Valentine Vendetta

They all looked up as she came into the room, and she could hardly look Sam in the eye, she felt so self-conscious and so obvious!

‘Good morning, Fran,’ he said, with an innocent, sunny smile. ‘Sleep well, did you?’

She might have glared if that wouldn’t have given the game away. ‘I was—er—a little bit restless,’ she replied truthfully, feeling the world’s worst fraud as she did so.

‘I expect that’s why you overslept!’ observed Maddy, looking up from a decapitated kiwi fruit with a knowing smile. ‘And can I just say that your hair looks much better all loose around your shoulders like that. Sam said you always wore it scraped up on top of your head.’

‘Did he?’ asked Fran, thinking that fantastic sex must have addled her brain completely—she always put her hair up!

‘He certainly did!’

Now when had he said that, Fran wondered? And how on earth had the subject of her hair arisen during a conversation with his sister?

‘Coffee?’ asked Sam, giving her a crooked smile and a look in his eyes which said that he wished they could be alone.

‘Please.’ But Fran felt as though she had no right to be there. Redundant. The three of them looked like a unit, all busy working in harmony together. While she had been employed to cook the breakfast and had overslept like an adolescent! ‘Don’t worry, Sam, I’ll get it.’ She poured herself a large mugful. ‘Where’s your mother?’

‘She’ll be down in a minute,’ he said, smiling.

‘She overslept.’ Maddy stared at her unblinkingly. ‘Just like you.’

‘Oh,’ Fran swallowed nervously, wondering if she could get away with offering to walk to the village shop to buy milk. Anything to get away from this awful feeling of having been caught up to no good. ‘Can I do anything to help?’

‘What did you have in mind?’ Sam shot her an amused look and Fran quickly discovered that it was easy to feel like a guilty teenager, even though you were a woman of almost twenty-seven!

And Sam wasn’t exactly helping matters, she thought furiously! ‘How about the rest of the breakfast,’ she queried coolly. ‘After all, I’m supposed to be the one doing the cooking!’

Merry looked up from the newspaper. ‘Stop embarrassing the poor girl, Sam,’ she said mildly. ‘And concentrate on the bacon, instead—it’s burning! Surprised you didn’t notice, but I guess your mind was on other things, huh?’

He gave a yelp as he whipped the frying-pan away from the heat and Fran began to gather jams and marmalades and sauces and took them into the dinin

g room, glad to get out of the room.

Breakfast was eventually served. Fran found the prospect of food curiously unattractive and Helen Lockhart yawned throughout the meal.

‘Are you okay?’ Sam asked his mother.

‘I’m fine, Sam, do stop fussing! I’m not used to rich food and fine wines and very late nights, that’s all.’ She peered closely at him. ‘Though, quite frankly, you don’t look as though you’ve slept very much yourself!’

‘No, you don’t,’ murmured Maddy mischievously. ‘Why’s that, Sam?’

‘Oh, do shut up, Maddy,’ he said indulgently, but he was looking so pleased with himself that Fran shot him a warning look across the table, terrified that he might announce to his mother and sisters the exact reason for his lack of sleep!

‘So what are your plans?’ he asked his mother instead, and held Fran’s glare with an I-can’t-wait-to-be-on-my-own-with-you stare of his own.

‘Well, I’m having dinner in London tonight with Maddy’s new man,’ said Mrs. Lockhart.

‘A new man. Hmmm, you’ve kept that very quiet, Madelaine Lockhart!’ observed Sam. ‘Is it serious?’

Maddy sighed and pushed away her half-eaten bowl of fruit. ‘Yes,’ she said, in a mock-tragic voice. ‘I’m afraid that it is.’

‘Don’t tell me,’ commented Sam, with a cynicism born of familiarity with his sister’s chequered love life. ‘It’s another actor? Who has beautiful cheekbones, but no money? And bags of talent, just can’t get a job?’

‘No, that’s just the trouble! He’s not,’ sighed Maddy again. ‘He’s…’ she bit her lip before announcing mournfully, ‘…an investment banker!’

‘A banker!’

Fran thought that Sam couldn’t have sounded more astonished if his baby sister had suddenly announced she was marrying an alien who had just landed from Mars!