‘Ah, Elaine. I take it that dazzling performance was for my benefit? Don’t look so horrified, Morgan; I said it was dazzling, didn’t I? More credit to her for making an opportunity for herself. But I can’t, offhand, think of a tactful way of telling her to consider herself auditioned, so I thought I’d come out here and make myself useful.’
‘Naturally you wouldn’t dream of saying anything that might cause offence,’ said Morgan.
‘Well, not without a studio audience,’ he said shamelessly. ‘Why don’t you let me wash while you dry, since you know where everything goes?’ His voice was not precisely gloating, but there was no doubt about it—he certainly thought that he’d won this round hands down. And now he had her where he wanted her—over the washing-up he would give her the kind of grilling which had tripped up people who were cleverer, wilier and more experienced at downright lying than she would ever be. Unless...
Morgan’s eyes swept rapidly round the kitchen. ‘Wash as you go’ was not a precept that Leah had ever taken to heart; every surface was piled high with pots, pans, mixing bowls and every conceivable implement which could be used in the preparation of a dinner for eight. The sink was now filled with the dinner dishes, as was the counter beside it. And this scene of chaos had given her an idea of breathtaking simplicity—and, it had to be said, outrageous bad manners. But at least it would save her from a tête-à-tête with Richard Kavanagh.
Morgan took a deep breath. She looked resolutely into the soapsuds; she didn’t dare look up at him. ‘It’s awfully nice of you,’ she said. ‘Are you sure?’ It was still not too late to back out.
‘Quite sure.’ He had tossed his jacket over the back of a chair and was already rolling up his sleeves. There was probably a warning somewhere in the contrast between his casual, trendy clothes and the lean muscle of the arms being laid bare; Morgan ignored it. So he thought he’d outflanked her, did he?
‘Well, if you insist,’ said Morgan, stepping away from the sink. She raised limpid eyes to his face. ‘We always leave things to drain,’ she explained in a matter-of-fact, helpful tone of voice. ‘It’s more hygienic than drying with a dish towel. You can just leave everything in the rack. Thanks very much for offering; I have had rather a long day. It’s terribly nice of you.’ She managed to meet his eyes with a straight face.
Once out of the kitchen, she stumbled down the hall, doubled over with laughter, hands clapped to her mouth, until she staggered at last to the coat-rack, buried her face in a coat, and howled.
When she had herself under control—more or less under control—Morgan returned to the sitting room to join the rest of the family.
‘Where’s Richard?’ asked Elaine in a discontented tone.
‘Oh, he insisted on doing the washing-up,’ Morgan said cheerfully.
‘What?’
‘He wouldn’t take no for an answer,’ Morgan added smugly.
‘Oh, my God,’ said Elaine in horror. ‘Well, I’d better go and give him a hand.’ She hastened out of the room.
And now, for the first time that evening, Morgan was able to relax. But as she picked up a magazine and leafed idly through it she was suddenly, wryly, aware of a faint sense of anticlimax.
She had actually got the better of Richard Kavanagh! But the problem was she couldn’t be there to savour her victory—to see his face as he tackled the washing-up, or was joined by Elaine, keen to score a few more points over the soapsuds. And, even worse, she found herself actually looking forward to his return from the kitchen. He wasn’t the kind to take defeat lying down; what would he do next?
Morgan reminded herself sternly that she wasn’t supposed to be crossing swords with him at all. In fact, looking back over the evening, she couldn’t understand what had got into her—she had meant to be so quiet and unobtrusive! She had promised Elaine to act conventionally. Where had it all gone wrong?
An image came to her of cool grey eyes, amusement lurking in their depths. He made me do it, she protested to herself. He deliberately set out to thwart me at every turn; was I supposed to take that lying down? And as for keeping him company in the kitchen... An older, more sinister image came to her—of those same grey eyes glittering in winter moonlight...
Everything he’d said at dinner showed that he hadn’t changed; the merciless predator who took pleasure in the hunt wasn’t far beneath the surface. She had to keep him from remembering her, and keep him from going anywhere near A Child’s Place. But that was no reason, she reminded herself, to jeopardise Elaine’s chances. As long as he stayed she must simply keep out of his way. From now on she would have to do better.
CHAPTER THREE
‘TELL me the story of Gareth again, Morgan.’
Morgan looked up from her unread magazine an hour later to find Ben standing beside her. ‘I can’t watch TV ’cos Sarah and Jenny are watching The Little Mermaid,’ he explained.
Morgan grinned at this flattering invitation. The little boy climbed onto the sofa beside her, and the two were soon lost in the story of the humble kitchen boy who came to the aid of a haughty lady. Each time the boy defeated a knight in battle the lady exclaimed that it was luck, and a shameful thing that a brave knight should be brought low by a dirty kitchen boy. And about a third of the way into the story the hairs rose on the back of Morgan’s neck, and she knew that Richard Kavanagh had come into the room.
She forced herself not to look up. Gareth defeated a red knight, a green knight, a blue knight, a black knight and a giant, and still the lady despised him. From the corner of her eye Morgan saw a pair of white-trousered legs prop themselves against a table, the scrubbed cotton taut over the long, lean muscle of his thighs.
‘And then he returned to the court of King Arthur and jousted in disguise, and defeated every knight who came at him, even Sir Gawain,’ she said, her voice even huskier than usual from nervousness. She could just imagine what Kavanagh would make of this. ‘And then he went to the king and said, “I am the brother of Gawain, but I wished to be made a knight for my own efforts, and not because of my brother.” And he was knighted that very day, and Sir Gareth married the lady and lived happily ever after,’ she concluded hastily.
The silence at the end of this seemed to stretch out interminably. At last, in spite of herself, Morgan’s eyes were drawn slowly up to the face of the man watching her.
She had expected to see the spark of devilry which had been lurking in his eyes all evening, perhaps anger, certainly the promise of vengeance to come. But the hawkish face had an expression of almost brooding intensity; it was impossible to believe that its bitter cynicism had been prompted by anything so trivial as being unexpectedly landed with the washing-up.
His eyes held hers for an endless moment in which she was conscious only of the pounding of her heart, of the electric charge which seemed to strike her from those quicksilver, black-rimmed irises. And when he spoke his words took her completely by surprise.
‘That’s Malory, isn’t it?’ he asked, in a casual tone which made her wonder if she’d imagined that sombre look. ‘Tennyson misses the point—can’t see why anyone would want to get by on his own merits, so he makes the disguise a whim of the boy’s mother, isn’t that right?’
‘Yes,’ said Morgan. Her eyes fell to the pale green shirt, which had got splashed just above the belt and had grease-spots up the front, and some devil prompted her to add, ‘Do you have a fellow-feeling for Gareth, then, Mr Kavanagh?’
‘Oh, he had the right idea; I’m dead against people rising through their connections,’ he replied, and then added more cynically, ‘Though it was lucky for him that Arthur wasn’t one of the bad guys, wasn’t it? But perhaps I’m biased, speaking as one who got his start doing an exposé of the Round Table.’ With an abrupt change of gear, he went on,