The choice was a pair of sand-coloured cord trousers, a similarly coloured roll-necked jumper and Lucy had completed the ensemble with a Burberry scarf of her own and a tan jacket, also hers, which fashionably came to mid-thigh. In terms of combating winter cold, it wasn’t very practical but it did look very fetching. Besides, Tessa didn’t have the energy to complain. Her energy was all being used up by the tide of emotions running amok inside her. There was just none left to distribute anywhere else.
They arrived at the Diaz house promptly at eleven, a minor miracle considering Lucy never arrived anywhere on time.
An intimate family gathering was Tessa’s greatest fear, and her fear was misplaced because they arrived to find a throng of guests. Family members, of which there were many, mixed alongside old family friends and various members of their family. And, of course, Anna was there, ready to usher them in.
In one corner of the enormous room stood the most impressive Christmas tree Tessa had ever seen. It stretched from floor to ceiling and glittered with tiny white lights and what looked like an entire Harrods department’s worth of stunning baubles, all in various shades of cream and ivory.
And lounging by the tree in a group was Curtis, dressed in his usual unique way. Faded jeans and a jumper with an off-puttingly elaborate pattern of reindeer. He saw her as soon as she walked through the door and Tessa felt that electric feeling of primitive awareness, as though her body had suddenly become alive. She smiled stiffly and then turned her attention back to Anna, asking her a thousand questions about her work at school and how she was getting on, whether her brief stint at filing was proving useful.
‘Very!’ Anna said, grinning. ‘Now I just file away anything I don’t like the look of, straight into the bin by my dressing table.’
‘Well, something useful did come out of your working stint,’ Tessa said teasingly, ‘aside from that valuable filing art. Look at you! Very trendy. I recognise the top. Isn’t that the one we got in that little boutique by the shoe shop?’
‘Yes. The one Dad thought was a little too tight and a little too colourful and a little too…unwearable for his precious daughter!’ Anna laughed. ‘Mr Pot decides to call Miss Kettle black. I mean, look at him…’ Her voice was soft with affection. ‘He’s the only one who would dare come to a do like this dressed in a pair of his oldest jeans and that jumper! A present from one of his ex-girlfriends, apparently.’#p#分页标题#e#
Tessa thought that she would rather not look at him, but she did anyway. The magnetic pull of his personality from across the room was just too much to bear. And besides, she and Anna were now being descended upon by various other people, Curtis’s brother, Mark, his wife, and a delicate, elderly lady who seemed to be a godmother to one of the boys. Tessa smiled and went onto autopilot when they asked her about her foot, which was in an endearing bedroom slipper, but her eyes strayed over to Curtis. Now, the little group that had surrounded him had disbanded. In their place was an animated Lucy, cheeks flushed, glass of champagne jiggling precariously as she talked and gesticulated. Like someone who had known him for years instead of the perfect stranger that she was. The portfolio that she had lugged over was nowhere in evidence and Tessa assumed that it had been dumped somewhere, that it had been no more than a plausible excuse for Lucy’s real reason for wanting to make it over here.
Jovial conversation continued to swim around her as she looked furtively at the chatting couple by the Christmas tree. Now Lucy must have said something about the tree, because she leant forward and gently touched one of the baubles, twirling it in her fingers.
She was dressed perfectly for the occasion. A deep burgundy skirt reaching to mid-calf and a small, long-sleeved top in a matching colour with a neckline designed to discreetly attract attention to what God had so generously given her up top. She had pinned up her long fair hair in an untidy pony-tail and a few artful strands danced around her cheeks as she leant forward to admire the bauble on the tree.
‘Great tree,’ Tessa said, looking away. ‘Must have taken for ever to decorate.’ She took time out to look at Curtis’s brother, who was clearly older and far more traditional than his younger sibling. He was also fairer, without the dramatic looks that Curtis possessed. An affable, charming man married to an elegant woman with two very good-looking children, both under the age of five. Tessa drank her first glass of champagne, decided that it was doing wonders for her spirits and accepted another from the tray that was being passed around by a young girl in uniform.