At first she wasn’t sure she had heard him properly.
‘I don’t just want you to come to the Amazon with me. I want to be with you for ever.’
Her heart was racing, and then she started laughing, the sound carried away on the riverside breeze. And finally she said, ‘Yes.’
Chapter Twenty-Four
Nobody was particularly surprised when Dominic Blake insisted on throwing a party to celebrate his engagement to Rosamund Bailey. If cooking wasn’t his forte, then throwing an intimate bash for a hundred of their closest friends was what he was certainly good at.
Ros walked into the stucco apartment in Belgravia and gasped. It was a huge lateral space with a bank of almost floor-to-ceiling windows on one side of the room looking out on to Eaton Square. The polished walnut floors and the elegant grey furniture gave it a glamorous Art Deco feel, and as she accepted a glass of champagne from a man in a dinner jacket, she felt like Audrey Hepburn in Billy Wilder’s Sabrina.
‘If this was my house, I’m not sure I’d lend it to anyone,’ she said, looking around the room, searching for breakables.
‘It’s a good friend and they are never in the country,’ said Dominic, taking a guest list out of his pocket and checking it.
‘Do they know how many people you’ve invited?’ asked Ros, peering over his shoulder at the long list of names.
‘Everyone’s well-behaved,’ he whispered, sipping at his champagne bowl.
‘We’ll see about that,’ laughed Ros cynically.
She was glad to see Jonathon Soames and his girlfriend Michaela, who brought her an enormous bunch of peach-coloured roses. Accepting them, she felt like a movie star on stage at the Oscars, but told them not to expect a speech. There were others in the room that she was only meeting for the first time – more university friends, old colleagues from a broadsheet where Dominic had worked straight out of Cambridge.
Her heart fell when she saw Victoria Harbord arrive, especially as she looked more stunning than usual. Ros had seen her without make-up in the pool, and knew she was a natural beauty, but she couldn’t help thinking that Lady Harbord had made a special effort this evening. An emerald-green silk dress with a boat-cut neckline showed off an expanse of tanned shoulders, and her dark blond hair fell in waves down her back.
She waved when she saw Ros and headed over.
‘Ros, you look as ravishing as ever. I love this dress.’
Ros looked down at the blue shift dress she had bought specially for the occasion; it looked very dowdy and ordinary compared to Victoria’s.
‘How are you, Vee?’
‘Good, good. I’ve been following your journalism. I saw your piece in the New Statesman. Do you really think they’re going to build an actual wall through the middle of Berlin?’
‘That’s the rumour. It was denied in a press conference, but East Germany wants to stop the brain drain to the West, and I think they’re going to take quite drastic steps to do that.’
Victoria sighed and looked around the room, clearly no longer interested in discussing politics.
‘Enjoying the party?’ she asked, playing with a gold pendant around her neck. ‘I can’t say I ever thought it would come to this,’ she added.
‘You sound surprised,’ replied Ros thinly.
‘I have never doubted Dominic’s love for you. I just didn’t think we’d see him at the altar. How on earth did you do it?’
‘Well, I didn’t need a leash.’
‘Then why are you going with him to Peru?’
Ros glanced at Dominic with annoyance, wondering how much her fiancé had told his friends.
‘Why are you here, Victoria, if you’re not happy for us?’ she said, unable to contain herself any longer.
Victoria put a reassuring hand on her forearm. It was a trick that Ros had seen time and again among Dominic’s high-flying circle of friends. She wondered if it was something they taught you in the fancy schools these people went to.
‘Ros, please don’t be sensitive. Dominic is one of my dearest friends. Of course I am happy for you.’
‘But you don’t think I’m good enough for him, do you?’