suggesting a top-of-the-range Jefferson Sports double duck-down sleeping bag.’
‘Have another glass of wine and say that.’
Cassie’s laughter turned the heads of several lunching businessmen. They were in no hurry to look away.
‘Just think how romantic it would be, Cass, zipped up together beneath the stars.’
Cassie was trying not to think about it She didn’t understand why it was so hard. ‘With three small boys playing gooseberry? I think I’d rather manage on my own, thanks. Unless, of course, you fancy a week of outdoor fun in the wilds of Wales? You’d be most welcome. ’
‘Me? I’ve got a store to run. Those cookery books and videos don’t just sell themselves, you know.’ Then she thought about it. ‘Actually in your case they do. But someone has to take the money.’ And to emphasise that she was not to be persuaded she returned to her close scrutiny of the menu. ‘I’ll have the lamb cutlets with the herb and mustard crust, baby new potatoes and peas,’ she said, after reading it through twice.
‘I can’t tempt you to try the scallops, first?’ Cassie asked innocently.
‘Please! This is lunchtime. If I eat too much I’ll fall asleep over the accounts.’
‘You’re quite sure? I’ve heard they’re very special and I’d like to try them. If you don’t mind waiting...’
‘Sit and watch you eat?’ Beth groaned. ‘You wretch, you know I’ve got all the restraint of a rabbit faced with a field of lettuce.’
Cassie grinned. ‘Save the lettuce for supper and join me in the gym tomorrow to work off the excess.’
Beth brightened. ‘Oh, right. What time?’
‘Six-thirty.’
‘Six-thirty? Forget it. After a day in the bookshop all I can think of is a large G and T and putting my feet up.’
Cassie grinned. ‘I meant six-thirty in the morning.’
Beth’s mouth fell open, then she gathered herself, with the smallest of shudders. ‘No, thanks. I’ll learn to love my curves and if you don’t mind my saying so you need a man to keep you in bed in the morning.’ Even as she said it, Cassie saw Beth wish the words back into her mouth. ‘As I said, the restraint of a rabbit and a mouth like a runaway train...’
CASSIE took pity on her. ‘Don’t worry about it, Beth. You’re only saying what everyone else thinks. Matt and Lauren have been trying to fix me up with their spare men friends for years.’
‘Look, since this is apparently my day for saying the wrong thing, can I do it again?’
‘Will anything stop you?’
‘It’s just that... well, has it ever occurred to you that Jonathan might not have been a swan after all? You’d only been married a few weeks when he died, hardly long enough to find out the faults. And they all have faults, you know. Even the best of them.’
‘I know, Beth.’
‘It’s unfair to measure every man you meet against him.’
‘I know.’
‘But it doesn’t make any difference?’
‘Beth, you don’t understand...’ The waitress arrived to take their order and when she had gone the urge to tell someone, anyone, the truth about Jonathan had evaporated. That was her secret. Her shame. ‘Are you sure you won’t come along to the gym?’
‘At six-thirty?’ Beth seemed as relieved to let the subject drop as she was.
‘An hour in the gym three mornings a week helps to counteract the occupational hazard of constantly tasting new recipes to get them just right.’
‘You mean you claim membership of the gym as an expense against income tax?’ Beth was seriously impressed by that.
‘I hadn’t thought of it,’ Cassie confessed.
‘Check it out with your accountant and let me know what he says. I wonder if I could get away with it? You have to be fit to run your own business, you know.’
‘You have to be fit for any kind of job and somehow I can’t imagine the Inland Revenue subsidising health club membership for the entire nation.’
‘Why not? Think what it would save on the National Health bill.’
‘You know, you’re wasted in business, Beth. With a mind like that you should be in politics. Running the Exchequer.’
‘Are you coming, Nick? The meeting is about to start.’
Veronica was framed in the doorway, her slender figure displayed to advantage in the palest grey and white dress. Outside the day was hot and humid, yet this woman managed to look as if she was moving in her own air-conditioned space, a picture of unruffled poise. He suspected that if she were a glass she would be frosted. The very opposite of the way he was feeling at that moment.
‘I’ll be right with you,’ he muttered, wishing she would move on instead of watching him hunt through the papers on his desk for a sheet of figures that had disappeared without trace.
Instead, she asked, ‘Lost something?’ in a tone that suggested a whole heap of things. But mostly that she had never lost anything in her entire life.
‘One of my secretary’s kids is sick,‘ he muttered. ‘But I know she did those figures before she went home last night...’
Veronica appeared to glide across the room, then, bending from the knees, she picked up a sheet of paper that had fallen beneath his desk. ‘Is this what you’re looking for?’ she enquired as she stood up and offered it to him, a faint smile lifting the corners of her mouth. Like everything she did it combined an economy of movement with perfect grace. He wondered briefly if she had ever been a model, but immediately discounted the possibility that she would ever involve herself in an occupation so trivial.
‘That’s it. Thanks, Veronica.’ He smiled somewhat ruefully, raking his fingers through his hair. ‘I seem to be all over the place today,’ he said, with a slightly helpless shrug. That ‘little boy lost’ thing seemed to get to some women. Maybe it would touch Veronica Grant.
‘The heat gets to some people.’ Her tone suggested only the weak and feeble.
Obviously not.
He shuffled the papers into order and picked up the folder with the details of the new project he had been working on. Beneath it lay Cassie Cornwell’s book, which, despite his promise, had not been opened since he bought it. But at least he hadn’t hidden it away in the bottom of his desk as she had predicted. Veronica picked it up and turned it over to examine the photograph on the back.
‘Is this the book you’re giving your sister?’ she asked.
‘Yes...and
