Hunter's Moon. Carole Mortimer

room, laid for dinner, the silver shining brightly, the crystal wine glasses sparkling in the firelight, the delicate posy of roses in the centre of the table perfectly matching the peach and cream in the rest of the room.

      Cassandra stood up as her mother came into the room; she was much taller than her petite mother, and their colouring was completely different too, her mother’s auburn hair going graciously—and expertly!—grey now. Joy looked the most like their mother; both women were short and slim, with beautifully even features, eyes a deep blue. But her mother and Joy, her two closest relatives, had always seemed a little like an alien species to Cassandra.

      They lived their lives on such a superficial level, going to the beauty salon twice a week, lunching with friends, being seen in all the ‘right’ places, knowing all the ‘right’ people, likewise wearing all the ‘right’ clothes, both of them always immaculately dressed for the occasion. And both of them would recoil in horror at the mere suggestion that they should ever actually work a single day of their lives to pay for all that luxury they took so much for granted! Cassandra had always stood out like a duckling among such beautifully elegant swans…

      She had never been able to understand how her mother and Joy could live such vacuous lives. But if she felt that way about them she knew her mother didn’t understand her way of life any better. Her mother had given up on Cassandra when, at the age of seventeen, she had insisted on going to art college rather than the exclusive finishing-school her parents had picked out in Switzerland for their two daughters. Even worse, when Cassandra had left college two years later, she had gone to work for a major London fashion house, not as a model or designer herself, but as assistant to a designer. Humble beginnings—much to her mother’s obvious disgust; there had never been anything humble about either Marguerite or Joy Kyle!

      Even the relative success she had had as a designer herself hadn’t exactly redeemed her in her mother’s eyes: she still worked for a living. But at least Cassandra’s choice of husband, after years of having her actions looked on with dismay, had met with her mother’s approval—although even that new-found respectability had taken a knock in her mother’s eyes, she knew, when Charles had died so suddenly: it simply wasn’t the done thing to become a widow at only twenty-four years of age!

      Her mother looked as graciously lovely as usual this evening, her auburn hair elegantly grey at the temples, her black below-the-knee dress perfect for this small family dinner-party—although she looked slightly disconcerted to see that Cassandra was also dressed for dinner, wearing the pale gold gown Bethany had requested.

      Cassandra smiled, taking pity on her mother. ‘Don’t worry, I’m not gatecrashing your dinner party; I’m going on somewhere.’

      Her mother couldn’t quite hide her relief. ‘You’re welcome to join us if you would like to,’ she said politely now that she knew Cassandra had no intention of staying.

      Cassandra’s smile widened. ‘No, thanks. I’m meeting Simeon later——’

      ‘Oh, really, Cassandra.’ Her mother looked irritated now. ‘That dreadful young man!’

      That ‘dreadful young man’, her own assistant at the salon she ran in town still, had helped get her through the last difficult months. But he wasn’t ‘top-drawer’ enough for her mother, coming from a working-class background; it didn’t matter that he was also kind and caring, and that Cassandra liked him very much.

      ‘Never mind Simeon,’ she dismissed lightly. ‘He isn’t the reason I’m here.’ She glanced across at the intimately laid dinner table. ‘Five places, Mother?’

      Her mother looked disconcerted again. ‘Godfrey is joining us for dinner,’ she dismissed.

      ‘Us’ was obviously Joy, Colin, and Marguerite. Godfrey Chorley was an old family friend who had become very helpful to her mother as a partner for social evenings since the death of her husband a year ago. At almost sixty, Godfrey seemed a confirmed bachelor, and after only a few minutes spent it his company it was easy to see why: Godfrey, as fond as Cassandra was of him, was easily the most boring man she had ever met!

      Cassandra arched black brows. ‘And the fifth?’

      ‘Jonas,’ her mother supplied offhandedly. ‘I do feel so sorry for the dear man; he seems to know so few people in England, and——’

      ‘Spare me that, please, Mother,’ Cassandra cut in impatiently. ‘If Jonas spends a lot of his time alone, it’s because he chooses to,’ she said knowingly; Jonas, for all his coldness with her, was an extremely attractive man, could have his pick of women to share his life.

      ‘Well, anyway, he’s coming to dinner this evening too,’ her mother announced almost challengingly—a challenge Cassandra was only too happy to meet!

      ‘Why?’ she prompted softly.

      ‘I’ve just——’

      ‘Why, Mother?’ she repeated firmly, easily meeting her mother’s searching gaze.

      ‘Bethany!’ her mother finally realised. ‘She was here earlier when we were discussing…! Joy has a perfect right to ask whom she wants to give her away,’ she said in defence of her youngest daughter.

      ‘It wasn’t so long ago Joy was chasing after Jonas for quite another reason,’ Cassandra reminded her drily, perfectly aware that when Jonas had first returned to England her sister had been very attracted to him indeed. But while Jonas hadn’t seemed averse to having Joy reacquaint him with London he hadn’t been interested in anything more than that from her, Joy had told her disappointedly one day. Cassandra had been most embarrassed by the whole incident; she had been sure Jonas was secretly laughing at them all for her sister’s obvious ambitions where he was concerned. Joy’s engagement to Colin was a relatively new thing, and Cassandra just hoped it was for the right reasons; Colin was nowhere near as ‘primitively exciting’ as Joy had claimed she thought Jonas was! Still, that was Joy’s problem, not hers. Her problems were much more pressing than that.

      ‘And if she had succeeded it might just have been the answer for all of us,’ her mother snapped angrily.

      Cassandra looked at her mother closely. ‘And just what do you mean by that remark?’

      ‘Isn’t it obvious?’ her mother said with impatient dismissal—although she wasn’t quite meeting Cassandra’s gaze, she noticed with a frown. Did her mother know more than she was prepared to say…?

      ‘It would have been the perfect arrangement if we could have kept the company in the family,’ her mother continued briskly. ‘As it is, Jonas could eventually marry anybody, and then where will we all be?’ She frowned.

      Exactly where they were now, Cassandra would have thought. Unless her mother did know something…

      ‘Don’t start being difficult about this, Cassandra,’ her mother told her shortly. ‘The decision has been made, and nothing you say will make any difference.’

      ‘But do you have to ask him now?’ She frowned. ‘What’s the urgency?’

      ‘There is no urgency,’ her mother shrugged. ‘We just thought it would be a nice gesture, what with the time of year and everything.’

      A time of year when Jonas was much less likely to refuse, Cassandra realised ruefully, her own hands tied for very much the same reason. ‘Mother——’

      ‘Do stop calling me Mother in that disapproving way of yours,’ she was told impatiently. ‘Either Mummy, or Marguerite, if you prefer, but Mother makes me sound like some matriarchal monster!’

      Her mother was tense and agitated, she could see. Admittedly, she also having been widowed, the last year had been as difficult for her mother as it had for her, but at the same time her mother had seemed to be coping, her life continuing to run in its usually smooth way. What had happened to change that? Unless her mother did know something. Colin was Jonas’s assistant, so he would know all about the audit Jonas had ordered. Maybe that was why——

      ‘Mr