‘Jasper isn’t the logical heir,’ he said, very evenly.
‘Oh, I don’t know about that,’ Ralph replied with unpleasant, mock joviality. ‘Let’s look at it this way—Jasper is probably going to live another sixty or seventy years, and, believe me, I have every intention of lasting a lot more than seven years. Given your job I’d say you’re the one who’s pushing your luck in that department, don’t you think? Remember what happened to my dear brother Leo. Never came back from the Falklands. Very nasty business.’
Ralph’s eyes met Kit’s in the mirror and slid away. He was already well on the way to being drunk, Kit realised wearily, and that meant that any further attempt at persuasion on his part would only be counterproductive.
‘Transfer it to Jasper if you want.’ He shrugged, picking up the newspaper that lay folded on a coffee table. ‘That would certainly be better than doing nothing, though I’m not sure he’d thank you for it since he hates being here as much as Tatiana does. It might also put him at further risk from ruthless gold-diggers like the one he’s brought up this weekend.’
The medals ceremony he’d attended yesterday was front-page news. Idly he wondered whether Ralph had seen it and chosen not to say anything.
‘Sophie?’ Ralph turned round, putting his hands into his pockets and rocking back on the heels of his patent shoes. ‘I thought she was quite charming. Gorgeous little thing, too. Good old Jasper, eh? He’s got a cracker there.’
‘Except for the fact that she couldn’t give a toss about him,’ Kit commented dryly, putting down the paper.
‘Jealous, Kit?’ Ralph said, and there was real malice in his tone. His eyes were narrowed, his face suddenly flushed. ‘You think you’re the one who should get all the good-looking girls, don’t you? I’d say you want her for yourself, just like—’
At that moment the strange outburst was interrupted by Jasper coming in. Ralph broke off and turned abruptly away.
‘Just like what?’ Kit said softly.
‘Nothing.’ Ralph pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his brow. As he turned to Jasper his face lost all its hostility. ‘We were just talking about you—and Sophie.’
Heading to the drinks tray, Jasper grinned. ‘Gorgeous, isn’t she? And really clever and talented too. Great actress.’
In his dinner suit and with his hair wet from the shower Jasper looked about fifteen, Kit thought, his heart darkening against Sophie Greenham.
‘So I noticed,’ he said blandly, going to the door. He turned to Ralph. ‘Think about what I said about the estate transfer. Oh, and I promised Thomas I’d see to the port tonight. Any preference?’
Ralph seemed to have recovered his composure. ‘There’s an excellent ‘29. Though, on second thoughts, open some ‘71.’ His smile held a hint of challenge. ‘Let’s keep the really good stuff for my hundredth, since I fully intend to be around to celebrate it.’
Crossing the portrait hall in rapid, furious strides, Kit swore with such viciousness a passing waiter shot behind a large display of flowers. So he’d failed to make Ralph see sense about the estate. He’d just have to make sure he was more successful when it came to Sophie Greenham.
It was just as well she hadn’t eaten all that lasagne at lunchtime, Sophie reflected grimly, tugging at the zip on the side of the black dress. Obviously, with hindsight, trying it on in the shop would have been wise—all the croissants and baguettes in Paris must have taken more of a toll than she’d realised. Oh, well—if it didn’t fit she’d just have to wear the Chinese silk that Jasper had decreed was too sexy …
Hope flared inside her. Instantly she stamped it out.
No. Tonight was not about being sexy, or having fun, she told herself sternly. Tonight was about supporting Jasper and showing Kit that she wasn’t the wanton trollop he had her down as.
She thought again of the photo in the paper—unsmiling, remote, heroic—and her insides quivered a little. Because, she realised with a pang of surprise, she actually didn’t want him to think that about her.
With renewed effort she gave the zip another furious tug. It shot up and she let out the lungful of air she’d been holding, looking down at the dress with a sinking heart. Her cell-like bedroom didn’t boast anything as luxurious as a full-length mirror, but she didn’t need to see her whole reflection to know how awful she looked. It really was the most severely unflattering garment imaginable, falling in a plain, narrow, sleeveless tube from her collarbones to her ankles. A slit up one side at least meant that she could walk without affecting tiny geishalike steps, but she felt as if she were wrapped in a roll of wartime blackout fabric.
‘That’s good,’ she said out loud, giving herself a severe look in the little mirror above the sink. Her reflection stared back at her, face pale against the bright mass of her hair. She’d washed it and, gleaming under the overhead light, the colour now seemed more garish than ever. Grabbing a few pins, she stuck them in her mouth, then pulled her hair back and twisted it tightly at the back of her neck.
Standing back again, she pulled a face.
There. Disfiguring dress and headmistress hair. Jasper’s dull girlfriend was ready for her public, although at least Sophie had the private satisfaction of knowing that she was also wearing very naughty underwear and what Jasper fondly called her ‘shag-me’ shoes. Twisting round, she tried to check the back view of the dress, and gave a snort of laughter as she noticed the price ticket hanging down between her shoulder blades.
Classy and expensive was always going to be a hard look for the girl who used to live on a bus to pull off, as Olympia Rothwell-Hyde and her cronies had never stopped reminding her. Attempting to do it with a label on her back announcing just how little she’d paid for the blackout dress would make it damned impossible.
She gave it a yank and winced as the plastic cut into her fingers. Another try confirmed that it was definitely a job for scissors. Which she didn’t have.
She bit her lip. Jasper had already gone down, telling her to join them in the drawing room as soon as she was ready, but there was no way she could face Tatiana, who would no doubt be decked out in designer finery and dripping with diamonds, with her knock-down price ticket on display. She’d just have to slip down to the kitchens and see if the terrifying Mrs Daniels—or Mrs Danvers as she’d privately named her when Jasper had introduced her this morning—had some.
The layout of the castle was more familiar now and Sophie headed for the main stairs as quickly as the narrow dress would allow. The castle felt very different this evening from the cavernous, shadowy place at which she’d arrived last night. Now the stone walls seemed to resonate with a hum of activity as teams of caterers and waiting-on staff made final preparations in the staterooms below.
It was still freezing, though. In the portrait hall the smell of woodsmoke drifted through the air, carried on icy gusts of wind that the huge fires banked in every grate couldn’t seem to thaw. It mingled with the scent of hothouse flowers, which stood on every table and window ledge.
Sophie hitched up the narrow skirt of her dress and went more carefully down the narrow back stairs to the kitchens. It was noticeably warmer down here, the vaulted ceilings holding the heat from the ovens. A central stone-flagged passageway stretched beyond a row of Victorian windows in the kitchen wall, into the dimly lit distance. To the dungeons, Jasper had teased her earlier.
The dungeons, where Kit probably locked up two-timing girlfriends, she thought grimly, shivering in spite of the relative warmth. The noise of her heels echoed loudly off the stone walls. The glass between the corridor and the kitchen was clouded with steam, but through it Sophie could see that Mrs Daniels’ domain had been taken over by legions of uniformed chefs.
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