me?’
‘I will.’
‘Okay. See you then.’ She crossed to the lifts.
‘Who will you be coming as?’ he called after her. Almost as if he were forestalling her departure.
‘I’ll let that be a surprise.’
‘I hate surprises.’
She turned her head back over her shoulder and gave him a blast of Shiloh. ‘A bit of delayed gratification might be good for you.’
And then she walked out. And left him and his gorgeous suit standing in the foyer all alone.
IF HAYDEN’S mouth gaped any further, one of these rampant nine-year-olds was just as likely to mistake it for a bouncy castle and run into it.
‘Leonidas—’ Shirley bowed ‘—Boudicca, Warrior Queen of the Iceni.’
She didn’t have to worry about how low she bowed; the suspension in the get-up that Andreas had helped her with would have kept Dolly Parton fully immobile. The bodice was more strapping than bra, swathes of earthy fabric wrapped tight around her torso in the manner of the Celts and then flying back over her shoulder to form a cape.
‘How did you even get into that thing?’ he breathed.
‘Andreas helped me.’
‘Andreas?’
‘My neighbour.’
He quirked an eyebrow, not that she could be certain under his ornate beaten-copper face-shield, which left only his eyes and lips visible, but it tipped slightly and his tone left her in no doubt that it would be lifted beneath the tin.
‘Your gay male neighbour?’
Seriously, Hayden? ‘My straight seventy-year-old, ex-opera-wardrobe-master-who’s-great-with-a-toga neighbour.’ The relief on his face was comical. And confusing. ‘What does it matter who helped me dress?’ she quizzed.
His eyes grew vague. ‘Undress. Do you think that’s appropriate to wear around young boys?’
She glanced down to make sure everything was still where she’d put it. With her long flowing skirts, the only part of her bare was a strip of midriff and her arms and shoulders, which Andreas had carefully decorated with eyeliner tribal tattoos. And her feet, which surely could not offend anyone.
Her laugh was ninety per cent outrage. ‘That’s rich coming from a man in a miniskirt.’
A thoroughly hot and distracting miniskirt and not a lot else. Leather thong sandals and wrought-copper leg guards protecting his shins—possibly handy if things turned ugly with the nine-year-olds—and some kind of metallic breastplate that accentuated the breadth of his shoulders. Spear with a cork stuck on the dangerous end. Battered shield. And the battle-mask which supported the mother of all mohawks above his head.
That was about it.
Nothing more gratuitous than she’d seen in the water three months ago but somehow infinitely hotter in the suburbs.
What was it about a man in a skirt?
‘What did you do to your hair?’ he accused.
Had holding that long blunt spear turned him into a caveman? ‘I died it. Henna.’
‘I liked the black.’
‘Strangely enough, your preference didn’t really influence my decision. Boudicca had flaming red hair.’
‘And she was a brutal warrior. Again, maybe not appropriate for children.’
‘Unlike Leonidas, who just carried his spear to pick up litter?’
Luc wandered past them with a steaming bowl of mini red frankfurters in one hand and a family-sized tomato ketchup in the other. ‘Come on, you two, the fighting is supposed to be fictional.’
Shirley snapped her mouth shut with a click.
Hayden looked her over once more for good measure, shook his head, then turned and strode away from her. The turning caught his little skirt and gave it extra lift as he marched ahead of her and gave her a better look at his strong thighs.
Would Boudicca have busied herself with the undersides of the Roman tunics? she scolded herself.
A tiny smile crept onto her warrior lips.
I’d like to imagine so.
‘You are the best army I’ve ever led!’ Shirley whispered to her seven young boys, hunkered down behind a barrier of rubbish bins and a play house. Every one of them grinned, wide-eyed and excited, through the tomato ketchup now painted on their faces in a replica of her Celtic swirls.
Shirley doled out more fist-sized ammunition.
‘I think it’s time for a strategy change …’ she whispered, laying on a thick accent that was somewhere between Scots and Welsh. And almost certainly nothing like Icenian. ‘An army is never as strong without its leader so this time I want you to hurl everything you’ve got at Leonidas. Take. Him. Out!’
‘Yeah!’ The boys pumped their fists in the air and took up positions in the cracks between their protective barricade. Across the garden, she could see the erect mohawk of Hayden’s Spartan headdress poking up above a hastily constructed shelter made of a deflated paddling pool and some upturned garden chairs and waving as he gave an inspirational battle speech of his own. Then half a dozen little faces peered up over the shelter with their own improvised headdresses on. A cut-down bucket, a foil headpiece, a dustpan brush taped to a head …
It made them easier to find than her stealthy, sauce-smeared Celts.
‘Ready …’ she whispered, and then surged to her feet, yelling, ‘Leonidas!’
‘Boudicca!’ Across the lawn, Hayden leapt the barrier, thrusting his spear skywards and shouting.
Two mini armies exploded in opposite directions and both let the other pass to run to their real targets. Shirley backed away from the bucket-foil-and-brush-wearing Spartans. As one, they let their missiles fly and she curled her arms up over her head and turned side-on to the assault. Fifteen fat little balloons hit her and burst into a watery mess. High, low, middle. She had to admit, the Spartans were pretty well-coordinated little fighters, whereas her Celts missed more than they hit, then dashed off to pick up the unburst balloons and try again, giggling.
Hayden made much of his watery death, eventually falling flat in a blaze of glory on the suburban lawn. The Celts piled on, cheering. Then the Spartans piled on top.
‘Okay, warriors …’ Tim’s mum intervened loudly, plucking the first of the children off a beleaguered Hayden. ‘You have restored peace to this land and now a mighty feast awaits the victors in the kitchen.’
The
