build was slightly heavy, but he was tall with no fat, and gave an impression of controlled physical power that his elegant suits normally concealed. Seeing him almost naked reminded me of what might have been mine, and hadn’t been, and it didn’t improve my mood.
‘Good morning,’ I murmured. ‘Have we met?’
‘Yes, I’m the fellow who brought your coffee this morning. And I didn’t even get a tip.’
‘I never tip the hired help,’ I murmured languidly.
He laughed, and whispered, ‘That’s great. Play the indifferent card for all it’s worth. Act like I’m dirt beneath your feet.’
If he’d known how much I’d have liked to do just that he wouldn’t have risked saying it.
‘Are they watching us?’ I murmured.
‘And how!’
‘In that case—’
I brushed the backs of my fingers against his face. At once he took my hand, turned it over and kissed the palm. I braced myself against the tremors that went through me, and managed to smile.
‘I’ve brought you some sunscreen,’ he said. ‘You shouldn’t lie out like this with that fair skin.’
He handed me the bottle and I rubbed the lotion in well, until Jack took it and said, ‘Turn over.’
He did my back and my hips, down as far as the bikini bottom. Then I felt him undo the clasp of the bikini top and begin to work cream into my skin there.
‘I had to undo it or you’d have had a mark,’ he explained.
It would have been the easiest thing in the world to let his hand drift down the sides a little. But he didn’t. He simply finished oiling me and fastened the clasp again. It was like being guarded by a Boy Scout.
After a while someone called him from further down the pool and he went to talk to them. I stayed where I was, controlling my feelings with an effort. How I’d have loved to toss him into his own pool and hold him under. But the sun was making me sleepy, so I decided to let him live—for now.
I must have sort of dozed, because the next thing I was aware of was a hand rubbing more lotion into my back.
‘Mmm!’ I said.
‘Like it?’ asked a laughing voice.
That wasn’t Jack. I twisted around and found myself looking at Raymond Keller.
He was a pleasant sight—fortyish, lean and strongly built, with reddish hair. I was still sufficiently irked with Jack to do a little flirting.
‘I’m not quite sure,’ I mused.
‘Well, let me do a little more so that you can decide.’
‘No, I think that’s enough for today,’ I said, sitting up and regarding him.
‘You know,’ he said, ‘I’ve been trying to think where I’ve seen you before.’
‘Maybe you haven’t.’
‘Sure I have. You definitely look familiar.’
‘You’re probably just confusing me with some other girl in a pink bikini.’
‘It’s not really pink,’ he said. ‘More a kind of flesh colour. From a distance you look as if you’re not wearing anything. I’ve been watching you and studying the matter very seriously.’
His grin made it impossible to be offended. Just the same, I played it safe.
‘It’s pink,’ I said decidedly. ‘It makes us all look alike, you know.’
‘Not you. You don’t look like any other girl. Wait! I’ve got it! You were at the Davisons’ château last summer. We danced the night away, but you never told me your name.’
I made a pretence of considering this. ‘I’m afraid I don’t remember.’
He reeled off some more names and places, while I fenced and parried. It meant nothing. He knew we hadn’t met before. This was just a traditional opening gambit.
But then I struck lucky.
Jack returned and sat down on my other side, greeting Raymond briefly.
‘Della and I have just been trying to remember where we first met,’ Raymond said.
‘Really?’ Jack said politely. ‘Have you come up with anything?’
‘I’m not sure. I sure don’t seem to have made much of an impression on her if we did. How about the theatre, Della? I go to a lot of opening nights. Maybe I saw you at the opening of Flowers in the Rain?’
‘Do you mean that dreadful evening when they had to stop the show because a woman in the front row was taken ill?’ I asked.
‘That’s right,’ he said, beaming.
‘The actor playing the lead was put right off his stride,’ I said, in the voice of someone remembering. ‘He never really recovered after that—kept stumbling over his lines.’
‘Fancy us both being there! Yes, you definitely smiled at me in the Circle Bar.’
‘It’s a small world,’ Jack observed.
For some reason Raymond didn’t stick around now Jack was there, and when some of the other men dived into the pool he joined them.
‘What was all that about?’ Jack asked me. ‘Did you really see him at that first night?’
‘No, I wasn’t even there. I heard about it from someone who was. The point is, he’s now convinced he’s seen me around, and will vouch for me as one of his own circle. By the time he talks to Grace and Selina we’ll have been at school together.’
Jack roared with laughter.
‘You’re a really tricky lady,’ he said.
I’d only meant it as a joke, but I spoke truer than I knew—because suddenly Grace and Selina began to eye me more cautiously. They just weren’t sure any more, and that suited me fine. It suited Jack too. He was loving every moment.
There was a bar at the side of the pool, with stools just below the water line. After a quick dip, I swam over to get a long orange juice, and while I was sitting there, sipping, Selina came and joined me.
I have to admit she had a figure to be proud of. She was statuesque, and might run to fat later, but just now she was at her best—as her black bikini revealed.
Her manner was almost friendly.
‘So you’re an old friend of Raymond’s,’ she said. ‘You should have told us.’
‘I didn’t get the chance,’ I said. ‘Since I arrived things
