that you pretty well agreed with him when he intimated that Barbara asked for trouble down on St. Julian, her parents don’t need to be told that.”
It was the verbal slap in the face needed to restore Sophie. “I wouldn’t dream of it,” she muttered indignantly. “What sort of person do you take me for?”
“You don’t want to know,” he shot back, lowering his lashes to hide the scorn flaring in his eyes.
Mrs. Wexler patted the cushion beside her on the brocade sofa. “Bring your cup and sit here with me, Sophie. We’re so grateful to you for coming tonight and I know we’ll both feel better for your visit. Won’t we, John?”
If anything, Barbara’s father looked even frailer than his wife. “She was only twenty-four,” he murmured plaintively. “I don’t understand how someone so young and full of life could be snuffed out like that. Why did it happen?”
“I think perhaps because she was so full of life, just as you say, Mr. Wexler,” Sophie suggested, trying hard to tread the fine path between honesty and tact. “She was impatient...”
Apparently, she hadn’t tried hard enough. From his post at the corner of the fireplace, Dominic frowned a caution. “‘Eager’ might be a better word, Ms. Casson.”
So might “rebellious”, Sophie thought, not to mention “selfish” and “willful” and “downright cheap”. But of course, he didn’t want to hear that sort of thing, any more than the Wexlers did, and who was she to belittle anyone else’s morals in light of her own fall from grace?
“But was she having fun... until... ?”
The pathetic hope in Mrs Wexler’s next question broke Sophie’s heart. It was a relief to be able to say quite truthfully that, until the accident, Barbara had been busy having a wonderful time on St. Julian. Fortunately, neither parent asked Sophie to elaborate on the remark.
“There’ll be a service next week in the Palmerstown Memorial Chapel, and a plaque placed in the gardens,” Dominic informed her when he saw her out. “The Wexlers would appreciate your being there.”
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