The Perfect Retreat. Kate Forster

tiredly.

      Merritt was surprised. He had little experience with children and Jinty and Poppy’s enthusiasm for him was unusual, and flattering. Taking Jinty back into his arms she settled with her blonde head against his shoulder and Willow smiled.

      ‘You have a fan.’

      Merritt snorted but was secretly pleased. Jinty was warm and soft and her little wisps of breath on his neck tickled him.

      ‘I’m about to take your other two for a tour. I hope that’s OK,’ he said.

      ‘Fine,’ said Willow. She didn’t mind as long as she could have a coffee and time to make her phone calls.

      Willow started opening random cupboards and Merritt watched her. She was dressed in leggings and a t-shirt with a long cardigan over the top. Her legs were so thin he thought they might snap.

      ‘Have you lost something?’ he asked.

      ‘The coffee pot,’ she said. ‘I was sure Kitty had packed it.’

      Kitty walked back into the kitchen with the children dressed for outside, although Poppy had added her purple feather boa. ‘Kitty, where’s the coffee pot?’ snapped Willow.

      Kitty thought of the coffee pot and remembered she had left it sitting on the bench back in London. ‘Oh no, I knew I forgot something!’ she cried.

      ‘Christ Kitty, do I have to remember everything?’ Willow glared at her and thumped out of the kitchen.

      ‘She’s lovely in the morning,’ said Merritt under his breath.

      Kitty looked crestfallen and took Jinty from his arms. ‘Don’t let them near the lake,’ she said.

      ‘Sure,’ said Merritt and he took one of the children’s hands in each of his. ‘Alright explorers. Let’s go!’ he said and Kitty watched as they headed down the gravel driveway together.

      As she took Jinty upstairs for her sleep she heard Willow on the phone in the drawing room.

      ‘Of course I will. Thanks Simon. No, I haven’t heard,’ Kitty overheard as she walked past the room towards the stairs. ‘He’s a shit, I know.’

      Simon was Willow’s agent. Kitty had only seen him in the flesh once in three years, at a party Willow hosted at her home, which had gone well until Lucian had come downstairs and set up his Thomas the Tank Engine train set in amidst the feet of the guests.

      Lucian had been so engrossed in his trains that he had refused to move, and Kitty had been called to try and shift him back upstairs. She had sat next to him in the centre of the room and talked quietly to him for over fifteen minutes until Lucian finally let her pack up the tracks and the trains and take him back to his room. Willow had laughed nervously to Simon, who she was chatting to, and Kerr had shaken his head and gone outside onto the balcony for a joint. Most of the guests had tried to ignore the scene, except for a young man who had observed from across the room. He had watched Kitty’s face as she talked to the child, whose face was absent of expression, and saw how gently she spoke to him. He noticed her wet hair and long fingers and how they touched his little face to turn it towards her, and how the child’s eyes never met her wide brown ones. He saw how the room full of London’s glitterati didn’t faze her, and how her intention was solely to help the small, lost boy.

      Kitty had had no idea she was being watched. The party was just after she had started with Willow and Kerr and all she wanted was for Lucian not to make a scene. She had been in the bath when Willow had banged on the door telling her to come and get him.

      She had put Lucian back to bed and made sure he was asleep. Then she snuck down the back stairs to the kitchen to see if there were any of those crèmes brûlées in tiny teacups left that she had seen the waiters handing around.

      As she walked into the kitchen there were a few waiters and a guest. Kitty ignored them and walked over to the bench, which was filled with leftover delights from the party.

      ‘Hello,’ said the guest.

      Kitty looked up and saw a handsome man, maybe a few years older than her. He was wearing a dinner suit with the tie casually undone and hanging around his neck.

      ‘Hi,’ said Kitty shyly.

      ‘You did very well with your little friend in there,’ he said, sipping from a highball glass.

      ‘Thanks,’ said Kitty and wondered if he would think her greedy if she got a tray and piled it high with tasty morsels to take back to her bedroom.

      ‘You the nanny then?’ he asked, eyeing her over and noticing her tiny waist and large breasts in her tracksuit bottoms and long-sleeved thermal top. Kitty wished she had put on a bra when she had jumped out of the bath.

      ‘Yes,’ said Kitty, trying to cover her breasts with her arms.

      ‘I had a nanny when I was small. Never looked like you though.’ He raised one dark eyebrow at her.

      Kitty didn’t know what to say, so she stood silently.

      ‘You’re a bit of a kiddie whisperer then?’ he asked.

      ‘That sounds terrible when you say it like that,’ she said, startled.

      ‘No, no, no tawdry intention; just commenting on your brilliance with the kiddies,’ he laughed.

      ‘Are you a friend of Willow and Kerr’s?’ she asked, wanting the conversation with the handsome man to continue.

      ‘Me? No. I don’t think they have any friends here. I don’t think they have any friends at all actually. No, I’m sleeping with one of the guests, who’s here with her husband,’ he said.

      ‘Oh,’ said Kitty, shocked and disappointed. Of course a man like this would be with the fabulous people; she had forgotten her place.

      ‘Are you shocked?’ he asked her, liking the flash of disappointment that had fleetingly crossed her face.

      ‘Yes,’ she answered honestly. ‘It’s not very nice for the husband.’

      ‘I suppose not,’ said the man, clearly not caring.

      Kitty stood waiting for him to say something else, but the room was silent except for the sound of glasses and plates being packed up by the catering staff.

      ‘Well I’m off to bed,’ she said finally.

      ‘Alone?’

      ‘Yes!’ she said, shocked again.

      ‘Shame. What’s your name then?’

      ‘Kitty,’ she said shyly.

      ‘Goodnight little pussy,’ he said sexily, and Kitty felt herself go weak at the knees.

      ‘Night then.’ Kitty left the kitchen without anything that she had come for.

      Boys had always pursued Kitty, but this one was different, she had thought. The last boy she had slept with she had met at a pub nearby when she was exploring the nightlife in her new city. He was a funny New Zealander who had plied her with vodka and taken her back to his hostel. They’d had quick fumbling sex and she’d passed out on his bunk bed, to awake to him packing his rucksack and telling her he was off to Prague that day and to look after herself.

      Kitty had done the walk of shame home to Willow’s, where she had snuck upstairs before the rest of the house had awoken.

      After her recent bad experience she was trying to stay away from the opposite sex. She always seemed to choose the wrong ones. She had lost her virginity to Merritt’s friend Johnny Wimple-Jones, which she would never be telling Merritt about. It had been a mistake, she realised in hindsight, but Johnny had been so nice when he had turned up at Middlemist claiming he needed to speak to Merritt urgently. Merritt had already left the country and her father was in London for the night. Brandy and flattery had got Kitty into bed, and Johnny had taken her in a haze of drunkenness and a small amount of pain. Truthfully, she