“Jizzed all over my lovely new gown, he did,” she told Louise and Sandra, whose lips were pursed with aghast sympathy.
“That lovely lacy one you got in La Perla? Ooh, no, Marie. What a shame.”
“I paid for it, didn’t I?” Jeremy wheedled, lifting spaniel eyes to his recent disciplinarian.
“I should hope you won’t be sitting comfortably for a week, young man.” Marie’s tone was severe, but she was grinning coquettishly at him.
“These bubbles are taking away some of the pain,” he said.
Laura moved her arm under the froth, placing a hand on his thigh, but he studiedly avoided any response to her touch. I did. I said it out loud. Oh hell.
Clive Evans, a fishmonger and town councillor, turned to her. “Looks like your dad has a fight on his hands over this new planning application.”
Laura gave him her most withering look. Did this boring man really expect her to jaw on about council business at a sex party? Some people had no idea what manners even were.
“Really?” she said frostily.
“We all know he’s in Charles Cordwainer’s pocket, of course, but there isn’t a damn thing any of us can do about it.”
“Clive,” expostulated Roger and Marie simultaneously, exchanging alarm-signal looks. “You can’t say that.”
“What? Why not? Bloody disgrace, I call it. I voted against it. But Cordwainer’s bribed everyone. He tried to bribe me but I turned it down. And I’m sorry to say it but it’s true—young Laura here’s father is taking the biggest backhanders of them all.”
“I’m sorry,” said Laura, fighting to retain her veneer of icy calm, “but you appear to be telling me that my father is colluding with Charles Cordwainer to achieve some kind of undesirable result. Is that right? Have I understood?”
“We don’t want Vegas-style casinos in Goldsands, but Cordwainer does, and what he wants, he gets. He’s bribed Trewin and the rest to pass the license application. I’m against it. It’s fair enough for me to stand up for my beliefs, isn’t it, Rog?”
“This might not be the time or the place…” Roger suggested.
“Bollocks. I call a spade a spade, and I don’t care where it is, or when.”
“If you want to call spades spades, do it in your own house.” Roger was riled now, his chest rising nobly from the fizzing bubbles. “Don’t expect to be invited back if you can’t keep a civil tongue.”
“Excuse me.” Laura rose to her feet and reached for a towel. “But I think it’s time I was getting home. Jeremy.”
He did not react at first, moving up closer to Marie and kissing her shoulder.
“Jeremy. We are leaving.”
“Oh. Right. Good night, everyone. Thank you for having me.”
He followed a furious and dripping Laura along the marble corridor to the nearest bathroom, clothes clutched under his arm.
“We’re getting out of here,” she snarled at him. “Get dressed. I have some things I want
to ask you.”
They dressed in a silence that buzzed with tension and anger, then drove, wordlessly again, to Laura’s house.
Once in her bachelorette pad, she was finally able to let the words fly.
“Is it true?”
She handed him a beer, which he decided against opening.
“Is what true?”
“You’re the resident fucking expert on all things Cordwainer, aren’t you? So is it true that he and Daddy…” She couldn’t repeat the accusation.