting irritation. He thought he could simply arrange her life for her. Small wonder she couldn't get him out of her head.
'Then you'll be an ungrateful creature and I'll know you're scared to be with me.'
'I'm not!' Green eyes blazed at him and he smiled down at her with every appearance of satisfaction, saying not one word until she saw the humour of the situation and burst out laughing.
'You're impossible.' She laughed, allowing him to lead her to her car. 'How did you know I was in the shop anyway?'
'I saw your car in town and followed you. Now you can follow me. We'll drop in at my house so that you can inspect the set-up and Josh will give you a coffee.'
'All right.' It seemed fairly safe and in any case, she felt suddenly light-hearted, pleased to see him. The gleam in his eyes told her he knew that too.
Josh greeted her like an old friend and went off to make coffee as Kip took her to the back of the house to show her the darkroom. It looked as if at one time it might have been a room for a servant. There was water laid
on and a long bench that housed all the chemicals necessary for developing photographs.
'These must be about five or six years old,' Kip warned as she inspected various bottles. 'The dishes look all right.'
'I brought my own things with me. I always do. I may as well use these dishes though. Can I do them tonight?'
She looked up eagerly and he nodded. .
'Be my guest. Come for your coffee now before Josh gets annoyed.'
'What do you think that room used to be?' she asked as they moved back to the veranda, and he obviously had the same idea as she had.
'A servant's, I should think, although it's not very big. Nowadays servants have a bungalow in the grounds. Josh and Mina live at the bottom of the garden, within sight of the house.'
'You—you mean that when I was staying here I was... we were...'
'Alone? Of course.' He looked down at her with suddenly serious eyes. 'I don't remember that you suffered because of it.'
'I wasn't thinking I had. I was just realising why...'
'Why Annette didn't take to you on sight? I don't think it was so much her lurid imagination as her keen eyesight. You're not at all ugly. I think you were as much a shock to her as you were to me,'
'Oh, yes. I remember,' Natalie murmured, suddenly tempted to tease. 'You expected a tough female in battle-dress.'
'Instead I got a dream in black and gold,' he said softly. For a moment they stared at each other and when Natalie had to look away, her cheeks flushed to a soft apricot, he changed the subject smoothly.