A No Risk Affair. Carole Mortimer

gave her a scathing look. ‘And we all know how qualified you are to judge!’

      She knew the other girl considered her casual clothes, light make-up, and unfashionably long hair excluded her from being able to talk with any authority on all three of them. And maybe they did, but she always knew what was in fashion nowadays—she only had to look at Caroline for that. It was strange really, there were only four years difference in their ages, and yet she felt so much older than the other girl, had found much more important things than fashion to fill and enrich her life.

      ‘Take your choice, Caroline,’ she shrugged. ‘Go down to the cottage and sit with the twins or take the party round.’ Her expression was widely innocent as she saw the other girl's look of horror at the mention of the twins.

      ‘Those little devils!’ Caroline gasped.

      ‘They love you too, Caroline,’ she drawled, knowing the dislike was mutual. Her exuberant offspring couldn't understand why Caroline refused to get down on the floor with them or go out in the garden and play in the dirt, pursuits their mother didn't seem to mind in the least. In fact, Robyn rather enjoyed playing with her children.

      Irritation darkened the hard blue eyes. ‘The last time I called Kim laddered my tights by crawling all over me and Andy spilt orange juice all over my new dress.’

      ‘Both incidents were accidents,’ she defended, knowing that her children didn't have a vindictive bone in their bodies. ‘And it was only one little spot of orange juice, it sponged off quite easily.’

      ‘Luckily for you,’ Caroline snapped waspishly. ‘You don't exactly earn enough here to have replaced the dress, and I doubt Brad remembers to send your maintenance any more often than he used to.’

      She flushed her resentment at the personal remark, knowing it was inevitable that people should be aware of her private business in the rural community that she had chosen to live in, also knowing that Caroline wasn't averse to using her knowledge when she felt like being particularly bitchy. ‘We manage,’ she bit out tautly.

      Caroline smiled her pleasure at being able to pierce the shield of calmness that so irritated her. ‘My dear cousin never was a reliable husband,’ she mocked. ‘Was he?’ she taunted.

      It wasn't difficult to imagine Brad and Caroline as being closely related. Brad may hide his selfish preoccupation with his own needs better than Caroline did, but the trait was there nonetheless. Brad was the son of the Colonel's sister, and it was the Colonel who had offered her and the twins the use of one of the estate cottages when she and Brad had first separated, claiming that family should stick together no matter what, that there had never been a divorce in the family. And for a while Brad had visited the three of them at the cottage, before even that trailed off. But the Colonel had insisted she and the twins stay on at the estate, had even given her the job as his own secretary. Not that she had ever felt part of the Masters family, but the job and cottage, were very welcome, especially when, as Caroline pointed out so maliciously, Brad was so remiss with monetary support for his children. For herself she didn't care, but for the twins she minded a great deal.

      Not that any of that showed in her face as she looked up at Caroline. ‘He sends what he can when he can,’ she murmured stiffly.

      ‘Are you kidding?’ the younger girl scoffed. ‘He must earn a small fortune doing the job he does, and you don't see a penny of it!’

      ‘Caroline——’

      ‘I wouldn't let him get away with it,’ she declared haughtily. ‘Although how the two of you ever got married in the first place I'll never know!’ she added scornfully.

      Robyn had often wondered about that herself since the separation and divorce, had come to the conclusion that it was her near hero-worship of Brad that had persuaded him to marry her. At the time she had been too much in love with him to realise how ill-suited they were. She had been eighteen to his twenty-eight, had found Brad exciting just to be with, had been wide-eyed and innocent about physical relationships, not having had a lover before Brad. The proof of that innocence had been her pregnancy only two months after their wedding! Brad had been furious at her stupidity, had taken it for granted that she would be responsible for any use of contraception between them. The rage he had flown into when he learnt he was to be a father had been only the first of many.

      ‘I don't believe this is any of your business, Caroline,’ she said distantly.

      ‘Maybe not,’ the younger girl shrugged. ‘But cousin-by-marriage or not, I am not looking after your two brats this afternoon.’

      ‘Kim and Andy are not brats——’

      ‘They're always into one scrape or another——’

      ‘That's just high spirits!’

      ‘Was it “high spirits” when they knocked over the Christmas tree last year?’

      Robyn sighed. ‘It was an accident. Kim slipped on one of the rugs in the hall.’ And she could still remember her horror as the huge decorated tree had crashed down on her tiny daughter.

      ‘It was a mess,’ Caroline remembered disgustedly.

      ‘Maybe when you've given your father grandchildren of his own he'll stop feeling compelled to invite us to join your festivities,’ she derided.

      ‘I don't intend ruining my figure giving some man children he'll probably ignore.’

      Robyn ignored this latest jibe at Brad and herself. ‘It improved mine,’ she smiled.

      ‘Maybe on the surface,’ Caroline acknowledged. ‘But stretch marks can be so unsightly!’

      Robyn didn't even attempt to defend this insult. She had a few finely silver stretch marks on the flatness of her abdomen, yes, but unless someone was looking really closely they weren't noticeable. And she knew that she would risk having much worse marks than that if she could have Kim and Andy at the end of it. ‘So you'll be taking the party around this afternoon?’ she said dryly.

      Caroline flashed her an angry look. ‘If you weren't family you wouldn't be so sure of yourself,’ she snapped.

      If she didn't at least have that claim she didn't know if she would be able to stand Caroline's constant bitchiness. At least this way she was partly able to defend herself, although at the back of her mind she always had the danger of losing her home and job. Caroline did have a lot of influence with her over-indulgent father, and if she made enough of a fuss about Robyn and her children he could just be talked into asking them to leave. Nevertheless, she never let herself or the twins be treated as inferiors; there were some limits to her pride.

      ‘If I weren't family then I wouldn't be here,’ she pointed out in a reasoning tone. ‘And couldn't you have your hair done tomorrow?’

      ‘I wanted to look good for when Sinclair Thornton arrives,’ her cousin-by-marriage said moodily.

      ‘He's arrived.’

      Blue eyes sharpened questioningly. ‘What do you mean?’

      She shrugged narrow shoulders. ‘Exactly what I said, he's already arrived.’

      ‘When?’

      ‘This morning.’

      ‘You've seen him?’

      Robyn nodded. ‘Before I came to work. Your father didn't mention his arrival to you?’

      ‘No,’ she answered in a preoccupied voice. ‘But then he's been rather busy this morning.’ Caroline's expression was sharp as she focused on Robyn. ‘What's he like?’

      ‘Mr Thornton?’

      ‘Well I hardly mean Daddy!’

      She had known exactly who Caroline meant, but the occasional need to bait the younger girl persisted. The two of them had never got on, Caroline seeming to have more poise and sophistication even at fourteen than the young girl being introduced as the newest member of the family. It soon became obvious