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‘As a matter of fact I believe you, Justin. I’ve even thought she has a certain horsey look about her—nothing less than a chestnut thoroughbred with wonderful lines, of course!’ she finished with a grin. ‘As for upsetting her,’ she added, ‘I wish you would tell me how to, because it doesn’t seem possible.’
They stared at each other—rather, Lucy found it suddenly impossible to evade his gaze or to understand why it made her suddenly feel a bit small, but it did and she said at last, ‘Oh, all right! I won’t upset Sasha—so far as it’s humanly possible for me not to!’
‘Good.’ He said nothing more but moved out of her way.
‘Am I being dismissed now?’ she demanded.
‘Why not?’
‘There are times, Justin Waite, when you irritate the life out of me,’ she said precisely. ‘And what with you and Sasha telling me what I should do and what I shouldn’t do, it will be a miracle if this weekend doesn’t turn out to be a disaster—’ She broke off and made a disgusted sound.
‘And there are times, Lucy, when it’s impossible to tell you anything—I wouldn’t be too happy about this weekend turning into a disaster, so if you have any doubts tell me now.’
‘I don’t—’
‘I suppose the proof of that will be in the pudding,’ he said drily, and studied her. ‘By the way,’ he said, flicking his gaze over her denim overalls, and the two pigtails she wore her hair in, ‘Would you mind not wearing your hair like that over the weekend?’
She blinked. ‘Why not—as if I would, anyway.’
‘I could be accused of cradle-snatching, that’s all. Off you go.’
‘Perhaps you are!’
‘Now, Lucy, we both know I’m not. Don’t we?’ His grey gaze bored into hers until she reddened and turned away abruptly and angrily but without words.
Fortunately for her seething state of mind, there was enough to be done to calm her and force her to concentrate—and not only that. There was the knowledge that both Justin and Sasha had doubts about her capabilities as a hostess. In her less angry moments she recognised that it was a useful spur, in her more angry moments she told herself she would certainly show them a thing or two. And by Friday midday the fruits of her labour and Mrs Milton’s were very evident. The house was polished and shining and filled with flowers. The guest bedrooms were impeccable, with not a wrinkle in their bedspreads, and the cold room was filled with a selection of pies and pastries, cold meats, quiches, fruits and vegetables and three splendid, plump ducks hung there, ready to be roasted for Saturday night’s dinner.
It was also not long past midday when disaster struck, in the form of a distraught phone call from Mrs Milton who’d gone to pick up her sister to take up residence in the staff quarters for the weekend.
‘...Your mother? Oh, I’m so sorry, Mrs Milton,’ Lucy said into the phone and a moment later, ‘Yes, of course if it’s that serious, I do understand. Um...you and your sister must be worried sick and will want to be with her... Look, if there’s anything I can do, please—’
‘You’ve got enough on your plate as it is, pet,’ Mrs Milton said down the line in tones quite unlike her normal cheerful ones. ‘I’ve been racking my brains and all I can come up with is my niece, Shirley. How would it be if I send her up, Miss Lucy? She’s a good cook, that I can guarantee, and doesn’t mind what she turns her hand to. There’s only one problem and that’s—’
‘Oh, Mrs Milton, please do,’ Lucy said into the phone. ‘I’d be so grateful, and between us we’ve done most of it, haven’t we? What’s the problem?’
‘Well she’d have to bring her son, Adrian—’
‘That’s no problem!’
‘Mmm, I haven’t told you about Adrian, have I? Look, just...if you’re firm with him he’s fine, but his father ran off when he was two, so... And Shirley worships the ground he walks on.’
‘Don’t worry, I’ll tie him up if...no, of course not, Mrs Milton, I wouldn’t dream of it, but I’m sure we’ll be able to cope with him between us. Now you just worry about your mother and give her my love—I’ll be thinking of you all.’
She put the phone 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 on women and had got so used to it that he didn’t notice it any more!
‘Lucy.’
‘Oh!’ She turned with a start to find the object of her deep, dark musings regarding her with some amusement. ‘You—I didn’t hear you,’ she said lamely.
‘I gathered that. You seemed to be a hundred miles away.’
‘Not really,’ she replied ruefully. ‘Well, that’s all done. I think I’ll go to bed now—goodnight.’
‘I’m coming up myself.’ He strolled beside her to the foot of the staircase. ‘It was a very successful evening, by the way.’
Lucy paused with her hand on the banister and tried to think of something to say but ended up unsuccessfully trying to smother a huge yawn. ‘Sorry, I—’
‘You’re exhausted. Come,’ he said, and without further ado he picked her up and started up the stairs.
After a moment of supreme surprise, she lay quiet and composed in his arms, her lashes fanning her cheeks, her only thought to wonder what was coming.
But all he did was to put her down on her bed and turn away to stoke up her fire. She lay quite still, watching him and feeling an odd little sense of loss, which translated upon a moment’s thought to the realisation that she hadn’t felt quite so lonely or strung up in his arms as she did lying alone on her bed the way she was... She bit back a husky exclamation and sat up, feeling unreasonably annoyed and stung to retaliation.
‘It’s a pity we couldn’t have done that for the benefit of the gallery,’ she said ironically. ‘Justin, is it important to you the kind of impression I make on these people? I mean, are they going to judge you on me, sort of thing?’
He straightened and came over to the bed. ‘Why?’
‘Why what?’
‘Why are you asking me that, Lucy?’
She stared up at him. ‘Why shouldn’t I? I’m curious, that’s all.’
He looked faintly sceptical but said, ‘I guess it’s human nature to wonder what people see in each other and make some sort of judgement.’
‘So,’ she said slowly, ‘were I to be judged—if they were to think for example, well, she’s pretty enough and all that but mightn’t she bore Justin to tears after a while?—how will that affect how they think about you?’
He frowned. ‘Lucy, if I knew what was behind this I might—’
‘You’re the one who wanted me to make a good impression and not look as if I’d been snatched from my cradle,’ she broke in tartly.
He smiled. ‘Is that how you’ve been feeling tonight? A little out of your depth? I thought you were a bit wrought up about something.’
The accuracy and the inaccuracy of his words brought a faint blush to her cheeks and a further sense of maltreatment to her heart. ‘You can’t have it both ways, Justin. You did marry me, even if it was for all the wrong reasons, but they don’t know that, so—’
‘Lucy,’ he interrupted gravely, ‘let me set your mind at rest. I don’t give a damn what people think about my private life; I never have. My concern about how you might behave this weekend was motivated by this—when you invite people to spend time with you, especially way out in the backblocks like this where they can’t get up and go that easily if they want to, I think you’re fairly obliged not to make them feel uncomfortable and as if they’re in the midst of a domestic brawl. Don’t you agree?’
She opened her mouth, closed it then said scathingly, ‘Of course! That doesn’t explain the cradle bit, though.’
‘Well, as to that,’ he said musingly, and picked up a strand of her hair, ‘I wondered if it mightn’t be part of your strategy, that’s all.’
Lucy blinked at him. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘Don’t you? I thought since I’d made it plain that your femme fatale act—your words, not mine, but not inappropriate—was something I wouldn’t approve of you might—change tack.’
Lucy closed her eyes. ‘Funnily enough, it didn’t occur to me at all,’ she said bleakly.
‘You wouldn’t be losing your grip on this—war, would you, Lucy?’ he queried, slipping her hair through his fingers then smoothing it back into place and standing back a step.
For the briefest moment Lucy wondered if she was. But she said, ‘I’m rather tired, Justin, that’s all.’
‘Is it, Lucy?’
The way he said it, on a different note entirely made her open her eyes. ‘What more could there be?’
‘Unless you tell me, I don’t know.’ His eyes searched hers.
She looked away and found herself considering telling him that she didn’t have Mrs Milton and her sister, only one flustered and anxious substitute—and Adrian, and that if the rest of the weekend went well it would be something of a miracle—he’d probably find out soon enough, anyway. But almost immediately she decided she couldn’t stand his scorn, not tonight, so she said wearily, ‘There’s nothing,’ and lay back exhaustedly.
‘Perhaps you’re trying too hard, Lucy.’
She stretched her throat and rubbed it. ‘I really don’t know what I have to do to make you approve of me, Justin.’
He moved so his face was in the shadows and she couldn’t read his expression. ‘Just the one thing you won’t do.’
For the life of her she couldn’t help it, couldn’t stern the images that flooded her mind, of lying in his arms and being made love to, of not being lonely, at least. Images of surrender in the most complete way a woman could to a man, but... ‘But then I might not approve of myself. It’s a real dilemma, isn’t it?’ she whispered, and sat up suddenly with her hands to her face as hot tears sprang to her eyes. ‘Please, just go away, Justin. I can’t cope with you and all this at the same time.’
He stared down at her shaking shoulders for a long moment, then he said evenly, ‘All right, I’m going. But if there is a problem you don’t have to—’
‘There’s nothing!’ She raised her tear-streaked face abruptly. ‘Other than that you’ve now managed to undermine my self-confidence.’
‘Why, Lucy, I never thought to hear you say that. Goodnight, my dear. Don’t do anything stupid, will you?’
She didn’t, not then, but before the weekend was over she seriously interfered with Adrian’s freedom and committed a social solecism of considerable proportions.
CHAPTER THREE
IT WAS Sasha, who else, who broke the news on Sunday morning.
She came into the veranda room where everyone was lounging around comfortably just prior to getting ready to leave, still commenting on the great dinner party last night and lovely day they’d had yesterday, and she said into a lull in the conversation, ‘Justin, there’s a child handcuffed to a fence outside. He says Lucy did it and that she threatened to shoot him.’
Everyone sat up with wide eyes and turned to Lucy.
‘Oh,’ she swallowed, ‘that’s Adrian. He’s only been there for about ten minutes. I...’ She stopped and blushed bright red.
