unadulterated luxury to people who are willing to pay top whack to be pampered,’ she’d explained. ‘It’s really taking off, and now he needs an assistant to seek out and vet new venues in the more exotic parts of the world to make sure everything meets his high standards. And do you know what? He thought of me! The job’s mine if I want it, but he needs to know by Tuesday.’ Her face had lit up. A little squirm of excitement had built up inside her. It was there whenever she thought about the offer.
But she’d said honestly, ‘The only downside is the newness of the venture. He’s got more prospective clients than suitable places to send them—so he needs new venues and more employees. But to get them he needs more capital, and if he can’t get it the agency will stagnate and probably sink.’ She’d tucked her arm through Tom’s and reassured him happily, ‘But he’s a fighter. He’ll raise the capital somehow.’
‘You must be mad.’ He’d walked steadily on, staring straight ahead. ‘You’re secure where you are. Where will you be if you join him and the whole thing fails? Because fail it will. You’ll be unemployed. Safe jobs aren’t easy to come by. We’ve decided you’ll work for two years after we’re married. Or had you forgotten? We’ve agreed to invest your earnings to create a nest egg before we start trying for a family.’
He’d given her a scathing look, shaken her hand from his arm and turned to go back to the house. ‘You can’t seriously consider jeopardising your chance to contribute to our future comfort and security? In any case, from the job description, you’d have to be out of the country looking for places to send people who probably wouldn’t want to go there anyway. We’d see even less of each other than we do now.’
She’d had the definite impression that this last had been a complete afterthought. That the investment nest egg was of far greater importance.
Still aggrieved, she parked her car outside Brenda Mayhew’s terraced house in Battersea, reached her luggage from the back seat and rummaged in her handbag for the doorkey.
If he’d said, Go ahead and take the job if you want to try your wings, but I’ll hate having to see even less of you than I do now, she wouldn’t have given Mark’s job offer another thought. As things stood, though, she had the strongest urge to phone him right now and ask when she could start!
Sighing over her contrariness, she unlocked the door and walked inside. Brenda shot out of her sitting room, all middle-aged, grey disapproval, and stated the obvious.
‘Oh, it’s you. I didn’t expect you back yet. You’ll have to go out for supper. Wasn’t expecting you; I haven’t catered.’
‘Don’t worry about it.’ Supper each Monday was fish fingers and mash. Bess wouldn’t pine over missing it. And not for the first time she regretted having agreed to board here during the week.
When she’d first announced her intention of looking for a bedsit in the sprawling suburbs of the capital to avoid the daily drive into work and back, Barbara Clayton had come up with the perfect solution.
A local woman, Brenda Brown, as was, had been her domestic help until she’d married and moved to Battersea. They’d kept in touch—just a short letter tucked in with a card each Christmas. And it was just as well, Barbara had declared, because since she’d been widowed Brenda had taken in a lodger from time to time to help make ends meet. It would be ideal for Bess—a sort of home from home, someone to keep an eye on her, look after her...
Home from home it wasn’t. But Bess hadn’t felt uncomfortable enough to move out. She wouldn’t find anywhere cheaper, and if the suppers Brenda provided were unusually dreary at least she was saved the chore of having to cook for herself.
She lifted her case and began to walk up to her dismal room, and Brenda called, making it sound like an accusation, ‘A Nicola something or other phoned. If you call her back, work out the cost and leave the money on the table. And don’t leave it too late. You know I don’t like being disturbed after I’ve settled down to watch telly.’
Bess knew the older woman hated to miss a moment of her evening’s viewing. She’d paid her licence fee and meant to get her money’s worth. And when Bess used the phone she couldn’t resist turning down the sound, ungluing her eyes from the moving images and applying her ear to the opened door...
Smiling wryly, Bess carried on up, looking forward to talking to Nicola. They’d been at school together before Niccy’s father had made his millions and spirited his adored only child away to some select boarding-school. But they’d kept in contact—closer contact since Niccy had been promoted to assistant producer on one of the more popular TV soaps and her father, in celebration, had bought her a long lease on a sumptuous apartment near Belgrave Square which she currently shared with a chronically out-of-work actress with the improbable name of Dearie.
A nice long natter with her friend would help to cheer her up, she decided, tossing her case onto the narrow bed. She hated this new and unexpected feeling of being at odds with herself and Tom. It was as if the official engagement had unleashed a pack of demons neither of them had known were there, lurking in the background, waiting to pounce.
On her way back downstairs, she wondered if Helen and Vaccari had left Braylington yet. They’d been closeted with her father all morning—with her mother bustling in and out—and when they’d emerged for lunch Helen had looked radiant. She had no idea what the Italian’s expression had been. She hadn’t looked at him.
Annoyed with herself, she caught the thought and buried it deeply. He had no place in her head. Dialling her friend’s number, she heard the sittingroom door creak open. She ground her teeth, swung round and said coolly, ‘I’m timing the call, Brenda. You needn’t trouble to check. I don’t cheat.’ And she sucked her lower lip between her teeth as the door closed again with a thunderous clunk.
She had never voiced her annoyance over the lack of this particular privacy before, enduring it grimly because her phone conversations were always innocuous. She didn’t know what had come over her. And put it out of her mind as she heard Niccy’s voice.
‘Well, was it all wonderful—the engagement party? What did you wear? What’s the ring like?’
Her spirits lifted immediately. Niccy was fun. And because she didn’t want to sound like a misery she refused to say that the weekend had been far from wonderful, that her dress had looked dowdy against Helen’s glitter, that her sister had produced a fantastic man who had made her think and do things that were totally alien. So she concentrated on the ring.
‘A diamond cluster,’ she said, automatically holding out her left hand. But the ring wasn’t there and she went cold all over. Had she lost it already? Oh, how could she have done? Tom would be livid! Then she went limp with relief because she remembered now that she’d put it on the drainer when washing up after lunch. Jessica would find it and keep it safe. She would phone her later, just to make sure.
‘And?’ Niccy prompted. ‘A central stone?’
‘Just a cluster,’ Bess answered quickly, recovering from the shock of thinking she’d lost it and squashing the disloyal thought that the diamonds were few and very tiny. Tom wasn’t mean, she reminded herself. He simply disliked ostentation in any form—witness his disapproval of Helen. How often had he scathingly said that she looked like a Christmas tree with all the lights switched on?
‘Really?’ Niccy snorted. ‘If I’d been Tom I’d have given you a whacking great emerald to match your eyes! Some men don’t have a clue, do they? Listen, you must stop hiding him out in the sticks; get him up to town one of these weekends. We could have fun. I’ll
