Kelda was in agony. She adored her mother but she had never come closer to killing her! ‘Kelda’s saving herself for marriage.’ She could just hear her mother saying it! And she could see Angelo, struggling not to choke on his wine, sardonically amused by her mother’s blind faith in her daughter’s virtue. Hellfire embarrassment scorched Kelda.
‘Well...what do you think?’ Daisy asked hesitantly.
‘About what?’
‘About me marrying Tomaso again?’
Kelda steeled herself. ‘I think you’d be making the biggest mistake of your life. But of course...it’s your decision.’
‘I suppose the idea of us all being a f-family together is a little fanciful.’ Looking stricken, Daisy was visibly swallowing back tears of disappointment.
Kelda felt torn apart by guilt but she reminded herself that it was for her mother’s own good. ‘Have you given him an answer yet?’
‘No,’ Daisy conceded tightly.
‘If you do marry him, I’ll hardly cut you off...I expect we can still meet for lunch occasionally...’
‘Y-yes,’ Daisy gulped, bending her head. ‘But you and I are so close...what about weekends?’
‘I will never cross the threshold of any house that harbours Angelo as a regular visitor,’ Kelda stated without apology.
* * *
‘You mean she just dropped it on you?’ Her brother Tim burst out laughing. ‘Isn’t that just Daisy?’
It was the following day. They were lunching in a wine-bar round the corner from the insurance company where Tim worked.
‘It wasn’t funny! Why didn’t you warn me?’ Kelda snapped, throwing an icy glance of hauteur at the man at the next table, who had sat fixedly trying to catch her eye ever since she sat down.
Tim followed her gaze ruefully. ‘The Iceberg buries another victim...’
‘I loathe that stupid nickname!’ She set her perfect white teeth into a celery stick and crunched. As she chewed, she flung her head back, her mane of entirely natural pre-Raphaelite curls rippling back over her slim shoulders in tongues of fire. ‘Don’t use it!’
‘OK...OK!’ Tim held up both hands in mock surrender.
‘Why didn’t you tell me she was seeing Tomaso again?’
His mobile features tensed. ‘I guessed how you’d react.’
‘I bet you said nothing, you lily-livered swine!’ Kelda hissed across the table at him. ‘You don’t care if Tomaso runs around with other women behind her back!’
Tim had gone red. ‘I don’t think it’s any of my business.’
‘Oh, I’m all right, Jack!’
Tim grimaced. ‘How much of the way you feel has to do with Angelo?’
Kelda froze. ‘It’s got nothing to do with him!’
Tim gave her an unimpressed glance.
‘I can’t stand him...that’s true.’ Her restive hands snapped a carrot stick in two but she held his gaze fiercely. ‘But it’s Mum’s best interests that concern me.’
‘You’re terrified of Angelo.’ Tim looked almost amused.
‘Don’t be ridiculous...I loathe and despise him... I’m certainly not afraid of him!’
Tim sipped his wine. ‘Exactly what did happen the night of your eighteenth birthday bash? You know, I never did find out why Angelo had disappeared, Tomaso looked like thunder and Mum was on the brink of hysterics over breakfast the next morning...’