by pity, she was unaware of the sleek green Ferrari speeding past them, or of the bitter cynicism in the eyes of the man who observed them.
Another hour and she’d have to call it day, India decided wearily. She had spent the last week working on designs for dresses for one of her oldest customers and her daughter for the latter’s eighteenth birthday party. Celia Harvey was small and plump with smooth dark hair and an almost Madonna-like expression, and India would dearly liked to have dressed her in something soft and flowing, almost pre-Raphaelite, but she had been told in no uncertain terms by the young lady in question that she wanted something slinky and sexy à la Anthony Price. Her mother had raised her eyebrows in despair, and India sympathised.
Well, either Celia would like it, or she would have to find herself another designer, she decided at length, frowning critically over the multitude of careful drawings she had sketched. Her head was beginning to ache with familiar tension and she flexed her back, rubbing the base of her neck tiredly. Jennifer and the girls from the workroom had left hours before, and outside the streets were in darkness. She glanced at her watch. Nearly nine. Another evening almost gone, and all she wanted to do was to go home, soak in a hot bath and then go to bed.
She grimaced as she remembered the letter she had received that morning from her accountant. It was time they had a meeting, he reminded her. The trouble was that her clientele was expanding all the time, and it was becoming too much of a burden for her to design, and run the financial side of her business. The obvious answer was to take on someone to deal with the financial side, but who? It was at times like this that she missed Mel—selfishly, she admitted. She hadn’t seen him since the evening they had dined together at Jardine’s, and she had presumed that he had gone away, as he had said he intended to do, to sort himself out.
She herself was badly in need of a holiday. Summer had never seemed farther away. London was having one of the worst springs on record, with cold, blustery winds, and almost constant rain.
Of course it was impossible to find a taxi when she emerged into the street. Rather than wait for a bus she set off at a brisk pace in the direction of her flat, and got caught between bus stops in an icy downpour which soaked through her raincoat, the fierce wind making it impossible to keep her umbrella up. To cap it all, a speeding car, screeching round a corner in front of her, sent freezing cold water all over her legs, soaking through the hem of her coat, and by the time she reached the sanctuary of her flat she was both frozen and bad-tempered.
She ran a bath, and luxuriated in it for half an hour, feeling the strain of the day seeping away. With her newly shampooed hair wrapped in a towel she padded into her small kitchen to heat a bowl of soup. When she worked as she was doing at the moment her appetite seemed to desert her. She could have done without Celia’s dress right now; she already had enough orders to keep her going until the autumn.
She was becoming obsessed with the salon, she told herself wryly. Jenny had been saying only that morning that she never went out anywhere any longer. She had pleaded the excuse of there simply being not enough time, but Jenny had scoffed and quoted direfully, ‘All work and no play make’s a spinster dull and grey.’
Something must have happened to her sense of humour lately, India acknowledged, because the comment had jared.
‘Don’t worry about it,’ Jenny had said later when she apologised. ‘We all suffer from it from time to time.’
When she had unwisely asked, ‘Suffer from what?’ Jenny had eyed her assessingly and said, ‘Frustration, of course.’
Was that the answer? She wasn’t consciously aware of the need for a lover, but then perhaps she had grown so used to ignoring her natural urges that she was no longer attuned to them; and spring was notorious for having an odd effect on the lonely.
But she wasn’t lonely, she told herself. She had plenty of…
The phone rang, cutting across her thoughts. She padded into the hall and lifted the receiver,
‘Miss Lawson?’ a crisp male voice intoned decisively. ‘You may not remember me. Simon Herries.’
Her free hand clutched at the silk robe she had pulled on as though by some means he was able to see how little she was wearing. Her mouth had gone dry, her heart pounding heavily.
‘Yes, Mr Herries,’ she managed. ‘What can I do for you?’
‘It’s not what you can do for me, but what you can do for Melisande,’ she heard him say in response.
‘Melisande?’ India frowned. ‘I thought she was in the States filming.’
‘Yes, she is, but she’s due back this weekend. I’m organising a welcome home party for her at her apartment and she particularly wanted me to invite you.’
‘Me? But…’
‘I hope you can make it. Several colleagues of mine from South-Mid Television will be there, and Melisande tells me that you’re quite keen to break into television designing.’
‘Not particularly.’
What on earth was it about this man that set her teeth on edge; brought the tiny hairs on her skin up in atavistic dislike?
‘Melisande will be very disappointed…’
‘I don’t honestly know if I can make it,’ India temporised. ‘I have rather a lot of work on at the moment… I’ll have to look in my diary.’
‘Very well. I’ll ring you at the salon tomorrow and check if you can make it,’ he told her coolly.
After he had rung off India found it impossible to settle. She wandered about the flat, touching things, fidgeting, full of a nervous energy which eventually drove her into her small study where she worked until at last tiredness began to claim her.
She told Jenny about the invitation over coffee the following morning.
‘You’re going, of course,’ her secretary exclaimed. ‘You lucky thing!’
‘Well…’ India demurred, ‘I don’t know if I can manage it, we’ve so much on at the moment.’
‘Nothing that can’t wait,’ Jenny told her briskly. ‘Look, I’ve got all the schedules here. You can’t work all day, half the night and all weekend as well!’
‘There’s Celia’s dress…’
‘Blow Celia! I don’t know why you’re wasting so much time on her anyway. If she wants to dress herself up like a plump shiny Christmas tree let her. Seriously, you ought to go. You’re the boss, I know, but I like my job and I feel I’ve got to do all I can to protect it, which includes making sure my boss doesn’t kill herself through overwork. One party; half a dozen hours out of your life…’
Put like that it did make her reluctance seem a little foolish, India was forced to admit. And why was she so reluctant? She didn’t know; she only knew that it had something to do with Simon Herries. Something; didn’t she mean everything?
‘You know,’ Jenny exclaimed judiciously, when they had finished their coffee, ‘I think you’re scared to go. Are you, India?’
‘No… No, of course not. Why should I be?’ Why indeed?
The phone rang as she finished speaking.
