world.
Adeline was waiting for her in the white drawing room. There were lilies everywhere in tall white porcelain vases. The white blinds were lowered against the midday sun, so that the light in the long room was pearly-soft.
‘Darling.’ They hugged each other. As their cheeks brushed Amy felt her mother’s taut shoulders and with a little shock she saw the fan of tiny wrinkles at the corner of her eye. ‘Darling, you do smell of hospitals. I’ve got some perfectly delicious new bath scent. Want to try? Be quick if you can, there’s a dear old friend of mine for luncheon. And Richard has promised to come, so we’ll be four …’
Adeline was anxious, and that was unusual. Mildly, Amy said that she was sorry about the hospital smell and of course she would change because she hadn’t expected there would be guests. Adeline was wearing a Schiaparelli dress and jacket in black and fuchsia pink, as sharp as a gleaming blade in the pale room. As Amy left the room a maid brought in a tray with the cocktail shaker and chill-frosted glasses. Perfect, she thought, as she went up to Adeline’s bathroom. A dry martini, talk, a long luncheon with more talk and nowhere to hurry away to, and afterwards … perhaps a nap on her own wide bed without having to shake herself awake too soon to go on duty all over again. She was smiling as she drew the fragrant bath, and still smiling when she wrapped herself afterwards in one of her mother’s thick white robes and sat down in front of her dressing-table mirror to look at herself.
Amy felt that she had grown into her own appearance lately, as if her features had knitted together into a coherent whole at last. She thought critically that her mouth didn’t look too large and wobbly any longer, nor did her eyes seem to be set too far apart. They stared back into the mirror, blue-green, direct. Amy reached for one of Adeline’s pots and deftly brushed gloss on to her eyelids. She chose one of the array of gilt-cased lipsticks and lightly painted in her mouth. Her hand hovered over the other brushes and jars, and then rejected them all. Her skin was pale from long hours in the wards, but it still had the faint apricot glow from which the freckles had faded at last. Her hair was cut short because that was the easiest way to wear it under a starched cap, but it also showed off her long neck to the fullest advantage.
Amy stood up and let the robe slip off her shoulders. The pale, glowing skin was flawless from shoulder to toe. She was slim and taut from two years of hard, physical work, that could equally have come with tennis and dieting. Only her hands, with rough skin around the short nails and reddened knuckles from disinfectant scrubbing, betrayed her as something other than the society girl.
She had brought a plain black linen dress with her, with deep Vs at the front and back that showed the smooth skin. Amy slipped it on and then frowned at herself. On impulse, she walked back to Adeline’s dressing table and opened her jewel case. Every night her maid locked the case in the safe, but during the day the nested velvet layers lay ready for Adeline to choose from their glittering contents. Amy lifted out a dark blue tray where pendant earrings sparkled, and peered into the recesses. There they were, the pieces she was looking for. She took out the two identical bracelets and slipped one on each wrist. They were bands of diamonds, as heavy and as wide as handcuffs.
It was too much for a family lunch party, but at the same time it looked exactly right. Just as Adeline herself, with her flair for unpredictable statements, would have looked. Amy picked up the hairbrush with AL in rhinestones on the silver back and smoothed her hair once more. And then, she judged, she was ready.
In the drawing room Adeline was pouring a martini for Richard. Her own glass was already refilled. Richard was lounging against the white marble mantelpiece. They both glanced up at her as she came in trailing her waft of Chanel, and then they stared. Richard’s perpetually half-closed eyelids blinked just once as he glided forward.
‘Is this how one looks when one comes of age?’ he demanded. ‘I can’t wait for it to be my turn, if it is.’
Amy had celebrated her twenty-first birthday four weeks earlier. Her party had consisted of bottles of wine and an iced cake from Bruton Street, shared between shifts with the other nurses. There had been no time for anything else.
She returned Richard’s kiss on both cheeks, and then held up her wrists like a pugilist.
‘Do you mind, Mummy? May I wear them? It struck me when I was dressing that it’s exactly what you would have chosen to wear with this nothing frock.’
Adeline wasn’t staring any longer. She was nursing her drink and smiling, but there was a small quiver of apprehension in it that hollowed her cheeks.
‘Of course you may, my love. They’ll be yours some day. I’m glad you’ve discarded the wholesome nurse look for a few hours. The … the old friend who’s joining us for lunch … it wouldn’t appeal to him at all. And I’m enough of a mama to want to be absurdly proud of you all to people who matter to me.’
‘Who is he?’
Behind her mother Amy saw Richard raise one eloquent eyebrow and blow a kiss into the empty air.
Adeline was touching her hair, an uncharacteristic gesture of anxiety. She didn’t answer Amy and an odd silence deepened between them, as if they were waiting anxiously for something.
They didn’t have to wait long.
A moment later the maid opened the door and announced ‘Mr Roper, my lady.’
‘Jack.’
Adeline stood up and held out both her hands but the tall, broad man who had swept in ignored them and wrapped his arms around her. He rocked her so that she swayed on her fuchsia suede heels and then turned her face up so that he could look squarely into it before he kissed her.
‘Beautiful Adeline,’ he said. ‘And not a day older.’
‘Several thousand days.’ There was a glow in her cheeks that had nothing to do with the martinis. ‘How many years is it? Too many, anyway.’ She shuddered a little theatrically. Jack, I want you to meet my two younger children. Amy, and Richard.’
The man turned to look at them. Amy saw close-cropped fair hair that was beginning to turn silver, a mouth marked by lines that might indicate either laughter or very strong will, and bright, clever blue eyes. She judged that Jack Roper was about fifty years old, and from the timbre of his voice rather than his accent she knew that he was American. His hand as it shook hers was warm and firm, and he held it for seconds longer than he need have done.
‘Amy?’ he said musingly. ‘When I last saw you, you were hardly more than a baby. It was your sister who promised to be the beauty then, I thought. I see I was wrong.’
Amy felt a faint, unmistakably pleasurable shiver. Whoever he was, Jack Roper was somebody special. Unplaceable, and so a little threatening, but special.
‘Isabel is very lovely…’
‘Isabel is married with a baby of her own, now …’ Amy and Adeline spoke together and then broke off, falling silent. Jack Roper was still holding Amy’s hand. He lifted it and touched the knuckles with his mouth. She saw his eyes flicker at the rough skin, and then narrow with calculation. It was a reaction as automatic as blinking. Mr Roper would miss nothing. Amy found herself wondering how much he had deduced from their quick, bright mentions of Isabel.
‘And Richard?’ He relinquished her hand at last, and she knew that he had registered that she wore no rings.
The men shook hands. Again there was the sharp, blue glance, and Richard countered it with his hooded stare. Adeline’s
