Nell discreetly tipped back the remains of her wine, then looked in surprise at her glass. “Goodness! I’ve run dry! Miss Thorne, can I get you a cup of tea? You must be parched. Betsy? No? Excuse me for a moment, won’t you?”
And she slid off into the throng, leaving me with Miss Thorne, who I could tell was marking my outfit out of ten. I didn’t care: my brain was still whirling with Bentleys and cads in dinner jackets, and the possibility that I might have Bond girl blood running through my veins. Was that better or worse than impoverished ballerina? It certainly felt more real, all of a sudden.
I concentrated on standing up straight and saying the right thing to Miss Thorne. She had been the Nice Cop to the redoubtable Miss Vanderbilt’s Really Rather Disappointed Cop, and although Miss Thorne was generally much freer with her compliments, they tended to be the sort of compliments that exploded later, on closer examination.
“Elizabeth! You read very nicely, dear,” she said, offering a small hand crammed with diamonds, as I managed a nod. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I must say, I wouldn’t have recognized you! So chic!”
Miss Thorne stood back so she could get a proper professional view of me. I was at least five inches taller than her, despite her stout heels.
“Thank you,” I said. I tried hard to be chic. Now that I’d got past my anti-Academy grunge phase, I’d settled into a sort of Jackie O middle ground of simple neutral separates, which had the added advantage of not costing much and being easy to match first thing in the morning, and minimal makeup—just mascara and crimson lips, which I normally ended up doing on the bus. Just enough to make me look colored in.
“But where’s all that adorable curly hair?” Miss Thorne went on, taking in my blue shift and gold flats. “What was it the girls used to call you?” She affected not to remember, but I knew she knew. “The film, you know, with the ghastly dog and the dancing…”
“Annie,” I said reluctantly.
“Yes! Little Orphan Annie! How funny.”
The warmth drained out of my smile, though I didn’t let it drop. It wasn’t a nickname I liked, for a number of reasons, but I could hardly pretend I didn’t remember. It was largely because of that nickname that I’d spent two arm-wrecking months teaching myself to blow-dry my coppery frizz into submission. I could do a salon-perfect finish in under fifteen minutes now.
Miss Thorne went on, “So what are you up to now? Is there a lucky chap? Or are you still working?”
“I’m focusing on my career at the moment.” I smiled, so my voice would sound cheerful, though I didn’t feel it. “It keeps me very busy.” There was no way I was going to tell Miss Thorne that not only was I conducting a one-woman survey into the very good reasons why the remaining single men of Edinburgh were still single, I was also using my famous math degree to work out sale discounts on diamanté sandals.
She carried on staring at me, which was the polite way of saying “and?” My mouth started moving on its own, under the force of her gaze. “I work in brand positioning and market analysis,” I stammered, crossing my fingers and thinking of the January sales plan I’d just drawn up for Fiona.
Miss Thorne’s bright eyes glittered, and she tilted her head to one side, watching my face. “How marvelous! Who are you working with? Is it one of those big companies I might have seen on the news?”
“I don’t think so…” I flushed even more. That’s the worst thing about having skin the color of milk: no fake tan, no sunbathing, and absolutely no blushing. “It’s a shoestring operation.”
I was saved from having to think up further shoe-related semi-fibs by a slender forty-something woman in a pink bouclé suit, who sailed up behind us and touched Miss Thorne on the arm. “Miss Thorne? Julia Palmer? From the Somerset Palmers? So sorry to hear about—”
“Piggy Palmer!” cried Miss Thorne, turning away from me as if I’d never been there. “Look at you, my dear!”
Piggy—who must have been piggy a very long time ago from the state of her toned calves—flinched, then gamely reengaged her warm smile.
I took the opportunity to slide away, scanning the room for any sign of Nell Howard, but she’d vanished into the sea of silk dresses and little Chanel jackets. My brain was buzzing with questions I desperately wanted to ask her. It might just be old gossip to Nell, but to me, it was the first direct connection to the flesh-and-blood woman who’d dumped me here.
Had there been one redheaded girl she might remember?
And what sort of things had gone on, exactly, with these reckless rich boys?
Had Hector Phillimore had a particular girlfriend?
Did she recognize my little bee necklace, the one I was wearing right now and never took off?
I nudged my way into the throng, conscious that my stomach was making most inelegant noises. I hadn’t had anything to eat since lunch the previous day, which was highly irregular, since Getting A Good Breakfast was something Kathleen had drilled into me from an early age. “The bigger the day, the bigger the breakfast,” she’d insist, shoveling three different types of egg onto my plate. I’d skipped breakfast with her this morning for that very reason—I was far too tense to eat, much less deal with roaring indigestion.
Now, though, I was starting to feel decidedly peckish, and I headed toward the sandwiches. If I knew Franny, I thought, she’d have left specific instructions about the catering: no crusts, plenty of tiny cakes, and cloth napkins all round.
The postmemorial spread was laid on a long table beneath the first Lady Phillimore’s oil portrait, and I began helping myself to the cucumber sandwiches and scones. I was disappointed to see that the plates were already looking rather picked through, with telltale spaces between the parsley sprigs. Out of habit, born from Kathleen’s catering tips, I began shuffling the remaining egg-and-cress sandwiches together so that they’d look nicer, when suddenly the silver sandwich platter slid backward out of my reach and I heard an audible tut.
I looked up in surprise. A dark-haired man in a black suit and tie that seemed to be from a very, very minor public school, going by the clashing colors, was standing behind the table, holding the other end of the platter.
“Two,” he said, nodding at my plate. “Two sandwiches per person. And one scone half. Jam or cream?”
“Excuse me?” I said, in surprise.
“Two sandwiches,” he repeated. “You’ve got two there.” I didn’t recognize him. Apart from Lord Phillimore, he was the only man in the sea of estrogen and cashmere, which would have explained his nervous manner—but his brown eyes were darting back and forth as if something was just about to go wrong but he didn’t know where.
“Are the sandwiches rationed?” I said in a joking tone and tugged my end of the platter, which—I couldn’t believe it!—he refused to let go of. I tugged again, more meaningfully. “What if I don’t like egg and cress?”
“There are enough sandwiches to go round,” he said, “as long as people aren’t greedy. This is meant to be a quick buffet, not afternoon tea at the Ritz.”
I put my hand to my mouth in shock, and he took advantage of my confusion to seize control of the platter. Triumphantly, he pushed his wire-rimmed glasses up his long nose with one finger. I made a determined grab for another sandwich, but he was too quick and moved the platter, just as a woman approached from my right; he made it look as if he wasn’t actually snatching the platter away from me but offering it to her.
“How rude!” I gasped.
She looked at me before accepting the two (curling) egg-and-cress quarters and hurried off, casting glances over her shoulder as she went.
Did I imagine that? I wondered, bewildered. Did I really just fight over the sandwiches with a caterer?
Three
When opening a champagne bottle, twist the bottle with one hand while gripping the cork firmly with the other for best control.
“Have you had a cup of tea?” he asked politely.
“One—so far.” I glared at him. “Is that also lim
ited?”
“No, there’s plenty of tea,” he said, then paused. “If you could just stick to one glass of wine, though. And keep your glass to save on washing up, if you don’t mind.”
What sort of firm was this? I put my plate down and sized him up. He seemed quite posh, but then, most caterers I’d met in my attempts to cater launches for Fiona were posh bankers’ wives doing it as a hobby—maybe this was his post-Crunch career. It would explain the obsession with sandwich equity.
“I don’t know what Miss Thorne’s instructions were about catering,” I began in a friendly voice, “but I’m sure she wouldn’t want Lady Frances to be remembered as the woman who made her guests share one scone between two at her memorial tea—”
I felt a tray in the small of my back.
“Oops, sorry!” said a loud London accent. “Mark, I’ve run out. I kept moving fast, like you said, but the big one in the hat that looks like a dead seagull took all the salmon ones, said she had a dairy allergy, so what could I do? I tried to move on, but she got her mate to block me while she cleaned out the scones. This lot are like piranhas, I’m telling you. So much for posh women’s eating disorders!”
I turned round. There was a short girl with a pixie crop standing about ten centimeters away from me with another platter, containing only crumbs and parsley. “Are you after more grub?” she inquired with a disarming beam. “Only, we’ve run out of bread, and there’s no petty cash. We did the whole thing for sixty quid, mind you. But shh!” She held a finger up to her lips. “No one will notice if we just keep moving the plates round!”
“Sixty quid?” I repeated. “That’s all they paid you to cater the whole tea?”
The man looked horrified, then furious. “For God’s sake, Paulette. Is there any point telling you to keep things like that to yourself?”
But I was rummaging in my bag for my purse. I couldn’t stand it any longer. If Kathleen heard paid catering professionals carrying on like this, she’d explode right out of her corselette, memorial or no memorial, and that would spoil everything. “Here…” I handed over the forty pounds I’d earmarked for dinner with Liv that evening. “There’s a grocery shop round the corner—get the fanciest, smallest cupcakes they have, and some wine, and run back here as soon as you can.”
“There’s really no need for guests to pay for food,” the man—Mark?—began, but I stopped him.
“I’m not a guest, I’m Lady Phillimore’s daughter. I don’t want anyone being told they can’t have a third sandwich. It’s not the sort of hostess she was.”
As I said it, the pair of them exchanged horrified glances, and Paulette slapped her head with her palm. Mark closed his eyes, squeezed his nose, then opened them again. He looked as if he’d hoped the room would have vanished in between.
“I’ll go, shall I?” asked Paulette.
“Yes,” I said at the same time as he did, and she grabbed my money and walked off.
“I can explain—” he began, but I shook my head. It wasn’t my job to start yelling at the caterers, but honestly—sixty pounds? What sort of budget was that? And what sort of caterers did you get for sixty quid anyway?
“Please don’t,” I said, feeling desperately sorry for Lord P. I knew I should have come down and done more. “Just make sure the sandwiches are circulating before the wine runs out. No crusts, filling up to the edge, please. And if you could refresh the tea, that would be great.”
I turned to go, but he coughed, embarrassed.
“I don’t suppose…” he began, then gestured at the plates. “You could give me a hand?”
“What?” Now I’d heard everything. “Are sandwiches not lesson one at catering college?”
I think he tried a smile, but it came out more like a grimace. “Probably. Only I’m not a caterer, I’m the bursar. And my lovely assistant there is no waitress, as you can tell. Paulette’s the headmistress’s assistant.” He ran a despairing hand through his thick brown hair. “Before you ask, yes, her telephone manner is just as discreet as her waitressing. She’s more of a before than after, when it comes to the Academy’s professional services.”
“Oh,” I said, surprised and a bit embarrassed at the way I’d glared at him. Now that I looked at him properly, I realized he was younger than I’d thought, around my age, with nice brown eyes and the sort of honest, outdoorsy face you tend to see on porridge boxes. A bit rugged, and slightly cross, but honest. “Lord Phillimore didn’t get this properly catered?”
“There was some confusion, because Miss Thorne wanted to hire some old girl who plays at…who has a catering firm, but it seems there was a communication breakdown.” Mr. Bursar-Caterer was clearly trying not to be rude from the way his thick eyebrows kept leaping up and down behind his glasses, but he obviously hadn’t had a Phillimore training in keeping his face straight while telling social fibs. “I found out this morning that nothing had been done, so I stepped in rather than add to Lord Phillimore’s concerns on a day like this. There was only me and Paulette, and we didn’t have long, while everyone was at the service—”
“Hence the rationing,” I said, beginning to warm to him. “I see now. Sorry.”
“Well, I prefer to call it portion control.” He pushed the glasses back up his nose and gazed in confusion at the swarm of guests. His bewilderment reminded me of Lord P’s. “For a bunch of women who aren’t meant to eat, they’ve gone through this in no time. I thought we’d done more than enough.”
“Always make half as much again. First rule of throwing a party. Do they still teach the Party Planning course? Calculations for sandwiches per head, according to time of year, mean age of guests, whether people would abandon crab paste sandwiches after one bite, et cetera. Proper mathematical equations and everything.”
“Math? Surely not,” he said drily. “That sounds almost useful.”
I couldn’t really disagree—even at the time I’d thought it was a little bit obvious to count your guests before “instructing your cook”—but at the same time I couldn’t stop myself from leaping to the Academy’s defense.
“Well, it would have been useful today, wouldn’t it? I’m sure Miss Thorne would have told you, if you’d asked,” I said.
Even as I spoke, his gaze was following a guest toward the drinks table, and when she picked up two glasses, he took an involuntary step forward.
“Whoa, there!” I grabbed his arm to stop him. “She might be taking one for a friend. Or she might be trying to escape from a party bore and is pulling the ‘I’m just on my way to give this to someone!’ trick. I learned that here.” I paused and let go of his suit sleeve. “And that is actually quite useful.”
He turned back to me, and the stern expression had softened into something nearing amusement, but not quite.
“You’re funny,” he said. “I think.”
“We’ve missed our proper introductions,” I said by way of distraction, seeing a gaggle of guests head toward the wine. “Let’s do it now, before it gets embarrassing. I’m Betsy.” I extended a hand to shake, and added, encouraged by his cautious smile, “I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you. I haven’t been back here for a good while. The last bursar I remember used to wear terrible checked sports jackets and called every woman under fifty ‘Popsy.’ Colonel Montgomery? Did you meet him?”
“In passing.” His expression stiffened. “My father.”
“Oh.” I wilted. And I’d been doing so well. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be. My mother’s not keen on sports jackets much either. I’m Mark—Mark Montgomery, obviously,” he said, and as he shot out his hand, I saw silver cuff links and a crisp white cuff. “I won’t call you ‘Popsy.’ I’m a bit more enlightened, I like to think. I’m not a big believer in this sort of place, to be perfectly honest with you, but I have a good deal of time for Lord Phillimore. I drop in once a month, keep the books ticking over.”
Mark Montgomery scored highly on the handshake test, having both a firm grip and warm but dry hands.
I fell back on busy-ness to cover my embarrassment and focused on the depleted sandwiches. “Good, well, now we’ve got that sorted out, shall we do something about the food situation?” I said, wishing I didn’t sound like such a bossy boots but not being able to help myself. “I know where I can find some bread before—was it Paulette?—comes back. My godmothers live in the mews cottage—they’ve got the sort of pantry that could survive a nuclear winter.” I looked up at him hopefully. “I’m sure you’re much more expert with a bread knife that you’re letting on. If that doesn’t sound wrong?”
Mark had relaxed enough to manage a half-smile at that, but he still looked uptight around the forehead.
“Wouldn’t it make more sense for me to stay here and supervise the distribution of what’s left? It needs a firm hand.”
I bit my tongue. That was exactly what I didn’t want. Besides, the sooner this was done, the sooner I could get out there and find Nell Howard again and see what else she could tell me.
“Well, a helper makes half a job?” Mark opened his mouth to argue, so I quickly tried a different tack. “Or you could stay here and circulate with the sandwiches? And make conversation with the old girls?”
I’d hit a nerve. He blinked rapidly, revealing surprisingly long lashes behind his bookish specs, and generally looked as if I’d just suggested he cover himself in mustard and throw himself to the lions.
“Egg and cress, or cheese?” he asked, and handed me the empty platter.
I found Kathleen and Nancy in a corner surrounded by adoring old girls, all of whom were insisting they didn’t look a day older than sixty, which they didn’t, despite being well into their eighties.
The pair of them had taken the reverse approach to aging; instead of desperately clinging to thirty-two while the tides of time swept them into their forties, they’d plumped for looking fifty-three from the age of thirty and had stuck there. In Kathleen’s case, regular applications of Nice ’n Easy kept her hair a startling jet-black and regular partaking of brown ale and Lancashire stew kept her skin unlined, whereas Nancy’s birdlike nerves maintained her tiny pepper-grinder frame. They looked the same to me now as they had throughout my childhood, and in turn, they liked to think I was still twelve.