Kate had grown used to the brief Northern springs and summers, both all the more poignantly lovely because of their brevity. As she had promised, Mrs MacDonald had paid special attention to the drawing room and dining room. Kevin rarely used them except when he was entertaining, and Kate was glad she had had the foresight to suggest that he turned their radiators on at the beginning of the week. Both rooms had working fires, and both were laid ready to be lit. The flowers she had ordered from the nearby town had also arrived, russets and bronzes to tone with the gold and green of the traditional dinner service she and Mrs MacDonald had unearthed. It was lunchtime before they had finished, the polished mahogany table gleaming under its weight of silver and crystal, Kate’s floral arrangement the single note of colour on the damask cloth.
‘Looks a rare fine sight, it does,’ Mrs MacDonald approved, when she came in with a silver salver of sherry glasses. ‘He’s a lucky man, is the doctor, having you to do all this for him. There’s many as wouldn’t have bothered for all that they think themselves the bee’s knees,’ she added disparagingly, and Kate hid a small grin. She was well aware of the enmity which existed between Rita and Kevin’s cleaner. Rita was a great believer in people keeping to their place, which she invariably considered to be beneath hers, and Mrs MacDonald was not a lady who took lightly to being condescended to.
At seven o’clock Kate pulled off her apron with a tiny relieved sigh and went upstairs to luxuriate in the relaxing warmth of her bath. Kevin had just returned, later than expected, and he too was changing. Some impulse she wasn’t anxious to examine too carefully had prompted Kate into being generous with the perfume she had poured into her bath. A new one for her, ‘Opium’, which Lyla had sent her for Christmas, in a lavish coffrette which included body lotion, perfume and talc. As she stepped into the bedroom wrapped in her towelling robe her feet left damp imprints on the carpet, and as she glanced at her watch she was dismayed to see how long she had lingered in the bathroom.
‘Kate, are you decent? I can’t fix this damned bow tie,’ she heard Kevin mutter impatiently outside her door. ‘Can’t think why Rita insisted on all this formal gear …’
‘I expect she’s got a new dress she wants to show off,’ Kate told him lightly as she opened her door, her mouth creasing in a humorous smile as she surveyed Kevin’s harassed features. His mousy hair stood on end and his dinner suit, although well fitting made him look ill at ease. Kevin looked best in the ancient tweed jacket and casual trousers he wore for doing his rounds.
‘Come and stand over here under the light,’ Kate instructed him, following him as he walked towards the head of the stairs. ‘Now I can see what I’m doing.’ Because she was not particularly tall, it was still necessary for Kate to stand on tiptoe to reach upwards to fiddle with the intricate fastening of Kevin’s bow tie. She was just on the point of succeeding when they heard the doorbell.
‘Damn,’ Kevin swore, and swivelled his head automatically, undoing all Kate’s careful handiwork. ‘It’s only quarter to eight! Who the devil …’
Mrs MacDonald, who had expressed a formidable determination to stay and as she put it ‘help with the siding away’, bustled into the hall and called out to Kate, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll get it.’ She opened the door, and Kate’s heart sank as she heard Rita’s familiar shrill voice.
‘Oh no, I’m sure you’re wrong,’ she was saying. ‘I know Kate told me seven-thirty …’ She paused on the threshold, peering round with extravagant bewilderment. Damn her, Kate thought grimly. She knew Rita of old, and she had no doubts at all that her early arrival was designed to cause an upset, but she had succeeded way, way, beyond her wildest dreams, Kate acknowledged dazedly as she looked down into the hall and her eyes meshed with the icy grey ones of the man who had followed Rita inside. Had he always been so tall? Six foot two, she remembered, and the fact that she was looking down at him ought to have diminished him, but it didn’t. He hadn’t changed at all, unless it was to look harder, more determined than ever, and the cold scrutiny in his eyes relayed its own brutal message as he studied the untidy knot of hair on top of her head, down along the curves of her body disguised by the robe she was wearing … down … down until Kate felt her toes curling into the carpet beneath the protection-stripping acidity of that scrutiny.
‘Kate darling, what on earth are you doing?’ If anyone could lace arch suggestiveness with coy innocence it was Rita, Kate thought, gritting her teeth.
‘Fixing Kevin’s bow tie,’ she replied coolly, ‘but now that you’re here perhaps you would like to do it for me, while I get ready.’
‘Oh, but of course, darling,’ Rita all but purred. ‘Poor you … did something go wrong, or …’ Her glance slid sideways from Kate’s set face to Kevin’s unaware one …’or did we arrive at a bad time?’
‘You’re early,’ Kevin told her. ‘You weren’t supposed to be here until eight, and I got back late.’
‘But, darling, you’re ready,’ Rita pointed out slyly. ‘Kate’s been here all day, and she isn’t. Having problems, Kate?’
‘Not really.’ She forced herself to smile calmly. ‘Drinks are ready in the drawing room, Kevin. I shan’t be long …’ She paused by the door to her room.
‘Staying the night, are you?’ Rita enquired. ‘Oh, don’t be shy with me, darling,’ she added sweetly, ‘we’re all adults here, although I can well understand why Kevin put you in a separate room. Mrs Mac, Kevin’s cleaner, is a regular pillar of the Church,’ she explained to Jake, adding, ‘Oh, Jake, poor darling—I haven’t introduced you yet, have I? This is Kevin, your host, and …’
‘Let’s let poor Kate get dressed before anyone else arrives,’ Kevin suggested, interrupting Rita hastily. ‘Sorry about this, Harvey,’ Kate heard him apologising to Jake as she closed her bedroom door. ‘It’s all Rita’s fault, if she hadn’t insisted on this damned formal dress …’
She couldn’t stay here cowering away all night, Kate told herself shakily, hardly able to bear to face her reflection in the mirror. She looked like a child who had been beaten. Defeat lay starkly at the back of her eyes, her skin as pale as skimmed milk. She stared at the dress hanging on the back of the door. She had bought it on a mad impulse in London. Matt black silk, it was American, Calvin Klein, with long tight sleeves and a neckline that dipped almost to the waist at the front, where the silk was caught up in a soft knot, the skirt of the dress caught up in the same way, so that it revealed the slender length of her thighs when she moved. It clung so tightly to her skin that all she could wear beneath it was a pair of fine silk panties. The choker of pearls Lyla had given her as a wedding present did little to make the dress appear more modest, but in reality it revealed far less of her body than Rita’s rustling boned-bodiced taffeta. But it was the way it hinted at what wasn’t revealed that made it a dress designed by a man for a woman with his own sex in mind, Kate reflected as she brushed her hair and let it settle round her shoulders in a heavy cloud, knowing there wasn’t time to do anything else with it. Black high-heeled satin sandals, and the careful application of enough make-up to give her a gloss of colour, completed her preparations, tiny diamond ear studs winking in her ears when she moved and the chestnut curls drifted languorously against her shoulders.
Instead of joining the others in the drawing room she went straight to the kitchen to check on the meal. The vegetables were all prepared ready for cooking when everyone had arrived. Heaving a faint sigh of relief that everything was under control, Kate walked unsteadily into the hall, smoothing slightly damp palms against her hips as she took a deep breath and walked into the drawing room. Conversation stopped. Out of the corner of her eye Kate was aware of Rita regarding her with barely concealed chagrin, Jake at her side, his enigmatical grey glance slicing towards her, warning her that he was not deceived; that he knew she was still the vulnerable child she
