Valerie nodded smugly: ‘Crusty bread anyone?’ she cried waving the basket. ‘I will not have white bread in this house.’
‘I love it,’ said Freddie wistfully.
‘So do I,’ said Rupert. ‘I’ll send you a loaf for Christmas.’
Sitting opposite Tony, trying desperately not to catch his eye, Cameron longed to be able to sparkle and scintillate, but how could she with Paul Stratton on one side, watching his wife like a warder and James on the other talking about himself?
‘How’s your series on “Caring for the Elderly” getting on?’ she asked.
James brightened. ‘We think we’ve found a presenter at last — a Mrs Didbody. She’s a seventy-five-year-old coloured lady, a widow with a daughter of fifty. Which makes her a single parent,’ added James triumphantly.
‘A real franchise grabber,’ said Cameron, who was watching Rupert. He was easily the most attractive man she’d seen since she came to England, probably ever. It was a combination of elegance, deadpan arrogance, and a total inability to resist stirring things up. He was plainly having it off with Sarah Stratton.
‘What exactly are electronics?’ Monica was saying to Freddie in her piercing voice. ‘What exactly d’you do?’
Cameron saw a look of fury on Tony’s face, but Freddie seemed delighted by her interest.
‘I make everythink really: videos, televisions, synthesizers, compact disks, floppy disks, silicon chips.’
‘I always muddle up silicon with cellulite,’ said Monica.
‘With my computers,’ went on Freddie proudly, ‘scientists on the ground can place satellites in orbit. All satellites now carry my computers on board.’
‘Good heavens,’ said Monica. She could see now how useful Freddie’d be to Tony.
Tony was not enjoying himself. It was one of life’s ironies, he thought, that at dinners like this Monica always sat next to all the brilliant achieving men, who usually didn’t interest her at all (although she did seem to be having fun with Freddie), and he got stuck with their unachieving wives. Lizzie Vereker on his left looked a complete mess.
‘That was delicious,’ she said taking another piece of bread to wipe up the last vestiges of prawn sauce. ‘Did you make it?’ she asked Valerie slyly.
‘Yes,’ said Valerie, as Taggie was out of the room.
‘How’s Archie?’ Lizzie asked Tony.
‘Doing Business Studies for A-levels,’ said Tony with a grin, ‘which he thinks allows him to tell me exactly where I’m going wrong in running Corinium.’
The only time he’s nice, thought Lizzie, is when he talks about his children.
‘Sharon is doing The Dream for her O-levels,’ said Valerie, ringing a bell.
Taggie, who was chopping parsley for the courgettes, threw down the knife and ran into the dining-room, tugging down her horribly short dress.
‘Can you clear away the appetizer, Agatha,’ said Valerie.
Returning to the kitchen with the plates, Taggie found Reg the butler, very drunk now, carving the pheasants. She wished he wouldn’t cut quite such huge slices, there might not be enough to go round.
‘Tender as a woman’s kiss,’ said Reg, helping himself to a slice. ‘You’re another Mrs Beeton, Agatha.’
‘Oh, it does look yummy. Can I have a bit?’ said fat Sharon.
‘Have some later,’ said Taggie, as she poured the sauce over, and scattered parsley over the courgettes. ‘I must take it in.’
‘I’ll take round the courgettes,’ said Sharon, who wanted to gaze at Rupert.
Taggie took the pheasant round the right way this time. She noticed Rupert still had his hand inside Sarah’s slit skirt, the revolting man, but had to remove it to help himself to pheasant. Was she imagining it or was he deliberately rubbing his black elbow against her breast as he did so? When she took round the potatoes, she stood as far away as possible, arching over him like a street light. As she moved down the other side of the table, his wicked dissipated blue eyes seemed to follow her, making her even more hot and bothered. Reg was taking round the Mouton Cadet now, and had reached Valerie.
‘We had Sharon in 1972,’ she was telling Paul, ‘and we were married in, er. .’
‘Watch it,’ said Reg, giving her a great nudge.
Rupert grinned broadly. Sarah and Lizzie giggled.
Valerie, knowing one must behave with dignity at all times, ignored the innuendo. ‘That will be all, Reginald and Agatha. I’ll ring if anyone wants second helpings.’
‘We’re televising Midnight Mass at Cotchester Cathedral this year,’ said Tony as he put his knife and fork together. ‘I’m reading the first lesson. Are you reading the second?’ he asked Paul, knowing he wasn’t.
‘No,’ said Paul, looking very put out. ‘We’ll be away.’
‘I wonder who is reading it then,’ said Tony.
‘I am,’ said Rupert.
‘You said you were going skiing,’ said an unguarded Sarah. ‘I mean,’ she added, looking thoroughly flustered, ‘you said you’d be away at Christmas.’
There was an awkward pause.
‘This pheasant is wonderful,’ said Lizzie.
‘I’ll give you the recipe if you like,’ said Valerie. ‘Don’t pick your bones, Fred-Fred,’ she snapped, then stopped hastily as she saw that Rupert was picking his.
All the same, it was going wonderfully well, reflected Valerie later, as Taggie cleared away the cheese board. Everyone was talking like mad and seemed to enjoy the novelty of the men moving two places on. It was a good thing Rupert was sitting next to Cameron now, who’d seemed rather out of it earlier. In five minutes, Taggie would bring on the moated castle.
Turning to Cameron, Rupert thought how different she was to Sarah, as lean and hungry as Sarah was replete and voluptuous.
‘I’m dying to have a pee,’ he murmured, ‘just for an excuse to prowl round and see what a ghastly cock-up our hostess has made of a once-ravishing house. I used to come to children’s parties here.’
‘I can’t imagine you as a kid.’
‘I always cheated at doctors and nurses.’
Across the table, he noticed Sarah deliberately flirting with James, to make him jealous perhaps or to put Paul off the scent.
To Valerie’s disapproval Cameron got out a cigarette. Picking up a pink candle, Rupert lit it for her.
‘You hunt with the same pack as Tony?’ she asked.
‘Sometimes,’ said Rupert softly. ‘Sometimes after the same quarry.’
Looking round at his suddenly predatory, unsmiling face, she felt a quivering between her legs. Christ, she wanted him.
‘D’you want a lift home?’ he said.
‘No.’ She could have wept. ‘I brought my own car.’
‘The Lotus?’ said Rupert.
She nodded.
‘Nice Corinium perk,’ said Rupert, instantly returning to his former flippant mood. ‘I see James has finally got himself a Porsche. I’ll have to get rid of mine.’
‘I don’t know much about horses,’ murmured Cameron, frantic to hold his attention, ‘except my boss’s wife looks like one.’
‘You won’t oust her by bitching,’ said Rupert. Then, aware that Tony had suddenly stopped talking to Sarah and they were both listening, he said, ‘There are three things you need in a horse: balance, quality and courage. Same as a woman, really.’
‘I’d add intelligence,’ said Cameron.
‘I wouldn’t.’
‘Don’t you like achieving women?’
‘I don’t like ballbreakers.’
There was a chorus of oohs and aahs as Taggie came in with the moated ice cream castle. It was the last lap. Once she’d served this, and cleared away, she could relax.
‘What d’you do at Corinium?’ Rupert asked Cameron, as he idly watched Taggie moving round the table. She was bright pink in the face, her tongue clenched between her teeth in her efforts to hold the pudding steady. Any make-up had sweated off. Her dark hair was fighting the pins that held it up. But nothing could disguise the length of leg, or the long dark eyelashes, or the voluptuous swell of her breasts. She was going anti-clockwise again, but most people were too plastered to notice.