‘Four,’ said Barry shortly. ‘But I don’t see the connection. We’ve seen next to nothing of him ever since he qualified.’
‘Yes, but you’re getting married now,’ said Helen gently. ‘Naturally he would want to attend your wedding.’
‘Would he?’ Barry didn’t sound convinced, and Helen wondered if he wasn’t feeling just the tiniest bit resentful of the fuss his parents were making of the prodigal.
Deciding a change of subject was needed, she put her hand on his arm and said softly: ‘I wonder what we’ll be doing this time next week?’ and was rewarded by a return of Barry’s good humour.
‘Well, not spending the evening having dinner with my parents,’ he declared huskily, and she bent her head to rest it against his shoulder.
‘I can’t; help wishing it was this time next week,’ she murmured, but not quite for the reasons he imagined. ‘I shall be glad when all the fuss is over. I wish we’d planned to have a quiet wedding, with just the two families, instead of this enormous affair at St Giles, and a hundred guests at the reception.’
‘You’ll enjoy it,’ exclaimed Barry, covering her hand with his own. ‘You’ll see. Besides, after the way Morgan went off and got married in a register office, Mum wanted me to have a proper wedding. We couldn’t disappoint everyone.’
‘No, I suppose not.’ Helen allowed a faint sigh to escape her, and then Barry was turning between the gates of Banklands, the Foxes’ detached house on the outskirts of town.
Mr Fox was in the textile trade, and while some years ago his firm had suffered a recession, in recent months things had begun to improve. The introduction of chemicals into the wool fibre to enable it to be machine-washed without shrinking had rallied an already increasing demand for woollen products, and Helen knew Barry expected a generous donation towards the deposit on their house when they decided to buy. This mercenary streak in her fiancé was the only fault she abhorred, but she was sure that once they were married he would stop depending on his stepfather for every large outlay he had to make.
Banklands was a nice house, Helen thought. Built of Yorkshire stone, with square walls and a solid appearance, it had become almost a second home to her in recent months, and Mrs Fox already treated her like a second daughter.
It was Barry’s mother who met them when they entered the panelled hall of the house, looking much younger than her forty-seven years in a simple, but expensively-styled, gown of apricot silk. She exchanged a warm smile with her son, offered her perfumed cheek to his fiancée, and then said: ‘Oh, good. I’m glad you’re here. The dinner’s going to be ready a full fifteen minutes before we expected, so if you’d like to go and have a drink I’ll tell Mrs Parsons we’ll be ready at a quarter to.’
Helen removed her jacket and left it on the padded chair at the foot of the stairs, and then walked at Barry’s side across the carpeted floor and into the Foxes’ drawing room. This was the largest room in the house, with the high corniced ceiling of a bygone age. Mr Fox had employed a firm of interior decorators to do the house through just over a year ago, and now the tall walls were hung with gold-figured silk which exactly matched the tapestry work on the olive green sofas that faced one another across the width of the hearth. The thick carpet underfoot was green and gold, too, while the furniture was soft colours, teak and walnut, with an ebony baby grand piano to grace the window embrasure.
Mr Fox was standing on the hearth as they entered, talking to a man who was stretched lazily on one of the sofas, his head resting against the upholstery, his legs extended across the hearth. The man got to his feet politely as Helen and Barry entered the drawing room, and like his father he smiled as they approached.
But there the resemblance ended. Morgan Fox was an inch or two taller than both his father and Barry, and infinitely leaner. His skin, startlingly brown against that of the other men, was stretched tautly across his features, accentuating the hollows in his cheeks and drawing attention to the curious yellowish cast of his eyes. But it was his hair that attracted Helen’s interest—so pale as to appear silver in some lights and such an unusual contrast with such dark skin. His clothes, too, did not fit as snugly as Barry’s, as if he had lost weight recently; yet there was about him an aura of sensuality that required no further propagation. Altogether a disturbing man, Helen thought, shocked by her instantaneous recognition of this.
If she was disturbed by her reactions to Barry’s stepbrother, Morgan at least did not return her feelings. His polite smile of greeting did not reach those peculiar eyes, and almost immediately he turned to Barry, asking him what they would both like to drink.
‘I can manage, thanks,’ retorted Barry offhandedly, and asking Helen if she would like the usual, he went towards the bar which, when closed, was completely concealed behind a row of bookshelves. Presently, however, it stood open, displaying its mirror-lined interior, glittering with an array of bottles and glasses. Judging by the two empty glasses resting on the mantelshelf, Helen guessed that Morgan and his father had been imbibing already, which might account for that air of brooding detachment about him.
To cover the slight moment of embarrassment Barry’s behaviour might have caused, Helen exchanged a look of apology with Mr Fox and then smiled at Morgan. ‘Did you have a good journey?’ she enquired, hoping she sounded more casual than she felt, and was relieved when his father remarked:
‘I was just saying to Morgan how far away Africa always seems, and yet one can fly there in a matter of hours.’
‘Yes,’ Helen nodded. ‘The world’s getting smaller all the time.’ Then, realising her words were trite, she flushed as Morgan Fox’s eyes rested fleetingly upon her.
‘Have you travelled much—Helen?’ he asked in the space that followed, and she quickly made a negative gesture.
‘Oh, no, not really. Not any distance, anyway. Just to Spain—and to France. For holidays, you know. I went to France with the school, actually. Barry went too, as it happened, but he was older than I was and I didn’t know him very well in those days.’
She was chattering, and realising she was, she shut up, offering a look of apology to Barry as he came to rejoin them. He handed Helen a Martini and soda and then, raising his glass to her, took a mouthful of his own gin and tonic.
‘Is it cold out?’ asked Mr Fox, indicating that Helen should take a seat, and she sank down on to one of the low sofas as Barry said: ‘Not as cold as it was earlier. The wind’s dropped.’
‘I expect it still feels pretty cold to you, Morgan, doesn’t it?’ his father commented wryly, and his son moved his shoulders in a dismissing gesture.
‘The nights can be damn cold where we live,’ he replied evenly, turning to lift his glass from the shelf. ‘Can I get you another drink, Dad? Or is that your limit?’
Mr Fox agreed to have another Scotch, and he accompanied his son to the bar as Barry dropped down on to the sofa beside Helen. ‘Drink all right?’ he murmured, the coolness he had exhibited towards his stepfather and Morgan evaporating as he looked at her, and she nodded.
‘How—er—how long is Morgan staying?’ she asked in a low voice, hoping to take the tension out of the situation, but Barry’s lips tightened as she mentioned his stepbrother’s name.
‘I don’t know. Ten days—a fortnight, maybe. He’ll be gone by the time we get back from our honeymoon, thank God!’
‘Why?’
