The Italian Matchmaker(4)

Peggy smoothed her hands down her dress. ‘I haven’t worn this in years,’ she replied proudly. ‘Do you think I’m mutton dressed as lamb?’ Freya ran her eyes up and down the sixty-eight-year-old widow’s fulsome body and decided not to tell the truth. After all, Peggy had dressed up for her stepfather’s benefit and he’d be highly amused. She went over the top every time he came to visit.

‘I think you look lovely,’ she said. Peggy’s plump cheeks managed a weak blush.

The house party assembled in the drawing-room and Miles opened a bottle of champagne. The fire was lit, filling the room with the sweet scent of apple wood. Outside, the drizzle had turned to rain that rattled against the window panes like small stones. Luca sat on the sofa with Annabel. He could smell her perfume, sweet and overpowering. She leaned against him so that their shoulders touched. ‘If you had to fuck anyone in this room or die, who would it be?’ she asked, her face as innocent as an angel’s. ‘Present company excluded,’ she added hastily. ‘That way you don’t have to be polite.’ He gazed down at her with sleepy eyes and, although he would have chosen Freya, beyond any shadow of doubt, the thought of Annabel after dessert was a tempting one.

‘Present company included,’ he emphasised. ‘It would have to be you.’

At that moment the tall, handsome figure of Fitzroy Davenport filled the doorway. ‘Any left for us?’ he asked, nodding at the champagne bottle Miles had just emptied.

‘Fitz!’ Freya exclaimed, hurrying across the room to greet her stepfather. ‘Where’s Mum?’

‘Here, darling, not far behind.’ Her mother squeezed past her husband. Rosemary Davenport was slim and vivacious with highlighted blonde hair cut to her shoulders and pale grey eyes like her daughter’s. She was proud of looking much younger than her sixty-six years and practised Pilates three times a week with a group of PLUs, the abbreviation Rosemary and her friends used for People Like Us. She was efficient and sociable and the first to admit that she was a little pushy: ‘If I hadn’t been pushy I would never have got Fitz up the aisle. A man like Fitz needs a pushy woman. Pushy women get things done.’

She glanced at her husband. He was blessed with enduring youth. His hair was still sandy with only the slightest hint of grey about the temples and he was more handsome now than when she had met him. For a man twice divorced he had been surprisingly acquiescent about giving marriage another go. She wasn’t the type of woman to let a good man like Fitz slip through her fingers. She might not be the beauty that some of his ex-girlfriends and wives had been but, in spite of Freya and her three half siblings, Rosemary was in pretty good shape. If she let herself go, she’d look like his mother.

‘For you, Fitz, I’ll open another bottle,’ Miles announced, working his thumbs under the cork.

‘I’ve left Bendico and Digger in the car,’ said Fitz, referring to his two yellow Labradors. ‘Might take them out this afternoon. You can show me that coppicing you’ve been doing.’

‘I’ll need to work off Heather’s lunch.’

‘I should go and say hello. How is the eccentric Peggy Blight?’

‘A fright. Don’t let her put you off your lunch.’ The two men laughed. Miles popped the cork and poured the bubbling Moët & Chandon into a tall flute.

‘If I had to fuck anyone in the room?’ Annabel mused, looking around. ‘Present company definitely excluded, it would have to be Freya’s delicious stepfather. I like tall men. He’s a good example of a man who just gets better and better. He must be late sixties, but he has the appearance of a much younger man. Yes, I think there’s a lot of life in that old dog!’

‘And present company included?’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ she teased. ‘Miles has already been road tested and proved very proficient indeed. Does a girl go for the dead cert or a man who looks like he has what it takes, but might be a terrible disappointment?’

‘I can assure you, you won’t be disappointed,’ he said, grinning at her confidently.

‘I’ll think about it over lunch.’

‘Of course, I have the advantage. Miles isn’t available.’

‘Nor is he handsome. That’s an advantage too – but also a disadvantage.’

‘Why?’

‘Because handsome men prize themselves very highly, usually get what they want and therefore treat women badly. They have no respect for what doesn’t challenge them.’ She stood up as Peggy appeared in the doorway to announce that lunch was ready. Everyone stared in astonishment at the red ensemble, except for Fitz who approached her with a beaming smile.