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
