Читать книгу Convenient Engagements: Fiance Wanted Fast! / The Blind-Date Proposal / A Whirlwind Engagement - Jessica Hart - Страница 7

PHOEBE had been pouring boiling water into a teapot, and now got out a couple of mugs. ‘Kate and Bella will be back later,’ she said. ‘Would you like some tea?’

‘Great,’ he said with the suggestion of a smile. ‘Now I know I’m back in England!’

‘How long have you been away?’

Gib thought a bit. ‘Nearly eighteen years now.’

‘That’s a long time,’ said Phoebe, trying to calculate how old that made him. It was difficult to tell just by looking at him. He had the solidity of an older man, and there were definite creases around the edges of his eyes. He had to be in his late thirties at least, but he had a disconcerting mixture of dynamism and lazy good humour that seemed to belong to someone much younger.

She wished Kate or Bella would come home. Something about him made her feel tongue-tied and awkward and—worse—boring. It was a feeling that reminded her all too painfully of that terrible time when she had wept as she had asked Ben ‘why?’, and he had told her that Lisa was sweet and feminine and fun.

Not like her.

Gib was obviously fun, too.

‘What do you do?’ she asked stiltedly. Too bad if he thought it was a boring question. She was just being polite. That was what boring people did.

Gib didn’t roll his eyes at the banality of her conversation, but he wasn’t very forthcoming either. ‘Oh, this and that,’ he said vaguely as he picked up his mug.

Silence didn’t seem to bother him at all. Phoebe stirred her tea unnecessarily and sought for something else to say. ‘Are you going to be working while you’re here?’ she managed eventually.

‘I’m looking into setting up a couple of projects.’

It all sounded a bit vague to Phoebe, but if he wanted her to think he had a flourishing business with projects on the go, let him. She knew how sensitive men were about their success or lack of it, and she wasn’t that interested anyway.

Gib was looking around him with interest, apparently unconcerned by her awkward attempts to make conversation. Phoebe couldn’t get over how blue his eyes were, and she studied him surreptitiously, wondering if he wore contact lenses to make them that colour, only to flush with annoyance when he caught her looking at him and smiled.

Phoebe jerked her gaze away. He obviously thought she couldn’t keep her eyes off him. How smug could you get? Really, he was just like Seb.

Typical, she thought glumly. The one attractive man to swim into her orbit since Ben, and he turned out to rub her up the wrong way right from the start. Bella and Kate were always urging her to find someone new to help her get over Ben, and she knew that she ought to make more of an effort, but a man like Gib—always supposing he was available—was the last thing she needed. She wanted someone kind and reliable, someone she could trust, not someone who made her feel twitchy and inadequate just by sitting there, no matter how attractive he was.

‘How do you know Josh?’ she asked, when he made no effort to break the silence. ‘You don’t seem at all like him.’

‘Don’t I?’ Gib looked amused. ‘That depends how you think of Josh, I guess.’

‘Josh is wonderful,’ said Phoebe firmly. ‘He’s mainly Bella’s friend, of course, but Kate and I love him. He seems so quiet, but he’s one of the nicest people I know. He never shows off or boasts about how good he is at what he does. He’s just steady and reliable and safe. Anything could happen, and you could always rely on Josh to know what to do.’

It was funny, she thought irrelevantly. Josh was just the kind of man she needed, but it had never crossed her mind to think of him as anything other than Bella’s friend.

‘Yes, he’s very competent,’ agreed Gib, reflecting wryly that he clearly hadn’t made much of an impression so far. He wondered how Phoebe had decided that he was not quiet, or nice, or reliable like good old Josh. All he had done was admire her kitchen and accept a cup of tea.

‘I met Josh in Ecuador,’ he went on, thinking that this was not the time to challenge her for being unreasonable. ‘He was leading an expedition up Mount Chimburazo, and I went along.’

She stared at him in surprise. ‘You’re a mountaineer?’

Gib smiled and shook his head, his blue, blue eyes looking directly into Phoebe’s. ‘No, I just like a challenge,’ he said.

Trapped by the intense blue gaze, Phoebe felt a wave of heat wash through her, and she swallowed, jerking her eyes away with an effort.

There was something disconcerting about him, she thought with an edge of desperation. His presence seemed to fill the room, sucking in all the air until it was hard for her to breathe. His eyes were too bright, his teeth too white, and he was too vibrant, too unsettling, too everything.

Phoebe felt unbalanced, a bit dizzy, and, desperate for something to break the suddenly jarring atmosphere, she pushed her papers out of the way.

‘Sorry about all this mess. I was just trying to do some work before the others got home.’

Gib twisted his head on one side to get a glimpse of the papers. ‘What is that you do?’

‘I’m a production assistant for a company that makes programmes for television,’ said Phoebe, unable to keep the pride from her voice.

Of course, being little more than a dogsbody at her age wasn’t that much to be proud about, but Phoebe had wanted to get into television production for as long as she could remember, and she was determined to make a success of it. Dogsbody was just the first step on the ladder, she reminded herself frequently. It was unfortunate that had ended up with a prima donna of the first order as her immediate boss, but Purple Parrot Productions was her big break, and it was worth putting up with Celia for that.

‘We make documentaries mostly,’ she told Gib.

‘What are you working on at the moment?’ he asked politely.

You never show any interest in my job, Mallory had complained. You have no idea how to talk to a woman as a person in her own right. You only ever think about one thing.

Which was absolute rubbish, of course, thought Gib. He was perfectly capable of talking to a woman seriously. Look at him now, asking Phoebe about her job and listening to her answer and not even thinking about the curve of her mouth or the silky sheen of her hair as she pushed it impatiently behind her ear.

Suddenly realising that he had lost track of what she was saying, Gib tuned in again to hear something about banking.

‘You’re making a programme about a bank?’

‘I thought it was a pretty dull idea too,’ said Phoebe, unsurprised by his reaction, ‘but actually, it’s more interesting than you’d expect. This isn’t an ordinary bank. It was set up by some guy who made a fortune on the currency markets then took everyone by surprise by setting up an ethical bank.’

Gib put down his mug. ‘What?’

‘I know, it sounds like a contradiction in terms, doesn’t it?’ Phoebe had relaxed a bit in talking about her job. ‘I think it just means that it only invests in community-based projects in developing countries. I’ve done some research on the internet, and it sounds really good. It should make an interesting programme.’

‘Is that right?’ said Gib in an odd voice.

‘The only trouble is that my boss is insisting that the focus of the programme should be on the guy who set it all up.’

‘Really? Who’s that?’

‘J.G. Grieve,’ she told him. ‘Everyone refers to him as JGG, and he’s famous for not giving interviews to the media.’ Picking up a printout from a website, she studied it ruefully. ‘I’ve tried all these contact numbers, but I always get the same message: the bank is happy to support any publicity about the projects, but not about JGG himself.’

‘So what else do you know about this guy?’

Preoccupied with her own problems, she failed to notice the oddly grim look around Gib’s mouth. ‘Not much,’ she said. ‘Just that he’s very rich.’

‘He’s not that interesting then, is he?’

‘That’s what I think,’ she agreed, ‘but Celia—my boss—is insistent that I’ve got to arrange an interview somehow. Working on this programme is my big break, so I’ve got to track him down somehow. I’m just not quite sure how I’m going to go about it,’ she confessed.

Gib looked at her across the table and suddenly his expression relaxed and his mouth quirked. ‘Well, I’ve been in the States for a while,’ he said. ‘I know some people. Maybe I could ask around and see if anyone knows anything else about him?’

Phoebe looked back doubtfully. She couldn’t imagine that someone like Gib would have the kind of contacts she needed, but she supposed it was kind of him to offer.

‘Well, thanks,’ she said awkwardly, ‘but I’m sure I’ll get through to someone in the bank eventually.’

Gib grinned at her as he picked up his mug once more. ‘Suit yourself,’ he said.

There was a silence. Phoebe sipped her tea and tried not to feel rattled by the way he was sitting at her table, looking as if he had always sat there. His presence filled the kitchen, which seemed to have shrunk around them alarmingly.

‘I gather from Josh that you’re my landlady,’ said Gib after a while. ‘Thanks for letting me stay.’

When he smiled his eyes looked bluer than ever. Phoebe was more than ever convinced that they couldn’t possibly be real. She looked away from them with an effort.

‘That’s all right,’ she muttered.

‘Are there any rules I should know about?’

Phoebe considered the question. ‘Not really,’ she said at last, ‘but don’t, whatever you do, tell Kate about any stray animal you’ve noticed unless you want to find it sleeping on your bed.’

‘Is that it?’

‘It’s not a good idea to talk to me before I’ve had a cup of coffee in the morning, but that’s advice rather than a rule,’ she admitted. ‘Kate and Bella don’t take any notice of it.’

‘Well, that seems easy enough,’ said Gib. ‘I ought to be able to manage that.’

He produced another of those unnervingly attractive smiles that seemed to linger in the air long after he had stopped, and Phoebe found herself getting to her feet abruptly. ‘Shall I show you to your room?’

‘It’s not very big, I’m afraid,’ she told him, opening a door off the upstairs landing.

‘Not very big’ was something of an understatement, reflected Gib, squeezing into the room behind Phoebe. It was not very big in the way the Sahara was not very wet, or the South Pole was not very hot.

An average cupboard might have been a better description, or possibly a large box. It had a four-foot bed, a built-in wardrobe, and a couple of shelves fixed to the wall. With the two of them standing on the only available floor space, there was absolutely no room for anything else.

‘Out of interest, how long did your last room-mate live here?’ asked Gib dryly.

‘About a year. She was the last to move in, so she got the smallest room.’

Gib was glad to hear it. He would hate to think that anyone was sleeping in anything smaller!

‘Caro didn’t care,’ said Phoebe a little defensively She could tell from his expression that he was less than overwhelmed with the room. ‘She spent most of the time at her boyfriend’s flat. They’ve just got married, which is why we’re looking for someone to take her place.

‘Obviously the rent is lower because you wouldn’t have so much space,’ she went on stiffly, ‘but of course you don’t have to take the room if it’s too small.’

‘No, no, it’s fine,’ Gib reassured her, perceiving that he had got off on the wrong foot. ‘I haven’t got much stuff. I travel light.’

Phoebe could believe it. He didn’t look like the kind of man who bothered with baggage in any shape or form.

Part of her envied people like Gib who drifted carelessly through life avoiding commitment and responsibility and leaving others to clear up the broken hearts and disappointment they inevitably left in their wake, but another part was intimidated and more than a little irritated by them too.

‘Yes, well, it’s not as if you’re staying for ever, is it?’ she said briskly, wishing that Gib would move. The room was small enough at the best of times without him standing there vibrating with energy.

Short of climbing on the bed, which risked looking suggestive, let alone ridiculous, there was no way she could get past him without pressing intimately against him. The thought made Phoebe tense and shiver at the same time.

It was a sinful waste from one point of view, because it was a very long time since she had been this close to an attractive man, but there was something about the way he seemed constantly on the verge of exploding into action that made Phoebe nervous and edgy. Touching him, however inadvertently, seemed an action that would be downright rash.

She was just going to have wait until he moved.

Concentrating on breathing shallowly, she stood as close to the window as she could while Gib looked round. Given the size of the room, that didn’t take long, but it felt like hours before he went back out onto the landing.

‘Can I see the rest of the house?’ he asked, and Phoebe was so relieved to be able to breathe properly again that she gave him a guided tour.

‘It’s a nice house,’ said Gib as they went back downstairs. ‘How long have you lived here?’

‘A couple of years. I bought it with my fiancé, as he was then.’ Phoebe was quite proud of the coolness in her voice. ‘We lived here together for a year, and then Ben decided to move back to Bristol with someone he’d met, so I took over the mortgage.’

Gib didn’t need to know about the anguish and the heartache and the long, long months of misery she had endured since Ben had left.

‘I couldn’t afford to live here on my own, so I had to take in lodgers, and it was just lucky that Kate was looking for somewhere at the same time. We were students together, and she knew Bella from school. Caro was a friend of Bella’s, so it all worked out perfectly until Caro decided to get married. We’re not sure where we’re going to find anyone who fits in as well as she did,’ she confessed as they went back into the kitchen.

‘Can’t you advertise?’

‘We could, and that’s probably what I’ll end up doing, but it’s hard to know what to put when you’re really looking for someone who’ll be a friend and not just a tenant.’

Mindful of his bet with Josh, Gib pricked up his ears at the key word. ‘How do you know if someone is a friend?’ he asked casually.

‘That’s just it, you don’t,’ said Phoebe. ‘You can’t tell who’s going to be a good friend and who isn’t. It’s just something that clicks between you.’

Absently, she began piling her papers together to clear the table a bit, while she thought about Gib’s question. ‘I suppose a friend is someone who’s easy to talk to, who laughs at the same things. Someone who’s just going to fit in and be comfortable sitting around and talking all evening without wanting to organise us or worrying about how long it is since anyone got the hoover out.’

It was a bit vague, but Gib reckoned he could do all of that.

‘Perhaps you should put that in your advert,’ he suggested.

‘I don’t know that it would be much help. You could get someone who said they were able to do all those things, but you still might not get on. It’s a funny thing, friendship,’ Phoebe mused. ‘I don’t think you can ever pin down the magic ingredient which makes you really like some people and not others.’

So much for picking up pointers from Phoebe! Gib sighed to himself. She was clearly not including him in her category of those with that special magic ingredient that would make him a friend!

Not yet, anyway.

Phoebe might be more of a challenge than he had anticipated, but challenges were there to be met. Gib wasn’t giving up yet. He had a bet to win!

‘How are you getting on with Gib?’

Josh and Phoebe were sitting on the sofa, while at the other end of the kitchen Bella and Kate busied themselves with the welcoming supper they had planned for Gib. Bella had told him that they were treating his welcome like the Queen’s birthdays, so that he not only had the real one when he arrived, but the official dinner to mark the occasion a day later.

No effort was being spared. The table had been ruthlessly cleared of its clutter and ransacking the cupboards had revealed no less than four plates, in varying states of repair but with recognisably the same pattern.

‘One of us can have the plate with the bunnies running round the edge,’ said Bella breezily. ‘We’ll need to use one of the folding chairs from the garden, too.’

Now she and Kate were fussing over some elaborate starter, while Gib opened some wine and Phoebe and Josh, assigned to washing-up duty, had retired to a safe distance.

Phoebe looked over at Gib who was manipulating the corkscrew with practised ease. His head was bent and the lights gleaming on his hair made it look fairer than usual.

‘Kate and Bella are completely smitten,’ she told Josh.

‘But not you?’

Phoebe looked away from Gib. ‘I certainly wouldn’t describe myself as smitten with him,’ she said.

‘Why, what’s he done?’

That was the thing. Gib hadn’t done anything. She couldn’t even hold the taxi fare incident against him. He had repaid her in full without prompting that morning.

How could she explain to Josh how unsettling Gib was? He had only been in the house a day, but he was already firm friends with Bella and Kate, and lounged around the kitchen as if he had lived there for ever. Phoebe ought to have been relieved that he was fitting in so well, but instead she found herself edging nervously around him, as if afraid he was about to explode into action at any second.

‘He’s not very restful, is he?’ she said to Josh, and he laughed.

‘You just have to get used to him.’

Phoebe couldn’t imagine ever getting used to Gib. Every time he came into the room she would catch her breath as if startled by the blueness of his eyes and the lazy good humour of his smile. Nobody had the right to be that attractive and that relaxed the whole time!

She wished she could be like Kate and Bella, and treat him like just another friend, but somehow she couldn’t. You weren’t aware of friends the way she was always aware of Gib.

It made Phoebe uneasy. There was nothing wrong with physical attraction, but it felt all wrong at the moment. She wasn’t ready for another relationship, whatever her friends said. Ben had meant too much to her for her to get over him that easily. She might never get over him and, if she did, it certainly wasn’t going to be with someone like Gib. He wasn’t her type at all.

So why couldn’t she get used to him as Josh suggested?

‘I’ll try,’ she said.

Across the kitchen, Gib eased the cork out of the bottle with a satisfying pop and watched Phoebe talking to Josh. For the first time, he wondered if there might be something in this friendship thing. He had found himself envying Josh’s uncomplicated friendship with the three girls, who were all patently delighted to see him. Even Phoebe’s face had lit up, and she had given him an unselfconscious hug.

Gib sensed that she wasn’t someone who hugged indiscriminately. It would be a real sign of acceptance if Phoebe hugged you, he thought. He could imagine with unnerving clarity what it would be like to feel her slender body in his arms, her silky hair against his cheek. He bet she smelt wonderful. He had noticed a faint scent lingering in the air after she had passed once or twice.

All right, every time.

Hugging Phoebe would be his goal, Gib decided. Just in a friendly way, of course, he added hastily to himself. It would be just like hugging Kate and Bella, both of whom had thrown their arms around him when they first met him.

They were both such warm, friendly open girls that it was impossible not to be friends with them. Gib already knew about Kate’s obsession with someone referred to by Bella and Phoebe as Slimy Seb, and he had heard so much about Bella from Josh that she felt completely familiar.

But Phoebe … Phoebe was different. She was much more guarded and inclined to be prickly. Gib knew that he would have to work hard to earn her friendship and the prospect of a hug, but if he did, he thought it would be worth it.

Bella’s Thai crab cakes to start were a huge success. Kate had roasted a chicken and Phoebe had been persuaded to make her trade mark strawberry torte in honour of the occasion. By the end of the meal, they were all replete and relaxed, and Gib felt as if he had been living there for ever.

‘I’ll make some coffee.’ Phoebe pushed back her chair as Gib polished off the last of the torte. Unsettling he might be, but you had to admit that there was something very appealing about a man with a good appetite.

‘How was Celia today?’ asked Bella, sitting back with the air of one anticipating a good story.

Phoebe filled the kettle under the tap. ‘Oh, the usual nightmare,’ she sighed.

‘Phoebe has the boss from hell,’ Bella leant over to fill Gib in. ‘Kate and I love hearing about her. It’s sort of therapeutic. When you realise what Phoebe’s going through with her immediate boss, it makes you realise that your own isn’t that bad.’

‘What’s she done now?’ Kate asked across Bella.

‘She’s completely obsessed with the man who runs this ethical bank we want to make a programme about. Now she’s threatening to dump me from production work altogether if I can’t fix up an interview with him!’

‘She can’t do that, can she?’

‘It’s such a small company, and so many people are desperate to work in television that she can pretty much do whatever she wants,’ said Phoebe despairingly. ‘Personally, I don’t see why we can’t just concentrate on the community projects which are the whole point of the bank, but Celia keeps banging on about the personal angle, and how this guy is the real story.

‘I’m afraid she wants to do one of those horrible, cynical hatchet jobs,’ she went on, opening and closing cupboard doors in search of the cafetière. ‘Her theory is that nobody could make that kind of money and be truly altruistic, so if this J.G. Grieve is setting up a bank, it’s because he’s getting something out of it for himself. So I not only have to arrange an interview with him, I also have to dig up any dirt I can find on him so that Celia can challenge him with it and make herself look like a fearless investigative reporter.’

‘Maybe there’s no dirt to dig up,’ said Gib lazily.

‘It’s beginning to look that way,’ Phoebe agreed. ‘All I’ve found out about him so far is that he goes climbing occasionally. It’s hardly the stuff of which award-winning documentaries are made, is it?’

She poked through the debris on the counter. ‘Where’s the coffee gone?’

‘In the fridge,’ said Bella before reverting to the problem in hand. ‘Maybe climbing is just the first clue you need to track him down,’ she suggested. ‘Mountaineering’s quite a small world, isn’t it, Josh? Someone might have come across him. These rich guys always need someone to nanny them when they do dangerous sports like that,’ she added authoritatively, as if she had years of experience of dealing with the rich and famous.

‘That’s a good point.’ Phoebe straightened from the fridge and turned back to the table. ‘You’re always running up and down mountains, Josh. Have you ever come across a J.G. Grieve?’

‘I can’t say the name means anything to me.’ Josh looked across the table at Gib. ‘What about you, Gib? You’ve done some climbing. Do you know anything about him.’

Tipping back in his chair, Gib pulled down the corners of his mouth. ‘Bankers aren’t the kind of guys I want to spend much time with,’ he said. ‘They’re usually pretty boring.’

‘Well, this guy can’t be that boring, or why would he refuse all interviews?’ Phoebe pointed out. ‘Most people in his position would do anything for publicity. The fact that he won’t even consider it does make it seem as if he’s got something to hide. Maybe Celia’s right about that.’

‘There might be lots of reasons why he doesn’t want to talk to journalists,’ objected Gib, still balanced precariously on his chair.

‘Yes, maybe he had a terrible accident that left him scarred for life,’ Kate put in. ‘His wife died in the same accident, and their only child, and probably their dog as well.’

‘Oh, no, not the dog as well!’ said Gib, much struck by the story unfolding.

Kate nodded firmly. ‘Yes, a little terrier. Called Ruffy,’ she added as an afterthought. ‘And you see that’s why he’s never been able to forgive himself. He’s shut himself away from the world ever since then, unable to face anyone.’

There was a moment’s silence, interrupted by Phoebe bringing the coffee back to the table.

‘Kate has a very rich fantasy life,’ she explained kindly to Gib. ‘You’ll get used to it.’

‘Well, she convinced me,’ he said. ‘I think you should leave the poor guy alone and stop hassling him for an interview!’

‘I wish I could,’ sighed Phoebe. ‘I’m sure that in reality he’s really dull and avoiding interviews is just a way to try and make himself interesting. I think I’ll tell Celia that I’m following leads, and hope that eventually she’ll forget him.’

She held up the cafetière. ‘Who’s for coffee?’

‘Any messages?’ Kate asked hopefully, dropping her bag onto the table. It was over a week since their welcoming dinner for Gib, and she had come home to find Phoebe and Bella draped over the armchairs and nursing a glass of wine each as they grumbled about their respective bosses.

‘No,’ said Phoebe. ‘And before you ask, yes, the phone is working! No post has been discovered under the doormat, there have been no emails or telegrams or bunches of flowers that accidentally got delivered to the wrong address six weeks ago. You’ve got to face it, Kate,’ she said more gently. ‘Seb’s not going to ring.’

‘But why is he being like this?’ wailed Kate.

‘Because he’s vile,’ said Bella firmly. ‘Phoebe’s right. Seb is never going to love anyone but himself. It suited him to string you along for a while, but he’s obviously found someone new to exploit.’

Kate slumped into the sofa with a sigh. ‘You don’t think he was knocked over by a bus and lost his memory?’

‘No.’

‘Or had to go to his grandmother’s funeral on a deserted island where all the phone lines are down and they’re cut off because of storms?’

‘What, for six weeks?’

‘Well, maybe he’s part of some top secret government programme where he’s not allowed to contact anyone and—’

‘No, Kate.’

She sighed again. ‘I know, I know, it’s probably not that. You’re right, he’s not going to call.’

Her eye fell on the cordless phone that was lying half buried under a pile of papers at the end of the sofa, and Phoebe and Bella both jerked upright as she reached for it.

‘Kate, you are not going to ring him!’

‘I’m just checking to see if anyone else called,’ she said with dignity, pressing 1471. She listened to the number on the recorded message and her mouth drooped. ‘No, it wasn’t Seb. Some Bristol number I think.’

Phoebe dropped her head back with a groan. ‘That’ll be my mother. She wants to talk to me about Ben’s wedding.’

‘You’re not really going to go to that, are you?’ asked Bella curiously.

‘I’ve got to,’ she said. ‘Ben’s family and mine are so close, it would be like his sister not being at his wedding.’

‘Still, they can’t expect you to celebrate your fiancé marrying somebody else,’ said Kate.

‘They don’t know it wasn’t a mutual decision to break up,’ Phoebe confessed. ‘They were all so happy when Ben and I got engaged, I just couldn’t bear to tell them. I love Penelope and Derek. Ben’s parents are closer than any of my own aunts and uncles. They would have been devastated if I hadn’t pretended that Ben and I had both agreed that it wasn’t going to work.’

‘They must have had a clue when he told them he was going to marry Lisa, surely?’

‘He didn’t tell them immediately. They might have suspected something, but I think they’d prefer to believe that I’m quite happy with the situation, so if I don’t turn up they’ll realise immediately that’s not exactly the case.’

Phoebe ran her fingers through her hair in a hopeless gesture. ‘Then they’d be upset, and it would spoil the wedding for them, and I can’t do that to them. As it is, Penelope and Mum are desperately worried in case I’m embarrassed, or Ben is embarrassed, or Lisa is embarrassed …’

She sighed. ‘I think they’re secretly afraid that I might make some kind of scene when it comes down to it. I’m dreading going to the wedding on my own. It’s bad enough at the best of times. You know what people are like about single women in their thirties, and it’s going to be worse at this wedding since there’ll be so many old friends there who all knew me when Ben and I were together.

‘I know I’m going to end up looking like Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction. Either people are going to be edging warily around me and making sure any stray bunnies are safe, or they’ll be desperately sorry for me. I’ll spend my whole time being told cheerily that it will be my turn next,’ she finished gloomily.

‘It’s dire, isn’t it?’ said Kate with heartfelt sympathy. ‘It’s either that or being asked if it isn’t time you were thinking of getting married—like you’ve got some kind of choice in the matter!’

Bella had been pondering the problem. ‘What you need,’ she said, ‘is a man.’

‘Tell us something new!’

‘No, I’m serious. You should take a fabulous lover to show off at the wedding.’

‘Oh, yes, and fabulous lovers are so easy to find!’ said Kate sarcastically. ‘Didn’t you hear the announcement? It’s now official: there are now no single, straight men over thirty at all in London, let alone any with a modicum of intelligence and financial stability. And as for trying to find one not suffering from a morbid fear of commitment … forget it!’

‘Maybe not,’ said Bella, ‘but there’s nothing to stop Phoebe inventing one.’