big dining table and hurried away to the kitchen.
When he came back she was slicing onions. “I thought I’d serve the oysters au naturel with lemon wedges,” she said, pausing to wipe her forearm over her eyes, “and arrange them around the fish salad.”
“Sounds fine.”
“What about wine?”
“I’ll deal with that.”
He probably wouldn’t have trusted her with it, anyway. Not that she often got a chance to sample good wine, but she did know enough to bluff her way through a wine list.
“Glasses,” she said, sniffing as she tipped the onions into a dish. They were very strong. “I couldn’t find wine goblets.”
“They’re kept in a cabinet in the dining room, and I’ve already put them on the table. Do you want a tissue or something?”
“Thanks, I’m okay.” She turned to rinse her hands and then eyes at the tap.
When she raised her head he was standing beside her with a paper towel ready. Riley took it from him and blotted her face. “Ta.” Raising her reddened eyes to him, she was surprised to see him looking back at her rather fixedly, his own eyes dark and intense.
Riley blinked again, uncertainly. Her tongue crept unconsciously to her crooked tooth, parting her lips.
Benedict’s black brows drew together, and he stepped back. “What else do you want done?” he asked, looking at the table.
“Um…” For some reason she felt a bit breathless. She walked jerkily to the stainless steel lidded bin near the twin sinks, dropping the crumpled paper towel into it. “You could get a tin of coconut cream from the pantry for me. I can’t reach it.”
“Whereabouts in the pantry?”
“I’ll show you.” She led the way, stood in front of the shelf where she’d seen the tins, and pointed. “There.”
“One tin?” He reached past her to lift it down.
Riley felt him brush her shoulder, and moved aside. “Thanks.” Taking the tin, she glanced up to find him smiling slightly, a disconcerting gleam in his eyes. “What?”
“You wouldn’t want to know,” he said mysteriously. “Do you need any more help?”
He found, fetched, grated and chopped at her behest. When savory aromas began to seep into the room from the wall oven, and Riley was piling used bowls and saucepans into the sink, he glanced at his watch and said, “Anything else? And by the way, there’s a dishwasher for those.”
She looked at the white machine under the counter. “These things will take up a lot of room, and I can wash them in five minutes.”
“As you like. I should go and change before my guests arrive. The downstairs bathroom is all yours. Next to the laundry.”
“I’ll clean up and change when I’ve done the washing up. Do you want me to answer the door?”
“No, just look after the food.”
When he’d gone upstairs Riley inspected the table setting, straightening some knives and adding condiments, then ran an iron over her blouse and skirt and had a quick shower in the small but elegant marble bathroom, using one of the fluffy peach-colored towels she found on a brass shelf. She combed her hair and wove the strands into a braid before winding her hair tie round the end. It looked neat and efficient, she hoped.
She put out fresh hand towels for the guests and hurried back to the kitchen. Finding a full-length apron hanging on the back of the pantry door, she dropped it about her neck, and tied the strings firmly at her waist. Also behind the door was a folded step stool. She wondered if Benedict Falkner even knew it was there.
The apron fell below her skirt, and the broad band around her neck was far too big, making the top flop into a pouch, but it was also too wide to knot.
She found a short, sturdy knife and began shucking oysters, laying them in their half shells around the edge of a large serving platter.
Benedict returned in a cream shirt and a dark-red figured waistcoat with black trousers. He looked stunning.
Carefully Riley laid the lemon wedge in her hand onto a nest of green fennel between the last two oysters, and picked up a tiny carrot rosette from the dozen or so she’d made.
“Very impressive,” Benedict said. “You said you’d worked in restaurants—where?”
“New York, a couple of places in England, and here.”
Deftly she was placing more rosettes.
“How long were you in America? I thought I detected an accent.”
“I went to high school there, and college.” She moved the completed dish out of the way and pulled another toward her. “I was born in New Zealand while Dad was working in agricultural research here, but my parents are American. Hand me that bowl of chives?”
Passing it, Benedict looked down at her, and the skin around his eyes crinkled. “You look like a kid wearing her mother’s apron.”
So much for the hairstyle. Riley yanked up the top of the apron, but it immediately flopped again. “Do me a favor,” she said, pulling apart the bow at her waist. “If you can loop one of the strings through the neck bit and tie it again…”
She turned her back to allow him to do it. It took him a while, and she could feel his breath stirring her hair as he fumbled with the bow, even hear him breathing, but finally he said, “Okay?”
“Thank you.” The bib of the apron came to the base of her neck but it was more comfortable, and she no longer resembled a kangaroo. “I’ve made a platter of hors d’oeuvres—shall I bring it into the lounge when your guests arrive?”
“I’ll take it through now. They should be here any minute.”
Over the next thirty minutes the bell rang three times, and Riley heard voices in the hall, becoming muted as the guests moved into the lounge.
It was some time before Benedict pushed through the swing doors. “When can we eat?”
“Is fifteen minutes okay?”
“Yep.” He crossed to the fridge to take out a couple of bottles of wine before he left again.
Exactly fifteen minutes later Riley pulled off the apron and carried the oysters, now surrounding a glass bowl of coconut-cream-drenched fish salad, into the dining room, along with two silver baskets of breads cut into wedges.
Everyone was already seated around the long table. Benedict poured wine into a glass set in front of a young woman seated to his right, who inclined her head in order to catch something he was saying, her sky-blue eyes fixed on him. Thick, loose blond curls fell about an exquisite face without a freckle or a blemish, and her mouth was the kind that men were supposed to find irresistible—pouting and lush and painted a bright poppy pink.
Her neck was smooth and graceful and she had real
