Hypnotized

‘My half-sister, of course,’ she replied, with a pleasant smile.

And I knew then without a shadow of a doubt that she hated Olivia with the fierce hatred that comes from excruciating envy.

I crossed my arms. ‘Not that it’s any of your business, but no.’

She smiled shyly, but her eyes were filled with malicious delight.

‘I saw her watching you.’

‘I don’t make a habit of sleeping with my clients. Far too confusing for me, let alone them.’

She smiled again, this time in that cold, aloof manner of hers. ‘What about their sisters? Have you slept with any of them?’

I stared at her. She was totally different from the girl/woman I had met in the Green Saloon. This was the Daphne Swanson with her well-bred spine exposed, without the pretensions or the aura of fake hauteur that her social set deliberately cultivated to place them apart from mere mortals. Here was the real Daphne, the central figure in her own drama.

‘I can’t say I have,’ I said mildly.

She bit her lower lip. ‘Would it be too awful to start tonight?’

My eyebrows shot up, but before I could answer there was another knock on my door.

She blanched, but in a flash she ran into one of the cupboards and shut the door on herself.

Bemused, I opened the door. Beryl was standing outside. Her cheeks were flushed and she looked glazed about the eyes. Why, she was as drunk as a skunk.

‘Oh good, you’re still awake,’ she slurred. ‘I was hoping you’d be.’ She proceeded to sway unsteadily into the middle of the room right where Daphne had been standing. She turned around and almost lost her balance.

‘Are you all right?’

She waved her hand and smiled benevolently. ‘I feel great. I just wanted to thank you for what you did tonight at the dinner table.’ She raised her forefinger and wagged it at me. ‘You rescued me.’

‘It was nothing,’ I said quickly.

‘No, no, no,’ she argued shaking her head. ‘No one else would have done such a thing. You’re a good man, Dr. Kane. A really good man. And handsome, too. You’re really handsome, you know. If I was twenty years younger…’

I looked at her with amusement. She was going to be mortified in the morning. If she remembered, that is.

‘It’s a lucky woman who gets you,’ she continued.

I shifted away from the door. ‘Where have you been all this while?’ I found it hard to believe she had been accepted into the club and had been getting sloshed with them all this time.

She grinned happily. ‘You’ll never believe it, but I found out that the cook is from the same little village in Devon that I’m from. Fancy that! I’ve been in the kitchen having a good old chinwag with her all this while. It was fun. She’s so nice. She opened a bottle of sloe berry vodka that she made herself and we had a few glasses. Phew! Potent stuff.’

‘I can see that.’

‘Right. The floor keeps tilting. I guess I ought to go to bed.’

I went to my bag and pushed out two tabs of headache tablets and dropped them into her palm. ‘Life won’t be worth it tomorrow morning if you don’t take these right away.’

She smiled dreamily. ‘You really are such a Prince Charming.’

I opened the connecting door.

‘See you at breakfast,’ she said and stumbled through the open doorway. I closed it and the cupboard door opened.

Daphne stepped out coolly as if hiding in cupboards was a thing she did every day. She walked up to me. ‘She’s quite right. You are quite the prince,’ she said, unzipping her dress and letting it slide to the floor. In that chilly room she stood as naked as the day she was born. I’ll admit she had a good body, a very good body.

She curved one corner of her lip invitingly and very deliberately began to walk toward me. I had the impression she could have been a good lay. Energetic and probably insatiable, but there was something viperish about her that made me think I’d live to regret any time spent in her pussy.