cousins, I think,’ Joss agreed.
‘Third cousins... Gee... I guess you’d better explain to me what that means,’ Bobbie coaxed him, mentally silencing the scornful inner voice that demanded to know why she needed to ask that question when she had a whole string of thirds and fourths of her own back home.
‘Well, I’m not sure exactly what it means,’ Joss began, ‘but you see in the beginning there was Great-Grandfather Josiah. He came from Chester with his wife to start a new solicitor’s practice here in Haslewich because of a quarrel he had had with his father and brothers in Chester and so the Crighton family here in Haslewich is separate from the Crightons who live in Chester, but we are still related. Luke and James and their sisters, Alison and Rachel, as well as Alistair, Niall and Kit all belong to the Chester branch of the family. Luke’s father, Henry, and his brother, Laurence, are both barristers, too, or at least they were. They’re now both retired. Luke is a QC, that’s Queen’s Counsel. That’s what Gramps wants Max to be, but I’m not sure—’
‘Whoa, hang on...hang on.’ Bobbie laughed. ‘Who are Gramps and Max? It’s all just too confusing...’ She shook her head.
‘It wouldn’t be,’ Joss assured her with great daring, ‘if you met them.’
‘Met them?’ Bobbie’s dense blue eyes widened in curiosity. ‘Well now, there’s a thought, but—’
‘We... my twin sisters are having a party this weekend to celebrate their eighteenth birthdays,’ Joss hurried on eagerly. ‘It’s going to be held at the Grosvenor... that’s a hotel in Chester. You could come and then you could meet them all....’
‘I could come...’ Bobbie frowned. ‘Well now, Joss, that’s mighty kind of you, but I don’t think...’
‘You could come as my friend,’ Joss told her. ‘It’s allowed...I am allowed to take a friend. It will be all right....’
A friend maybe, Bobbie conceded but she doubted that the type of friend his parents had in mind when making such an agreement was a twenty-six-year-old woman they didn’t know, especially when... Joss was watching her ... waiting, a look of mingled pleading and hope in his eyes, and she didn’t have the heart to disappoint him, and besides ... why look a gift horse in the mouth after all...?
‘And I’ll get to meet these tall cousins of yours, you say?’ she responded, pretending to be weighing the matter up.
Joss nodded his head.
‘And you think he’ll like me, do you, this Luke? Wasn’t that who you said was the taller of the two?’
‘Well, er...’ Suddenly Joss was flushing and unable to meet her eyes.
‘What is it?’ she quizzed him. ‘Doesn’t he like blondes?’
‘Oh yes, he does,’ Joss assured her fervently, immediately looking so mortified that she had to fight hard not to explode into laughter as she guessed what was wrong.
‘Ah...he likes blondes, but not great tall ones, is that it?’ she enquired gently. ‘He’s the type who prefers them small and shrimp-sized to match the size of his own brain. Poor guy, I guess it’s not his fault that he has such poor taste. So I guess I’ll just have to concentrate on James, won’t I? It’s all right,’ she told Joss with a kind smile. ‘When a girl gets to be my height she kinda learns not to be too fussy.’
‘James is very nice,’ Joss assured her.
‘But Luke’s the number-one guy, right?’ Bobbie guessed.
Joss paused judiciously for a moment before pronouncing, ‘James is more easygoing than Luke. He doesn’t... Luke always notices everything, even when you think he hasn’t, and then he—’
‘He lets you know about it, right?’ Bobbie offered shrewdly. ‘I guess he’s the domineering type, a control freak.’ She wrinkled her deliciously shaped nose, her mouth curling into a slightly cynical smile. ‘I kinda think of the two of them, I’d definitely prefer James and—’
‘No...no, you wouldn’t,’ Joss felt bound to tell her. ‘You see, girls like Luke,’ he explained carefully and then added, ‘Olivia, she’s my real cousin and she’s married to an American. She says Luke’s a real-life personification of a tall, dark and handsome grade A male with just a hint of brooding sexuality thrown in and that it’s no wonder he can have his pick of the female population.’
‘He sounds a real wow,’ Bobbie muttered grimly.
Joss gave her an uncertain look before offering helpfully, ‘Olivia says that he would be an awful lot happier if he was either less spectacularly sexy or less intelligent.’
As she digested this comment before making any response, Bobbie reflected inwardly that Olivia, whoever she was, would probably be discomfited to realise that her comment, which had obviously been intended for an adult audience, had been overheard by Joss’s perceptive young ears.
‘Beauty and brains,’ she marvelled in a sweetly derisive voice whilst keeping these thoughts to herself. ‘Looks like I’m going to have some competition. Perhaps I’d better go for the other one after all.’
Joss pondered the matter. ‘Well, if you come with me to the twins’ birthday party, you’ll be able to see them both,’ he suggested winningly.
For a second, Bobbie hesitated, her natural essential kindness and honesty overcoming the determination that had brought her so many thousands of miles. It wasn’t really fair to use Joss, who was quite plainly innocent of any guile or self-seeking in what quite possibly could turn out to be a very messy situation indeed, but if she didn’t... His unexpected invitation offered her a short cut that was really too generous a gift of fate for her to ignore and besides...
‘You are still coming, aren’t you?’ Joss pressed her anxiously. Still?
‘Well, I’d like to,’ Bobbie agreed, ‘but are you sure your family won’t—’
‘Mum’s already said that I can bring a friend and it’s a buffet meal and not a sit-down thing and there’ll be plenty to eat and...’
Almost tripping over his words in his haste to get them out, Joss raced on, whilst Bobbie listened chin in hand and hid a small, rueful smile. He really was very young.
‘And it’s at a hotel in Chester, this party...?’
‘Yes, the Grosvenor, you’ll like it,’ Joss assured her. ‘It’s part owned by the Duke.’ His forehead suddenly furrowed. He had a vague awareness that a series of complex arrangements had been made to ferry all the guests to Chester and it struck him that it would hardly be gentlemanly or gallant to suggest that his guest make her way to the hotel on her own, but on the other hand... ‘Er...I don’t know where you’re staying,’ he began manfully.
‘That’s okay,’ Bobbie returned easily, immediately understanding his dilemma. ‘I know where the Grosvenor is and I can make my own way there.’ No need to tell him that she was actually staying in the hotel herself, even if the small deceit, so unfamiliar to her normal openness, did sit uncomfortably on her conscience.
‘Oh good, I could meet you in reception,’ Joss offered. ‘Mum wants us to be there early and the thing
