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'I hope to share them with you,' Sven said courteously.

Sonya met his narrow blue gaze with mingled fascination and repulsion. Pair skating would mean close contact with him, physical contact. Her eyes dropped to his well shaped hands, lying on his knees, long-fingered, nervous hands which were seeking to manipulate her destiny. Inwardly she was visualising their clasp upon her own, their grip upon her waist as he lifted her. A shiver ran down her spine that was partly excitement. She did not like the man, she told herself feverishly, she did not want to become involved with him, and yet her senses responded to him.

'There are only a few months before the sports in Canada,' she pointed out. 'We couldn't possibly be ready in time.'

'Oh, I think we could,' Sven said easily. 'It is not as though you are a novice. You have done all the figures and it is only a matter of synchronising them with my movements. It will mean intensive practice, of course, but you are not afraid of hard work, are you?'

Eliot answered for her. 'Of course she isn't. She has always been very conscientious about her skating from her earliest years.'

'Van Goort will continue to coach us,' Sven went on. 'Then I may take it as settled?'

Sonya drew a deep breath, wanting to cry out that it was not settled, that she had no intention of partnering this arrogant stranger, but a glance at her father's face restrained her. There was an eager light in his eyes and she realised he had set his heart upon this combination and if she opposed it he would become angry, with possibly disastrous results. But surely he was being inconsistent? He had been so anxious that she should not become involved with any young man and he must sense Sven Petersen's sexual magnetism, or wouldn't it be apparent to another man? Sven must be some six or seven years older than herself and ever since his initial success at sixteen he had been a target for feminine pursuit, while she was totally without experience. If Sven became amorous, as he would have every opportunity to do, would she be able to deal with him? Impulsively she asked:

'Are you married, Mr Petersen, or engaged?'

Her father frowned. 'Sven's personal life has nothing to do with you.'

'On the contrary, as we shall be much together, your daughter has every right to ask,' Sven told him. 'No, I am not married, Sonya,' he used her first name with easy familiarity. 'Nor have I any female attachments, except my sister whom I rarely see. My art... sport whatever you choose to call it ... is my only mistress.' And he quoted, 'He travels the fastest who travels alone.'

But now Eliot looked a little perturbed, perceiving that Sven might be a threat to his daughter's susceptibilities. He would have much preferred to learn that Sven's affections were engaged.

'Sonya too is devoted to her art,' he said emphatically. 'And I haven't allowed her to be contaminated by the modern lust for pleasure. You're a young man, Sven, and I don't suppose you're a monk. If I entrust her to you I shall expect you to respect her innocence.'

Sonya flushed with indignation. Her father was humiliating her by speaking of her as if she were a child and without sophistication. Thomasina was not a great deal older than she was in years, but decades
ahead in experience. She looked at Sven disdainfully, trying to appear adult, and was disconcerted when he threw back his fair head and laughed.

'Have no fear on that score,' he said when his merriment had past. 'That is partly why I want to work with your daughter. I am not, to be honest, above a little amorous dalliance, but I never mix business and pleasure. There is a girl at the club who has already offered to partner me, a very lovely girl, incidentally, but I could not work with her. She would be too distracting and it was obvious that she would not be content to confine our partnership to the rink.'

He was referring to Thomasina and Sonya felt a prick
of ...
surely it could not be jealousy?

Sven went on: 'To me your daughter will be sacrosanct. You understand me? She is little more than a child, and adolescents do not attract me.'

A remark which infuriated Sonya but reassured her father. He held out his hand to Sven. 'I'll be happy to place her in your keeping.'

Sonya made one last protest. 'Mr Petersen is very complimentary.' A tinge of sarcasm crept into her voice. 'But please, I don't want to join a pair. I would much rather continue as a soloist.'

'You will do as I think best,' Eliot told her firmly.

'But it's my career, not yours, and I'm sure to be a flop. I do know to be successful a certain amount of rapport is necessary, and I could never feel that with him.'

Her wide indignant eyes met Sven's derisive glance squarely, and there was something in its vivid blue depths which caused her heart to leap. A sudden doubt
assailed her. Were his assurances to her father quite genuine?

'You cannot know until you have tried,' he said softly.

She sought to look away, but his eyes held hers, there was something hypnotic in their stare, and she felt her will crumbling under his.

'Well, we can try,' she assented. 'But you'll soon discover I'm no good to you.'

And after the test, what then? Would he be generous and merely say she was unsuitable or would he be brutally frank, and tell her father what Jan had shrunk from doing, that she could never hope to become a champion skater? Somehow she must speak to him alone and beg him to continue to conceal the truth from her father. She looked desperately at his unrevealing face. How cold it was, and unfeeling. Icily regular, splendidly null. Could she hope he would understand?

'That's fair enough,' Eliot agreed. 'But I'm sure you'll find you're mistaken, Sonya.' He glanced from one to the other of their slim lithe bodies. 'Physically you're made for each other.'

Unfortunately put, Sonya thought as Sven concealed a smile with his hand.

'Another drink,' Eliot demanded, holding out his glass to Sonya. 'Let us toast your Olympic gold medal.'

Sonya quailed as she filled his glass, her father was leaping ahead. Sven still had half his drink left and he lifted it in salute.

'You do not drink,' he said, noticing her empty glass.

'I've had my ration for tonight, Mr Petersen,' she returned.

'Don't be so formal,' Eliot said impatiently. 'He calls you Sonya, so you must call him Sven.'

'I will be honoured if you will do so,' Sven told her.

'Why bother about my wishes?' she said childishly. 'Daddy's word is law.'

'You are always a dutiful daughter?'

Sensing sudden tension, Eliot told him, 'I've brought her up to be obedient.'

'But at over eighteen according to your law she is no longer accountable to you.'

'I'll never rebel against my father,' Sonya declared passionately. Hadn't she just proved that by giving in to him about skating with Sven? 'Though he likes to sound like a martinet, we love each other.' She went behind his chair and laid her hand tenderly on his shoulder.

'Now, dear, don't get maudlin,' Eliot gently reproved her, as he reached up to touch her fingers.

Sven's lip curled satirically as he watched them, the girl's graceful head inclined towards the crippled man. Very touching, he thought, but he cannot hope to keep her always. Some other man will supersede him in her affections as is only right. Raising her eyes, Sonya caught his expression and guessed his thought. She had felt rebellious lately, resenting the tyranny of her love for her father, but she did not want Sven to guess that.

'I'm not being maudlin, but you're all I've got,' she said, with her eyes fixed defiantly upon Sven. 'Nothing shall ever come between us.'

'Dear me!' Eliot was puzzled by this intensity. 'Why the drama? This partnership can't affect our relationship. We three will work together for the same end.'

Sven said he must be going and he would see Sonya at the rink in the morning and consult with Jan van Goort about their programme. He asked if he might come again, when Eliot would tell him about his triumphs.

'I am afraid your daughter has monopolised the conversation this evening,' he observed, 'but I am glad you have consented to our union.'

'You speak as if we were going to be married.' The words slipped out without thinking and Sonya could have kicked herself for uttering them.

Sven smiled wryly. 'It is a marriage in a sense. A mating of our talents.'

'Well put!' Eliot nodded. 'Show Sven out, Sonya, Matheson is due to take me to bed.' He sighed. 'Helpless log,' he muttered.

In the hall Sonya clutched Sven's sleeve. 'In here,' she said, indicating the office. 'I must talk to you alone.'

Raising his brows, he allowed her to lead him into the small barely furnished room. It contained a big desk, a table and some upright chairs, also a shabby settee pushed against the wall. Once inside and the door closed, she turned to him with the wild aspect of a hunted animal.

'Mr Petersen, this can't go on,' she said desperately. 'Didn't Jan tell you I'm a fraud? I'm only a mediocre skater—it took me all my time to pass my tests, and I'm incapable of winning a championship. Daddy thinks that because I'm his daughter I must be exceptional, but I'm not... I'm not!' She twisted her hands together and her voice quivered as she made this confession. 'You must find another partner. Perhaps Thomasina would do after all.'

'Thank you, but I will make my own choice.' He took her arm gently and led her towards the settee. 'Sit down and calm yourself, Sonya. Don't you think I am capable of judging your skating for myself?'

'That's just it. When we try tomorrow, you'll realise how ... how inadequate I am. I wanted to ask you .. She choked and bit her lip.

He waited, his face quite inscrutable. 'Well, what?' he asked as she did not go on.

'Don't tell Daddy I'm no good. Just say we didn't suit. Let him keep his illusions about me as long as he can.'

Sven sat down beside her and took her hands in his.

'But my dear girl, he will have to know some time. When you fail at the International it will be even worse.'

'I shan't compete ... I'll be taken ill.'

'You'll make yourself ill now if you go on like this.' His voice was unexpectedly kind. 'What is the trouble? You seemed to me to be figure skating very correctly.'

'Oh, that's not so bad. All that's required is accuracy and precision and using the right edges. I'd probably get some quite good marks. It's the free skating, I ... I'm laboured, I count all the time, so many steps to so many bars of music. I get the movements right, but there's something wrong.' She raised tear-filled eyes to his. 'I'll lose ever so many marks, Jan has given me up.'

'I see. Perhaps you lack abandon, spontaneity.'

She shrugged her shoulders. 'If it doesn't come naturally, who can teach me that?'

'I can.'

She stared at him. 'No, Sven, you can't. Don't you go getting misled by my name. Daddy lived for skating, but sometimes I hate it. I just haven't inherited his talent.'

'I am not misled by anything,' he told her quietly. 'You have the physique and build for a skater, and you have grace and balance. As for the spirit to make your work come alive, it cannot be taught, but I can
instil
it into you.'

His grip tightened on her hands and his eyes probed into hers, insistent, compelling.

'I don't want ...' she began shrinking from him.

'You will for your father's sake, or was all that display of affection an act? He will find it hard to forgive your deception.'

'But it wasn't intentional,' she pleaded. 'It would never have come about if he'd seen me skate, but he hasn't, not since I was a child.'

'I doubt if even then he would have accepted it. He has built up an image of you which blinds him to reality. But if you will put yourself into my hands, we will make his dreams come true.'

Sudden hope illuminated her face like a ray of sunshine, lending it infinite charm.

'If only you could!' she breathed.

'I can,' he said confidently.

She looked at him uneasily. 'Will you hypnotise me, or something like that?'

He laughed. 'No, only give you confidence.'

But there was something mesmeric about his intent gaze and his grip of her hands was possessive.

'I don't see why you should go to so much trouble for me,' she told him. 'There are plenty of other girls who have got abandon or whatever you call it. Thomasina would be really good if she gave her mind to it. She lets herself go—I can't.'

'I have told you why I do not want to skate with Tom.'

Sonya noticed he used the abbreviation of her name which was reserved for her intimate friends. He must have improved his acquaintance with her since the night they were introduced. Slightly nettled, she asked:

'Do you mean you can forget I'm a girl when you skate with me?'

'Something like that.'

'How very insulting!' she exclaimed.

He released her hands and leaned back against the settee.

'I was not insulting you, Sonya, but, as I am sure your father has impressed upon you, it is better to keep emotion out of these connections.'

'Oh, he has, but he and Mummy were lovers as well as skating partners. It didn't seem to have any ill effects.'

'But they were married.' He grinned mischievously. •You would not want to marry me?'

'God forbid!' she ejaculated so fervently that he laughed.

'Then we had better keep our relationship impersonal.'

'I entirely agree with that,' she said with a hauteur which seemed to amuse him.

'You are still very much a child, Sonya. I shall consider it my duty to protect you.'

'Oh, for crying out loud!' she exclaimed. 'I don't want another father.'

'I am a little young to be that.' His eyes were full of merriment. 'And I think it is you who protects your father. I will be an uncle to you—and in my avuncular role, who was the young man with brown eyes who accompanied you that night at the club?'

He certainly did not miss anything, Sonya reflected; he could only have glimpsed Derek.

'He is my boy-friend,' she said demurely.

'Indeed?' The word came out with a drawl. 'And does your father approve of this boy-friend?'