Her mocking gaze surveyed Tavy’s evident bewilderment. ‘Poor Octavia. You’ve no idea what I’m talking about, have you? This was Descent’s first big hit, my pet. Made them superstars overnight.’
‘And what are they now?’ Tavy asked coolly, needled by the other’s patronising tone. ‘White dwarfs?’
‘Well, at least we haven’t disappeared into a black hole,’ Jago said silkily as he joined them, seeming to appear once again from nowhere. ‘Much as many people might wish. But not the landlord, fortunately.’ He smiled round the table, the tawny eyes glittering when they rested briefly on Tavy’s flushed face, and the spill of auburn hair on her shoulders. ‘In fact, he’s sending over champagne as a “welcome to the district” offering.’
He took the seat opposite her, stretching out long legs, making her hurriedly draw back her own chair to avoid any risk of contact. And seeing his mouth curl cynically as he registered her hasty movement.
‘Free champagne,’ Fiona echoed and gave a little trill of laughter. ‘Wow.’ She put a perfectly manicured hand on Jago’s arm. ‘I can see it’s going to be non-stop party time in future.
‘You must have a house-warming—when the Manor’s fit for you to move into. Although my father says you’d be better off pulling it down and starting again. After all, it’s hardly a listed building.’
‘That’s one viewpoint certainly,’ Jago said courteously. ‘But not one I happen to share.’ He paused, looking at Patrick. ‘And on the subject of friends and neighbours, shouldn’t you introduce me?’
‘Of course. How totally dreadful of me,’ Fiona gushed. ‘This is Patrick Wilding who’s a fabulous accountant, and whose mother runs the most marvellous girls’ preparatory school in the village.’
She added, ‘Funnily enough, Octavia has a little job there too, when she’s not rushing round the district, of course, doing good works.’ She smiled brilliantly, ‘So, Patrick, meet Jago Marsh.’
‘How do you do?’ Jago leaned forward, proffering a hand which Patrick accepted with barely concealed reluctance, muttering an awkward reply.
Which, in the good manners stakes, left Jago leading by a length, thought Tavy, biting her lip as the champagne arrived in an ice bucket, accompanied by four flutes.
As Jago began to fill them, she said, ‘I already have a drink, thank you.’ Sounding, she realised with vexation, like a prim schoolgirl.
‘Which you don’t seem to be enjoying particularly,’ he said, looking at her untouched glass. He put a gently bubbling flute in front of her. ‘Have this instead.’
‘Not for me, thanks,’ Patrick said shortly. ‘I’ll stick to beer.’
‘But I still hope you’ll join me in a toast.’ Jago raised his glass. ‘To new beginnings,’ he said softly. ‘And new friends.’
‘Oh, yes.’ Fiona touched her glass to his. Her smile flashed again. ‘Particularly those.’
This time, it was Tavy’s turn to mumble something. She managed a fleeting look at Patrick, who was responding to the toast as if his beer had turned to prussic acid.
But the champagne was wonderful, fizzing faintly in her mouth, cool against her throat. She leaned back in her chair listening to the music, thinking that it hardly matched its title. That it wasn’t ‘easy’ at all, with its intense, primitive rhythm, but wrenched and disturbing as if dragged up from some dark and painful place. An assault on the senses.
It wasn’t her kind of music at all, she told herself swiftly, but she couldn’t deny its almost feral impact.
Fiona was talking to Jago. ‘It must make you feel wonderful, hearing this again. Remembering its amazing success.’
He shrugged. ‘To be honest, it just seems a very long time ago.’
‘But you were headline news,’ she persisted. ‘Everyone wanted to know about you.’
‘Indeed they did,’ he said. ‘And what the papers couldn’t find out, they made up.’
‘And the band’s name,’ Fiona rushed on. ‘People said you really meant to be called “Dissent” because you were in rebellion against society, only someone got the spelling wrong on your first contract.’ And she giggled.
‘I’m afraid the story is wrong.’ His voice was quiet, the tawny eyes oddly brooding. ‘Pete Hilton, the bass player and I studied Virgil’s Aeneid at school, and we took our name from Book Six where the oracle says, “Facilis descensus Averno”. Easy is the descent into Hell.’ He added wryly, ‘Before pointing out that very few who get there make it back again.’
He paused. ‘However, it failed to mention that sometimes the demons you find there make the return journey with you.’
Tavy stared at him. His voice had been level, even expressionless but there had been something in his words that had lifted all the hair on the back of her neck.
‘You learned Latin?’ Fiona did not mask her surprise.
‘We all did at my school,’ he said, and smiled at her. ‘Including, of course, your husband, who was in my year.’
Seeing Fiona Culham thoroughly disconcerted didn’t happen often, thought Tavy, a bud of illicit pleasure opening within her, but it was worth waiting for.
‘Oh,’ the other girl said at last. ‘You mean my ex-husband, of course.
‘I had no idea you were at the same school.’
He said gently, ‘And why should you?’
As the music ended in a wave of clapping and stamping from the other customers, he looked across at Tavy. ‘So, what did you think of that blast from the past, Miss Denison?’
‘Not much, I bet,’ Fiona said dismissively. ‘Octavia never listens to anything that can’t be found in Hymns Ancient and Modern.’
‘She’s a good judge,’ Jago said lightly. ‘As someone said, why should the devil have all the best tunes?’
‘But I didn’t think yours was a tune.’ Tavy’s voice was quiet. ‘It was too angry. It made me feel uncomfortable.’ She added, ‘But I expect that was the intention.’
There was an odd silence, then Patrick said, ‘I’m getting myself another pint.’ And went.
‘You must excuse me too,’ said Fiona, brightly. ‘I need to powder my nose.’
Leaving Tavy alone at the table with Jago Marsh in a silence which was suddenly almost tangible.
And which he was the first to break. ‘So he isn’t just the employer’s son?’
‘No,’ she said, slightly breathless, shakily aware that his eyes were travelling slowly over her, lingering shamelessly on the softly rounded curves tantalisingly displayed by the low neckline of the indigo dress, as if the fabric that covered her no longer existed. As if he was remembering exactly how much he’d seen of her at their first meeting. And, judging by his faint smile, enjoying every moment of the memory.
Making her wish almost desperately that she’d worn something less revealing, and tied her hair back instead of leaving it loose.
And that there was something altogether more substantial than a pub table between them.
Fight back, she thought as, in spite of herself, a slow tingle of awareness shivered through her body. Don’t let him do this to you.
She lifted her chin. ‘We’re—involved.’
He nodded reflectively. ‘And how does the employer feel about that?’
‘That is none of your business!’
‘Oh,