‘Mm,’ Robert murmured, quickly scanning the documents he’d taken from the envelope. Clicking open his briefcase he dropped them inside and unfolded a copy of the
Financial Times
. ‘Everything OK here?’ he asked, shrugging off his jacket. ‘Where’s Annabelle?’
Breaking eggs into a bowl, Sabrina said, ‘Still in bed, of course. I’ve no idea what time she came in last night. She’d like me to think it was eleven, but when I checked at one o’clock this morning her room was empty, so she’d obviously sneaked out again.’
Robert was nodding, the way he often did when not
paying full attention. Then, apparently registering what had been said, his eyes came up. ‘She’s here now,’ he said, not making it a question.
‘She is, but not alone. Georgia’s in the other bed, and I think someone’s on the floor in a sleeping bag. The room’s such a mess it’s hard to make out what’s breathing and what’s not.’
Relaxing, Robert came to stand behind her and kissed the back of her neck. ‘You smell good,’ he murmured, tightening his embrace.
‘And you need a shave. Would you like me to cut up the smoked salmon and put it in with the eggs, or would you prefer it on the side?’
‘On the side,’ he answered, and giving her a playful slap on the rump he went to pour himself a coffee.
After taking a sip, he turned and leaned against the unit behind him. For several minutes he watched her whisking the eggs and grinding in salt and black pepper. When she stooped to take warm plates from the oven, he noticed the outline of the thong she was wearing, and because he’d seen her naked so many times he was easily able to conjure an image of her gently rounded buttocks and their silky flesh. He knew already that she wasn’t wearing a bra, because her nipples were evident through the flimsy copper top, and the warmth of her greeting had told him that he wouldn’t be rebuffed if he wanted to take her to bed. What he also knew was why she was being so wifely and welcoming, and it injured him far more than he’d show to feel the ghost of her past love intruding on them again.
As she set the plates down on a work surface next to a pack of smoked salmon, he took another sip of his coffee and said, quite casually, ‘I hear Alicia’s here.’
Sabrina continued laying out slices of salmon, then returned to the Aga, apparently pretending she hadn’t heard.
‘Did you know?’ he asked.
‘Of course,’ she replied. Then with a sigh, ‘I suppose that old busybody of a postman told you.’
‘His name’s Sam. So why didn’t you tell me when we spoke last night?’
‘Because,’ she answered, picking up the pan to start sharing out the eggs, ‘I didn’t want it playing on your mind during the flight home.’
He assessed that for a moment, and decided it could be the truth, because in spite of her feelings for Craig, and the dreadful depths she’d sunk to after the break-up, he’d never really doubted how much she cared for him.
‘Are you going to see her?’ she asked, putting the pan back on the warming plate.
‘She’s my sister, why wouldn’t I?’
She turned round to face him. ‘I know who she is,’ she said tartly, ‘and I could give you several reasons why you shouldn’t see her, the first being out of loyalty to me.’
At that his eyebrows gave a flicker of surprise that made her flush, but his only response was to take another sip of coffee as he walked to the table and opened the paper.
Remembering how important it was to keep him on her side, Sabrina forced down her frustration and finished preparing his breakfast.
‘I don’t suppose she told you she was coming,’ she said, when their plates were in front of them and they were both sitting down.
‘If she had, I’d have passed the information on,’ he replied, starting to eat.
Sabrina cut a sliver of salmon, but finding she had no appetite she put down her fork and picked up her coffee. ‘I don’t know how you can sit there so calmly,’ she said, ‘when you know…’
‘Sabrina, let’s drop the subject before we start saying things we’ll both end up regretting.’
‘You’re the one who brought it up.’
He couldn’t deny that, but now, knowing how she was taking it, he wished he’d left it to be swept up with the leaves outside and burned to ash that might disappear in the wind.
‘I just don’t understand what she’s doing here,’ she went on angrily. ‘She’s got that enormous house in London, God only knows how much in the bank. She could go anywhere, so why…’
‘I don’t understand why you’re making it your concern?’ he interrupted irritably. ‘Considering the fact that she’s so recently lost her husband, it might be a little more charitable of you to start trying to mend fences.’
While her heart jarred on the words, her eyes rounded with disbelief before she gave a scornful laugh. ‘Even if I wanted to, which I
do not
, do you seriously think she’d listen? She’s so full of hate towards me she’d never even let me through the door.’
‘Then try calling her up.’
‘Don’t be cute, it doesn’t suit you. A door,’ she persisted, ‘which happens to be every bit as much yours as hers…’
‘Don’t let’s get into that again. My mother left the house to Alicia for a very good reason…’
‘You’re her son, the eldest child. You were entitled…’
‘If the circumstances had been different I’m sure we’d have both inherited, but you’re getting into some very dangerous territory now so let’s drop it and finish our breakfasts. I’ll have some more eggs if there are any.’
Getting up from the table she snatched up the pan and came to ladle the last two spoonfuls on to his plate.
‘When you do talk to her,’ she said tersely, ‘I think you should make it plain that it’s a bad idea for her to stay.’
‘Who says she’s going to?’
‘That’s what I’ve heard, but she’s got to be rolling in it now, so she could live anywhere. It doesn’t have to be here.’
‘Holly Wood is her home.’
‘No! It’s
our
home. She hasn’t lived here for at least twenty years, and she’s hardly set foot in the place these past two years.’
‘And we know why.’
Though the muscles in her jaw knotted, and she felt herself yearning for Craig’s support, she chose to ignore the reminder as she said, ‘Does she have any idea how upset you were when your mother cut you out of her will? Have you ever told her?’
‘She wouldn’t need telling, and it was you who suffered most over that, not me. As far as I’m concerned Alicia deserves the Coach House.’
At that Sabrina’s eyes flashed with temper. ‘Do you know
what I think?’ she snapped angrily. ‘I think you’re afraid of her.’
He blinked in astonishment.
‘You never confront her over anything,’ she accused him heatedly. ‘You let her get away with treating me as though I’m some kind of pariah, and now she’s back here and about to make my life intolerable, you’re simply going to sit back and let her.’
‘You’re making a lot of assumptions…’
‘Because I know you, Robert Paige. You’ll bury yourself in your work, the way you always do, and pretend nothing’s going on. Well, let me tell you this…’
‘Enough!’ he barked. ‘I don’t know why you’re getting yourself into such a state over this. Much less can I fathom why you’re behaving as though you’re the injured party, when we both know that’s very far from the case.’
Flushing darkly, she said, ‘Well, thank you for your support. I should have known you still blame me for what happened…’
‘Because you’re the one who did it, Sabrina. You and Craig. If you hadn’t had an affair my family wouldn’t have been torn apart the way it was, and my mother wouldn’t have had to live in dread of you and Alicia fighting in front of her again the way you did when it all came out. That’s why she stopped Alicia coming here, you know that as well as I do. She couldn’t bear the thought of a repeat performance, or of other people finding out, not because of what it would do to her, but because of how shaming it would be for me if the whole world knew that my wife had cheated on me with my own brother-in-law. That’s why Alicia hardly saw my mother until she was in the hospice, to spare her the fear of another showdown, and that’s why my mother left the house to her, to try to make up for the way she’d shut her out. So yes, Sabrina, you carry the blame for what happened, along with Craig, but he’s dead now, so you’re on your own with it, and though I might have forgiven you, I don’t imagine for one minute that Alicia has, or ever will.’
Annabelle didn’t hang around to hear her mother’s response to Robert’s diatribe, she was too afraid she’d come storming
out of the kitchen and bump right into her. So turning silently on her bare feet she ran quickly back along the hall and up the carpeted staircase to her own personal domain at the far end of the first landing. She was wearing only a flimsy pair of pyjama shorts and the same skin-tight white T-shirt she’d worn to the party she’d crept out to last night. The bra she’d started out in had vanished somewhere along the way, probably mixed up in the sheets on Melody Gillman’s parents’ bed. She’d better remember to call Melody to ask her to check before it fell into the wrong hands.
‘So what happened to the smoothies?’ Georgia queried, blinking bleary-eyed from the guest bed as Annabelle let herself back into the room.
Raking her copious dark hair from her mascara-smeared face, Annabelle stood with her back to the door, one hand gripping the round brass knob, the other coming to rest across her ripe young breasts. Her bronze eyes were glittering, her plump, heart-shaped lips were curved in a wickedly satisfied smile.
Surfacing from a sleeping bag covered in discarded clothes, Catrina yawned and groaned. ‘Why are you looking like that?’ she said croakily. ‘God, my head hurts. Tell me, did I really do what I think I did last night? I’ve been lying here thinking about it …’ Her voice faded in a hangover cringe.
Annabelle arched her immaculately plucked eyebrows, turning herself, did she but know it, into a younger, slighter version of her mother. ‘Depends what you think you did,’ she replied, leaving the door and going to her dressing table which was a sweeping corner unit of drawers, cupboards and mirrors covered in make-up, hair paraphernalia, books, magazines, and enough junk jewellery to deck out a dozen fashion shoots.
‘Shit, will you look at the state of me,’ Georgie grumbled, checking herself out in a hand mirror.
‘Me too,’ Annabelle moaned, wincing at her reflection. ‘Just as well I didn’t run into the she-devil and Dr Freak while I was down there.’
‘Where are the smoothies?’ Georgie repeated, her throat
raspingly dry. She swung her long legs off the bed and tried to stand up, but only got so far before staggering back and collapsing in a groaning, giggling heap.
‘You are so stoned,’ Annabelle informed her, starting to rub her face with a cleansing wipe.
‘Where’s my mobile?’ Catrina asked. ‘I’d better text my mother to let her know where I am, or she’ll end up doing something insane like calling the police, or ringing my dad to tell him she can’t cope any more. Stupid bag.’
‘So how did it go with Marty last night?’ Annabelle asked Georgia. ‘You were so wasted when you came back to the party I thought you were going to throw up.’
‘I think I did while we were outside,’ Georgia confessed. ‘I can’t really remember now. What about you?’
Annabelle grinned, and held up three fingers.
Georgia’s eyes rounded. ‘You’re kidding.’
‘What? What’s happened?’ Catrina wanted to know.
‘She had three last night,’ Georgia told her.
Catrina looked at Annabelle, dead impressed. The youngest was turning into the hottest. ‘Still haven’t broken the record,’ she said, referring to the target of four she’d set herself a few weeks ago ‘but still amazing. Who was it? I know one of them had to be Carl’s mate, what was his name again?’
‘Tom,’ Georgia provided.
‘That’s right. So was it really his first time?’
Annabelle nodded and carried on inspecting her reflection. ‘That’s why I said I’d do it,’ she reminded them. ‘He’s kind of cute and I was feeling generous, but I don’t think I’ll go there again. Carl was all bump and grind the way he usually is, but then someone else came in the room and started to join in. I can’t remember his name now… Jason, I think, or Justin. Actually, it might have been James. Anyway, I wasn’t going to let him, but then Carl said he was a good mate, so I thought, hell why not? I’ve never done three in the same night before, unlike
some
,’ she added, eyeing Catrina. ‘Anyway, that’s nothing to what Melody did. Did you see her in the kitchen?’
‘Oh my God, yeah, yeah, I did,’ Georgie squealed excitedly. ‘She was only using Rudi to show Katie Bridge how
to give a blow job, then she started heaving and had to dash to the loo. It was so disgusting. Someone said she passed out after, and she might have because I don’t remember seeing her before we left.’
‘That’s because you couldn’t see
anything
,’ Annabelle reminded her. ‘What about Archie?’ she asked Catrina. ‘Did he turn up in the end?’
‘I told you on the way home,’ Catrina replied glumly, ‘he came, but he brought the F-F-Felicity with him, didn’t he? He’s such a bastard. When I saw him in the afternoon he promised he’d get rid of her and come on his own, but she was stuck to him like frigging Velcro.’
‘You still got off with him though,’ Georgie reminded her.
‘Only for a quick snog behind the guest house. I’m supposed to be seeing him this afternoon, actually. He said he’d pick me up in his car outside the station. I have to work out how to get there yet. Annabelle, we need liquids, girl, I’m gasping.’
‘All right, I’ll go back down,’ Annabelle replied, tugging a brush through her hair. ‘I couldn’t go in the kitchen just now because the She-Dee and Freak were having some kind of set-to about my aunt Alicia. Apparently she’s back in Holly Wood and the mother person is not happy. They absolutely detest one another.’
‘Why?’ Catrina asked, not really interested, but making an effort to be polite.
Annabelle got up from the boudoir chair. ‘No idea,’ she answered airily. ‘All I know is that if Alicia stays chances are my cousin Nathan will be coming to visit, maybe even to live.’
‘Oh, no, not the famous Nathan,’ Georgie teased, making Catrina laugh.