Words momentarily failed Andrea, then she looked squarely at her cousin. ‘No, Clare.’
‘But it’s the obvious solution. I daren’t go myself. He might force me to do—anything.’
‘And what will he do when I arrive—get out the welcome mat, I suppose.’ Andrea gave her an irritated look.
‘Well, he would—if he thought you were me,’ Clare said.
‘Now I know you’re mad,’ Andrea said faintly. ‘You really think I’m going to career halfway across France and pretend to be you in order to steal some letters from a man whom by your own admission you’ve led up the garden path. You say yourself you dare not go anywhere near him. If he thinks I’m you, he might force me into—anything!’
‘No, no.’ Clare spoke soothingly. ‘If anything like that were to happen, you would simply tell him who you were. He has no hold over you, after all.’
Andrea stared at her wonderingly. ‘You’ve got it all worked out, haven’t you?’ she managed at last.
‘I’ve had precious little else to think about,’ Clare said tartly. ‘I couldn’t possibly go. I’ve got the wedding to get ready for, for one thing, and Peter would think it very odd if I dropped all the preparations and disappeared to France. And I can’t delay much longer, or this Levallier man will come to London and then everyone will know.’ She shivered and turned pleading eyes on Andrea. ‘Peter would be so angry. He might leave me. And his beast of a mother would encourage him—she’s always hated me. Oh, Andy, if I lose Peter, I don’t know what I’ll do. I shan’t want to go on living.’
Andrea looked at her coldly. ‘You could always marry this—Levallier. It can’t have seemed such a repulsive prospect at one time.’
‘You’re utterly heartless.’ Clare’s lips were trembling ominously again. ‘And I thought you would understand.’
‘I do understand—I think.’ Andrea gave an exasperated sigh. ‘But it’s not as simple as you seem to think. You’re asking me to commit an actual crime—to steal some letters.’
‘But they’re my letters.’ Clare looked at her wide-eyed.
‘I think the law takes a different view,’ Andrea said grimly.
‘Oh—the law.’ Clare dismissed the combined weight of French and British justice with a wave of her hand. ‘I wrote that letter, and I want it back. And you’re the ideal person to get it for me!’
‘How have you arrived at that conclusion? Is there some criminal element in the family that I don’t know about?’
‘No, but you do work in public relations, so you’re used to dealing with awkward people. And you are owed some leave—I heard you telling Mummy so last week.’ She paused, her eyes searching her cousin’s unyielding face. ‘Andy, if you won’t do it for me, do it for Daddy. He’s always treated you as if you were his own daughter …’
‘If you’re reminding me that he paid for my school fees as well as yours, it’s unnecessary.’ The colour was suddenly heightened in Andrea’s cheeks. ‘Blackmail must be catching, I think.’ She stood up abruptly and reached for her suede coat and bag.
‘Now I’ve made you angry,’ Clare said disconsolately. ‘I didn’t mean it, Andy. I’m just so worried.’
‘I know.’ Andrea relented slightly as she studied the woebegone figure. ‘All I can promise is that I’ll think about it. There must be some solution.’
‘Oh, there is,’ Clare said flatly. ‘I can write and tell him to go to hell.’ She gave a little shudder. ‘Oh, Andy, there’d be the most dreadful row. If there was a court case, it would be in all the papers. It would destroy Mummy and Daddy. They’ve worked so hard to keep our private lives —private.’ Her eyes widened as another dreadful thought occurred to her. ‘They might even find out about Jacques and drag him into it.’
Andrea’s thoughts were troubled as she descended the staircase to the hall. Although she had resented Clare’s words, they had struck home, she was forced to acknowledge. Her own parents were dead, her father when she was a small child, her mother more recently. But this large London house had been a second home to her for as long as she could remember. Without a hint of patronage, neither Uncle Max nor Aunt Marian had ever allowed her to want for anything. Nor had she felt any sense of obligation—until now.
She reached the bottom of the stairs and stood for a moment, rummaging in her bag for her car keys. Whatever happened, it was essential that the news of Clare’s folly should be kept from her uncle, she thought. She had been in London when he had suffered that first attack, and had stayed with her aunt, and she knew better than Clare just how precarious his health was, and how entirely necessary it was that he should have a considerable period without stress or worry.
She gave a little restless sigh, and stood turning the keys in her hands, her eyes fixed unseeingly on the parquet floor. If Peter had been a different sort of man, she thought she might have gone to him and pleaded for Clare. But as things were, she knew Clare was right to keep it from him. His conventional soul would be shocked to its core, and he would possibly decide that all his mother’s none too subtle hints about Clare’s unsuitability as a wife were well founded. In all justice, Andrea supposed that Lady Craigie had right on her side. Clare’s sowing of her wild oats had been pretty blatant at times, and Jacques, of whose existence Aunt Marian and Uncle Max were fortunately unaware, had been one of many. Clare had teetered on the edge of disaster on a number of occasions—Andrea recalled with a shudder an abortive plan to move in with a pop singer shortly before her mercurial cousin had taken off for Paris—and it was a miracle that she hadn’t been involved in more than one set of unsavoury headlines before now.
And yet for all her wildness, there was something very sweet about Clare. At times, she could be almost touchingly naïve and trusting, and Andrea had often consoled herself over Peter’s dullness with the thought that his reliability and worthiness might be the shield from her worse self that Clare needed.
She was brought back to earth with a start as the drawing door opened and Aunt Marian came out.
‘So there you are, dear. Clare is naughty to keep you all to herself. Max has gone to bed early, and I’ve no one to drink my chocolate with. Come and keep me company.’
Andrea complied with less than her usual willingness. Aunt Marian was no fool, and she was not convinced of her own ability to keep her inner disturbance to herself. She sank down on to one of the luxurious sofas and took the cup she was handed.
‘Have you been talking weddings?’ Aunt Marian busied herself with the tall silver pot. ‘Max said today he was thankful that Clare was our only daughter. He didn’t think he could bear to live through all this uproar a second time.’ She smiled across at Andrea affectionately. ‘But he’ll make an exception for you, dear. When can we start planning your wedding?’
Andrea smiled back constrainedly. ‘Oh, there’s no one at the moment—no one serious anyway,’ she said. ‘I think Uncle Max has a few more years of peace ahead of him still once Clare is off his hands.’
‘Hmm.’ Aunt Marian’s eyes studied her for a moment, taking in the slim yet rounded figure, the creamy skin and the soft, vulnerable girl’s mouth. ‘I don’t understand today’s young men at all. When I was a girl, you’d have been snapped up in your first season.’
Andrea
