LITMIR.BIZ

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‘What are you like? Rose, you’re a disaster area!’

      ‘I know!’ agreed Rose, looking bashful. ‘I think I’ve brought you all down with me at one time or another! Sorry, JoJo.’

      ‘It’s OK,’ said JoJo. She hadn’t really minded the feel of that young man’s strong arms on hers. And the bruise on her bum would go, in time.

      ‘Right!’ said Wendy, looking at her watch. ‘What time is dinner, does anyone know?’

      ‘Table booked for nine-fifteen,’ said JoJo. ‘We’ve got twenty minutes to have a quick gander at the lake and get changed.’

      ‘Perfect,’ said Sal. ‘You got something right then. I’m so glad you factored in the sustenance we’ll need for sodding obstacle courses and white-water rafting . . . I’m kidding!’ she cried, punching JoJo playfully in the side. ‘I had a look at the menu, actually,’ she continued. ‘It was in the room. Wild scallops with coriander and bacon, followed by saddle of beef with seasonal veg and potato dauphinoise and chocolate fondant for pudding. That’s what I’m having, anyway, but it all looks amazing. I might get some good ideas for the pub while I’m here.’

      ‘For Niall, you mean,’ teased Rose. ‘Are you going to sleep with him again?’

      ‘No,’ said Sal quickly. ‘No, I’m not. What kind of pub owner would that make me? What kind of highly professional pub landlady? A very slutty one with no morals, that’s what. Now, come on . . .a quick look at the treatment rooms we won’t be setting foot anywhere near then it’s grub time.’

Chapter Six

      Sal

      They knocked for Tamsin before going down for dinner. As she opened the door to them, Sal was surprised to see the bed behind her covered in reams of papers, an open laptop and several heavy-looking textbooks. That explained the massive suitcase, then, she thought.

      ‘I see you’ve had to bring your work with you this weekend,’ she observed, slightly regretting the cat’s bum and the handbag.

      ‘I’ve got a lot on.’ Tamsin smiled, as she closed the door. She’d got changed, too. She’d swapped her charcoal shift dress and heels for a long sweeping jersey column dress and bejewelled, expensive-looking flip-flops. ‘Good evening, everyone,’ she said, somewhat formally, looking around at them all. ‘You all look really nice.’

      ‘You, too,’ gushed Rose. She was looking excitable in a new dress – red, with kimono sleeves. JoJo was wearing black, flowing linen trousers and a crisp white t-shirt. Wendy had on a beautiful, rainbow-coloured swishy panel dress. And Sal had changed into a clean t-shirt and a pair of jeans, and ditched the new painful ankle boots for Converse.

      ‘You look lovely,’ added Wendy, ever eager to please. ‘Absolutely smashing.’ Smashing? Had Wendy ever even used that word before? She seemed desperate to be great friends with unknown quantity Tamsin and was now trying to slip an arm through hers. Tamsin looked a little taken aback but eventually let her do it.

      ‘Thank you,’ replied Tamsin, and Wendy beamed. Although it was obvious why she was being this way with Frederick’s sister, Wendy was always eager to please everyone. She’d always been that way and Sal wished, not for the first time, she would please herself a bit more. Wendy always said ‘yes’, she always ‘went along with it’, she always told people what they wanted to hear without setting too much store on what they said back to her. Sal wondered if the big white wedding was a case in point. When they were younger, Wendy had always said she’d fancy a laid-back and colourful registry office wedding, with a meal afterwards in an Italian restaurant where they would all drink red wine and dance on tables, and that vision couldn’t be further from the massive, conservative affair in the family pile she was about to get swept up into. A family that, so far, seemed to be calling all the shots, and Wendy had only met Tamsin so far: Frederick’s parents, the Donnington-Blacks (how posh?) – a CEO father and a Professor of Sociology mother, no less – lived in the Dordogne and wouldn’t be arriving in the UK until the morning of the wedding.

      ‘Shall we go?’ said JoJo.

      They took the lift down to The Retreat’s main restaurant; the manor house also had a bar, elsewhere, where breakfasts and afternoon teas were served, something the five of them would soon find out they were banned from partaking in. The restaurant was beautiful. It had floor-to-ceiling windows, which overlooked the twinkling lake behind it (a pretty amazing lake, they’d thought, when they’d looked at it earlier, with its ducks, its cute wooden bridge and its pretty and rustic lake house), and was festooned with fairy lights and white linen and table centrepieces of pale roses in square glass vases. Sal felt like she’d just stepped into someone’s wedding reception, and the smells that wafted round were delicious.

      ‘Blimey,’ she said. ‘It’s stunning in here.’

      ‘It’s lovely, isn’t it, Tamsin?’ said Wendy.

      ‘Very nice,’ said Tamsin approvingly. ‘I love the fairy lights.’

      ‘You can sit next to me,’ entreated Wendy cheerfully and they all sat down. Tamsin placed her black clutch bag in front of her and pulled her phone out from it, then placed it on the table with a little tap and gave the screen and its many icons a quick swipe from side to side. JoJo, the other side of the table, was delving into her bag for her BlackBerry.

      ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ Sal asked her.

      ‘What?’ replied JoJo, wide-eyed. ‘I was going to check it quickly, just in case. Tamsin’s got her phone out,’ she added.

      Sal knew she was resisting a pout. ‘Tamsin’s not banned,’ said Sal.

      ‘Sorry,’ said Tamsin, looking a little embarrassed and picking up her phone again. ‘I can put it away. It’s just that I’ve got a lot on.’ She placed it back in her clutch bag and set the bag on the floor beside her. Sal gave JoJo a look, which JoJo returned with a shrug.

      ‘Nothing’s going to be happening at this time of night,’ said Sal.

      ‘We get emails at all times,’ said JoJo. ‘Oh, for goodness sake!’ She stuffed her BlackBerry back in her bag.

      A waiter swooped over, smile and notebook at the ready.

      ‘Can we order some cocktails, please?’ said Sal. She felt she didn’t need to consult the others – they’d all want one, wouldn’t they? When had they not? And Tamsin would just have to have what they were having; a cocktail might stop her from doing whatever lawyerly stuff she felt she ought to be doing.

      ‘Certainly, what would you like?’

      It was the same handsome young man from the pool house, now dressed as a waiter. Very good-looking, noted Sal, looking him up and down, though far too young for any of them. And they were all taken, and not in the market for looking at men anyway, weren’t they? Except JoJo – hell would freeze over before that gorgeous woman would break off from her beads and her taffeta, for even an instant, to go on a date – and possibly Tamsin. Sal couldn’t imagine her with a beau in tow, somehow. Actually, was she, Sal, taken? She had certainly been taken, several times now, by Niall, but were they an actual item, her and Niall, or just a casual thing that could stop at any time? She really wasn’t sure. She liked to think it was a casual thing she could stop at any time.

      Stop thinking about Niall, Sal told herself, he’s miles away. Concentrate on the job in hand – a fab night of copious food and drink. ‘We’ll all have mojitos, won’t we, girls?’ she said. ‘Tamsin, what’s your poison?’

      ‘A pina colada, please.’

      Oh, now this was surprising, thought Sal. Tamsin didn’t seem like a pina colada sort of girl.

      ‘Ooh, I like those, too,’ said Rose. ‘Good choice.’ She grinned at Tamsin who

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