LITMIR.BIZ

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down and took several deep breaths, then remembered she’d forgotten to ask how old Shirley’s Adrian was.

      

      He was ten, with red hair, prominent blue eyes and buck teeth. He walked with a swagger and didn’t reply when spoken to. His mother had faded blonde agitated-looking hair but otherwise was clean, neat and presentable and obviously anxious to do her very best.

      ‘well, Shirley,’ Lucy said with a dazzling smile, half an hour before the guests were due to fly in, ‘I guess the important thing is not to panic. Everything in the buffet is either cold or only needs heating up so tonight will be quite simple, and I’ll nip in later to give you a hand.’ And she took Shirley step by step through the eventing’s requirements. Then she showed them to their room and showed Adrian the television and even fetched some of her old books and games for him.

      ‘He’s not much of a reader,’ his mother said with an apologetic smile, ‘but it’s lovely of you to bother, Miss Lucy. Now, Adrian, you will be a good boy, won’t you?’

      

      At five-thirty, the long, lovely veranda room played host to the glow of lamplight, the chink of glasses and some exuberant conversation. And despite the fact that part of her mind was elsewhere, Lucy was in the thick of it.

      She wore slim scarlet trousers, matching flat shoes and a cream pullover with a wonderful red, green and cream scarf worn shawlwise. Her hair was loose and she was faintly pink from some of the extravagant compliments she’d received—most on the subject of new brides and early wedded bliss. Their guests were of course all older than she was, the two women in the same mould as Sasha, elegant late twenties or early thirties, experienced and articulate and both with careers of their own. But apart from that aspect of it, it was a milieu she was very familiar with and one her father had taught her to hold her own in some years ago. She’d been hostessing his parties since she was about eighteen, after all. And if she had fewer resources to hand than she’d ever had before, plus one Dennis the Menace on hand, she was damned if anyone was going to know it. Least of all Justin, although she’d caught him looking at her once or twice with something oddly alert in his eyes. But he’s not a mind-reader, she reassured herself, and there’s no earthly reason for him to go into the kitchen tonight, anyway. The longer I can keep him in the dark and still cope, the better, she reasoned—somewhat obscurely, she realised briefly, but didn’t have the time to elaborate.

      All the same, at six-thirty, when she suggested to everyone that they might like to freshen up although not to worry about changing, she breathed a sigh of relief when they all took themselves to their bedrooms and she repaired to the kitchen as unobtrusively as she could. To find Shirley standing in the middle of the room looking wild-eyed and tearful.

      ‘What’s wrong?’ she demanded.

      ‘He’s gone!’

      ‘Who?’

      ‘Adrian! He could be anywhere out there! He’s not a country boy, Miss Lucy; we’re just spending a holiday with Auntie Vera!’

      ‘The little...um, calm down, Shirley. I’ll find him. You just keep on with the buffet. We’ve got an hour.’

      

      It took her half an hour to locate Adrian in the loft above the garage. And the mild lecture she gave him brought no visible reaction from him even when she told him he’d frightened the life out of his mother. ‘Now just stay put,’ she admonished as she marched him back to his room. ‘Tomorrow you can go out and see the horses, I’ll organise a ride on a tractor for you, whatever you like—and your dinner’s coming in a moment.’

      

      

      

      ‘Are you all right, Lucy?’

      ‘Fine, Justin,’ she said brightly, finding him alone in the lounge. He’d added a sage-green sweater to his informal gear and his hair was brushed and tidy, his grey eyes watchful. ‘No one down yet?’

      ‘No. Have you been running somewhere?’

      She laughed. ‘No. Why?’

      ‘You look a little—harassed. Are Mrs Milton and her sister coping all right?’

      ‘Everything’s fine. If you could just have some confidence in me, it would be a big help.’

      ‘Very well, Lucy. Ah, here are the first of our guests.’

      

      The buffet went off smoothly and with plenty of compliments and afterwards for a while they played music and all chatted together, and then the men tended to group together at one end of the room, leaving the women at the other and Sasha looking for once in her life as if she didn’t quite know which group to join.

      Lucy seized the opportunity and murmured in her ear that she’d be grateful if she could deputise for her for a moment, while she checked that all was well behind the scenes. Sasha looked gratified, as much, probably, Lucy reflected, that ‘behind the scenes’ should need checking. But she did as she was asked.

      Behind the scenes, there was another story. The dining-room was cleared, the kitchen was tidy and a tea tray was set out but there was no sign of Shirley. What she was doing in fact, was swabbing out the staff bathroom and passage leading to it because Adrian had allowed the bath to overflow. He’d got so wrapped up in the television programme he’d been watching, his mother explained, he’d forgotten.

      Lucy closed her eyes and counted to ten. And, on opening them, noticed Adrian watching her interestedly. Why, he’s testing me out, she thought, the little wretch.

      ‘Isn’t it time he was in bed?’ she said as mildly as she could.

      By the time she got back she was feeling decidedly limp—it had taken the two of them a good twenty minutes of vigorous mopping to dam the flood, her feet were damp inside her shoes and she had trickles of sweat running down her back, but no one appeared to notice and the party had come together again and was dancing to the CD player.

      ‘Oh damn,’ she muttered to herself.

      But two hours later her ordeal was ended, or so she thought. The party broke up at last and everyone went up to bed appearing happy and contented with their stay on Dalkeith so far.

      ‘Let’s hope I can keep it that way,’ she murmured to herself as she tidied up. She’d sent Shirley to bed, reasoning that it might keep Adrian out of more mischief as well as having her bright and fresh for the next day. But when it was all done she stood in the middle of the dining-room, thinking about the three other women in the house, excluding poor Shirley.

      Thinking about them in a context that surprised her a little. In other words, how much more appropriate any one of them would be as a consort for Justin than she was. How, for example, they would react to being told that without regular, satisfying sex they could become—what had he said—fractious and troublesome?

      Well, she mused, she couldn’t imagine him saying something like that in the first place. To them. So how would communication on the subject take place with someone older and wiser? A more sophisticated play on words? A simple expression of need—with Sasha he’d probably only have to crook his finger, she thought somewhat maliciously, then sighed.

      But a moment later she discovered herself feeling a sense of righteous indignation—talk about her come hither smiles! Had he not noticed that despite two of their female guests being partnered there had been throughout the evening a discreet summing up of Justin taking place, an awareness—yes, very subtle, but there. Of course it was always there with Sasha and he must be blind not to notice it. Why didn’t he? But not only that, her thoughts ranged on, a subtle summing up of herself had been taking place all evening, in the direct context of her suitability for Justin.

      She stood in the middle of the dining-room deep in thought, wondering if it was all part of the games people with a bit of age and maturity played, wondering if he played it himself, or wondering finally if he just had this devastating effect

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