LITMIR.BIZ

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      ‘I couldn’t bribe you to spill something indelible on it, could I? A pot of coffee? A squirt of ink?’

      ‘What’s the matter? Don’t you like it?’ The woman seemed surprised.

      ‘With my colouring? Yellow would not be my first choice.’

      ‘Well, there’s a first time for everything.’

      ‘Yes. And a last.’

      ‘It’s just different, that’s all. With the right make-up you’ll make a really pretty bridesmaid.’

      Oh, Lord, that, if anything, was worse. Prettiness was her mother’s fantasy; she had known better than to attempt it. She certainly didn’t want to look as if she were competing with the other bridesmaids.

      ‘Daisy!’ Ginny burst through the door with the rest of her adult attendants in tow. Dark, glossy and gorgeous to a girl. Robert was going to have a ball, she thought with that detached part of her brain that dealt with everything Robert did when he was not with her. It was just so much easier when she wasn’t part of the show. ‘You’re early!’

      ‘No, darling, you’re late.’

      ‘Are we? Oh, Lord, so we are. We’ve been having facials,’ she giggled. ‘You should have come.’

      There was more than one way to take that remark, Daisy decided, but was sure that Ginny hadn’t meant it unkindly. Ginny didn’t have an unkind bone in her body and, while her figure might leave something to be desired, Daisy knew there was nothing wrong with her skin. There was, unfortunately, precious little that a facial could do about an over-large nose or mouth.

      She arrived back at her office, breathless and feeling just a bit low. ‘Ah, Daisy, there you are.’

      Yes, here she was. And here she’d probably be for the rest of her days; Robert’s best friend and standby date. She pulled herself together; feeling sorry for herself wasn’t going to help. ‘I’m sorry, George, I did warn you I might be late.’

      ‘Did you?’ George Latimer was nearing seventy, and while few could challenge his knowledge of oriental artefacts, his short-term memory was not quite what it might be.

      ‘I had to be pinned into the bridesmaid dress,’ she reminded him.

      ‘Ah, yes. And you had lunch with Robert Furneval,’ he added thoughtfully. In the act of hanging up her jacket, Daisy turned. She’d said she was lunching with a friend; she hadn’t mentioned Robert. ‘Your clothes give you away, my dear.’

      ‘Do they?’

      ‘You’re covered from neck to ankle in the most unattractive brown tailoring. Tell me, are you afraid that he’ll get carried away and seduce you in the restaurant if you wear something even moderately appealing when you meet him? I only ask because I get the impression that most young women would enjoy the experience.’

      Her feigned surprise had not fooled him for a minute. His short-term memory might be a touch unreliable, but there was nothing wrong with his eyesight. And noticing things was what made him so good at what he did.

      ‘I didn’t realise you knew Robert,’ she said, avoiding his question.

      ‘We’ve met in passing. I know his mother. Charming woman. She’s something of an authority on netsuke, as I’m sure you know. When she heard I was looking for an assistant she called me and suggested I take you on.’

      Daisy sat down rather quickly. ‘I had no idea.’ Jennifer Furneval had always been kind to her, taking pity on the skinny teenager who had hung around hoping to be noticed by her son. Not that she’d so much as hinted that she knew the reason why Daisy had developed such a fervent interest in her collection of oriental treasures. On the contrary, she had loaned her books that had been a blissful excuse to return to the house, to hang around, ask questions. And she had eventually pointed her in the direction of a Fine Arts degree.

      Of course, she’d stopped hanging around for a glimpse of Robert long before then. She stopped doing that the day she’d seen him kissing Lorraine Summers.

      She’d been sixteen, all knees and elbows, an awkward teenager whose curves had refused to develop and with an unruly mop of hair that had repulsed every attempt to straighten it—assaults with her mother’s curling tongs leaving her with nothing but frizz and the scent of singed hair to show for her efforts.

      Her friends had all been developing into embryonic beauties, young swans while she’d seemed to have got stuck in the cygnet phase. The archetypal ugly duckling. But she hadn’t minded too much, because while the swans had made eyes at Robert they’d been far too young to win more than an indulgent smile. Daisy, on the other hand, had kept her eyes to herself, and had never asked for more than to sit and watch him fishing.

      Her reward, one blissful summer when Michael had been away on a foreign exchange visit, had been to have Robert give her an old rod and teach her how to use it.

      That, and the Christmas kiss he’d given her beneath the mistletoe. It was the best present she’d had that year. The glow of it had lasted until June, when she’d seen him kissing Lorraine Summers and realised there was a lot more to kissing than she’d imagined.

      Lorraine had definitely been a swan. Elegant curves, smooth fair hair and with all the poise that a year being ‘finished’ in France could bestow on a girl. Robert had just come up from Oxford, a first-class honours degree in his pocket, and she had gone racing around there to just say hello. Congratulations. Will you be going fishing on Sunday? But Lorraine, with her designer jeans and painted nails and lipstick, had got there first.

      After that she had only gone to see Jennifer Furneval when she’d been sure that Robert was not there.

      He had still dropped by, though, when he’d been home. Her brother had been in the States, doing a business course, but Robert had still called in early on a Sunday morning with his mother’s dog, or with his rods. Well, he’d always been able to rely upon Daisy to put up some decent sandwiches and bring a flask of fresh coffee, and maybe Lorraine, and the succession of girls who had followed her through the years, hadn’t cared to rise at dawn on a Sunday morning for the doubtful honour of getting their feet wet.

      ‘She worries about him, I think,’ George Latimer continued, after a moment’s reflection.

      Daisy dragged herself back from the simple pleasure of a mist-trailed early-morning riverbank to the exotic Chinoiserie of the Latimer Gallery. ‘About Robert? Why? He’s successful by any standards.’

      ‘I suppose he is. Financially. But, like any mother, she’d like to see him settle down, get married, raise a family.’

      ‘Then she’s in for a long wait. Robert has the perfect bachelor existence. A flat in London, an Aston Martin in the garage and any girl he cares to raise an eyebrow at to keep him warm at night. He isn’t about to relinquish that for a house in the suburbs, a station wagon and sleepness nights.’ Not sleepless nights caused by a colicky baby, anyway.

      He didn’t argue. ‘So that’s why you dress down when you have lunch with him?’

      Yes, well, she knew George Latimer was sharp. ‘We’re friends, George. Good friends, and that’s the way I plan to keep it. I don’t want him to confuse me with one of his girls.’

      ‘I see.’

      Daisy wasn’t entirely comfortable with the thoughtful manner in which George Latimer was regarding her, so she made a move in the direction of her office, signalling an end to the conversation. ‘Shall I organise some tea? Then we can go through that catalogue,’ she said, indicating the glossy catalogue for a large country house sale that he was holding, hoping to divert him. ‘I imagine that was why you were looking for me?’

      He glanced down at it as if he couldn’t quite remember where it had come from. ‘Oh, yes! There’s a fine collection of ceramics up for auction. I’d like you to go to the viewing on Tuesday and check them out.’ She felt a rush of pleasure at

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