the point doesn’t arise, because the fact is I’ve asked you—Miss er …’
‘Marston,’ Simon supplied helpfully. ‘Kate Marston.’
‘Kate,’ Matt Lincoln repeated musingly. ‘A nice old-fashioned name.’
She said hotly, ‘Please don’t patronise me, Mr Lincoln. I’m not the subject of one of your programmes. And here’s another fact, as you’re so keen on them—I’m turning down your invitation.’
She’d never been so deliberately rude to anyone in her life, and she was aware of Simon gaping.
For a long moment, Matt Lincoln stood looking at her as she felt the betrayal of embarrassed colour rising in her cheeks, then he said coolly, ‘I beg your pardon for having annoyed you.’ And turned away.
‘My God,’ Simon said helplessly. ‘That was a bit strong, wasn’t it?’
Kate lifted her chin defiantly, crushing down an unexpected feeling of shame. ‘I don’t think any lasting damage has been done—not to an ego like his!’
Simon was looking at her as if she was a stranger who had suddenly developed horns and a tail. ‘But he only wanted to dance with you, Kate. Hell’s bells, you couldn’t have cut him off more sharply if he’d made a heavy pass!’
‘Well, I find his conviction that he’s God’s gift to women a bit strong too,’ Kate retorted. ‘Men like that are an abomination. One smile, an invitation to dance—and they expect you to—to roll over and beg!’
‘Well—roll over anyway,’ said Simon with a mock leer. ‘I didn’t know you were such a feminist, Kate.’
‘I’m not,’ she said shortly. ‘But he—his whole approach—reminded me of—of someone I used to know.’
‘Did you give him a hard time too?’ Kate wondered if the alarm she heard in Simon’s voice was altogether feigned.
She gave him a placatory smile. ‘No.’ She glanced round. ‘I think Alison’s ready to go up and change. I’d better help her.’
‘Fine,’ Simon agreed, and she realised ruefully as she left the room in Alison’s wake that he was probably regretting that he had to spend the evening with her. And she wasn’t altogether sure she could blame him.
By the time they came downstairs again, Matt Lincoln had left, to Alison’s momentary pouting disappointment. Kate could only feel relief. She had almost been tempted to remain upstairs packing away the discarded wedding dress and tidying up generally rather than face him again.
She had imagined he had passed out of her life for ever. Now, it seemed, he was back with a vengeance.
Her steps began to slow. She had been walking aimlessly in no particular direction, or so she had thought. Now, as the glass and concrete block of the National Television building reared up in front of her, she wasn’t so sure.
Was this what they called a Freudian slip? she asked herself wryly.
She stood staring up at the building, hating the way all those windows seemed to stare back like so many blank eyes, then gave herself a swift mental shake. She was doing no earthly good drifting round London, worrying about something for which there might be a perfectly innocent explanation.
The best thing she could do was go back to the studio and get on with her own work, her own life.
In other words, mind her own business.
The studio was one large attic room of a tall Edwardian house. It had windows on two sides and a skylight, and Kate loved it. There was another attic across the narrow passage, and this she used as a bedsitter, sharing the bathroom on the floor below with the family who owned the house, Felix who was a newspaper photographer, his wife Maria and their two children. It was an arrangement that suited them all.
As Kate unlocked the front door and went in, Maria’s voice called from the kitchen, ‘How was the drunken lunch?’
Kate put her head round the kitchen door. ‘Remarkably sober,’ she said. ‘Something smells wonderful.’
Maria grimaced. ‘Not really.’ She waved a spoon. ‘Just an ordinary little meat sauce to go with spaghetti—it being the end of the month and all—but I think you’ll be amused by its precocity. Want to join us, or are you too full of caviare and champagne?’
‘I’d love to,’ Kate said regretfully, and meant it, because Maria was generally an inspired cook even with the most average ingredients. ‘But I thought I would go home this evening. It’s been some time since I saw them all.’
‘Fine,’ Maria said amiably. She gave Kate a narrow look. ‘There’s nothing wrong, is there?’
‘Of course not.’ Kate achieved a laugh. ‘I do go home occasionally, you know!’
‘I didn’t mean that. I just thought you looked a bit fraught, that’s all,’ said Maria, stirring her sauce, and lowering the flame beneath the pan.
‘Oh,’ Kate pulled a face, cursing her landlady’s perspicacity. ‘It’s just this new book—there could be problems. Nothing that I can’t handle, of course.’
‘Of course,’ Maria agreed. ‘Well, enjoy yourself this evening.’
Kate’s mother was delighted to get her phone call. ‘Darling, how marvellous! Jon and Alison are coming over too. It’ll be a real family party.’
‘Yes, won’t it?’ Kate agreed. She replaced her receiver slowly. She had intended to do some subtle probing, now it seemed she was going to be able to see them together and judge the state of their relationship for herself.
And probably Alison would be bubbling over with the story of her wonderful lunch, she told herself forcefully.
Her stepfather greeted her at the door with a warm hug.
‘You’ve lost weight, my girl.’ He held her at arms’ length and stared at her critically.
Kate wrinkled her nose at him. ‘That’s what you always say. I only wish it was true.’
‘Well, at least you’ll get a decent meal inside you tonight,’ he said triumphantly. ‘Steak and kidney pie and all the trimmings. How’s work going? Any interesting commissions?’
He poured sherry, and they took it into the kitchen and talked to Kate’s mother as she bustled around, putting the last touches to the meal. She was a woman who had always found her fulfilment in caring for her family, and they’d often teased her about it, calling her ‘an endangered species’, which she accepted with unruffled calm.
Watching her, seeing her pleasure in the preparations she was making, Kate found herself thinking, ‘Oh, let everything be all right! She and Dad love Jon. They’re so proud of him. If anything went wrong in his marriage, they’d be so hurt, so bewildered.’
They heard his car pull on to the drive at the side of the house, and presently he came in. He was smiling and carrying a bunch of flowers for his stepmother, but Kate thought he looked tired.
He
