It might be only a few degrees warmer than the arctic, but beneath her coat Sophie could feel the heat creeping up her cleavage and into her cheeks. The nervous smile she’d been struggling to suppress broke through as she said the word ‘underwear’, but one glance at Kit’s glacial expression killed it instantly.
‘It was a lucky coincidence that we were sitting in the same carriage. It gave us a chance to … get to know each other a little before we got here.’
Ouch.
Only Sophie could have understood the meaning behind the polite words or picked up the faint note of menace beneath the blandness of his tone.
He’s really got it in for me, she realised with a shiver. Suddenly she felt very tired, very alone, and even Jasper’s hand around hers couldn’t dispel the chilly unease that had settled in the pit of her stomach.
‘Great.’ Oblivious to the tension that crackled like static in the air, Jasper pulled her impatiently forwards. ‘Come and meet Ma and Pa. I haven’t stopped talking about you since I got here yesterday, so they’re dying to see what all the fuss is about.’
And suddenly panic swelled inside her—churning, black and horribly familiar. The fear of being looked at. Scrutinised. Judged. That people would see through the layers of her disguise, the veils of evasion, to the real girl beneath. As Jasper led her towards the doors at the far end of the hall she was shaking, assailed by the same doubts and insecurities that had paralysed her the only time she’d done live theatre, in the seconds before she went onstage. What if she couldn’t do it? What if the lines wouldn’t come and she was left just being herself? Acting had been a way of life long before it became a way of making a living, and playing a part was second nature to her. But now … here …
‘Jasper,’ she croaked, pulling back. ‘Please—wait.’
‘Sophie? What’s the matter?’
His kind face was a picture of concern. The animal heads glared down at her, as well as a puffy-eyed Fitzroy ancestor with a froth of white lace around his neck.
And that was the problem. Jasper was her closest friend and she would do anything for him, but when she’d offered to help him out she hadn’t reckoned on all this. Alnburgh Castle, with its history and its million symbols of wealth and status and belonging, was exactly the kind of place that unnerved her most.
‘I can’t go in there. Not dressed like this, I mean. I—I came straight from the casting for the vampire thing and I meant to get changed on the train, but I …’
She opened her coat and Jasper gave a low whistle.
‘Don’t worry,’ he soothed. ‘Here, let me take your coat and you can put this on, otherwise you’ll freeze.’ Quickly he peeled off the black cashmere jumper and handed it to her, then tossed her coat over the horns of a nearby stuffed stag. ‘They’re going to love you whatever you’re wearing. Particularly Pa—you’re the perfect birthday present. Come on, they’re waiting in the drawing room. At least it’s warm in there.’
With Kit’s eyes boring into her back Sophie had no choice but to let Jasper lead her towards the huge double doors at the far end of the hall.
Vampire thing, Kit thought scornfully. Since when had the legend of the undead mentioned dressing like an escort in some private men’s club? He wondered if it was going to be the kind of film the boys in his unit sometimes brought back from leave to enjoy with a lot of beer in rest periods in camp.
The thought was oddly unsettling.
Tiredness pulled at him like lead weights. He couldn’t face seeing his father and stepmother just yet. Going through the hallway in the direction of the stairs, he passed the place where the portrait of his mother used to hang, before Ralph had replaced it, appropriately, with a seven-foot-high oil of Tatiana in plunging blue satin and the Cartier diamonds he had given her on their wedding day.
Jasper was right, Kit mused. If there was anyone who would appreciate Sophie Greenham’s get-up it was Ralph Fitzroy. Like vampires, his father’s enthusiasm for obvious women was legendary.
Jasper’s, however, was not. And that was what worried him. Even if he hadn’t overheard her conversation on the phone, even if he hadn’t felt himself the white-hot sexuality she exuded, you only had to look at the two of them together to know that, vampire or not, the girl was going to break the poor bastard’s heart and eat it for breakfast.
The room Jasper led her into was as big as the last, but stuffed with furniture and blazing with light from silk-shaded lamps on every table, a chandelier the size of a spaceship hovering above a pair of gargantuan sofas and a fire roaring in the fireplace.
It was Ralph Fitzroy who stepped forwards first. Sophie was surprised by how old he was, which she realised was ridiculous considering the reason she had come up this weekend was to attend his seventieth birthday party. His grey hair was brushed back from a florid, fleshy face and as he took Sophie’s hand his eyes almost disappeared in a fan of laughter lines as they travelled down her body. And up again, but only as far as her chest.
‘Sophie. Marvellous to meet you,’ he said, in the kind of upper-class accent that Sophie had thought had become extinct after the war.
‘And you, sir.’
Oh, for God’s sake—sir? Where had that come from? She’d be bobbing curtsies next. She was supposed to be playing the part of Jasper’s girlfriend, not the parlourmaid in some nineteen-thirties below-stairs drama. Not that Ralph seemed to mind. He was still clasping her hand, looking at her with a kind of speculative interest, as if she were a piece of art he was thinking of buying.
Suddenly she remembered Jean-Claude’s ‘Nude with Lilies’ and felt pins and needles of embarrassment prickle her whole body. Luckily distraction came in the form of a woman unfolding herself from one of the overstuffed sofas and coming forwards. She was dressed immaculately in a clinging off-white angora dress that was cleverly designed to showcase her blonde hair and peachy skin, as well as her enviable figure and the triple string of pearls around her neck. Taking hold of Sophie’s shoulders, she leaned forwards in a waft of expensive perfume and, in a silent and elaborate pantomime, kissed the air beside first one cheek and then the other.
‘Sophie, how good of you to come all this way to join us. Did you have a dreadful journey?’
Her voice still bore the unmistakable traces of a Russian accent, but her English was so precise that Sophie felt more than ever that they were onstage and reciting lines from a script. Tatiana Fitzroy was playing the part of the gracious hostess, thrilled to be meeting her adored son’s girlfriend for the first time. The problem was she wasn’t that great at acting.
‘No, not at all.’
‘But you came by train?’ Tatiana shuddered slightly. ‘Trains are always so overcrowded these days. They make one feel slightly grubby, don’t you think?’
No, Sophie wanted to say. Trains didn’t make her feel remotely grubby. However, the blatant disapproval in Kit Fitzroy’s cool glare—now that had definitely left her feeling in need of a scrub down in a hot shower.
‘Come on, darling,’ Ralph joked. ‘When was the last time you went on a train?’
‘First Class isn’t too bad,’ Sophie said, attempting to sound as if she would never consider venturing into standard.
‘Not really enough legroom,’ said a grave voice behind her. Sophie whipped her head round. Kit was standing in the doorway, holding a bundle of envelopes, which he was scanning through as he spoke.
The fire crackled merrily away, but Sophie was aware that the temperature seemed to have fallen a couple of degrees. For a split second no one moved, but then Tatiana was moving forwards, as if the offstage prompt had just reminded her of her cue.
‘Kit. Welcome back to Alnburgh.’