place.
'Oh, darling, you are naughty. I thought you wanted to dance.'
'Poor chap. It probably took much sneaky manoeuvring to get you to himself, and now I've spoilt it all.'
'You haven't spoiled it for
'I'm laying off for the moment. I've already consumed far too much this evening.'
'Poor darling, you've had such a horrid time. How is Henry?'
'Considering what he's been through, in great shape.'
'Terribly brave to run away from school. Terribly brave, actually, to run anywhere.' 'You did.'
'Oh, darling, are we back to that? 1 thought we'd stopped talking about that.'
'I'm sorry.'
'Sorry for talking about it?'
'No. Sorry for everything that happened. For the way I behaved. I never explained to you, and I suppose it's too late to start explaining now.'
'Yes,' she told him, 'I think it is a little late.'
'You've never forgiven me?'
'Oh, Edmund, I don't forgive people. I'm not good enough to forgive people. 'Forgive' is a non-word in my vocabulary. How could I forgive, when during the course of my life I have made so many people desperately unhappy?'
'That's not the point.'
'If you want to talk about it, let's be objective. You said you would write, be in touch, love me for ever, and you didn't do any of those things. It wasn't like you to break your word, and I could never understand…'
'If I had written it would have been to tell you that my promises were empty and I was backing out. And I left it too long, and when I finally plucked up the nerve, it was too late… So I took the easy way out.'
'That was the bad bit. I thought you never took the easy way out of anything. I thought I knew you so well, and that was why I loved you so much. And I couldn't believe that you didn't love me. I wanted you. So stupid. But all my life, everything I'd wanted I'd been allowed to have, I'd been given. To be denied anything I wanted was a new and cruel experience. And I wouldn't accept it. I couldn't believe that some miracle wouldn't happen, and everything that you'd done-going to London, and marrying Caroline, and having Alexa- couldn't be magically absolved, dissolved, swept under the carpet. So stupid. But then, I was only eighteen, and I never had much brain.'
'I'm sorry.'
She smiled at him, touched his cheek with her fingers. 'Do you blame yourself for the mess I made of everything? Don't. I was born disaster material. We both know that. If it hadn't been you, it would have been somebody else. And if Harold Hogg hadn't been there, stinking-rich and panting with lust, then I'm certain I would have found some other equally impossible man to elope with. I would never have made you happy. 1 don't think Caroline made you happy. But now, I think, with Virginia, you are happy at last. So that makes me happy.'
'What else makes you happy?'
'Even if I knew, I wouldn't tell you.'
'Why did you come back to Croy?'
'Oh, a whim. An impulse. 'To see you all again.'
'Will you stay?'
'I think not. Too restless, darling.'
'That makes me feel guilty.'
'Why?'
'I don't know. We all have so much.'
'Me too. But mine are different things.'
'I hate you being alone.'
'Better that way.'
'You are part of us all. You know that?'
'Thank you. That's the nicest thing you could say to me. That's just the way I want it to be. Just the way I want it to stay.' She leaned forward and kissed his cheek, and his senses were assaulted by her closeness, the touch of her lips, the scent of her perfume.
'Pandora…'
'And now, darling, we've sat here long enough… Don't you think we should go and find the others?'
It was past one o'clock in the morning, with festivities at their peak, when Noel Keeling, unable and unwilling to deal with the complexities of a dance called the Duke of Perth, found himself abandoned and alone, decided that he was in need of liquid refreshment, and headed for the bar. He was offered champagne, but his mouth was dry and he settled instead for a glass of ice-cold lager. He had just set the glass to his lips and taken a long and refreshing swig when, all at once, Pandora Blair appeared at his elbow.
Since the dinner party, he had scarcely seen her all evening, which was a shame, because he thought her good news, and quite the most decorative and amusing female he had met for a long time.
'Noel.'
It was gratifying to be sought out. He instantly laid down his glass and made space for her, and she settled herself beside him on an empty bar-stool and, having made herself comfortable, smiled con-spiratorially into his face.
She said, 'I have a favour to ask.'
'But of course. Have a drink?'
She reached for a brimming glass of champagne and drank it like water.
He laughed. 'Have you been on that the whole evening?'
'Of course.
'What's the favour?'
'I think it's time I went home. Would you take me?'
Noel was, in truth, a little taken aback. It was the last thing he had expected.
'But why do you want to go home?'
'I think I've stayed long enough. Danced with everybody, said all the right things, and now I'm longing for my beddy-byes. I'd ask Archie to take me, but he's having such a jolly time, closeted in Angus Steynton's office with old General Grant-Palmer and a bottle of Glen Morangie; it seems a shame to spoil his fun. And everybody else is leaping about in the tent, doing tribal dances. Even Conrad, our not-so-sad Sad American.'
'I'm surprised he knows how to do them.'
'Archie and Isobel organized a little class at Croy on Wednesday evening and gave us lessons, but I never imagined he'd become totally hooked. Will you take me, Noel? Is it a perfectly horrid thing to ask?'
'No, of course not. Of course I'll take you.'
'I've got my car, but I'm truly not fit to drive and I'm sure I'd fall asleep on the way back and end up in a ditch. And the others will need to get home. So perhaps I should leave it behind for them____________________'
'I'll drive you in my car.'
'You're an angel.' She finished her champagne. 'I'll go and get my coat. Meet you at the front door.'
He thought about telling somebody what he was about to do, and then decided against it, because the drive to Croy wouldn't take longer than half an hour, and most likely he would never be missed. At the foot of the staircase he waited for her and was amused to find himself in a pleasant state of anticipation, as though he and Pandora were embarking on a small, shared, and secret assignation, one with possible romantic connotations. Which, on analysis, he realized had much to do with her, and he guessed that she had probably always had this effect on any man on whom she chose to beam her attention.
'Ready.' She ran down the stairs, wrapped in her long, voluptuous mink. He took her arm and they went out, down the steps and across the gravel. The grass of the paddock was cold and wet, and the ground muddy, and he offered to sweep her up into his arms and carry her to his car, but she only laughed at him and pulled off her fragile sandals and walked beside him in her bare feet.
Old Hughie had disappeared, but they finally located Noel's Golf. He turned up the heater to warm her toes. 'Do you want music?'
